Remembering and forgetting childhood sexual abuse

Journal of Child Sexual Abuse
Robyn Fivush, Valerie J Edwards

Abstract

Twelve white middle-class women who had been severely sexually abused as children by a family member were asked to provide a narrative of their abuse and discuss their subsequent remembering and forgetting of these experiences. Most claimed they had undergone periods during which they had not recalled their abuse, but also claimed that they had never forgotten their experiences at another point during the interview. Nine of the women had actively tried to forget the abusive experiences, although 8 still experienced recurrent and often relentless intrusive memories. Our findings suggest that women with continuous memories may have longer and more coherent narratives than women without continuous memories. Implications of these findings for understanding the phenomenology of memory experiences and the concept of "recovered" memories of childhood sexual abuse are discussed.

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Citations

Aug 25, 2007·Annual Review of Clinical Psychology·Elizabeth F Loftus, Deborah Davis
Jan 1, 2008·Journal of Child Sexual Abuse·Madelyn Simring Milchman
Apr 15, 2010·Memory·Monisha Pasupathi, Kate C McLean
May 6, 2009·Research in Nursing & Health·Claire Burke DrauckerPrudencia Mweemba
May 24, 2006·Law and Human Behavior·Deborah A Connolly, J Don Read
May 31, 2012·Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities·Jaycee Dawn PownallRichard Patrick Hastings
Oct 22, 2019·Journal of Trauma & Dissociation : the Official Journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD)·Brianna C DelkerKate C McLean

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