And the Memory Wars Wage On

I was reminded of the “memory wars” of the 1990s yesterday when listening to an episode of Marc Maron’s popular WTF podcast. The guest, comedian Tom Arnold, told Maron about his traumatic childhood, which included an alcoholic mother who abandoned him and a neighbor who molested him. Arnold said he came to terms with the trauma through therapy, which culminated in him confronting the neighbor in person. The man denied it, apparently yelling at Arnold that his memories were wrong. It was a heartbreaking story, and obvious from Arnold’s telling that he deeply believes his memories are not at all wrong.I don’t know any details about Arnold’s case other than what he recounted to Maron. I want to believe that his memories are sound, and that confronting his molester provided him with some form of relief. But it must be said that this sort of revelation — in which a person uncovers, through therapy or hypnosis, a memory that had been “repressed” for years or even decades — happened a lot in the early 1990s.Read more at...Only Human, March 2014.