I think it’s more accurate to say that a brain refusing to bring up a certain memory, is what makes it a repressed memory. “Recovering” a repressed memory can happen as part of trauma therapy, or it might happen by itself years later.
Trauma itself causes incredible changes in the brain, in some very non-intuitive ways. The brain has a number of different strategies for protecting the person, the “self”, from unnecessary suffering, and it doesn’t let go of those defense mechanisms until “it” feels safe to do so.
Honestly, out of all of the ways that the brain can respond to trauma, repressed memories is one of the simplest and easiest things to understand.
The fact that false memories can also be demonstrably created… Well, that muddies the waters a bit, it makes things more complicated to sort through, but it’s entirely reasonable to assume that there is a mechanism for memory repression, and there’s also a mechanism for creating false memories.
I think it’s more accurate to say that a brain refusing to bring up a certain memory, is what makes it a repressed memory. “Recovering” a repressed memory can happen as part of trauma therapy, or it might happen by itself years later.
Trauma itself causes incredible changes in the brain, in some very non-intuitive ways. The brain has a number of different strategies for protecting the person, the “self”, from unnecessary suffering, and it doesn’t let go of those defense mechanisms until “it” feels safe to do so.
Honestly, out of all of the ways that the brain can respond to trauma, repressed memories is one of the simplest and easiest things to understand.
The fact that false memories can also be demonstrably created… Well, that muddies the waters a bit, it makes things more complicated to sort through, but it’s entirely reasonable to assume that there is a mechanism for memory repression, and there’s also a mechanism for creating false memories.