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People who expect to enter psychotherapy are prone to believing that they have forgotten memories of childhood trauma and abuse.
Abstract
We asked 1004 undergraduates to estimate both the probability that they would enter
therapy and the probability that they experienced but could not remember incidents
of potentially life-threatening childhood traumas or physical and sexual abuse. We
found a linear relation between the expectation of entering therapy and the belief
that one had, but cannot now remember, childhood trauma and abuse. Thus individuals
who are prone to seek psychotherapy are also prone to accept a suggested memory of
childhood trauma or abuse as fitting their expectations. In multiple regressions predicting
the probability of forgotten memories of childhood traumas and abuse, the expectation
of entering therapy remained as a substantial predictor when self-report measures
of mood, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder symptom severity, and trauma exposure
were included.
Type
Journal articleSubject
AdolescentAdult
Affect
Anxiety
Child
Child Abuse
Female
Humans
Male
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
Psychotherapy
Repression, Psychology
Severity of Illness Index
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
Suggestion
Wounds and Injuries
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/10075Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1080/09658211.2010.490787Publication Info
Rubin, David C; & Boals, Adriel (2010). People who expect to enter psychotherapy are prone to believing that they have forgotten
memories of childhood trauma and abuse. Memory, 18(5). pp. 556-562. 10.1080/09658211.2010.490787. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/10075.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
David C. Rubin
Juanita M. Kreps Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
For .pdfs of all publications click here My main research interest has been in long-term
memory, especially for complex (or "real-world") stimuli. This work includes the study
of autobiographical memory and oral traditions, as w

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