Reply #80: People mix up repressed memory crap with post-traumatic amnesia.

[woo me with science]

Post-traumatic amnesia is real and very common in veterans. It is PHYSICAL and related to mild (or more severe) brain trauma related to battlefield shock and injuries. People who suffer a mild head injury in a car accident also experience it. They don't necessarily forget they were in the car, but they just don't remember the accident itself. This is physical post-traumatic amnesia. It is not psychological "repression."

Soldiers don't forget they were in the military. They don't forget they were in a war. They aren't like the thousands of women who go into therapy with quacks at age 30 and magically "discover" that they endured years and years of satanic ritual abuse that they never suspected. There is no good scientific evidence for repressing a childhood of savage abuse for psychological reasons.

That being said, we should ALL be concerned about the fate of veterans who are being "treated" now by some of the same quacks who convinced a generation of women that they were victims of ritual abuse. As the pool of people willing to believe in repressed memory has shrunk, many of the "trauma specialists" have shifted to treating veterans, but some of them are still using the discredited techniques that made so many women sicker. Some soldiers are now being TAUGHT that they dissociate and repress just like the satanic ritual abuse "victims" were. This should outrage all of us, that our veterans would be subjected to such malpractice.

The VA hospitals are working hard to make sure that the therapists they hire are working with updated information and actually understand post-traumatic amnesia. Their most recent bulletins have stressed their commitment to evidence-based therapies. However, the system is still infested with the repressed memory believers who find their way through the cracks.

That is why it is extremely important to keep demanding evidence-based care for PTSD and clean the field of these repressed memory quacks. Our veterans deserve better.