Lingering difficulties distinguishing true from false memories: A comment on Shevrin’s psychoanalytic view of memory by Daniel M. Bernstein and Elizabeth F. Loftus (University of Washington)

play no role in cognitive or neuroscience research. Our eort at investigating unconscious con ̄ict from psychodynamic, cognitive and neurophysiological perspectives remains to the best of our knowledge an interesting but isolated instance. We need a theory of memory in which motivational and cognitive factors can be independently assessed and their interactions investigated. In what way do real perceptions of signi®cant others become distorted under the in ̄uence of desires and wishes that cannot be given expression. It is from this point of view heartening that there is evidence that despite suggestion and misinformation the original perceptions need not be erased; they are retrievable once the misinformation, the distortions, have been identi®ed, for example, in the transference. In counterdistinction to the constructivist position maintained by some psychoanalysts, Freud (1911) conceived of neurosis as alienating the individual from reality. He stated, ``. every neurosis has as its result, and therefor probably its purpose, a forcing of the patient out of reality . '' (p. 218). We see this operative in defenses. Repression surrenders knowledge in the face of con ̄ict and anxiety; isolation surrenders the natural connections between aect and thought; projection imposes the individual's own disavowed thought, motivation or feeling upon another. A symptom results in an avoidance of some piece of reality as in a phobia. The social phobic patients in our study of unconscious processes avoided parties, gatherings, opportunities to speak or perform, which adversely aected their careers and futures. Neurosis alienates the neurotic from reality not simply from his or her version of reality. We cannot know a projection unless we distinguish between it and a perception of reality shared by the rest of us but not by the neurotic, which of course could be any of us at any particular time. In fact, what is often the case is that we shift our perspectives internally all the time from neurotic distortion one moment to realistic perception the next. To the extent that our memories remain subject to what we desire them to be rather than what we perceive to be the case, we are hampered by neurotic limitations on our ability to deal with reality successfully. Therefore successful treatment must assist the patient to resolve neurotic distortions of reality including neurotic distortions of reality. From this vantage point it is not enough to help the patient arrive at a coherent view of his or her life, free of internal contradictions, a story ®nally without gaps and inconsistencies. The story must correspond to a reality previously ignored or distorted, which includes importantly how the reality of the analysis has been neurotically ignored and distorted. Again it is relevant to underscore the ®ndings that memory traces need not be eaced by distortion, but can be retrieved unchanged. A perception leaves a ``sensory signature'' (Fabiani). A false memory does not. Moreover, the clinician can rely on cues revealed in the telling which reveal whether something that happened is being described, a perception of reality that has left a ``sensory signature,'' or whether it is a distortion or largely a fantasy (Schooler). Research has demonstrated that this is possible. Indeed clinicians, as well as the rest of us, are doing this all the time with greater or lesser success. Freud referred to this process as reality testing, or the totality of the means we use for determining with some probability, but no certainty, what is true from what is false in our memories and perceptions.