Coping With Memory

Coping

This episode of 'Coping' explores the complex and often unreliable nature of human memory, examining how memories are shaped by emotion, sto

Key takeaways

• Memory is not a perfect replay of events; it's shaped by emotion, meaning, and narrative construction.
• False memories can be implanted through suggestion, especially in therapeutic settings with high emotional intensity.

Main topics

• The psychology of memory
• False memories and repressed memory therapy

Notable quotes

You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.

Conclusion

Memory isn't about perfect accuracy—it's about meaning and emotional resonance. Accepting its

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:08) I'm Alice Griffin. I'm Jenna Anderson. And we're Coping, the podcast about why Speaker 4 (0:12) life feels like this. Each week, we rethink the stories we've been sold and the ones that we tell ourselves with the context that makes everything finally click. And Speaker 2 (0:20) this week, we're coping with, what are we coping with? I just forgot, which is very fitting for this episode. We're coping with memory. Speaker 4 (0:29) In a way, we're all super defined by our memories, what we can remember of them anyway. So in this episode, we're going to dig into the psychology behind what we keep in our brain and what we lose out of our brain and why that is, because it's more fickle than you'd think, to be honest. It's very fickle. But I wanted to Speaker 2 (0:47) ask you, Janna, how are you coping? Speaker 4 (0:49) Lately, I've been coping by prioritising reading a lot more. I think we've worked with some incredible book clubs at the Coping Studio and I've been really inspired in the way that people are... Really factoring in daily pages or reading time into their regular routines like a non-negotiable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I know that I've spent a lot of time on and off this podcast kind of saying, I wish I could read more. I think I'd feel a lot better if I read more. And so then I thought maybe I should just read some more. Speaker 2 (1:19) Fair. It's where I'm at. And it's been lovely. Actually, I watched this one TikTok of this girl who was like, I'm going to start and finish this massive. book today and she just vlogged her whole day doing it. She started at 6am and I think she finished at 9pm. That's the usually the Speaker 4 (1:34) issue with me with reading is once I pick up a book, I do Speaker 3 (1:37) struggle to put it Speaker 4 (1:38) down. Yeah. I'm not a kind of this many pages type of gal. I'm a, oh, well, I'm reading this book. So I'll catch you all in 72 hours. Lovely. Yeah. If Speaker 2 (1:47) I don't finish a book in 24 hours, it'll take me at least three weeks. There's no in between for me. Speaker 4 (1:52) But in preparation for when we were going to talk about memory eventually, which we're finally here, I've actually been reading a few memoirs. Fun. So I read Lena Dunham's Famesick. Lovely. Which we've spoken about a little bit already. But I also just finished Bell Burden's Strangers. Speaker 2 (2:07) Oh, I've not read that. I do want to. You Speaker 1 (2:09) have Speaker 2 (2:09) to. Speaker 4 (2:09) Must read. Both five out of five. Must read. And I think I've always steered away from memoirs because I think in my head, well, I'm a fiction reader. Yeah. And I think in my head I've thought, autobiographical equals factual equals boring. Speaker 1 (2:23) And Speaker 4 (2:23) what I didn't kind of consider is a memoir can kind of be a rumination on topic related to life as opposed to a blow by blow of life. Speaker 2 (2:31) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Speaker 4 (2:32) Lena Dunham, obviously her relationship with fame and her life, Bell Burden being kind of an ode to her marriage and what that looks like. And I think that's really interesting and almost. Well, I like how both of them really narrativize and storytell their own life in a way that it feels like I'm reading fiction, except it's so much more titillating because it's real. Speaker 2 (2:54) It's real. It happened. And fact is stranger than fiction, as they say. Speaker 4 (2:58) So I Speaker 2 (2:59) love, I'm glad you're on the bandwagon. You're here. But how on Speaker 4 (3:02) earth do they remember anything in their life to write Speaker 2 (3:05) in this book? Well, I actually Speaker 4 (3:06) think it's easier now. Because so much is documented. Speaker 2 (3:09) See, I can just look at. your and my message history. And I would be like, okay, that's where my head was at that time. Speaker 4 (3:15) It was a rainy Tuesday in this year. I was wearing this. I was eating this. Look at your photos. I think there's a lot of mayo being added. And these people are really good storytellers. I couldn't tell you what I wore on the podcast last week. Yeah, I know. I Speaker 2 (3:29) don't know how people know. All the ins and outs. Well, I think this is where journaling comes in handy. But I have finally gotten back into corporate exposés. It's been something that I love. love love reading like I love me a Silicon Valley dark tale of how you're coping yes literally I love me a dark tale of tech bro ruins everyone's lives and creates a toxic workplace culture expose moment, understanding the person behind this villain behind the scenes. Oftentimes, I just finished a memoir from a former Google staffer called Don't Speaker 4 (4:04) Be Speaker 2 (4:04) Evil. As corporate exposes go, it wasn't actually that dark. It was no Adam Neumann from WeWork. However, I did really enjoy it all the same. And I'm just glad I'm back in my corporate expose beat. Speaker 4 (4:15) Lovely. Yeah. That's me. I just ask that no one ever writes the corporate expose on our little small business that we're building here. Well, it would Speaker 2 (4:23) only be you or me. Speaker 4 (4:24) Who could it Speaker 2 (4:25) be? Speaker 4 (4:25) So Speaker 2 (4:26) we're going to get found out pretty quick. Out Speaker 4 (4:28) of the two Speaker 2 (4:28) of Speaker 4 (4:28) us, I Speaker 2 (4:28) feel you're Speaker 4 (4:29) more likely. Speaker 2 (4:30) I've got all the receipts. Speaker 2 (4:37) I'm really excited to talk to you about memory today. I feel like it's a topic that has taken up a lot of my brain space lately. Ever since I listened to this podcast that told the story of someone who had a really crazy repressed memory. So her name is Nadine Kuhl. In 1986, she went to a psychiatrist to get some general mental health advice. And she ended up going down this long path with this psychiatrist where she uncovered what she thought were repressed memories. Basically things happening to her when she was a child or earlier in life. Pretty dark, crazy things. Like she found out she was in a satanic cult. She had sex with animals. She watched her eight-year-old friend be murdered. Super dark. intense stuff that felt very visceral and very real and that she took to be real memories. What she found out after six years of treatment was that these were actually not real memories. As the memories that came to her became more and more outlandish, she was then kind of able to fact check some of the things that were viscerally coming to her mind that had actually happened, she thought, and realized that actually none of it had happened. And she had been led down the garden path by a very intense form of therapy by this psychiatrist. What happened to Nadine Kuhl was kind of part of this whole era where repressed memories really became something that a lot of people were uncovering during their psychiatric therapy. Speaker 4 (6:02) It was a fad, right, that psychiatrists were kind of all on the repressed memory beat and finding it with all their patients. Yes. Speaker 2 (6:10) All of a sudden, everyone was uncovering some kind of repressed memory where they found out this horrific thing had happened to them in their childhood. And it kind of explained their whole course of their life up to that point. What on Speaker 4 (6:22) earth are the motivations for the psychiatrist? Because on one hand, it's kind of, okay. this is going to explain away whatever mental health issue that you're having in a really convenient, if not salacious way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also one thing that I read was that Dr. Olsen started billing her for group therapy because she had supposedly multiple personalities. Speaker 2 (6:43) Yeah, she had 126 different personalities. So he was billing her for group therapy hours for all of these different personalities as a financial motivation for Speaker 4 (6:52) doing this. Isn't that crazy? Speaker 2 (6:54) It is wild. And obviously that psychiatrist, involved in. bringing out these supposed false repressed memories from Nadine was acting super nefariously. I Speaker 4 (7:04) think he benefited from being at the start of a fad, Speaker 2 (7:07) at the start of a trend. Like no one really knew what to do with this. It's super crazy. And I think the psychology was just being born around what we know about how memory really works. So Nadine's case was part of a wave of people uncovering their own repressed memories. And many of those cases, they weren't repressed memories at all. They were false memories. is implanted by suggestion by someone else. But there are such things as repressed memories and some people do uncover them. It's just really hard when memory is such a fickle thing. And Speaker 4 (7:37) that whole period in that case, I imagine, went to show how fickle memory truly is in the sense of if you can just insert a memory into someone else and they believe it as fact, Speaker 2 (7:47) what do we know? Yeah, what do we know? Who are we? How does it all work? Speaker 4 (7:52) Imagine Speaker 2 (7:52) that feeling of being certain of a memory and then finding out later, oh, actually, that never happened. Someone just suggested this to you. Has that ever happened to you, do you think? I Speaker 4 (8:02) think what has happened is that over time, family members or key people in your life have filled in a blank that you didn't know was a blank. Speaker 2 (8:10) Yeah, okay. Kind Speaker 4 (8:11) of I didn't know what I didn't know and then I knew when it was, how did I not ask about this earlier? Speaker 2 (8:14) I always think how much of this is a memory that I have or is it a story that someone's told me enough times for me to believe that I had that memory? Are there memories that you treasure that you don't think Speaker 4 (8:25) are ever altered and you just Speaker 2 (8:26) think you're remembering it perfectly? I used to ride my bike when I was like seven or eight around the pool, but really close to the pool. I wouldn't recommend doing this. Yeah, devil. One day, of course. I went straight into the pool. And I remember seeing my dad on the balcony being like, Alice, and running down the stairs and coming to save me. Honestly, you could put a gun to my head and I think I could recall that memory perfectly, even though that event happened when I was eight years old. Speaker 4 (8:52) I think it's easier to remember those kinds of memories than, you know, perfect memories that you're treasuring. Yeah. For me, it's the ones of that awkward, stupid thing that you said or you did. Memories we all wish we could forget. In real time, I'm thinking I'm going to think about this every single day for the rest of my life. Speaker 2 (9:09) Oh, I hate that feeling. And I do. I don't know if you've told me some of these. Maybe you're taking them to the Speaker 4 (9:15) grave. Definitely not taking them to the podcast. Speaker 2 (9:18) So you know that feeling of when you're a kid and you get lost in the mall and then they have to call your parents over the microphone? You go up to the wrong woman. Mom! They're like, if Alice Griffin is lost anywhere, please head to XYZ. Has that ever happened to you? Yes, that's happened to me. Has it? Yeah, has it? I don't know. Because there is this Lost in the Mall