The Science and Folklore of Traumatic Amnesia.

Some clinical theorists believe that certain experiences are so overwhelmingly traumatic that many victims dissociate their memory for the experience (Cleaves, Smith, Butler, & Spiegel, this issue). Unfortunately, clinicians who endorse this hypothesis often exhibit confusion about the very studies they cite in support of it. For example, they often misinterpret everyday forget-fulness that develops after a trauma with an inability to remember the trauma itself; they confuse organic amnesia with traumatic amnesia; they confuse psychogenic amnesia (massive non-organic retrograde amnesia coupled with loss of personal identity) with (alleged) inability to remember a traumatic event; and they confuse not thinking about something (e.g., sexual abuse) for a long period of time with an inability to remember it (i.e., amnesia). The purpose of this commentary is to dispel some of this confusion.