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Explanations of disorders of memory Essay An evaluation point for repression is research by Levinger and Clark, they carried out a study where the Ps were given negatively charged words and neutral words. They had to do a word association task whilst having their skin response measured. The Ps were then given the cue words again and asked the associations hey had just reported. They found that Ps took longer to recall the negatively charged associations than the neutral ones. So it could be said that it took longer to access the unconscious mind for the word associations. It has been reported that between 20-60% of people undergoing therapy as a result of child sexual abuse report periods in their lives when they could not remember the abuse had taken place. This supports repression as it shows that the memories had been repressed in their unconscious. However it could be said that they did not want to recall the events so therefore pretended they couldnrsquo;t remember. Freud published case studies for his neurotic patients to support his ideas of repression. These have been questioned as inaccurate, however the case studied were unique and one off and cant be generalised as the study took place on white,middle class neurotic women only. The study could be therefore be said to be Oestocentric and culture bias. The study however did have rich qualitative data. Post traumatic stress disorder is where people re-live traumatic events that have taken place in theory lives. This contradicts repression theory as these people are always remembering it as its not being repressed like Freud says they should. Robinson et al found that the memory of childbirth pain seems to be forgotten or repressed over time. This supports Freuds theory as child birth can be very traumatic however there are problems with using this evidence to support repression. It is difficult to generalise as the pain of childbirth is more painful and lasts longer than other types of pain. In conclusion all the theories of forgetting have their strengths but some seem to have more credibility and face validity than others. Psychologists however have considered that forgetting can be induced by memory disorders such as amnesia and dementia.