There are no repressed memories, but he concept makes creating false memories easier

The concept was first posited by the infamous Austrian psychotherapist Sigmund Freud, who believed that some of our most important but traumatic memories are hidden from us in a place called the subconscious. Regression therapy was thus born as a way to dig into the subconscious, recover these memories and bring them back to our conscious awareness. So, why do I care? Because I'm a psychological scientist who specializes in memory.

In my research I demonstrate just how easily our memory can be messed with. I use techniques that mirror the kinds of suggestion and imagination exercises that therapists often use in regression therapy, but I use them to deliberately create dramatically inaccurate memories. My research shows that these techniques can generate complex memories, where people remember in vivid detail that they committed a crime, for example or that they physically injured themselves. But my participants never actually committed the crimes they so adamantly confess to, and never experienced the injuries they describe (for a quick description of how I do this you can go here).

At least in part, these memories can be created so easily because most people readily accept the idea of repression. They accept that we can experience things so terrible that they can be pushed out of our consciousness and into the special memory vault of the subconscious, a place where only a psychotherapist can unlock them.

The problem is that there is no empirical evidence to support such notions, certainly not in the way that Freud originally conceptualized them. As far as the scientific community is concerned, there is no secret repression vault, so there cannot be a secret technique to unlock it, thus eliminating the possibility of regression as a feasible therapeutic technique.

Looks to have some interesting links for later reading.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/memory-mondays-regression-therapy-isn-t-real-but-hollywood-keeps-the-myth-alive/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciam%2Fmind-and-brain+%28Topic%3A+Mind+%26+Brain%29