I agree that some nasty stuff has happened under the context of “revealing repressed memories”.
From what I’ve read on that, my understanding is that the mechanism there is similar to what happens with police lineups. There is a pressure for you to recall, the authority figure is intentional or unintentionally wanting you to remember a particular thing, you pick up on those signals and pull together a fake memory of “seeing them commit the crime.”
I’m guessing that Kaj is talking about something very different from the frame of “find repressed memories.”
He has witnessed experiences which make him have extreme beliefs, so that normal IDC is a poor fit and is likely to stall, the way you’ve seen it stall. The part is only going to relax once you’ve witnessed the original memories which make him take on that extreme role, understood why he feels that way, and been able to give him the comfort and adult support that he would originally have needed in that situation.
Now I don’t have experience with IFS, but I’ll explain something that I’ve done which feels like what Kaj is talking about, and feels very different from “find repressed memories”.
I notice I’m feeling an intense feeling about an abstract thing (“I can’t fucking stand doing anything that looks like begging!”). Then I investigate why I feel that way. I think of different movies, books, memories, songs, that feel connected to this feeling. Some memories jump out (the lunch room in middle school, one kid having to tell his joke three times before the group decided to listen to him). Then I go, “Cool, this big cluster of memories of experiences is roughly the grounding for my attitude.” Now that I’ve got a sense of what the attitude grounds in, I can consider what might I might need to do to reshape it.
When I do this, I there’s not much of a sense of “I buried this memory for years!”. I can recall other points in my life when these memories have popped up, and don’t expect anything besides “standard memory drift” to be happening. I’m less “unearthing hidden memories” and more “connecting seemingly disjoint memories to an attitude.”
You made me realize that I almost never think in terms of “How might a given person take this post/writing?” I’m now wondering when that has and hasn’t been helpful for me.
I agree that some nasty stuff has happened under the context of “revealing repressed memories”.
From what I’ve read on that, my understanding is that the mechanism there is similar to what happens with police lineups. There is a pressure for you to recall, the authority figure is intentional or unintentionally wanting you to remember a particular thing, you pick up on those signals and pull together a fake memory of “seeing them commit the crime.”
I’m guessing that Kaj is talking about something very different from the frame of “find repressed memories.”
Now I don’t have experience with IFS, but I’ll explain something that I’ve done which feels like what Kaj is talking about, and feels very different from “find repressed memories”.
I notice I’m feeling an intense feeling about an abstract thing (“I can’t fucking stand doing anything that looks like begging!”). Then I investigate why I feel that way. I think of different movies, books, memories, songs, that feel connected to this feeling. Some memories jump out (the lunch room in middle school, one kid having to tell his joke three times before the group decided to listen to him). Then I go, “Cool, this big cluster of memories of experiences is roughly the grounding for my attitude.” Now that I’ve got a sense of what the attitude grounds in, I can consider what might I might need to do to reshape it.
When I do this, I there’s not much of a sense of “I buried this memory for years!”. I can recall other points in my life when these memories have popped up, and don’t expect anything besides “standard memory drift” to be happening. I’m less “unearthing hidden memories” and more “connecting seemingly disjoint memories to an attitude.”
The issue isn’t what Kaj intends to talk about but the space of possible ways of readers, reading Kaj’s post.
It’s possible that someone would read the post and take the lesson that they should seek for the repressed memories from it.
Oh, I see your point.
You made me realize that I almost never think in terms of “How might a given person take this post/writing?” I’m now wondering when that has and hasn’t been helpful for me.