Mysterious Skin

“It’s possible to have a very detailed and vivid memory and be wrong about the details,” says Dr. Hudson. As the distorted memory is repeatedly recalled, it can be very difficult to tell is the memory is or isn’t real.

In one famous case, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget had vivid memories of being kidnapped at age 2 in Paris, complete with the kidnappers scratching his nurse’s face. Years later, the nurse confessed to fabricating the story—but Piaget had heard his family discuss it so often that his mind created a false memory.

 capturing the friedmans

Some therapists claim to be able to “recover” repressed memories of childhood traumas, but the field fell into disrepute in the 1980s when some unscrupulous therapists were found to be planting false memories of incest and child abuse.

via YMFY