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Let Freud rest in peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2006

Richard J. McNally*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138

Abstract:

Erdelyi's version of repression – trying successfully not to think about something – is no longer recognizably Freudian. Erdelyi fails to cite directed forgetting experiments involving psychiatric patients that indicate that the motivation to forget threatening material seldom translates into an ability to do so. The early Freud of the seduction theory of hysteria did inspire the recovered memory fiasco.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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