In
his novel The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien distinguishes between two kinds
of truth: story-truth and happening-truth. Happening-truth is the indisputable
black-and-white reality of "at such and such a time this happened, and then
this, and then that." Story-truth is the colorized version, breathing luminous
life into the inert shell of the past, waking up the dead, sparking emotion, inspiring
a search for meaning.
Making up stories about the past is "a
way of bringing body and soul back together or a way of making new bodies for
the souls to inhabit," O'Brien explains. Writing about his experiences as
a soldier in Vietnam, he offers two versions, both "true," of his past.
Here
is the happening-truth. I was once a soldier. There were many bodies, real bodies
with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty
years later, I'm left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief.
Here
is the story-truth. He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about
twenty. He lay in the center of a red clay trail near the village of My Khe. His
jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole.
I killed him.
Stories make the past come alive. We can
reimagine our younger selves, feel the emotions we once felt (or were afraid to
feel), battle the demons we could only run from because we were too frightened,
too young, or too helpless, dream a new ending, even bring the dead back to life.
But
there is a hitch. As we put meat and muscle on the bare bones of the happening-truth,
we can get caught up-captured if you will-within our own stories. We become confused
about where the happening-truth leaves off and the story-truth begins, because
the story-truth, which is so much more vivid, detailed and real than the happening-truth,
becomes our reality. We begin to live our own stories.
I remember
a summer many years ago. I was fourteen years old. My mother, my aunt Pearl, and
I were on vacation, visiting my uncle Joe in Pennsylvania. One bright sunny morning
I woke up and my mother was dead, drowned in the swimming pool.
That
is the happening-truth. The story-truth is something quite different. In my
mind I've returned to that scene many times, and each time the memory gains weight
and substance. I can see the cool pine trees, smell their fresh tarry breath,
feel the lake's algae-green water on my skin, taste Uncle Joe's iced tea with
fresh-squeezed lemon. But the death itself was always vague and unfocused. I never
saw my mother's body, and I could not imagme her dead. The last memory I have
of my mother Was her tiptoed visit the evening before her death, the quick hug,
the whispered "I love you."
Thirty years later,
at Uncle Joe's ninetieth birthday party, a relative in one who found my mother
in the pool. After the initial shock-No, it was Aunt Pearl, I was asleep, I have
no memory the memories began to drift back; slow and unpredictable like the crisp,
piney smoke from the evening 'campfires. I could see myself, a thin, dark-haired
girl, looking into the flickering blue-and-white pool. My mother, dressed in her
nightgown, is floating face down. "Mom? Mom?" I ask the question several
times, my voice rising in terror. I start screaming. I remember the police cars,
their lights flashing, and the stretcher with the clean, white blanket tucked
in around the edges of the body.
Of course. It all made sense.
No wonder I was always haunted by the circumstances of my mother's death ... the
memory had been there all along, but I just couldn't reach it. Now, with this
new info mation everything fit together. Perhaps this memory, could explain my
obsession with memory distortion,, my compulsive workaholism, my unfulfilled yearning
for security and unconditional love.
For three days my memory
expanded and swelled. Then, early one morning, my brother called to tell me that
my uncle had checked his facts O and realized he'd made a mistake: His memory,
it turned out, had temporarily failed him. Now he remembered (and other relatives
confirmed) that Aunt Pearl found my mother's body in the swimming pool.
After
that phone call I was left with my shrunken memory, pinpricked and deflated,
and a sense of wonder at the inherent credulity of even a skeptical mind. All
it took was a suggestion, casually planted, and off I went on an internal snipe-hunt,
eagerly searching for supporting information. When my memory was revealed as a
false creation, I experienced a strange yearning for the crisp colors and narrative
drive of my invented story-truth. That elaborate but completely fabricated memory
comforted me with its detail and precision, its utter lack of ambiguity. At least
I knew what happened that day; at least my memory had a beginning, a middle, and
an end; at least it all hung together. When it was gone, all I had left were a
few somber details a lot of empty spaces and an aching, endless grief.
- Loftus,
Elizabeth & Katherine Ketcham, The Myth of Repressed Memory, University of
Chicago Press: Chicago, 2005.
================================= Personal
Reflection Exercise #3
The preceding section contained information
about the truth that never happened. Write three case study examples regarding
how you might use the content of this section in your practice.
Update A court ruled case on therapy-induced false memories
Otgaar, H., Curci, A., Mangiulli, I., Battista, F., Rizzotti, E., & Sartori, G. (2022). A court ruled case on therapy-induced false memories. Journal of forensic sciences, 67(5), 2122–2129. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.15073
Peer-Reviewed Journal Article References:
Conlin, W. E., & Boness, C. L. (2019). Ethical considerations for addressing distorted beliefs in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 56(4), 449–458.
Franeta, D. (2019). Taking ethics seriously: Toward comprehensive education in ethics and human rights for psychologists. European Psychologist, 24(2), 125–135.
Levy, N., Harmon-Jones, C., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2018). Dissonance and discomfort: Does a simple cognitive inconsistency evoke a negative affective state? Motivation Science, 4(2), 95–108.
Ethics CEU QUESTION
12 According to Loftus, what is the story-truth? Record the letter of
the correct answer the Ethics CEU Test.
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