Essay Sample on Forgotten: Examining Long-Term Memory Loss & Repressed Memories

The type of memory depicted in the film Forgotten is long-term since it lasted for more than twenty years. According to science, long term memory is the brain's system for storing, managing and recalling information, and it includes all the events that happen five minutes ago to about twenty years ago (Federoff et al., 2020).

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The type of memory loss that Jin-Seok had is repressed. According to psychology, a repressed memory occurs when traumatic events are stored in the unconscious mind and block from the typical conscious recall because of an ordeal that happened in the past (Weinstein, 2018).

The cause of the character's memory loss is due to an ordeal that he had encountered twenty years ago. A young man told Jin that a woman and her son were brutally murdered in their home, and after investigations, Jin was accused of the crime. He was then abducted and tortured to confess that he was the killer, although he maintained that he was innocent. According to a report by a psychiatrist who was involved in the case, Jin developed a repressed memory since the ordeal was too much to handle, and his brain entirely blocked the traumatic events (Federoff et al., 2020). Thus, the memory loss is appropriate for the cause.

The memory loss symptoms are portrayed accurately. First, Jin does not remember his age or the current year in the calendar. He thinks that it is 1997 and that he is twenty-one years old while in reality it is 2017 and he is forty-one. He also does not remember what happened to his parents and brother, but in the real sense, they died from a road accident.

The character's memory problems disappear in a realistic fashion. According to psychology, repressed memories can come back through ways like having a trigger, flashbacks, or body memories, among others (Otgaar et al., 2019). In this case, Jin was hit by a vehicle while he was running, and the trigger brought back his memories.

Amnesia is commonly used in films, but most of the time, the condition is depicted inaccurately. Most of the movies that use memory loss as a plot device contain misconceptions about the condition (Weinstein, 2018). For instance, most characters in films lose their memories after a head injury and recover it at the end after having a bang on the head. In real life, the prevalence of memory loss is not high and mostly affects older adults since it is a common part of aging (Otgaar et al., 2019). The "common" cases differ between medial portrayals and real-life in that there is a misconception in films.

Loss of identity is a common condition, and many factors cause it. If loss of personal identity occurs due to structural brain damage, devastating encephalitis happens, and profound dementia makes it impossible to form new memories (Otgaar et al., 2019). The damages caused on the medial temporal lobe prevents the brain from developing new memories and retaining new ones (Weinstein, 2018). However, loss of identity by structural brain damage is unusual and mostly happens due to psychological distress.

In the movie Forgotten, the type of memory loss was long-term, which occurs when a person cannot remember events from five minutes ago back to twenty years (Weinstein, 2018).

References

Federoff, H. J., Mapstone, M. E., Cheema, A. K., & Fiandaca, M. S. (2020). U.S. Patent No. 10,578,629. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Otgaar, H., Howe, M. L., Patihis, L., Merckelbach, H., Lynn, S. J., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Loftus, E. F. (2019). The return of the repressed: the persistent and problematic claims of long-forgotten trauma. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(6), 1072-1095.

Weinstein, S. (2018). Repressed Memory Revisited: Popular Culture's Impact on the Law-Psychotherapy Debate.