How do clinical observations of repressionsquare with experimental evidence suggesting that emotionally arousing memories are especiallyenduring? This discrepancy can be understood by examining three kinds of memory distortionsthat give the impression in a clinical context, of repression. Potentially traumatic events such aschildhood sexual abuse (CSA) may be subject to ordinary forgetting. Recent research suggestspeople who fail to understand the sexual nature of CSA report that they remember it less well. Inother words, the event occurred and it was forgotten, but not “repressed.” Inaddition, people may be wrong about experiencing a period of forgetting, i.e. the event occurredbut was never forgotten. Finally, people may believe that a particular traumatic event occurredand was repressed when, in fact, it did not happen in the first place. Under certain circumstances,some combination of these distortions could lead to situations that are mistakenly interpreted asrepression.