To Remember or Not (Letter Fragment)

You seem skeptical.. a mind of our age.. a thought without guarantee.  It's funny you mention false memory.  I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately.  For example did you know that after WWI at least 70% of returning soldiers reported having a battlefield encounter where they could see into the eyes of the enemy, a moment of contact before sticking their bayonet into them or shooting them?  But when it was empirically verified the statistics were closer to .5% actually having experienced this.  There are some interesting explanations as to how this could happen (a way to mitigate a deep anxiety etc), which I won't get into here, but it at least supports the idea that we may "remember" things that never took place.  It is possible using various techniques (some quite basic like suggestive wording etc) to help a patient "recollect" a memory that never existed, or distort an authentic memory.  Last year a psychologist in New South Wales (Australia) was prohibited from continuing his practice for this reason (among others): that he "repeated requests for his client to recall or reconstruct memories of childhood traumatic incidents" even though these incidents never took place the way the psychologist suggested.  It is a known fact that people who have been a victim of false memory suggestion often cling to these constructions even in the face of objective evidence pointing to the falseness of their recollections.  The memory takes on a vividness and clarity that few authentic memories possess.  It seems especially despicable to me that here at the hands of a person we go to in confidence for emotional aid such a great deception and sinister lie could be perpetrated.  As someone has pointed out, the person becomes quickly obsessed with the reconstructed memory (often merely the interpretation of the therapist), to the point that the true cause of the mental distress is neglected or overlooked.  It is a comfort to know that many within the healthcare field recognize and fight to overcome those within their fold who through either poor training, insufficient qualifications, the desire for power, or perhaps sheer stupidity cause further damage to the progress of some in their care.  

I think you're right to draw the conclusion that all this suggests the limitations of the human mind, that it is inherently limited, easily manipulated, even able to dupe itself.  It was Darwin who said: 

"But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?"

No doubt there is something to the idea that in our inherent "animality" we are already self-limited.  Are we monkeys dressing up in suits and taking on airs like the chimpanzee I would sometimes see on television, lounging in a sofa chair and looking every bit like George Burns?  What game are we playing with ourselves?