-Caveat Lector- Here are some URL's with information on "false memories." Sincerely, Neil Brick False Memory Syndrome Vs. Recovered Memories has many links on this topic, at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Arael_ET_AL/did-fms.htm Some are written by skeptics. (The articles on this page may be triggering. Please use caution.) Law and Social Inquiry - Journal of the American Bar Foundation, Volume 22, Number 3, Summer 1997 has an article called "Suppressing Memory" by Lynne Henderson (The University of Chicago Press) "it would be an injustice to declare all recovered memory unreliable and to adopt a legal rule precluding testimony based on such memory." A Consolidation of SRA and False Memory Data by James Quan is available at http://www.iccom.com/usrwww/jlquan.consldra.doc from http://www.feminista.com/v1n9/false-memory.html (all accusations are alleged) Quotes from "False Memory Syndrome: A False Construct" by Juliette Cutler Page The concept of "recovered memory", that is, memory of a traumatic event that had been forgotten for some period of time, has been variously explained by such mechanisms as repression, amnesia, and dissociation. However, there are over 100 years of reports and descriptions of recovered memory in the literature, including instances from times of war, torture, bereavement, natural disasters, and concentration camp imprisonment. (HOROWITZ) Many corroborated cases have been documented in instances of recovered memory of sexual abuse, as well, which will be discussed later in this paper. Responses to trauma now termed, for example, "repression", "Post-traumatic stress disorder", or "dissociation" have been recognized literally for thousands of years. Dr. Freyd’s memories were supported by other family members. Her uncle William, Peter’s brother, stated in a letter that "there’s no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse.... The false memory syndrome foundaton is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape. There’s no such thing as a false memory syndrome. It is not, by any normal standard, a foundation. Neither Peter nor Pam have any significant mental health expertise."(FREYD LETTER) Members of the FMSF are largely individuals who seek to defend themselves from accusations of sexual abuse of children. The FMSF does not attempt to determine whether these members are falsely accused or not. However, everyone who contacts their organization is included in their statistics of "falsely accused". There is little discrimination or skepticism, although members often criticize supporters of survivors of sexual abuse for believing the survivors. The FMSF believes that women who report recovered memories of sexual abuse are led by therapists to accuse their own families of abuse from their own sincere belief of incidents which did not occur. However, the FMSF provides no research or statistics to support this claim. Much FMSF evidence appears to be anecdotal. The FMSF has even appeared to falsify its own membership statistics - for example, in the June 7, 1995 newsletter, Accuracy About Abuse, the following notice appeared: The American False Memory Syndrome Foundation is widely quoted as having 16,000 families as members but recently Peter Freyd admitted they have only about 2500 dues paying members. The British False Memory Society which maintains close links with the American FMSF, now admits to 230 paid members as of December 1994, not the 650 more usually reported. Ralph Underwager (who coined the term "false memory syndrome") and Hollida Wakefield, a married couple on the original FMSF Board of Advisors, have gone so far as to claim that "the women who make false allegations based on recovered memories [are] very angry, hostile, and sometimes paranoid... All will have demonstrated some type of psychopathology in earlier parts of their lives." (1984) Again, no evidence to support this is given. Neither do they state how such accusations have been determined to be false. Nor do Wakefield and Underwager consider why such women might justifiably be angry or appear "paranoid". In recent years, one of the most controversial concepts in psychology has been that of "recovered memory". Many therapists have become wary of treating clients who appear to have recovered memories of abuse after a long period of forgetting. Among the reasons for this concern are extremely vocal organizations that have come forward in support of accused abusers, claiming that there is no such thing as "recovered memory", and often stating that not only are therapists who treat such clients negligent, but that therapists are in fact themselves creating these memories in their clients. This article will discuss the origins and methods of the primary such organization (the False Memory Syndrome Foundation), and in so doing, address relevant issues of memory and the experience of abuse. The concept of "recovered memory", that is, memory of a traumatic event that had been forgotten for some period of time, has been variously explained by such mechanisms as repression, amnesia, and dissociation. However, there are over 100 years of reports and descriptions of recovered memory in the literature, including instances from times of war, torture, bereavement, natural disasters, and concentration camp imprisonment. (HOROWITZ) Many corroborated cases have been documented in instances of recovered memory of sexual abuse, as well, which will be discussed later in this paper. Responses to trauma now termed, for example, "repression", "Post-traumatic stress disorder", or "dissociation" have been recognized literally for thousands of years. Charcot (a neurologist) in the late 1800’s recognized that "hysteria" was precipitated by events that the patient experienced as stressful or traumatic. Several years later, Janet noted what we now term "dissociation" as primary symptoms of hysteria - forgetting and disconnection from emotions and/or experience. Janet also observed the re-living or re-enactment of trauma that remains one of the criteria of PTSD. As psychology and the DSM evolved, the trauma response "hysteria" did as well, becoming various hysterical neuroses, and eventually somatoform or dissociative disorders. (KIHLSTROM). However, organizations formed in support of those accused of abuse have chosen to ignore this history. One such organization, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, was born in November 1991 as a result of an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. In this article, a couple claimed that their adult daughter had recovered memories of incest in therapy, and as a result refused contact with some friends and family. The couple denied any incest. In the week after the article appeared, a University of Pennsylvania professor (Harold Lief) who was quoted in the column received a number of telephone calls from people who felt that they, too, had been falsely accused. During this time, a psychologist at Stanford University had cut off communication with her father after confronting him with her own memories of abuse. Her parents, Peter (a mathematician at the University of Pennsylvania) and Pamela Freyd, joined Dr. Lief in March of 1992 to form the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. All three are still FMSF board members. The story of Dr. Freyd and her parents is an illustrative one. Dr. Freyd confronted her father privately with her memories, yet her parents chose to take their experiences public. The story contains several examples of questionable behavior by FMSF board members, which became a pattern, as will be discussed later in this paper. For example, the very same Dr. Harold Lief who formed the FMSF with Pamela and Peter Freyd was the therapist not only of Dr. Freyd, but also of her father. Lief, in fact, told Dr. Freyd that he did not believe her memories of abuse, stating that they could not have happend because in his experience, Peter Freyd’s fantasies were "entirely homoerotic". (FREYD) Pamela Freyd, on her part, took her daughter’s private life public in an article (published as a book chapter and a journal article) that disparaged Dr. Freyd’s personal life and compared Dr. Freyd’s successful professional career unfavorably to her own. Interestingly, Dr. Freyd’s memories were supported by other family members. Her uncle William, Peter’s brother, stated in a letter that "there’s no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse.... The false memory syndrome foundaton is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape. There’s no such thing as a false memory syndrome. It is not, by any normal standard, a foundation. Neither Peter nor Pam have any significant mental health expertise."(FREYD LETTER) The symptoms indicated that FMS was probably of social origin such as in folie a deux. FMS is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (1994). It quite properly takes many years for the official recognition of a medical diagnosis. The fact that the major professional organizations have issued statements about FMS is an indication of its seriousness. "The AMA considers recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse to be of uncertain authenticity, which should be subject to external verification. The use of recovered memories is fraught with problems of potential misapplication." Council on Scientific Affairs American Medical Association, June 16, 1994 Members of the FMSF are largely individuals who seek to defend themselves from accusations of sexual abuse of children. The FMSF does not attempt to determine whether these members are falsely accused or not. However, everyone who contacts their organization is included in their statistics of "falsely accused". There is little discrimination or skepticism, although members often criticize supporters of survivors of sexual abuse for believing the survivors. The majority of sexually abused children are girls. The National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse has estimated that one in three girls is sexually abused before age 18 (one in four before 14), and one in six boys before age 16. In 85% of cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim, and 1 in 25 girls is sexually abused by her father. (NCPCA) The FMSF believes that women who report recovered memories of sexual abuse are led by therapists to accuse their own families of abuse from their own sincere belief of incidents which did not occur. However, the FMSF provides no research or statistics to support this claim. Much FMSF evidence appears to be anecdotal. The FMSF has even appeared to falsify its own membership statistics - for example, in the June 7, 1995 newsletter, Accuracy About Abuse, the following notice appeared: The American False Memory Syndrome Foundation is widely quoted as having 16,000 families as members but recently Peter Freyd admitted they have only about 2500 dues paying members. The British False Memory Society which maintains close links with the American FMSF, now admits to 230 paid members as of December 1994, not the 650 more usually reported. Ralph Underwager (who coined the term "false memory syndrome") and Hollida Wakefield, a married couple on the original FMSF Board of Advisors, have gone so far as to claim that "the women who make false allegations based on recovered memories [are] very angry, hostile, and sometimes paranoid... All will have demonstrated some type of psychopathology in earlier parts of their lives." (1984) Again, no evidence to support this is given. Neither do they state how such accusations have been determined to be false. Nor do Wakefield and Underwager consider why such women might justifiably be angry or appear "paranoid". The FMSF also does not discuss the possibility that accused parents are misremembering the abuse... Jackson and Thomas note that " It is now generally recognized by those working with sex offenders that child abusers, rapists and perpetrators of incest have an extraordinary capacity for denial and minimisation." Anna Salter, in her book Treating Child Sex Offenders and Victims, remarks that "Offenders may continue to assert their innocence despite overwhelming evidence and despite good rapport with their therapists .... offenders can be quite convincing when asserting their innocence." However, the FMSF makes no mention of this possibility. In fact, there has been very little scientific endeavor involved in the formation and advertisement of "false memory syndrome". The court further described Underwager's testimony that "children are incapable of correctly remembering or accurately describing sexual contacts," and indeed stated that "Underwager is a hired gun who makes a living deceiving judges about the state of medical knowledge and thus assisting child molesters to evade punishment." Underwager himself resigned from the FMSF in 1994 after being quoted in a Dutch journal as saying that "Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose... With boldness they can say "I believe this is in fact part of gods will"... Paedophiles need to become more positive and make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of gods will for love and unity among human beings."" In fact, both Underwager and Wakefield have described pedophilia as a "positive lifestyle choice" (Bull & Marten, 1994; Ryan 1993b). One would think that those allied with a group of falsely accused perpetrators would distance themselves from pedophilia. However, several members other than Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield have argued that childhood sexual experiences with adults may be harmless. However, asociations between childhood sexual abuse and mental disorders in adulthood have been repeatedly proven (Briere & Elliott, 1993; Elliott & Briere, 1992; Herman, Russell, & Trocki, 1986/1994). Another FMSF Advisory Board member, James Randi, was involved in a scandal in which (according to court records): "The scientist's lawyers sought to discredit Mr. Randi by playing taped conversations of teen-age boys who called the magician's home allegedly for sex." [ Byrd v Randi (Civil Action No. MJG-89-636 in the United States District for the Court for the District of Maryland.] Transcripts of the tape are also part of the court record in Geller v Randi, (Civil Action No 91-1014-SSH in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The transcripts are contained in Exhibit 40 to Exhibit U]. Dr. Bill Thompson, Advisory Board Member of the British FMS, lecturer in Forensic Psychology at Reading University " has been extensively quoted in the media as a sceptic about the existence of satanic abuse. He is the author of SADOMASOCHISM, in which he puts forward the theory that sadomasochism is neither violent nor dangerous. Written about the Spanner case in which fifteen defendants were charged with "inflicting actual bodily harm" on each other, Thompson's book asks whether "hitting a penis with a ruler, dripping 'hot wax' on to a penis, strapping someone with a cat-o'nine tails, caning the buttocks" really are harmful activities. One of the accused was under 21....Thompson claims that "various moral groups have attempted to justify restricting the public's access to sexually orientated material by promoting a child pornography panic.".... He took exception to Lord Templeman's restating in the Spanner case that it was important to " provide safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others, particularly those who are especially vulnerable because they are young, weak in body or mind, inexperienced, or in a state of special physical, official or economic dependence." (http://www.carleton.ca/~whovdest/aaa8.html#section2) There is considerable evidence supporting the recovery of traumatic memories. Contrary to the statements of the FMSF, there is empirical evidence regarding corroboration of formerly repressed memories, including that from other family members, medical or other physical evidence, and confessions of perpetrators. Ross Cheit, for example, has compiled a list of 50 cases of corroborated recovered memory. (See Ross Cheit.) In fact, research evidence shows that it is not unusual for victims of childhood sexual abuse to forget the abuse either entirely or for a period of time after the abuse. Nor is it uncommon for genuine survivors of abuse to recant accusations. The abstract of Linda M. Williams’ 1995 study, Recovered memories of abuse in women with documented child sexual victimization histories. (Journal of Traumatic Stress, 8,649 — 673, 1995) states: The study provides evidence that some adults who claimed to have recovered memories of sexual abuse recall actual events that occurred in childhood. 129 women with documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked about abuse history. 17 years following the initial report of the abuse, 80 of the women recalled the victimization. One in 10 women (16 percent of those who recalled the abuse) reported that at some time in the past they had forgotten about the abuse. Those with a prior period of forgetting -- the women with "recovered memories" -- were younger at the time of abuse and were less likely to have received support from their mothers than the women who reported that they had always remembered their victimization. The women who had recovered memories and those who had always remembered had the same number of discrepancies when their account of the abuse were compared to the reports from the early 1970s. Elizabeth Loftus herself has published studies showing evidence of recovered memory. The 4 January 1996 issue of Accuracy About Abuse notes: Elizabeth Loftus, high profile FMSF advocate, published a paper with colleagues on Remembering and Repressing in 1994. In a study of 105 women outpatients in a substance abuse clinic 54 % reported a history of childhood sexual abuse. 81% remembered all or part of the abuse. 19% reported they forgot the abuse for a period of time and later the memory returned. Women who remembered the abuse their whole lives reported a clearer memory, with a more detailed picture. Women who remembered the abuse their whole lives did not differ from others in terms of the violence of the abuse or whether the violence was incestuous. [Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18 (1994) 67 -84.] Loftus has also discussed "motivated forgetting", and has presented the documented study of a college professor who became unable to remember a series of traumas, but after some time was able to recover those memories. Loftus remarked "after such an enormously stressful experience, many individuals wish to forget... And often their wish is granted." (Loftus, 1980/1988, p. 73) In 1976, Loftus wrote: Memories that may cause us great unhappiness if they were brought to mind often appear to be forgotten. However are they really lost from memory or are they simply temporarily repressed as originally suggested by Freud (1922)? Repression is the phenomenon that prevents someone from remembering an event that can cause him pain and suffering. One way that we know that these memories are repressed and not completely lost is that the methods of free association and hypnosis and other special techniques used by psychotherapist can be used to bring repressed material to mind and can help a person remember things that he has failed to remember earlier. (Loftus and Loftus, 1976, p. 82). DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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