10 May 2006
	Help for Adult Victims Of Child Abuse. A non-profit making organisation based in the UK dedicated to provide help, support and information to any adult who is suffering from past childhood abuse.

Backlash: A Look at the Abuse-Related Amnesia and Delayed Memory Controversy
By Lana R. Lawrence

Cassandra was sitting in her therapist's office one Friday
afternoon casually discussing her deceased uncle when she suddenly burst
into sobs. Although the subject of childhood sexual abuse had never been
discussed, her therapist, a licensed clinical social worker, felt it was
appropriate to ask Cassandra if her uncle had ever abused her. At first,
Cassandra couldn't respond. Moments later, she found herself crouched in the
corner of her therapist's sofa-in the fetal position. Her therapist asked
her again if her uncle had abused her. This time Cassandra responded "yes."

The discussion that followed changed her life. Before that
day, Cassandra, who has chosen not to use her real name, had not recalled
being sexually abused as a child. Although she had been in therapy "on and
off" over the years, and had been, at the moment in question, in treatment
with her then-current therapist for 18 months for a variety of problems, she
had never attributed any of them to a history of sexual abuse.

She had entered therapy following a series of dissatisfying,
and sometimes destructive, relationships with men; she was "constantly
feeling overwhelmed by them." Cassandra, who is in her thirties, also spent
many years filled with episodes of "rocking back and forth" on her bed or
pulling hair out of her head. "I had problems coping day-to-day. I was fully
employed at the time ... but I had trouble handling money and relationship,"
she said.

"I just didn't seem to be able to put my life together the
way other people around me did. I seemed to struggle on a daily basis, and I
was lost as to what to do with my life even though I had already been
through two professions," she recalls.

Eventually, Cassandra remembered not only her uncle's abuse,
but also episodes of sexual abuse that involved her father, a neighbor, and
possibly a baby-sitter." The three are for sure," says Cassandra, who says
that she now understands her almost-life-long struggle to cope.
Truth, Hysteria, or Conspiracy?

There are those who might contend that Cassandra was never
sexually abused, but developed "pseudo-memories" only after seeing a
therapist -- especially a social worker who planted the idea of sexual abuse
in her mind. These proponents of the so-called "false memory syndrome" (FMS)
theory, which is not a clinically accepted term, might argue further that
Cassandra, a highly educated woman who could afford therapy, was vulnerable
to suggestion -- through the form of questions by her therapist -- that may
have planted the idea of abuse in her mind.

Many of those who hold such views have found a home in the
Philadelphia-based False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), a nonprofit
organization that apparently coined the term "false memory syndrome." FMSF
maintains in its literature that FMS occurs as a result of "a disastrous
'therapeutic' program." Specifically, FMSF claims that '. .. grown children
while undergoing 'therapeutic' programs have come to believe that they
suffer from 'repressed memories' of incest and sexual abuse These memories,
which it refers to as 'decade-delayed memories'" are, it says, "too often
the result of False Memory Syndrome. . . ." Furthermore, FMSF contends,
these "false memories" victimize both the "primary victim"-the person who
has developed so-called false memories-and the "secondary victim" -- the
person who is purported to have been falsely accused as a result of the
primary victim's 'memories."

In other literature sanctioned or distributed by the FMS
Foundation, such as the book Confabulations: Creating False Memories -
Destroying Families (Boca Raton, FL: SIRS Books, 1992), author and FMSF
advisory board member Eleanor Goldstein speculates on what may cause such
"phenomena" to occur. Goldstein and the accused parents who have contributed
to her book cite 12-step programs, inexperienced and/or overzealous
therapists (particularly social workers), several survivor recovery books,
and feminism as the source of what they call an "epidemic of false
accusations."

Richard Gardner, M.D., a psychiatrist and author of Sex
Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witchcraft Trials Revisited takes this point of view a
step further. Gardner, a Columbia University clinical professor of child
psychiatry, has said in a critique of the recovery movement that he believed
false allegations of sexual abuse to be the "third great wave of hysteria"
to sweep the continent since the sixteenth century. A shorter version of
this thesis was published in a February 22, 1993, Wall Street journal
article ("Modern Witch Hunt -- Child Abuse Charges"). "The U.S. appears to
be witnessing its third great wave of hysteria," it reads. "The first, the
Salem Witch Trials, in 1692, lasted only a few months. Nineteen people were
hanged before it became apparent that the accusations were suspect. In the
1950s, at the time of the McCarthy hearings, hysteria over the communist
threat resulted in the destruction of many careers. Our current hysteria,
which began in the early 1980s, is by far the worst with regard to the
number of lives that have been destroyed and families that have
disintegrated."

Additionally, many FMS proponents appear to claim that there
is a "cult-like conspiracy" by members of the recovery community to implant
false memories of abuse. In an article in the Lawrence, Massachusetts,
Sunday Eagle-Tribune ("False Memories, Torn Families,' March 28,1993), the
author paraphrased the sentiment of parents who attend an FMS support group
meeting this way: 'Philip and Martha are among a growing number of parents
who are confused and angry at the psychological community and self-help
culture that they claim has bred these false accusations against them by
their children. They view the network of counselors, psychotherapists,
social workers, radical feminists and New Age self-help groups aimed at
'healing the inner child' and 'reparenting' as evil, cult-ish and bent on
destroying traditional families."

But executive director Pamela Freyd, Ph.D., who takes a more
conservative view of current events, insists that the organization is
working closely with professionals and the public to encourage "critical
analysis" of the issue. "It sounds as though we are attacking the whole
therapeutic community as such, and that isn't the case at all because our
advisory board consists of many people who are therapists -- and we work
with many therapists," she says.

Freyd adds that "Indeed, I think that every person who is a
professional, and is proud of being a professional in the mental health
community, should be concerned about some of the things that are going on
that would appear to be undercutting the good people. The scientific issues
have rested on the assumption of the theory of 'massive repression,"' and
she suggests that we all need to look at the issue more critically.

Memory: Research Warfare
At the center of the delayed memory controversy are the
research and statistical data that proponents from both sides of the
controversy use to support their respective positions. Perhaps the most
visible researchers in the field of memory function (in relation to
suggestibility and delayed memory) are Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D., professor of
psychology at the University of Washington, and Judith Herman, M.D.,
associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard University. Loftus, a
defense expert witness and co-author of the book Witness for the Defense:
The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial (NY.
St. Martin's Press, 1991), has emerged as an outspoken advocate of the FMS
theory. She bases her support of the theory on the premise that researchers
like herself have demonstrated that "false memories" can be "implanted" into
the minds of susceptible people.

Loftus' research focuses on the capacity of witnesses of
events such as auto accidents to accurately recall those events. Her own, or
"the" research, she suggests, indicates that fabricated details of events,
such as broken glass at the scene of the accident, or memories of childhood
abuse, can be implanted into the minds of adults. In one of her most highly
publicized studies, Loftus and other researchers showed a film of an auto
accident, where broken glass was not involved, to their subjects. Later,
several subjects responded to "suggestive questioning" that contained false
information about broken glass at the accident scene, by incorporating
inaccurate broken-glass information into their recollections of the accident
(Loftus & Ketcham, 1991).

More recently, Loftus reported in a paper presented to the
American Psychological Association ("The Reality of Repressed Memories,"
August 1992, Washington, DC), that she conducted an experiment with five
pilot subjects (who were primarily the relatives of her research staff). The
experiment consisted of employing the assistance of the subject's relatives
to "convince" the subjects that they had been lost. One subject was "Chris,"
a 14-year-old boy whose older brother convinced him that he had been lost in
a shopping mall at age five. According to Loftus, within the three-day
period after he had this memory "implanted," the boy began to tell
researchers of specific "memories" of the event. The day after he was told
of his being lost, for example, Chris began to recount feelings of the
event, saying that he had been "scared that I would never see my family
again." On the third day, Loftus wrote, he spoke of a conversation he had
had with his mother: "I remember mom telling me never to do that again." By
day five of the study, Chris began talking about the mall itself: "I sort of
remember the stores." Loftus says that "in his last recollection, he could
even remember a conversation with the man who found him." Two weeks later,
the boy was told that the incident had not happened and that his memories
were false.

But critics of this research argue that getting lost is a
common childhood and adult experience, and that this boy and other subjects
may have been lost for a short period of time without their family's
knowledge. In other words, Chris could have been drawing his recollection
from actual experience. Furthermore, even though Loftus classifies getting
lost as a "mildly traumatic" event, researchers and clinicians claim that
getting lost cannot possibly compare to the experience of being sexually
abused, and that the elements of shame, secrecy, and fear of disclosure that
typically coincide with sexual abuse are absent from this research.

Judith Herman and co-author Mary Harvey insist that these
and other studies don't examine the impact of trauma on memory. In a recent
issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter ("The False Memory Debate: Social
Science or Social Backlash," April, 1993), they write that "Traumatic memory
is a new field of investigation in which there are many unanswered
questions. Clinical experience shows that these memories are formed in an
altered state of consciousness induced by terror. The focus of attention is
greatly narrowed, the surrounding context falls away, and certain details of
imagery and sensation are deeply engraved."

Yet Loftus and other defense experts attempt to use the
findings from her own (and other similar) studies to challenge the validity
of adults' delayed memories of abuse. In Goldstein's Confabulations, for
example, Loftus is quoted as saying, "People who purportedly recover lost
memories are in fact generating not memories of true events but fanciful
guesses, fantasies, or plain confabulations. Such data would then constitute
evidence not of repression but of imagination."

There are researchers and clinicians, however, who claim
that they can scientifically demonstrate that many, if not most, delayed
memories of abuse are not figments of adult imagination but events that can
be corroborated. Judith Herman (author of Father-Daughter Incest and Trauma
and Recovery) and colleague Emily Schatzow conducted a study of 53 women who
claimed to have delayed memories of abuse after a period of partial or
complete amnesia. Seventy-four percent of these women found independent
corroboration of the abuse (Herman and Schatzow, 1987). Moreover, Herman and
co-author Mary Harvey said that "In some cases their stories were confirmed
by other family members of other victims of the same perpetrator. Some found
physical evidence such as pornographic photographs or diaries. In several
cases the perpetrators unapologetically admitted their actions, and a few
even tried to renew the sexual contact."

Herman and Schatzow indicated in the study that nine percent
of the 53 women found evidence that was strongly suggestive but not
conclusive of abuse, 11 percent of the women did not try to confirm their
memories, and six percent could not find any supporting evidence. Herman and
Harvey say that the findings of this study "suggest that delayed recall of
sexual abuse is as verifiable as any other form of disclosure."

Another study, conducted by Linda Meyers Williams, appears
to support the finding of Herman and Schatzow. Williams, a research
associate professor at the University of New Hampshire Family Research
Laboratory, conducted a longitudinal study of 100 women whose sexual abuse
in childhood had been reported to authorities during 1973, 1974, or 1975. As
children, they had all been examined at a northeastern U.S. city hospital
emergency department so that forensic evidence could be collected and they
could be treated. Williams located and contacted these patients, who are now
adults, and interviewed them about the abuse. She found that 38 percent of
these women were amnestic or chose not to report the abuse to the
researchers 17 years after their abuse-related hospital visits. Most who did
not report the abuse appeared not to remember the incident of abuse that
caused them to be hospitalized. However, 53 percent of the amnestic women
did report being revictimized by other perpetrators.

Williams notes that another important finding has emerged
from this study. She says that her research subjects might represent the
population who would be most likely to remember their childhood
victimization because it had been reported to authorities. This study also
suggests, according to Williams, that 38 percent is a conservative estimate
of the proportion of women who do not disclose their childhood abuse.
FMS Rhetoric: Loaded Words or Legitimate Terminology?

Many therapists and researchers argue that the term "false
memory syndrome" is itself false because a "memory" is the human brain's
ability to recall an actual event in a person's experience and, therefore,
is based on truth. Claremont Graduate School psychology professor Kathy
Pezdek, Ph.D., who researches memory factors relevant to eyewitness
identification in legal cases, indicated in the American Psychological
Society's (APS's) Observer that "among psychologists studying memory, there
is no such thing as 'false memory syndrome.' A search of the PsycLit
database [the APS's database of psychological literature] (January, 1974 -
September, 1992) yielded zero references citing 'false memory syndrome,'"
she wrote.

In response to such criticism, many FMS proponents are
citing the term "confabulations," which, according to the Observer, is
classified in the PsycLit database as a behavior disorder defined as "giving
untruthful answers to questions about situations or events that are not
recalled due to memory impairment." 'Confabulafion," the explanation
continues, "is not a conscious attempt to deceive." Some researchers further
contend that confabulations result from a person's desire to fill in the
missing pieces of a story, especially while under pressure during some form
of questioning.

Even so, the term confabulation appears to be scarcely used
by most therapists and memory researchers. This may be, in part, the result
of the reluctance of many therapists to use the "FMS rhetoric" and the fact
that the term was rarely used before the emergence of the FMS Foundation.
Christine Courtois, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and
clinical consultant, argues that FMSF is promulgating the use of "loaded"
terms such as confabulations, as well as others. "FMS is calling therapists
'repressed memory experts,' or 'repressed memory therapists.' Those are not
terms that are routinely used," says Courtois.

The more accurate terminology for "repressed memories,"
according to Courtois, is amnesia, or partial amnesia if the survivor has
some recollection of past abuse. "We need to stay away from inaccurate
terminology," Courtois says.

Legal Ramifications
Many people view the false memory syndrome theory as a
calculated legal defense strategy developed by perpetrators, and the lawyers
and expert witnesses who defend them. Some have suggested that the business
of defending child abusers from criminal or civil action is more financially
lucrative than others claim the treatment of victims is, and that the FMS
theory is just a new shot in the arm to the "perpetrator defense industry."

At this point, however, it may be difficult to gauge the
impact of such a defense in the courts. But Mark Ells, senior staff attorney
at the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse in Alexandria,
Virginia, believes that, at least from a criminal perspective, the FMS
theory won't have a profound impact on the prosecution of childhood sexual
abuse cases when the victim is an adult with delayed memories. He suggests
that if the prosecution is prepared, "they can certainly impeach" the
testimony of expert defense witnesses who testify about FMS.

In the final analysis, Ells says that "I don't think that
they [false memory proponents] legally present any issues that don't come up
in other contexts." He suggests that children who are allegedly sexually
abused are constantly attacked because of "their ability to remember, or
their truthfulness, or other people in their lives are accused of
influencing them or causing them to make these statements." The only
difference in cases of delayed memories of abuse is, according to Ells, that
"the allegations are new, but the acts are old and usually create some
investigative difficulties."

The issue appears to boil down to whether the prosecutor can
prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt. "I don't think that a lot
of these cases are getting prosecuted -- not because [the prosecution]
doesn't believe them, but because they don't believe they can prove the case
beyond a reasonable doubt," Ells said.

Richmond, Virginia, attorney Sylvia Clute agrees that many
cases are not criminally prosecuted because the prosecutor doesn't feel that
there is enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
However, Clute, who has represented several clients in civil cases against
their alleged perpetrators, perceives the current memory controversy as a
major threat to victims in these cases. For instance, Clute is currently
trying a civil case in which the prosecutor recommended civil action because
the case did not hold up to the "beyond a reasonable doubt standard." She
perceives the possibility of someone alleging that the memories are false as
a "significant element" in the case.

In the civil court, where the rules of evidence are less
strict than in the criminal court, a survivor's case may be proved by what
is called a "preponderance of evidence." The opposition usually tries to
cast reasonable doubt on the plaintiff 's (or survivor's) claim of abuse,
but the verdict is essentially decided based on whom the judge or jury
believes.

The increase in the number of cases that are being decided
in the civil courts is generally attributed to the short criminal statute of
limitations that exist in many states. In addition, several states have
extended their civil statutes to allow survivors to file suit against their
alleged abusers for damages. This may be the reason that the FMSF legal task
force is looking for ways to pass legislation that would force these cases
into mediation -- a less formal tribunal than either the criminal or civil
courts.

FMSF executive director Pamela Freyd suggests that these
cases might be better handled in mediation because they would be less costly
and provide a more open forum for discussion -- discussion that might
possibly unite divided families. But Washington, D.C., attorney Sherry
Quirk, who is the executive director of The National Center for Redress of
Incest and Sexual Abuse, views mediation as a positive arena for
perpetrators. Because mediation may place the alleged perpetrator and victim
in the same room -- sitting across a table from each other -- Quirk
indicates that a survivor could potentially be retraumatized by the
proceedings. "Without the procedural safeguards of a court or administrative
hearing, it is possible for the kind of power relationship and power dynamic
that surrounds the abuse to dominate the session. It can be surprisingly
difficult to maintain balance and a sense of direction without feeling
demoralized," Quirk says.

That is why Quirk believes that mediation can be more like
"a conversation than a legal proceeding." She indicates that although the
criminal and civil court processes are often grueling for the victim, there
are well-defined procedural rules, and that "if someone breaks the rules,
there are remedies available."

Survivors' Responses to the "Backlash"
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse have reacted in a
variety of ways to the deluge of articles, talk shows, and radio programs
about the accuracy of memories. Some have demonstrated at FMSF conferences,
or other places where the organization's representatives are scheduled to
speak. They are also writing letters and telephoning editors and producers
who present favorable views on what some survivors call the "false memory
notion."

Margot Silk Forrest, editor of The Healing Woman
, a Moss Beach, California-based newsletter
for survivors of abuse, took the letter-writing approach and urged others to
do the same. Several months ago, she personally responded to a series of
what she called "unbalanced and clearly biased" articles in the San
Francisco Examiner by sending a letter to the editor. Forrest then published
that letter in the May 1993 issue of her newsletter, and urged survivors to
write their own letters. She also encouraged readers to cancel subscriptions
to the Examiner, writing that "This letter [to the editor] is going to
nearly 700 Healing Woman subscribers in the San Francisco area. If every one
of us who subscribes to the Examiner cancelled [our] subscription and told
them why, they'd hear us!" Forrest wrote.

Other survivor support organizations, such as the
Chicago-based Voices in Action, suggest in their newsletter that not all of
the "media hype" and change in public perception can be attributed to
society's desire to deny the pervasiveness of sexual child abuse. In The
Chorus (Vol. V, Number 2), Voices urge its members to ask questions of
themselves, such as "Do we as survivors sometimes become overzealous in
suggesting to friends that have any problems with relationships, sexuality,
anxiety, or eating disorders that they should start looking for memories?"

Voices in Action also asks therapists if they
ever "make overzealous, premature suggestions that are not grounded in the
wisdom of the field." The organization further suggests that therapists who
are not cautious "make it easy for the public to believe what the Backlash
is saying."

Nonetheless, both Margot Silk Forrest and Voices in Action
stress the continuing need for survivors to honor the validity of their
experiences, support each other, and speak out on the issue. Forrest also
wrote in her letter to the Examiner that the media needs to interview
survivors with documented post-amnestic memories of abuse, and to report
those stories in order to provide a more balanced view of the controversy.
Many other survivors have reacted in anger, charging that
the FMS organization is an advocacy group for perpetrators of sexual abuse.
When Moving Forward asked FMSF if members of the Foundation could be
perpetrators of sexual abuse, Freyd responded "Of course. We are not
clairvoyant, and I think that the thing that people should keep in mind is
that there are now 4,350 cases of people [members of the foundation] who are
asking to have what has happened to them [accusations of abuse]
investigated. They are asking to have agencies look into things, anybody who
will look into it. And, the frustration has been that when one is not the
client, there is no agency in our mental health system to respond in a
situation like this."

Overall, survivors may feel as though they are again being
discounted and disbelieved, but that is not weakening their resolve to be
heard. Cassandra, whose story in the beginning of this article would most
likely be challenged by false memory proponents, says that the false memory
notion "takes advantage of people's discomfort about the issue in such a way
that suggests that we are wrong to talk about this, and that in the future
it would be better not to talk about it. It makes me angry; it makes me sad;
it disorients me, at times, because it makes me question my own credibility
and the credibility of those close to me. At the same time, the nature of
it, the tone of it, and the intent of it seems to be so victimizing that it
discredits itself. I find some extra strength from within me to cope with
it."

Lana R. Lawrence is the editor of Moving Forward

Article Contents

HOME