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False Memory Syndrome

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What is 'False Memory Syndrome'?

There is no medically, or clinically, recognised diagnosis of 'False Memory Syndrome'. The concept was invented in the USA by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), a group of 'accused parents' - mainly fathers - whose adult daughters had confronted them about sexual abuse in childhood. Having created this fictional concept of 'false memory' to defend themselves against these allegations, this group then went on to sell it to the media.

The concept was imported to Britain from the US by Roger Scotford. Scotford set up the UK based False Memory Syndrome Society, in response to being accused independently by two of his adult daughters of sexually abusing them. The British group also gained enormous coverage and support in the media.

The media's role has been crucial in enabling the FMSF, and its fellow organisations in other countries, to promote this invented 'syndrome' and to introduce it into public debate. For the media, the 'syndrome' provided a new spin on sexual abuse and journalists have played a critical part in giving credence to this pseudo medical/ psychological term, as with the term 'road rage'.

An American study found that between 1992 and 1994, following the founding of the FMSF, 85% of articles on child sexual abuse in leading magazines focused on false memories and false accusations. This contrasts with only 7% of articles during 1982-4.

Alongside the invention of 'FMS', those who promote it have also introduced the concepts of 'recovered memory therapy' and the 'recovered memory movement' neither of which exist. The origins of both can be found in Making Monsters (Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters, 1995).

This text links disparate researchers, therapists and writers into spurious unity of purpose and perspective, despite the fact that they are not part of any organisation and express a diversity of views. The only thing that is common is that they all believe it is possible to forget traumatic experiences.

Who coined the term 'False Memory Syndrome'?

Ralph Underwager, one of the founders of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, is credited with having coined the term. In 1993, he gave an interview with the Dutch paedophile magazine, Paedika, in which he was reported as saying that paedophilia could be a responsible choice and that having sex with children could be seen as 'part of God's will'.

The other co-founders of the FMSF were Pamela and Peter Freyd, whose adult daughter made accusations of childhood sexual abuse. The American media gave them almost unquestioning support until their daughter, psychology Professor Jennifer Freyd, felt obliged to speak out publicly, to stop the damage that she felt her parents and their organisation were doing to abuse survivors.

Other early promoters of false memory syndrome in the US were Paul and Shirley Erberle. In the 1970s, when child pornography laws were less rigid, they edited a magazine called Finger in which there were explicit illustrations of children involved in sexual acts with adults, with features entitled 'Sexpot at Five', 'My First Rape, She Was Only Thirteen' and 'Toilet Training'.

Another key figure is Felicity Goodyear-Smith, author of First Do No Harm (1993). Felicity Goodyear-Smith admits to a personal as well as professional involvement in the issue. Her husband and parents-in-law were imprisoned for sexual abuse offences, having been members of the New Zealand community, CentrePoint, that encouraged sexual intimacy amongst its members, including the children. Although the adults involved were prosecuted for these acts, including public sex with children, Goodyear-Smith claims that this was simply 'childhood sexual experimentation' and quotes studies that claim to show that adult-child sex can be harmless.

Is there any evidence that amnesia occurs as a result of trauma?

Research has demonstrated that a significant proportion of adults with documented evidence of being sexually abused in childhood 'forget' or block out the abuse - even when they have been treated in hospital as a result of it, or have been through a successful prosecution of the perpetrator in court. The clinical term for this kind of 'forgetting' is 'dissociation' - which is, unlike 'false memory syndrome', a medically recognised diagnosis. Dissociation occurs after trauma, as a result of the brain's mechanisms for storing overwhelming emotional and physiological experience. Dissociation as a response to trauma has been found in soldiers who have survived combat and accident victims who have 'blocked out' the event.

Scheflin and Brown (1996) conducted a meta-analysis of scientific literature on amnesia or repressed memory of child sexual abuse. They found that amnesia as a result of child sexual abuse is a robust finding across studies using very different samples and measures of assessment. Linda Williams (1995) followed up 129 women who, 17 years earlier as children, had been admitted into a hospital emergency room for sexual assault. As adults, 38% did not recall the abuse. The 62% who did recall the abuse did so with accounts that were 'remarkably consistent with the evidence' from the hospital. The accounts of the women who had always remembered were no more or less consistent than those of the women who had 'forgotten' and then recovered the memories. Both types of remembering were found to be reliable.

Feldman-Summers and Pope (1994) surveyed 500 psychologists. 25% of women and 6% of men reported an experience of sexual abuse in childhood. 40% had 'forgotten' some or all of the experience, and for only a quarter of this group was therapy the only factor in remembering. Forgetting was more common where abuse began in early childhood, took place over a longer period; was perpetrated by a relative and involved more forms of violation. Half of those reporting abuse had found corroboration from other relatives; court or medical records; journals and diaries or a confession by the abuser.

Two further studies have asked if survivors had forgotten for any length of time: in Briere and Conte's (1993) sample of 450 adult survivors over half (59%) said that they had 'forgotten' for a considerable period of time; in Herman and Schatzow's (1987) smaller sample of women almost two-thirds (63%) also said that they had 'forgotten' for some time. Only 6% of the latter group could find no corroboration of their abuse.

In Children Who Don't Speak Out Radda Barnen (Swedish Save the Children) reports on a study of children who were identified through seizures of child pornography. None of them had told anyone about their abuse. The researchers compared the children's statements, the contents of the seized pornography and the statements of the abusers. All of the children resisted remembering the abuse. They spoke only about incidents which were recorded on the pornography when prompted and some even denied that the recorded abuse had happened. The abusers were as, if not more, reticent in their statements, admitting only to what there was forensic evidence about.

What about therapists who have been found guilty of planting 'false memories'?

There has been no malpractice suit in which a case against a practitioner on this issue has been upheld. A much more significant problem is the number of therapists who have sexual relationships with vulnerable clients who are seeking help following sexual assault. A number of malpractice suits have been upheld involving this form of abuse.

Can FMS be a result of hypnotherapy?

None of the named cases publicised by the UK FMSS have involved adults recovering memories through hypnotherapy. An examination of FMSS files by an independent organisation found that adults who FMSS claimed have had 'false memories' belonged to one of the following categories:

> they had always believed that they were sexually abused;

> they began to remember in adulthood as a result of some external trigger in their lives, outside the context of therapy. In one famous case an adult (Jennifer Freyd) did some short-term work with a clinical psychologist, and another (Scotford's daughter) with a homeopath. Neither had hypnotherapy or so-called 'regression' therapy at any point.

Given all of this evidence the basic question must be why so many people are more comfortable believing in false memories than the accounts of adults and children.

Lack of sleep implants 'false' memories in brain
Sleep deprived people are more likely to misremember events and hold 'false' memories of the past, scientists have discovered
Too little sleep can make people remember the past differently
By Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent
1:18PM BST 22 Jul 2014

It is a common complaint of couples that their partner sometimes appears to have a different recollection of past events than themselves, leading to arguments and recriminations.

But it could be caused by a lack of sleep.

Missing out on sleep makes people forgetful and can even implant ‘false’ memories of events that have never taken place.

A study by Michigan State University found that those deprived of sleep were more likely to struggle to remember the details of a simulated burglary when shown a series of images.

Researchers said it could have serious consequences for the criminal justice system, in which eyewitness are often asked to identify offenders following a stressful situation which may have disrupted their sleep.

But it is also likely to have repercussions in everyday life, with couples remembering past events differently.

Psychologist Dr Kimberly Fenn, of Michigan State University in the United States, said: "We found memory distortion is greater after sleep deprivation. And people are getting less sleep each night than they ever have.

"People who repeatedly get low amounts of sleep every night could be more prone in the long run to develop these forms of memory distortion. It is not just a full night of sleep deprivation that puts them at risk."

Lack of sleep - less than seven to eight hours - is already considered a public health epidemic with more than 28 million people in the UK, almost six in ten of the population, regularly getting no more than seven hours a night.

Insufficient sleep has also been linked to vehicle crashes, industrial disasters and chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.

In the study participants who were kept awake for 24 hours, and even those who got five or fewer hours of sleep, were more likely to mix up the details of an event than others who were well rested.

The findings, published in the journal Psychological Science, follows a survey that showed almost eight in ten Britons are exposed to sleep disruptive blue light from computer devices before going to bed. Among 18 to 24 year olds this figure rose to an astonishing 91 per cent.

Lack of sleep is believed to harm the learning ability of children, and even lead to the loss of brain cells in adults which in the long term could cause Alzheimer's disease.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... brain.html

Planting false memories fairly easy, psychologists find www.thestar.com 8 Feb 2015
New study bolsters notion that memory is fragile and aggressive police interrogations don’t always serve justice.

<snip>
"It’s the stuff of disturbing sci-fi fantasies such as Inception and Blade Runner: planting an idea or memory in another’s mind that’s so convincing, they believe it’s their own. Except it isn’t science fiction — it’s science fact. And instead of fanciful technology, all the psychologists needed to implant a false idea was a room, three hours and some innocent-sounding questions."

here: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/02/08/planting-false-memories-fairly-easy-psychologists-find.html

Newly released emails show a close relationship between the American Psychological Association and the psychologists who helped create the architecture of the CIA’s torture program.

One email between CIA psychologist Kirk Hubbard and an executive from the American Psychology Association, or APA, makes a thinly cloaked reference to the role in interrogations of the now-infamous CIA contractors James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.

“You won’t get any feedback from Mitchell or Jessen. They are doing special things to special people in special places, and generally are not available,” Hubbard wrote in August 2003.

The APA has denied allegations that it cooperated with the Bush administration to modify its professional guidelines for psychologists so that they would be allowed to participate in CIA interrogations. Those charges resurfaced last fall, in a book by New York Times reporter James Risen, Pay Any Price. In November 2014, the organization appointed an outside counsel to investigate the claims in Risen’s book.

Portions of the emails appeared in the book, but they were published today by the Times. A copy of the emails was also provided to The Intercept, along with a report authored by a group of psychologists and human rights researchers. The report alleges that the APA “secretly coordinated” with Bush officials to give the administration the legal cover they believed they needed for the CIA’s interrogation program to continue.

In December, after the Senate Intelligence committee revealed new details about Mitchell and Jessen’s role in the CIA program, the APA gave Reuters a statement that the details were “sickening and reprehensible,” and that the two should be held “fully accountable.”

Yet over 10 years earlier, relations between the CIA and the association seemed close: In 2003, the APA and CIA even cohosted a conference on “The Science of Deception,” which was attended by Hubbard, Mitchell, Jessen and other Bush administration staffers, according to a report on the conference. The topics covered included “research challenges,” such as the reliability of lie-detecting technology, what pharmacological agents were “known to affect apparent truth-telling behavior,” and “how might we overload the system or overwhelm the senses and see how it affects deceptive behaviors?”

In an email, Hubbard groused about his budget for the conference to the APA’s director of science policy, Geoffrey Mumford. “I can’t stay in the hotel with you guys without violating a half dozen regulations,” he writes. “I can spend several million dollars with no questions asked, but if I stay at hotel for $300 bucks I would rank right in there with pedophiles.”

Mumford replies, “have I got a deal for you … as a special promotion for APA members, who also work in CIA Ops AND are willing to share their last names, I will pull that pawltry (poultry?) room fee out of my policy budget and put you up for the night. This is the very least APA can do given the remarkable generosity your agency has shown in supporting the workshop.”

The emails and conference report came from the files of of Scott Gerwehr, a behavioral researcher with ties to the CIA who specialized in “deception detection.” Gerwehr died in a motorcycle crash in 2008, and his exact relationship with the CIA is not clear. But he was copied on many emails that provide a window into a controversial period in the APA’s recent history.

The organization in 2002 amended its ethics code to permit psychologists to follow “governing legal authority” even if it went against other aspects of the code. Then, in 2005, following the first major revelations of detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib and CIA interrogations, the APA convened a special task force, that, while condemning torture, affirmed that psychologists could supervise and conduct research as part of national security interrogations.

Gerwehr was included on email threads discussing a confidential meeting on “ethics and national security” in the summer of 2004, which included APA executives and intelligence officials. The meeting was framed as a response to the “Abu Ghraib prison situation.”

A later email from the APA credits Hubbard and other intelligence officials with getting the 2005 task force “off the ground,” and notes, “your views were well represented.”

Another email says that then-White House science advisor Susan Brandon had been an “observer” for the APA task force and had “helped craft some language related to research” in the task force’s findings. (Brandon is now with the FBI’s high-value detainee interrogation group.)

The APA has since repealed the changes to its ethics code and disavowed the 2005 task force findings. In response to the findings of the new report and the Gerwehr emails, an APA spokeswoman told the Times that there “has never been any coordination between A.P.A. and the Bush administration on how A.P.A. responded to the controversies about the role of psychologists in the interrogations program.”

In an email to The Intercept in October, responding to allegations in Risen’s book about his role in influencing the task force’s position on interrogation, Hubbard said his involvement was limited to the 2004 meeting. “I don’t see anything inappropriate,” he said. “I’m a psychologist, was a member of APA at the time, and a member of the intelligence community. Why not provide input?”

I have just received word that prominent education leadership author and speaker Douglas Reeves has been acquitted in his trial for indecent assault.

I have been following this case since Reeves' arrest in September 2012. After numerous delays, the trial began this past Tuesday (April 1) and concluded today with a jury verdict that found Reeves not guilty.

Reeves was accused of indecent assault against a nine-year-old girl in his Massachusetts home in 2006. He denied the allegations and was represented by prominent Boston defense attorney Max Stern, who has represented high-profile defendents like mob leader Whitey Bulger.

Following Reeves' arrest it was later revealed that he had spent time in prison in the 1990's for securities fraud. It is unclear at this point whether that fact was considered relevant to this trial.

Readers of this blog have followed Reeves' case with close interest, generating thousands of visits to related posts. I have also been contacted by educators from around the country eager to learn more. Like me, many of them have considered Reeves an inspiration to our own work in schools. Some have written me to express their disbelief and support; others have expressed their condemnation of Reeves' alleged actions. It is unclear how Reeves' acquittal will now affect his standing in the education community.

The alleged victim did not tell anybody about the alleged incident until April 2012, however, during a therapy session where the alleged victim was being treated for depression, difficulty socializing and anxiety about entering high school. The girl told her sister and mother shortly thereafter, and her mother contacted Swampscott Police.

Throughout the trial, Stern repeatedly questioned the alleged victim’s ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality, suggesting the alleged victim made up the accusation after leading questions from her therapist, Kyle Tick.

Stern noted how testimony revealed the alleged victim fantasized about “heroines with superpowers who would protect the weak” and how a discussion about these fantasies preceded the alleged victim first making the accusation.

Stern and defense witness Dr. Thomas Gutheil (who reviewed Tick’s notes but did not evaluate the alleged victim) also criticized Tick for suggesting her client’s symptoms might be trauma-related and for asking “leading questions” before the alleged victim discussed the alleged abuse.

“(Tick) not only asks her were you sexually abused, but gives her an answer to her problems,” Stern told the jury. “She might as well have told her ‘I think you were abused in third or fourth grade and that is what is causing this.’”

True or false memories of sexual abuse? A forensic psychiatric view.

Thomas G Gutheil

Psychiatric Annals (Impact Factor: 0.71). 08/1993; DOI: 10.3928/0048-5713-19930901-13

ABSTRACT Discusses the debate about the validity of historical memories of childhood abuse recovered in the course of psychotherapy of adults. It is contended that the necessary forensic skepticism in the legal system contrasts with the equally necessary credulousness of the therapist in the clinical setting. Immersion in the patient's world view is good therapy but bad forensic expertise if not balanced by the necessary objectivity. Evidence is cited suggesting that adult memories of childhood abuse may be easily contaminated or even generated through the suggestion of a nonobjective therapist. Furthermore, childhood sexual abuse may result in dissociative states, which can produce an increased suggestibility in victims. Overall, the traditional adversary method used by courts is endorsed as a way to fairly conduct cases while protecting against false accusations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

In a landmark case that could fundamentally alter how therapists do their jobs--and could increase their liability--a Napa Valley Superior Court jury ruled Friday that two Orange County therapists implanted false memories of child abuse in a patient and wrongly harmed her father.

Lord Balto » Fri May 01, 2015 10:19 pm wrote:I have long suspected that many UFO "encounters" were actually lucid dreams misfiled by the brain and later recalled as having actually happened. Keep in mind that lucid dreams can be triggered by something as simple as large doses of Vitamin B6. A friend once called me claiming he had had "the big one," meaning a revelatory dream of biblical proportions. I asked him if he had taken large doses of B6, and he admitted he had swallowed a number of his wife's vitamin pills in preparation for an upcoming exam. Keep in mind that the biological effects of the ingestion of any given chemical are inversely proportional to the weight of the individual, and then imagine all of the multivitamins that are being fed to little children in the name of health.

Zombie Glenn Beck » Sat May 02, 2015 1:51 pm wrote:

Lord Balto » Fri May 01, 2015 10:19 pm wrote:I have long suspected that many UFO "encounters" were actually lucid dreams misfiled by the brain and later recalled as having actually happened. Keep in mind that lucid dreams can be triggered by something as simple as large doses of Vitamin B6. A friend once called me claiming he had had "the big one," meaning a revelatory dream of biblical proportions. I asked him if he had taken large doses of B6, and he admitted he had swallowed a number of his wife's vitamin pills in preparation for an upcoming exam. Keep in mind that the biological effects of the ingestion of any given chemical are inversely proportional to the weight of the individual, and then imagine all of the multivitamins that are being fed to little children in the name of health.

Took one of those B12/B6 megadose shots once right before bed because I heard it gave you crazy dreams. Two hours of a vivid surreal hellscape where hyper-intelligent giant spiders kept humans for livestock in high tech prisonfarms. Woke up at 1 AM completely drenched in sweat and clenching my jaw so hard my teeth hurt.

zangtang » Sun May 03, 2015 5:57 am wrote:Spiders weren't dressed in stars n stripes by any chance?

- or just the usual swastikas?