-Caveat Lector- Hi ! Below please find information on possible uses of propaganda by the FMSF and peer reviewed studies showing the prevalence of recovered memory and low suggestibilty rates of recovered memory patients. Sincerely, Neil Brick from http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/Archive.html The Recovered Memory Project is an Internet-based research project, directed by Professor Ross E. Cheit of the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University. This project began as a letter to PBS objecting to false statements and shoddy research by Ofra Bikel, producer of the program "Divided Memories." (Journalists note: Bikel's program was later described in the Columbia Journalism Review as "a four-hour polemic" that only "purported to be balanced." ) This page was launched in conjunction with a presentation at the American Psychological Association meetings in Chicago, August 18, 1997. For a more detailed discussion of the criteria for including cases in the archive, along with some reflections on the science and politics of recovered memory, see Ross E. Cheit, "Consider This, Skeptics of Recovered Memory," Ethics and Behavior, 8(2), 141-160 (1998). This site will be updated regularly with additional cases and information. The Archive •Background •66 Corroborated Cases of Recovered Memory •33 Cases from Legal Proceedings • Overview: All of the cases in this file involve claims in legal proceedings. Some cases are criminal, some are civil, and a few are administrative or involve an estate. The criminal cases all resulted in either a guilty verdict or a guilty plea. The civil cases all resulted in either a civil judgment or a civil settlement. The cases included pre-trial discovery on the facts, and often full-blown adjudication. In short, the corroboration in these cases has been scrutinized and in many cases verified through a legal proceeding. 15 Clinical Cases and other Academic/Scientific Case Studies •18 Other Corroborated Cases of Recovered Memory •Criteria to Submit a Case to the Archive •Full-text articles, abstracts, and data tables on recovered memories, memory research, malpractice, ethics, and related topics. •22 Peer-Reviewed Studies About Amnesia and Child Abuse •24 Publications on Traumatic Amnesia in Holocaust Survivors •Other Scientific Research & Scholarly Resources from http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/Archive.html Memory, Abuse, and Science: Questioning Claims about the False Memory Syndrome Epidemic is the award address for the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Service delivered at the 103rd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York, NY. August 1995. An audiotape of this talk (audiotape No. APA9S-245) may be ordered from from Sound Images, Aurora, CO; telephone: 303-649-1811). An adapted version of the address that appears below was published in American Psychologist, September, 1996, vol. 51, no. 9, pages 957-974 Use of Holocaust imagery. Those who disagree with FMSF have also been compared to Fascists. In her book Diagnosis for Disaster: The Devastating Truth About False Memory Syndrome and Its Impact on Accusers and Families , Wassil-Grimm (1995) , for example, used the imagery of the Holocaust, explicitly referring to Hitler and the Jews: "Hitler had the Jews; McCarthy had the communists; radical feminists have perpetrators" (p. 91). The Oregonian quoted the FMSF Executive Director Pamela Freyd as describing the behavior of professor Jennifer Freyd as "Gestapolike" (Mitchell, 1993, p. L6 ), a term she had previously used in a journal article, later reprinted as a book chapter (Doe, 1994, p. 29). (In late February 1992, when she wrote that she was "going to serve as Executive Director of the FMS foundation, " Pamela Freyd confirmed in the False Memory Syndrome Newsletter that "You already know me as Jane Doe".) Another use of imagery related to the Holocaust, used on this occasion to compare an FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board member to those who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis, appeared in the Boston Globe: " 'I feel like Oskar Schindler, ' Loftus muses, referring to the German financier who rescued doomed Jews from the Nazis. 'There is this desperate drive to work as fast as I can'" (Kahn, 1994, p. 80). It is important to examine the use of imagery related to the Holocaust to compare explicitly or implicitly one who disagrees to Hitler, the Gestapo, and Nazis or to portray an FMSF proponent as engaged in a desperate rescue. Among questions to be addressed in careful examination of this use are the following: Do such statements reflect on the motivation, character, and decency of those who disagree with FMSF claims? Do such statements promote a climate of hate and hostility toward those who fail to accept FMSF claims? Do such statements have a chilling effect on some who otherwise might voice questions about FMSF claims? How might such statements affect the scientific and popular (e.g., media) evaluation of FMSF claims about the difficult and complex issues of remembering child sex abuse? If patients currently seeking legal health care services from those who question or disagree with FMSF are forced to cross picket lines to obtain those services or if they are subjected to other interventions, it may unduly, unfairly, and detrimentally influence their rights to choice and their rights to treatment. http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/Archive.html Peer-Reviewed Studies About Amnesia and Child Abuse The recovery of memories in clinical practice: Experiences and beliefs of British Psychological Society practitioners Andrews, Bernice; Morton, John; Bekerian, Debra A.; Brewin, Chris R.; Davis, Graham M.; Mollon, Phil The Psychologist 1995 May, Vol. 8, pp. 209-214 This article does not have a traditional abstract, so I have selected a few quotes from the article, including the author note. "The authors were members of the Society's Working Party on Recovered Memories. In February the Society published the Working Party's report. Here the results of the survey, which formed a part of the report, are published in full." "The findings suggest that. . .recovery from total amnesia of past traumatic material involving both CSA and non-CSA experiences is by no means an uncommon feature of clinical practice among our highly trained professional members." ". . .our large-scale survey confirms and extends previous research. . . . Memory recovery appears to be a robust and frequent phenomenon." Accuracy, timing and circumstances of disclosure in therapy of recovered and continuous memories of abuse. Dalenberg, Constance J. CSPP, Trauma Research Inst, San Diego, CA, US Journal of Psychiatry & Law 1996 Sum Vol 24(2) 229-275 Investigated the accuracy of recovered and continuous memories in 17 women (average age 29.5 yrs) who had recovered memories of physical or sexual abuse by their fathers while in therapy. Ss and their 43-72 yr old fathers cooperated in gathering physical evidence confirming or refuting these memories. This evidence was analyzed and rated by 6 independent judges recruited for the purpose. Memories of abuse were found to be equally accurate whether recovered or continuously remembered. Predictors of number of memory units for which evidence was uncovered included several measures of memory and perceptual accuracy. Recovered memories that were later supported arose in psychotherapy more typically during periods of positive rather than negative feeling toward the therapist, and they were more likely to be held with confidence by the abuse victim. Traumatic events: Prevalence and delayed recall in the general population Elliott, Diana M. U California-Los Angeles Medical Ctr, Child Abuse Crisis Ctr, Harbor Campus, Torrance, US Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1997 Vol 65, 811-820 A random sample of 724 individuals from across the United States were mailed a questionnaire containing demographic information, an abridged version of the Traumatic Events Survey (DM Elliott, 1992), and questions regarding memory for traumatic events. Of these, 505 (70%) completed the survey. Among respondents who reported some form of trauma (72%), delayed recall of the event was reported by 32%. This phenomenon was most common among individuals who observed the murder or suicide of a family member, sexual abuse survivors, and combat veterans. The severity of the trauma was predictive of memory status, but demographic variables were not. The most commonly reported trigger to recall of the trauma was some form of media presentation (i.e., television show, movie), whereas psychotherapy was the least commonly reported trigger The experience of "forgetting" childhood abuse: A national survey of psychologists. Feldman-Summers, Shirley; Pope, Kenneth S. Independent practice, Edmonds, WA, US Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology 1994 Jun Vol 62(3) 636-639 A national sample of psychologists were asked whether they had been abused as children and, if so, whether they had ever forgotten some or all of the abuse. Almost a quarter of the sample (23.9%) reported childhood abuse, and of those, approximately 40% reported a period of forgetting some or all of the abuse. The major findings were that (1) both sexual and nonsexual abuse were subject to periods of forgetting; (2) the most frequently reported factor related to recall was being in therapy; (3) approximately one half of those who reported forgetting also reported corroboration of the abuse [see comparable percentage in the Pope & Tabachnick (1995) study below]; and (4) reported forgetting was not related to gender or age of the respondent but was related to severity of the abuse. Recovery and verification of memories of childhood sexual trauma. Herman, Judith L.; Schatzow, Emily Women's Mental Health Collective, Somerville, MA Psychoanalytic Psychology 1987 Win Vol 4(1) 1-14 53 women outpatients (aged 15-53 yrs) participated in short-term therapy groups for incest survivors. This treatment modality proved to be a powerful stimulus for recovery of previously repressed traumatic memories. A relationship was observed between the age of onset, duration, and degree of violence of the abuse and the extent to which memory of the abuse had been repressed. 74% of Ss were able to validate their memories by obtaining corroborating evidence from other sources. The therapeutic function of recovering and validating traumatic memories is explored in relation to case material. False attribution of suggestibility to explain recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse following extended amnesia. Leavitt, Frank Department of Psychology & Social Sciences, Rush Medical College, Chicago, IL Child Abuse & Neglect 1997, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 265-272 Suggestibility is central to arguments proffered by critics of recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse who believe that memories involving amnesia are false creations by treatment. The present study represents the first direct investigation of suggestibility among patients who report recovered memory. Suggestibility was measured in 44 patients who recovered memories and in 31 patient comparison group without a history of sexual trauma using the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale. Results indicate that patients who recover memories were remarkably less suggestible than the clinical field has been led to believe by advocates of false memory. As a group, they scored low on suggestibility. Recovered Memory patients yielded to suggested prompts an average of 6.7 times per case. This compares to an average of 10.6 in the Psychiatric comparison group. Paradoxically, patients without a history of sex abuse were more at risk for altering memory to suggestive prompts. These findings appreciably challenge advocated theories of suggested memory. Recovered memories of abuse among therapy patients: A national survey. Pope, Kenneth S.; Tabachnick, Barbara G. Independent practice, Norwalk, CT, US Ethics & Behavior 1995 Vol 5(3) 237-248 A survey of 205 female and 173 male psychologists found that 73% of them had had at least 1 patient who claimed to recover previously forgotten memories of childhood sex abuse. There were gender differences regarding patients who claim to have recovered memories of abuse. Patients who are alleged to have sexually abused a child who recovered memories of the abuse after a period of being unable to remember it do not show such differences except that 3 times as many men were reported to have been the object of a civil or criminal complaint on the basis of the recovered memory. Data suggest that when recovered memories seem to implicate male and female patients as perpetrators or victims of childhood sex abuse, therapist's gender is a significant variable only for women patients who recover memories of having been abused. Therapists' theoretical orientation was not relevant. [Note: In this study, the therapists reported 2,452 patients (out of a total of 273,785 whom they had treated over the course of their career) who reported recovering memories of childhood abuse. This represents about 8 or 9 patients out of every 1,000. According to the therapists, about 50% of the the patients who claimed to have recovered the memories had found external validation, a percentage that coincides with that obtained in the Feldman-Summers & Pope, 1994 study.] Recall of childhood trauma: A prospective study of women's memories of child sexual abuse. Williams, Linda Meyer U New Hampshire, Family Research Lab, Durham, US Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology 1994 Dec Vol 62(6) 1167-1176 One hundred twenty-nine women with previously documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked detailed questions about their abuse histories to answer the question "Do people actually forget traumatic events such as child sexual abuse, and if so, how common is such forgetting?" A large proportion of the women (38%) did not recall the abuse that had been reported 17 years earlier. Women who were younger at the time of the abuse and those who were molested by someone they knew were more likely to have no recall of the abuse. The implications for research and practice are discussed. Long periods with no memory of abuse should not be regarded as evidence that the abuse did not occur. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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