Been following a thread on another board but I'd like to pick everyones brains about this.
What do people know and think about false memory syndrome? Anyone have any direct experience with it. It occurs when a person with no recollection of sexual abuse visits a therapist, and in the course of treatment, 'remembers' memories of sexual abuse which have been 'repressed' for years.

About 15 yrs ago my older sister had such an experience and concluded it was someone in our family who abused her as a child. She completely cut off all relations with the family and forbid her 5 children from seeing their grandparents or aunts and uncles. Her children are now grown with families of their own and their grandparents were forbidden from attending their wedding and have never met their great grandchildren.

I'm curious if other people on the board have had experience with this? It was all the rage about 15 years ago but new cases have dwindled in the past few years because of the efforts of the False Memory Foundation and some huge financial awards against therapists who planted the memories. Much of the movement was spurred by the book called The Courage to Heal. After a few years of the issue making the rounds of feminist circles, evangelicals took up the practice and expanded it even further.

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1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
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The biggest awards in the suits were against an establishment here in Houston called Spring Shadows Medical Center, a mental health facility taken over by these nuts. It also seemed to go hand in hand with Satanic cult theories. This staff of this particular institution pretty much decided that anyone who walked in their doors were suffering from "repressed memory syndrome". They ruined hundreds of lives and broke up hundreds of families, and got sued into penury, and resulted in a number of wrongfull convictions of innocent fathers for child molestation that an extremely embarassed Sate of Texas had to reverse convictions on. The State ended up putting a few of the therapists themselves in jail.

There is little science behind these theories - they did not orginate in psychiatry, but in pop and cult psychology circles. The reason why you see it practiced no more is because it has been sued out of existance - anyone who came near it got ruined - because the opinion of actual scientists is the theory itself is total bunk and the lawyers used their testimony to establish that fact in court. Generally the people who believe they are victims of a "repressed memory" are the same type of people who can convince themselves they were abducted by aliens. They have a deep need to have some bad actors in their lives to blame for their unhappiness. People have memory avoidance of traumatic events but rarely, if ever complete repression. Think about it - millions of years of evolution has resulted in an animal with poor eyesight, poor sense of smell and puny strength compared with the other large animals on the planet becoming the dominate creature. Why? One of the main reasons is we remember things that we should avoid because we have a clear memory of the trauma associated with it. Repressing a traumatic memory just isn't human. You may see it in some rare cases among the severely mentally ill, but that is about it, and there is even great debate on that.

This is essentially based in whack-job people with whacked out theories that have now been totally discredited, mostly psychologists who graduated with paper-or-plastic diplomas and tended to be Pentecostal. The original theories all tied Satan Worship in - the abuser always was part of a Satanic clan that did nasty things to kids. When you consider this as a foundation for this "theory" you can see why it went the way of asbestos. Beware of gallons of hogwash on the subject in its last refuge, Internet forums and chat rooms.

http://www.skeptic.com/02.3.hochman-fms.html

Hi Kerry,

I had a family member during the same time period go through the same B.S. Interestingly the person acused had no prior history, was around all kinds of kids in the family who trusted them including myself. The acuser was a now known insecure chronic lier. The problem was that no one knew that at the time and up until recently the person's relationship was tarneshed beyond reproach.

What I timely thread I am studying this for a final tomarrow...
The section in my book titled; Schemas and Memory Distortions.

Apparently we form a schema about our environment what belongs in an office for example and this can cause us to fill in the blanks of a memory.

Misinformation effect-a memory-distortion phenomenon in which a person's existing memories can be altered if the person is exposed to misleading information.

cryptomnesia-a memory distortion in which a seemingly "new," or "original," memory is actually based on an unrecalled precious memory.

It seems like depending on the words used people can be sudjested into thinking they have a memory of something.

Also flashbulb memories can have great percentage of errors that the people would swear really happend.

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Yes, my sister is a Pentecostal and it is connected with Satanism. She believes my grandfather (long dead--died in about 1965) who was a coal miner in South Wales and a part-time Pentecostal minister, was secretly a Druid priest who, along with a cadre of other Druid priests, used to secretly have ritual sex with children, including her.
In this instance, I don't think it is a question of lying, although it is quite clear to me that what she claims is not true, but a remarkable ability to believe in the incredible. She also believes her own son was raped at 3 yrs old by a babysitter who was never prosecuted because he was connected with the local mafia who had the police chief under his thumb.

It seems to me that what happened is that with the Courage to Heal, the idea began in a segment of the population (left wing feminists) with a reason to think about the victimization of women. It didn't last long there because the stories are too incredible, and there is a reasonable level of critical thought in that population, but the practice migrated over into the religious part of the population predisposed to accept incredible stories where it is actually still alive but carefully circumscribed to avoid prosecution.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Isn’t it the case that a) folks who are disposed to delusions and are seeking answers are simply disposed to delusions and seeking answers

and b) a therapist will guide you where you think you wanna go, and provide reassurance that you are going in the direction you seek...

All kinda like a self-evading incrimination.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

I have a friend who has "recovered " memory of sex abuse by her brother. The entire family denies it ever happened, which makes them all accomplices. Really wierd. She went on to get her PhD in psych--wouldn't you know. Now she is working, " helping" other people who are messd up.
She has a good heart for most people, but the idea of her helping other is very scary.
ps. she is not pentecostal, but otherwise fits KV's profile. ( she is baptist)

Well, I certainly would not want to absolve patients for responsibility in the matter, but they went to a therapist to begin with because they have problems.
There are therapists and teachers of therapists out there (Dan Allender is an example) who encourage their students and patients to interpret a vast array of psychological difficulties as effects of sexual abuse.

I believe the problem lies in the arena of the ethics of belief. To what extent is it correct to rely on a 'recovered memory' to interpret past events without independent verification of some kind, when the memory implicates individuals in criminal acts? I believe it is a moral failing on the part of the patient and the therapist to believe and act on such memories without some kind of verification.

Of course, since most of the patients and therapists routinely believe in miracles and gods without verification, my opinion will carry virtually no weight in their world.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Isn't this what the McMartin (sic) Daycare trial was all about? I remember accusations about children being taken through a tunnel to secret chambers were satanic orgies were held etc. I belived they were aquitted, but ruined by the trial.

I'm curious, since it is a friend, have you ever engaged her in conversation about the topic? Do you know how she is able to convince herself why they are true?

When my sister first began her journey down this road, her therapist had told her that since she did not have a lot of memories of childhood, this was proof she had been sexually abused. She talked to me about how much I remembered about my childhood, and I tried to convince her she just had a bad memory and I had a better memory. Obviously I was not succcesful and she went on to 'recover' her memories. But my sister did seriously believe that minimal childhood memories were proof of abuse.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

So much of therapy is based in Freud’s methodology and selection of important subjects. Repressed sexual issues are an easy target. Especially easy when filling in the blanks.

Were one to go to a therapist who basis their treatment in terms of existentialism (as example), they’d guide towards a different answer and employ a different methodology than a Freudian....but may not so easily or quickly come to any kind of conclusion.

A patient wants answers, they probably want to feel good, insurance demands quick and often pressured solutions. Neither is critical about a "real" basis...............if there is one.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Slightly different, in McMartin it was the prosecuters and the people from child protective services (or whatever the CA equivilent is) suggesting to the kids all these things.

They would be asked a question and when they didn't give the right answer re asked until they did.

Did he touch you? No

Are you sure, all your friends say he did?

You want to help your friends don't you?

and on and on until they got the answers they were looking for.
kids are pretty open to suggestion and manipulation and they went along after a while. There was a good documentary about these kids 20 years later. They are pretty screwed up.

Just to clarify, I am not saying all practioners are Pentecostal, I am saying this is where the roots of this theory originated. Your friend should be aware that lawyers know the easy financial windfalls that are possible by suing people like her, and they regard getting a client suing a therapists engaged in RMS as the equivalent of finding a winning lottery ticket.

Studies on false memory implantation:

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/AmerPsychAward+ArticlePDF03%20(2).pdf

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

There is an actual letter written to Salon.com's psyche help column up on their site right now that you may find very interesting. I would post it, but it is too long. Go to Salon.com. you have to watch a commercial to view it, then look half way down for the "Letters" section. Really interesting letter, and I still am puzzling over it. Seems a little too slick and too convenient in places, but seems to offer great support for RMS.