New book about false memory syndrome

CDfm

I turned on my car radio today to hear Sean Montcrieff interview the bi-sexual author Meridith Maran talk about her new book "My Lie"

The "it couldnt happen here " in the thread title is taken from another of her articles where she likens repressed/recovered memory allegations of the 80's and 90's to the Witch Trials in Salem and McCarthyism in the US.

Here is a review from the Washington Post

Sunday, September 26, 2010

MY LIE
A True Story of
False Memory
By Meredith Maran
Jossey-Bass. 260 pp. $24.95
One of the more bizarre stories of the 1980s and '90s was the widespread conviction that day-care centers had become hotbeds of sexual abuse, all memory of which the young victims suppressed until prompted by therapists to break down the walls of resistance. A related phenomenon was the one Meredith Maran writes about in "My Lie": accusations of incest against family members, in this case her father, with -- again -- memory of the incidents needing to be awakened by therapy.
Maran had originally taken an interest in child abuse as a journalist. Soon she became fascinated by the McMartin case, in which therapists "used hand puppets and anatomically correct dolls to help the children describe what had happened to them." Reading about this and similar cases caused Maran to fret about her uneasy relationship with her dad: He hadn't just tried to control her life, she came to think; he had abused her sexually. She let him know of her belief via her mother and refused even to speak with him for 10 years. "It is natural that you have periodic doubts of your experience," reassured one of the many books she read on the subject. "But that's because accepting memories is painful, not because you weren't abused."
Yet even so Maran did have doubts, which became stronger the more she looked into the issue. For instance, according to a 2007 news article, "A team of psychiatrists and literary scholars reports that it could not find a single account of repressed memory, fictional or not, before the year 1800." The study team suggested that repressed memory is "a culture-bound syndrome and not a natural process of human memory." In other words, the alleged victims had been coached. Finally, Maran sought out her old therapist, who explained: "There was so much pressure during those years to try and find incest memories in every client. In the therapeutic community in the late 1980s and early 1990s, incest was this cookie-cutter answer to every woman's problems." Fortunately, Maran explains, "When I came to my senses, my father was still alive and relatively well. I still had time to make amends."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/24/AR2010092402260.html

An interesting point she made on Newstalk was that when she raised the issue on Salon.com where she contributes she recieved a lot of hate mail,presumably,for challenging the orthodoxy of a phenomana and theory she had helped promote.

prinz

There were plenty of lawsuits in the US in the last 20 or so years relating to this referred to as the 'recovered memory lawsuits', which were people suing certain mental health 'professionals' who were involved in recovering "forgotten memories", primarily relating to child abuse. A lot of the 'recovered memories' turned out to be false and compensation claims against the therapists etc successful.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/9700/Recovered-Memory.html

It's something which needs to be kept in mind particularly concerning more contemporary allegations.

CDfm

There is a lot of interesting writing on this area coming from the US and Canada which is very refreshing.

Unfortunately, not all allegations are false but what Meridith Meran highlights is that an industry built up around creating false allegations and she got caught up in it. That was the wrong bit.

CDfm

prinz wrote: »

There were plenty of lawsuits in the US in the last 20 or so years relating to this referred to as the 'recovered memory lawsuits', which were people suing certain mental health 'professionals' who were involved in recovering "forgotten memories", primarily relating to child abuse. A lot of the 'recovered memories' turned out to be false and compensation claims against the therapists etc successful.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/9700/Recovered-Memory.html

It's something which needs to be kept in mind particularly concerning more contemporary allegations.

There is a bit more on it with a link to an excerpt from the book on salon.com

http://www.salon.com/books/memoirs/index.html?story=/mwt/excerpt/2010/09/20/my_lie_maran

Both sides of the debate are covered in Jezebel.com and its worth checking the comments

http://jezebel.com/5643068/can-false-memories-of-abuse-help-real-victims

Now I want to stress that these fall into the realm of false allegations in that the abuse did not happen rather than real abuse which should always be investigated/prosecuted IMHO.Its the quality of the investigation and evidence which is an issue.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

CDfm

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I had hoped that the discussion could be wider than meridith marans's book alone but the phenomana and the writings/culture surrounding it and wider developments.

Denerick

Interesting. It should be borne in mind that pyschology is still an emerging science, it is not like general medicine, solutions aren't always diagnosible. Ergo for a shrink its easier to find a traumatic experience to explain certain neuroses. This, I think, underestimates the diversity and innate melancholy of every individual person.

Valmont

There was an interesting thread about this in the psychology forum recently. It's of interest if any of you are wondering about the scientific consensus of the recovered/repressed memory debate.

@ Denerick, psychology may not be a pure science but in terms of its methodology and use of statistical inference, it is as emerged as it could be!

Denerick

Valmont wrote: »

There was an interesting thread about this in the psychology forum recently. It's of interest if any of you are wondering about the scientific consensus of the recovered/repressed memory debate.

@ Denerick, psychology may not be a pure science but in terms of its methodology and use of statistical inference, it is as emerged as it could be!

I just think that the diagnostic route of most pychologists is rather lazy... I like to think every person is dramatically different and their perceptions and consciousness cannot be so easily categorised. For example, schizophrenia is always bandied about but it is only one diagnosis on a spectrum (schizo spectrum disorders) Maybe I'm suffering from literary idealism. After all Salinger wasn't mental, he was just special

CDfm

Denerick wrote: »

Interesting. It should be borne in mind that pyschology is still an emerging science, it is not like general medicine, solutions aren't always diagnosible. Ergo for a shrink its easier to find a traumatic experience to explain certain neuroses. This, I think, underestimates the diversity and innate melancholy of every individual person.

But the difference here was that the therapy planted the ideas and it was widespread.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brain-stains

While Meridith Maran's story makes good copy and she is interesting and funny nonetheless she never confronted her father (neither did her brother who also believed he was a victim), and he was never investigated, charged or went to court. They have reconciled and are living happily ever after.

As a journalist and writer she reported on and advocated it and as she says herself she was there at the outset and was often the only journalist writing on the issue in the USA and the story was that 1 in 3 women had been abused. The theories she promoted had currency and the theories the movement she supported and promoted had currency.

So as a writer and journalist she has "fessed up" but there was no real harm done to her own life. She hasn't even sued her therapist.

Culturally though, the movement, therapists, social workers and health authorities that promoted the theories -we hear very little from them. Ooops.

CDfm

Valmont wrote: »

There was an interesting thread about this in the psychology forum recently. It's of interest if any of you are wondering about the scientific consensus of the recovered/repressed memory debate.

Thanks for that Valmont - if only Meridith Maran had been a boardsie -there are some great links of it too.

donaghs

CDfm wrote: »

So as a writer and journalist she has "fessed up" but there was no real harm done to her own life. She hasn't even sued her therapist.

Depends how you define harm. Her counsellors advised her to cut herself off from her family (parents, siblings, etc), which she did.

Making such a serious (false) allegations against a parent, for so long. That's no good for anyone? Surely?

She said after this process of counselling began, she began to recoil from her husband. Eventually breaking up with him, and then eventually became a lesbian. I presume she kept the kids. No criticising lesbianism, but its apparent to me that her life shifted direction completely one this process of therapy began. How do the kids feel about their parents breakup, no access to an "evil" grandfather - all based on false imagination?

A sad story really.

donaghs

The fact that she also says she was lucky that she got a chance to apologize to her father before he died (or lost his mind to alzheimers), implies there could be a lot of hurt there for both of them. And she also says that many others may not be so lucky.

metrovelvet

Denerick wrote: »

I just think that the diagnostic route of most pychologists is rather lazy... I like to think every person is dramatically different and their perceptions and consciousness cannot be so easily categorised. For example, schizophrenia is always bandied about but it is only one diagnosis on a spectrum (schizo spectrum disorders) Maybe I'm suffering from literary idealism. After all Salinger wasn't mental, he was just special

I started a thread on the psychology forum about diagnosis and paradigm and if a person [client/patient] can trapped into a destiny by this and how this can affect the potential for change.

CDfm

She likens it to the "Salems Witch Trials" in her magazine writings and uses the phrase "it couldn't happen here".

She is also at pains to say that she is a rational person and not delusional.

I made a good friend who is a lesbian thru my interest in mens issues and who is fond of telling me that things for me which are new are "sure I could have told you that "for her and her friends are old hat and the info and data have been around for years.

So us heterosexuals may learn a bit from books like this.

avidreader

I read her book. She presents blurbs about memory from biased sources in her book, but scientific sources have proven that people can repressed traumatic events and remember them years later. Many of these memories have been corroborated. And she never really had any actual detailed memories.

Some people believe that many of the crimes of the 80's and 90's did occur and that there was no "hysteria." Her comparing a modern event to "witch hunts" is a propaganda technique.


for more information on memory:

http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/

http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/suggestedrefs.html

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/index.html

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/tm/tm.html

http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Recovered_Memories

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/docs/ShanleyBrief.pdf

http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/abuse/a/cooroborate.htm

for information on a different view of the child abuse cases of the 80's and 90's (from the perspectives of those abused)


http://eassurvey.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/the-mcmartin-preschool-case-what-really-happened-and-the-coverup/

http://eassurvey.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/day-care-and-child-abuse-cases/

avidreader

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CDfm

avidreader wrote: »

I read her book. She presents blurbs about memory from biased sources in her book, but scientific sources have proven that people can repressed traumatic events and remember them years later. Many of these memories have been corroborated. And she never really had any actual detailed memories.

Some people believe that many of the crimes of the 80's and 90's did occur and that there was no "hysteria." Her comparing a modern event to "witch hunts" is a propaganda technique.

But avidreader Meridith Meran claims to have been the initial journalist covering this syndrome before anyone else, and, she claims that both herself and her brother experienced falsely recovered memories.

So while it is ok to say that in some cases these events have been corroborated and hers were not, how can you then justify the use of this technique.

What she is saying essentially was that there was no evidence of abuse to start with and that the explanation suggested to her for her unhappiness was that sexual abuse had occured and her mind dreamt up the memories to fit the diagnoses.It was used when it had no basis in fact.

That does not take away from real abuse victims in any way whose cases are corroborated , it means that, uncorroborated abuse allegations will be treated with more scepticism as a result of the techniques used.

So because of this perpetrators will go free and unpunished.

That is not Meridith Meran's fault as all she is doing is relating her experiences and maybe putting forward that the proffessionals who used these techniques were at best inept or at the opposite end charlatans.

How are we to know. What we know is that doubt exists and that you have two competing theories.

You might say that the guilty will go free at one end but at the opposite end the innocent will also go free.

CDfm

Here is a False Memory Syndrome Resourse on line that gives the opposing view and has links of it

http://www.fmsfonline.org/

http://www.fmsfonline.org/retract1.html

Here is an extract from the Guardian from earlier this month where she recounts breaking of relationships with her father

You're wrong about my kids," I said. "You're wrong about me.""You never could stand to hear the truth about yourself," he said. "That's why you surround yourself with weak-minded people who don't question you. I'm the only one who knows the real you."
"Don't ever call me again." I slammed down the phone.
I joined a counselling group for incest survivors and read The Courage To Heal, a new book that was a bible for the recovered-memory movement and went on to sell 2m copies. It was full of personal stories, checklists, advice on how and when to reveal the truth. Now it was time to tell my family.
I asked my brother to meet me for dinner.
"I'm pretty sure Dad molested me," I said.
I pulled out a list – "What Makes Me Think I Was Molested" – and read it to him, watching him wrestle with what I was saying. "I know this kind of thing happens," he said. "I just never thought… "


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/09/meredith-maran-father-abuse-false-memory

She references a book -the Courage to Heal which promotes the theory and has said elsewhere that practitioners estimated that 1 in 3 women in the USA fell into this category.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Courage-Heal-Survivors-%2522Honoring-Backlash%2522/dp/0060950668/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285925494&sr=1-4

Murphy8

This book proves something--I'm just not sure what. The author writes "My incest nightmares weren't fantasies. They were memories (p. 96). She had a few vague memories which might suggest some type of abuse.

Then she says in the prologue she falsely accused her father of molesting her. And reviewers for major publications conclude: She falsely accused her father of molesting her. Did she know that not many would read her book?

avidreader

"So while it is ok to say that in some cases these events have been corroborated and hers were not, how can you then justify the use of this technique."

There is no technique used to recover real repressed memories. Many people remember their trauma when they are safe and away from their perpetrators, or in a safe place away from trauma situations (like soldiers or accident victims).

She never had any real memories. She claims she had dreams she interpreted. I think it is her fault that she did this.

"You might say that the guilty will go free at one end but at the opposite end the innocent will also go free."

And obviously this is wrong. The guilty shouldn't go free to abuse more children. Her book does not accurately portray the field, the era or the memory debate. It portrays the false memory proponents' side.

"Here is a False Memory Syndrome Resourse on line"

The FMSF has been heavily critiqued.

Members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation have been critiqued for misrepresenting data and for their possible reasons for having created the idea of the syndrome.



In reply to a TV documentary about FMS, William Freyd, (Pamela Freyd's (one of the founders of the FMSF) step brother and sister-in-law) wrote "The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape. There is no such thing as a False Memory Syndrome." "In addition, Peter Freyd's own mother (who is also Pamela's step-mother) and his only sibling, a brother, were also estranged from Pamela and Peter. It should be noted that these family members support Jennifer's side of the story."


A co-founder of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Ralph Underwager, has also had several critiques written about him. In an interview in Amsterdam in June 1991 by “Paidika,” Editor-in-Chief, Joseph Geraci, Underwager replied to the question "Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individuals?" with "Certainly it is responsible. What I have been struck by as I have come to know more about and understand people who choose paedophilia is that they let themselves be too much defined by other people. That is usually an essentially negative definition. Paedophiles spend a lot of time and energy defending their choice. I don’t think that a paedophile needs to do that. Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God’s will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A paedophile can say: “This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I’ve made."
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager2.html



In a transcription of the TV show Witness for Mr. Bubbles from “Australia 60 Minutes,” Channel Nine Network (Aired on August 5, 1990 in Australia), researcher Anna Salter stated that Underwager "isn’t accurate. That what he says in court does not necessarily fairly represent the literature." That he frequently distorts facts and he sometimes he quotes specific studies, and he’s frequently wrong about what the studies say."
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/MrBubbles.html


a few references for the above:
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/dallam/6.html
http://vlex.com/vid/underwager-hollida-wakefield-salter-36092881

from
http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=False_Memory_Syndrome

The Courage to Heal helped millions of people and millions of survivors of child abuse in their recoveries. Though it is incorrect to use a checklist to conclusively prove any diagnosis, checklists are used in all medical fields to help find and decide on diagnoses.

And since she is a retractor, how do we know when she is telling the truth? She could be confused and wrong now.

CDfm

I really do not know avidreader.

I went to a boarding school and the guy that sat behind me in class in 5th year was sexually abused by a member of staff and commited suicide. The staff member was jailed for abusing someone else. So I am not excusing anyone here.

Meridith Meran is a writer and she promoted the theory of repressed memory syndrome for years and was its first advocate in the press. In other words, she bought into the theory and was convinced by it and "sold the idea" to her readers.

What is being criticised here is not real abuse, but made up abuse where sexual abuse that never happened was being given as an explanation to patients for all manner of conditions that were unrelated conditions. So for example, a person with anorexia nervosa could have been diagnosed as an abuse victim and encouraged to recover memories. You had survivor groups/group therapy based on it.The theory being -you have problems and your life is sh*** so you were abused by a paedophile.

Specific criticisms leveled at the book The Courage to Heal is that it was wrong and the practioners that used it as a method were not playing ethically http://www.stopbadtherapy.com/courage/intro.shtml.

Ellen Bass & Laura Davis who wrote the book are not qualified psychologists so the claims they made were untested.

The book sold 2 million copies in the USA alone which would have put a copy in 1 in every 30 households. So it was very very popular. Even Oprah claimed to have been abused. It was a very very popular book.

So the book "the Courage to Heal" is criticised for many reasons.

That is not saying that real abuse did not occur to some people, as that would be silly and you and I both know it has, and that the techniques used would not be effective for real abuse survivors to cope with abuse.

What happened here was that the methods were used on people who had no history of abuse and were vulnerable.

When you have abuse it is not often corroborated making it difficult to prosecute at the best of times. So you do not get convictions in court as it is not best evidence. The nature of the crime makes it very difficult to collect evidence that will result in a conviction anyway.

I do not know but what is being said the that the writers and practioners took that which was effective in real abuse cases and packaged it for mass consumption.

avidreader

Oprah was abused as a child and appeared to have a difficult childhood.

Oprah biography

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/win0bio-1
"Her world changed for the worse at age six, when she was sent to Milwaukee to live with her mother, who had found work as a housemaid. In the long days when her mother was absent from their inner city apartment, young Oprah was repeatedly molested by male relatives and another visitor. The abuse, which lasted from the ages of nine to 13, was emotionally devastating. When she tried to run away, she was sent to a juvenile detention home, only to be denied admission because all the beds were filled. At 14, she was out of the house and on her own. By her own account, she was sexually promiscuous as a teenager."


The Stop Bad Therapy site states: "The Courage to Heal is the most harmful work of slander, ignorance, and lies since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The Malleus Maleficarum.

This is extremely strong language, comparing the book to an antisemitic propaganda book and another propaganda book on witches. The page in my opinion lacks credibility due to its extremist positions and strong language.

The Courage to Heal became popular because it came at a time when people were looking for help with child abuse issues and there were little supports available.

I am not sure the statements made about Maran's claims to be the first advocate of recovered memory. There were many clinicians in the field working with PTSD in soldiers long before this and with dissociation in the 1970's.

In my opinion, her book misrepresents the research in the field and the facts about the child abuse cases that occurred at that time. This lack of balance harms those that were abused as children that need support, as it may promote a culture of disbelief for those that were abused.

CDfm

avidreader wrote: »

Oprah was abused as a child and appeared to have a difficult childhood.

Oprah biography.......

I think the suggestion about Oprah is that Meran suggests that it is a bit of a spin.

The Stop Bad Therapy site states: "The Courage to Heal is the most harmful work of slander, ignorance, and lies since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The Malleus Maleficarum....This is extremely strong language, comparing the book to an antisemitic propaganda book and another propaganda book on witches. The page in my opinion lacks credibility due to its extremist positions and strong language.

It may be extreme but it is in the context that the book and therapy was used as a panacea by therapists where there was no abuse. So the book preached the solution of cutting off links with family.

The Courage to Heal became popular because it came at a time when people were looking for help with child abuse issues and there were little supports available.

It may be of use where there is abuse and I do not know enough about its effectiveness there. Where there is no abuse it has no place.

I am not sure the statements made about Maran's claims to be the first advocate of recovered memory. There were many clinicians in the field working with PTSD in soldiers long before this and with dissociation in the 1970's.

She claims that she covered the issue as a journalist and was the first mainstream journalist to do so.

It is not the issue of PTSD in soldiers that is being discussed but the use of the Courage to Heal where there was no abuse with already vulnerable people.

A criticism levied against the book it that it takes research from different areas and untested in abuse and applied it to that area. Bear in mind the authors do not have qualifications in psychiatry or psychology.

In my opinion, her book misrepresents the research in the field and the facts about the child abuse cases that occurred at that time. This lack of balance harms those that were abused as children that need support, as it may promote a culture of disbelief for those that were abused.

I accept your point of view -but maybe Meran has a point when it comes to its general use where abuse does not exist.

avidreader

"I think the suggestion about Oprah is that Meran suggests that it is a bit of a spin."

I don't see how the Oprah bio above could be spin. It appeared to be very objective and straight forward.

"It may be extreme but it is in the context that the book and therapy was used as a panacea by therapists where there was no abuse. So the book preached the solution of cutting off links with family."

My point was that the bad therapy article appeared to have limited objectivity due to the extreme language and comparisons it used. Most people used The Courage to Heal book and therapy sessions to heal. If there was any use of either as a "panacea" this was minimal. A few examples are blown way out of proportion to make this look like more than it is. And sometimes it is necessary to cut off familial ties if a family is very dysfunctional or dangerous to be around. Not all families are healthy or safe.

CDfm

avidreader wrote: »

My point was that the bad therapy article appeared to have limited objectivity due to the extreme language and comparisons it used. Most people used The Courage to Heal book and therapy sessions to heal. If there was any use of either as a "panacea" this was minimal. A few examples are blown way out of proportion to make this look like more than it is. And sometimes it is necessary to cut off familial ties if a family is very dysfunctional or dangerous to be around. Not all families are healthy or safe.

I don't know avidreader but what I do know is that there is a lot of controversy about it between therapists/groups on the one hand and clinical psychologists on the other.

The fallability of memory, imagination and implanting/suggesting memories are part of this.

The main criticism is though that this became the central belief of a movement and a "feminist" issue and that belief in it is/was cultlike.

Here are some less inflamatory links. You will see that a lot of the academic publications are from the 1990's

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sch/beliefs/b-memory.htm

This review of another book The Myth of Repressed Memory captures the issue. This work by Elisabeth Loftus pitches clinical psychologists against therapists

http://www.ishkbooks.com/myth_of_repressed_memory.pdf

So Meran's book is not covering any new ground and falses into the poacher turned gamekeeper genre.

PopUp

Oprah gave birth to a stillborn child at the age of fourteen so I'm not sure how anyone could say she's lying about being abused. What is Meran's evidence for saying it's 'spin'?

CDfm

PopUp wrote: »

Oprah gave birth to a stillborn child at the age of fourteen so I'm not sure how anyone could say she's lying about being abused. What is Meran's evidence for saying it's 'spin'?

I think you are missing the point here -Meran says it was a fashionable thing to be seen as an abuse survivor/victim.

Its at that level Meran pitches the idea.

It is an emotive subject and that is why it works.

EDIT -Some sourses say Winfrey manipulates her media image including the stories of abuse

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/pulling_back_the_curtain_on_oprah_o8pmz6I4T3lZ8san4GHvlN

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/oprah-winfrey-lied-about-poverty-sexual-ab/605665/

Of course, we have no way of knowing if Winfrey is lying and child abuse is awful but lying about being abused if you have not been is also awful.

avidreader

One of the biggest problems with the theory of implanting "false" memories of abuse is that trauma memories are stored differently than regular memories.
http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/vanderk2.php

The studies (like Loftus') of memory manipulation are about regular memory, not traumatic memory. In other words, this research is misapplied to traumatic memory.

Loftus critiques:
http://users.owt.com/crook/memory/
http://www.kspope.com/memory/memory.php
http://www.rememberingdangerously.com/
http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/#el

One could say that the false memory movement due to its power in the media may influence people to not tell their stories and to doubt them.
.

The sources above critiquing Oprah's accounts of her childhood and child abuse come from a Kitty Kelly book. She has been critiqued for accuracy, etc.


Kitty Kelley critiques:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,314100,00.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fact-or-fiction-the-incredible-world-of-kitty-kelley-428539.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article754857.ece
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/044660.php


"Meran says it was a fashionable thing to be seen as an abuse survivor/victim."

I don't think this has ever been fashionable. Most people are embarrassed and afraid to discuss this publicly or privately, even though it is the perpetrator's fault.

Books like "The Courage to Heal" gave child abuse survivors the courage to speak up and discuss their stories and gave publicity to help stop child abuse from occurring.

CDfm

avidreader wrote: »

One of the biggest problems with the theory of implanting "false" memories of abuse is that trauma memories are stored differently than regular memories.
http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/vanderk2.php

The studies (like Loftus') of memory manipulation are about regular memory, not traumatic memory. In other words, this research is misapplied to traumatic memory.

Someone else posted this link http://www.skepdic.com/repress.html

The Royal College of Psychiatrists in Britain has officially banned its members from using therapies designed to recover repressed memories of childhood abuse. The British Psychological Society, on the other hand, does not ban its members from such therapy, but in a 1995 report urged them to "avoid drawing premature conclusions about memories recovered during therapy." The report noted that a patient's recovered memory may be metaphorical or emanate from dreams or fantasies. The report also denied that there is any evidence suggesting that therapists are widely creating false memories of abuse in their patients, a charge levied by members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

I am not a psychiatrist but .......if the British Psychiatrist Association have problems with the technique .

I really don't care about Kitty Kelley at all but the sourses Kelley quotes are Winfreys Dad and cousin. So when it is applied to Oprah the lady is so media savvy. Oprah gave us Dr Phil.

Kitty Kelley is hardly going to get any Pulzitzer Prize but she has looked thru spins and dug up dirt in the past. Except here she seems to have unearthed nice stuff.


.

Books like "The Courage to Heal" gave child abuse survivors the courage to speak up and discuss their stories and gave publicity to help stop child abuse from occurring.

They may have done but the jury is still out on it but I have misgivings about the book and the movement.

No right minded person is going to object to a system that either helps victims of abuse or helps to convict/identify abusers.

LIke, if I was on a jury and false memory came up I would err on the side of caution. I am someone who believes there is no punishment severe enough for a child abuser.

avidreader

The problem with the arguments that repressed memories are not accurate, are rare or do not exist crumble when the evidence from the web pages I have previously posted are read. The web pages below clearly show that many recovered memories have been corroborated.

http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/
"[FONT=verdana,ARIAL,sans-serif][SIZE=-1]At least 10% of people sexually abused in childhood[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=verdana,ARIAL,sans-serif][SIZE=-1]will have periods of complete amnesia for their abuse,[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,ARIAL,sans-serif][SIZE=-1] followed by experiences of delayed recall."[/SIZE][/FONT]


[FONT=verdana,ARIAL,sans-serif][SIZE=-1]http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Recovered_Memories#Corroboration_rates[/SIZE][/FONT]
Many studies show high corroboration rates for recovered memories of traumatic events. These rates vary from 50 - 75%, 64%, 77%, 50%, 75%, 68%, 47%, and 70%.


http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/index.html
101 corroborated cases of recovered memory



I have presented several sources showing that Kelley is questionable as an accurate source of information.



The book "The Courage to Heal" has helped thousands and possible millions of child abuse survivors. And Oprah has helped support many victims of child abuse.