D'Entremont, John, Mangled Memories;
Is sex so uniquely powerful that people repress the memory of
it?
The Guide, November 2002 - With Editor's
Note with References.
[... I]n the ongoing controversy over real and imagined sexual missteps by
Catholic clergymen, repressed-memory issues are inescapably present. They
figured in the early-'90s wave of cases that included the high-profile
prosecution of ex-priest James Porter, who admits to sexual contact with dozens
of children in the 1960s and early '70s -- but not the hundreds indicated by the
recovered-memory testimony of scores of his alleged victims. [...]
A majority of mental-health professionals believe that in most -- perhaps all
-- cases of supposed recovered memory, the shards of information bobbing to the
surface are not recollections of actual events, but fantasies shaped by external
stimuli -- usually in therapy, where therapist and patient can become coauthors
of fictional narratives masquerading as fact.
D'Entremont, John, Recovered memory's high priestesses;
The Guide, November 2002
The single most destructive text of the survivor movement is
The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Sexual Abuse (1988)
by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.
Furedi, Frank,
History-as-Therapy;
In an era when suffering is celebrated and
we all must ‘Believe the Victim’, is it any wonder people make up
wild stories about wolves and Nazis? Spiked
Online, 5 March 2008
[...] In the current cultural climate, it is inevitable that abuse memoirs
have a tendency to stretch the boundary between fact and fiction.
Readers and critics usually feel awkward and inhibited about questioning
the veracity of such memoirs. Scepticism is discouraged in an era built
upon the therapeutic ethos ‘Believe the child’, ‘Believe the
patient’, ‘Believe the abused’ – today, such invocations are
used to sacralise the claims of victims. [...]
Through the therapeutic manipulation of memory, the trauma is lived and relived,
guaranteeing the individual the status of a morally interesting victim-for-life.
The Guide, Clearer Memory,
Editorial from The Guide,
November 2002
All memories exist in a context. When that context is warped by beliefs that
sex itself -- especially gay sex -- is fundamentally wicked, memories are
inevitably distorted. Our struggle as gay people has always been to correct that
distortion, to see sex more clearly, and to share with a troubled world a less
fearful vision of our sexual present, future ... and past.
Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Kirsch, I., Chaves, J. F.,
Sarbin, Th. R., Ganaway, G. K. & Powell, R. A.: Dissociative
Identity Disorder and the Socio-cognitive Model: Recalling the Lessons
of the Past; Psychological Bulletin, 1999, 125-5, 507-523.
In a recent article in this journal, D. H. Gleaves (1996) criticized the
socio-cognitive model (SCM; N. P. Spanos, 1994) of dissociative identity
disorder (DID) and argued in favor of a posttraumatic model (PTM) in which DID
is conceptualized as a consequence of childhood abuse and other traumatic
events. The present authors demonstrate that
 |
(a) many of Gleaves's arguments were predicated on misunderstandings of the SCM, |
|
(b) scrutiny of the evidence regarding the psychopathology and assessment of DID raises questions concerning the PTM's conceptual and empirical underpinnings, |
|
(c) the treatment literature suggests that iatrogenic factors play an important role in the etiology of DID, and |
|
(d) the evidence linking child abuse to DID is more problematic than implied by Gleaves. |
The present authors conclude that Gleaves's analysis underemphasized the cultural manifestations of multiple role enactments and that the history of DID imparts a valuable lesson to contemporary psychotherapists.
Loftus, Elisabeth F., Creating
False memories; Scientific American, September 1997, vol 277, p 70-75.
Researchers are showing how suggestion and imagination can be used to create
"memories" of events that did not actually occur.
Loftus, Elisabeth,
The FMS (False Memory Syndrome) Foundation Newsletter of July/August 2001,
10/4, gives the text of a speech by memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus, who
helped discredit recovered memories. Loftus
received an award from the American Psychological Society.
|
first an introduction by a newsletter editor, |
|
then a news flash about Loftus winning the award, |
|
then Loftus's acceptance speech. |
About
Loftus, Elisabeth's new research:
Study:
False Memories Easily Implanted; By THE AP, February 17, 2003
The research demonstrates that police interrogators and people investigating
sexual-abuse allegations must be careful not to plant suggestions into their
subjects, said University of California-Irvine psychologist Elizabeth Loftus.
She presented preliminary results of recent false memory experiments Sunday at
the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
About
Palmer, Ken: Biological
Basis for False Memories Revealed; Did you really see that? An image
from a test for false memories developed by Ken Paller and colleagues of
Northwestern University.
It's easy enough to forget something that happened. It's also possible to
remember something that didn't happen.
Wilson, Amy, War
& remembrance - Controversy is a
constant for memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus, newly installed at UCI. The
Orange County Register, November 3, 2002 - With References
to more of Loftus' work.
Academics can debate anything. It's healthy. It's what, among other
things, they are paid to do.
They can also go to war. Which is something different altogether.
War has casualties. It also produces gladiators.
Elizabeth Loftus is a cognitive psychologist whose research into how memory
works is so deep and so wide and so highly regarded that the April issue of The
Review of General Psychology ranked her 58th among the top 100 psychologists of
the 20th century. She is the highest-ranking woman on the list. She is also one
of the 25 psychologists most often cited in psychology textbooks. She is also
controversial.
Wypijewski,, Joann, Priest
Abuse and Recovered Memory; The Passion of Paul Shanley; in:
September/October, 2004, issue of Legal Affairs.
The accusations against Shanley rely on a psychological theory called
dissociated or repressed memory. [...] One of Ford's first therapists, Robert
Azrak, testified in a deposition that "there is no scientific basis"
for the type of recovered memories described in this case.