The Myth of Repressed Memory : False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse

Rating:
Summary: Reader beware
Review: Beware of this book. Loftus is not a trauma expert. If she were, she would acknowledge that normal memory and traumatic memory are different creatures; they work differently and involve different areas of the brain. As a fellow lawyer, I am disquieted by the one-sided, misguided, and truly heavy-handed application of information from the irrelevant fields of ordinary memory and eyewitness testimony. The capacity is too great to hurt people already hurt and to harm the causes of law, jurisprudence, and justice.

Every lawyer must be skeptical about all evidence, and one must be on guard for therapeutic contamination. (Victims want to be secure in their memories, too. They don't want inept therapists misleading them.) Loftus is right to point out obvious dangers. This book, however, verges on zealotry in not factoring in the venerable body of reliable study on post-traumatic amnesias. One wonders why. Don't read this book without reading work by acknowledged traumatic memory experts.

Rating:
Summary: A book for defense lawyers, not for therapists.
Review: Dr. Loftus and Ms. Ketcham make many good points about a few notorious cases where people have been convicted of criminal offenses based solely on testimony of "memories" that have suddenly been "recovered" after years or decades. Some of these cases involve accounts outlandish and bizarre events like cannibalism and widespread cult ritual abuse. Others arise from misguided psychotherapy techniques, at least as described by the authors. Unfortunately, the authors appear to argue from these extreme cases that =any= memory that surfaces after a long period of repression, suppression or otherwise being "forgotten" must be false. Dr. Loftus recounts her own experience of recovering memories and later learning that they were inaccurate. From this, she concludes that any recollection of distant events is inherently unreliable.The authors spend most of the book denouncing so-called "repressed memories," saying that there is no demonstrated physiological mechanism for the phenomenon. Yet at one point they describe the well-known phenomenon of traumatic amnesia, which has a widely accepted physiological model. Traumatic amnesia, as described by these authors and others, would appear to account for the "repressed memory" phenomenon that is denounced in this book. Being a lawyer, I recognize that Dr. Loftus's book will serve to raise "reasonable doubts" in laymen's minds about the accuracy of recovered memories. That's all a defense lawyer has to do: to blow smoke without proving a thing. I believe a psychologist should aim a bit higher, especially when dealing with a widespread phenomenon like childhood sexual abuse.

Rating:
Summary: Reader beware
Review: Dr. Loftus, et. al., as a participant in the false memory hysteria, has managed to combine initially poor research on a totally different topic to support her beliefs in memory in trauma. She utilizes adult eyewitness testimony (using poor, non-valid studies) and blithely applies it to childhood memory without any consideration of childhood developmental, dissociative and traumatic issues, and without having any experience in clinical practice (either adult or child)!! This is not only a bad book. This is a dangerously manipulative, unethical and destructive book. There are superlative works written about the limits and realities of memory in trauma. Try Lenore Terr, MD, any of her books, but especially "Too Scared To Cry. and Unchained Memories" and get an even handed view of the role of memory in traumatic events.

Rating:
Summary: "False Memories" discounts the experiences of thousands
Review: If "false memories" of childhood sexual abuse are truly false, then why aren't people having false memories en masse about other traumatic events in their lives, such as being beaten up, or having car accidents? This book obviously serves to perpetuate the taboo our culture has around the subject of childhood sexual abuse. This book is nothing but a business card Loftis uses to hand out to defense attorneys with budgets large enough to pay for her testimony.

If you want to know how trauma affects memory, try reading Traumatic Experience and the Brain by Dave Zeigler, Ph.D.

Rating:
Summary: Myth of Repressed Memory
Review: Loftus is a witness for the defense for parents accused of abuse by adult children. There is well established research which defines two types of memory. Trauma memory is quite different than the memory that Loftus discusses here. Dismissing repression as invalid, Loftus overlooks concrete evidence of dissociation, repression and later remembrance of traumatic abuse. An abused child can't deal with the trauma and they cope by shutting down (dissociating) and then forgetting (repression). This is survival for children. As adults in safe environments, those children are faced with what their subconscious always has remembered. These repressed memories are not always exact and precise, but they are corroborated in some cases. As an abused child, I know about repression. Its a coping device. We repress by drinking and drugging. People have developed post-traumatic stress disorder from abuse they don't "remember" the specifics of. Loftus has her slant and she's entitled to it. There are always opposite sides of any fence.

Rating:
Summary: Authoritative, courageous, convincing
Review: Loftus is an expert on memory, a research psychologist who has spent a lifetime studying memory and how it works. She has often appeared as an expert witness in repressed memory cases including the George Franklin case in San Mateo County in 1990. The main point she and co-author Ketcham make in this calm and reasoned book is that so-called repressed memory is a fraud and its use by clinicians and the courts to imprison people is a tragedy and a disgrace.

Needless to say the repressed memory industry was not pleased with this finding. Because she told the truth, they tried to brand Dr. Loftus as a traitor to the feminist cause. Industry members who had been making a nice living conjuring up repressed memories went on the attack, but she held her ground. What is amazing in this book is how well the authors maintain a balanced and fair attitude in the midst of such attacks. Loftus even met with Ellen Bass, co-author of the infamous The Courage To Heal (rightly dubbed The Courage to Hate by its victims) and managed to keep an even keel and a civil tongue.

Loftus makes it clear that human memories are reconstructions. They are not accurate in a scientific sense, nor meant to be. Memories are reconstructions because what the tribal mind wants is conformity to what is believed by the tribe now. So human memories are intermittently reconstructed to conform to the "truth" as the individual under the influence of the tribe sees it at present. What happened years ago is important to the tribe only as it connects to the present, and it is usually the political present that is important. Therefore memories need not be factually accurate; it is far more important that they be politically correct. To make them politically correct they must be malleable since the political wisdom changes over time.

The idea of "repressed" memories fits into this scenario wonderfully. The memory is said to be "repressed" until such time as it is politically necessary to retrieve it and then it is voodooed up and molded to fit the current power politics. It's like the rewriting of history in Orwell's 1984, or medieval trials by fire or water. Through the suggestive and coercive power of therapists (quasi-priests), memories are rewritten to suit the needs of the therapists, and alas, sometimes the needs of a district attorney bent on furthering his or her career at any price. (Janet Reno in her Dade County days is a case in point.)

However, the reason the repressed memory of sexual abuse scenario became such a wide spread phenomenon in this country was not simply because it gave feminists power. That alone would not have done it. The hysteria was empowered by financial gain. Laws in many states were rewritten to restart the statute of limitations to begin at the time the "repressed memories" were conjured up, not when the alleged crimes took place (pp. 173-74). Now people could go after their parents many years after the fact, after the parents had made their retirement egg, and get some of it! This potential gain brought in the lawyers. For the therapists it meant that the therapeutic sessions on the couch and the group indoctrination sessions could be dragged on and on until the insurance money ran out. (The literature shows just how fast therapists typically dumped their clients when they could no longer pay.) Carol Tavris is quoted by the authors on page 220: "The problem is...their effort to create victims-to expand the market that can then be treated with therapy and self-help books."

What backfired on the male-hating feminists was the realization from their more astute sisters that this repressed memory/sex crime/satanic abuse scenario just made victims and incest survivors out of women and effectively continued their subjugation to the patriarchy. As Tavris puts it: women were encouraged "to incorporate the language of victimhood and survival into the sole organizing narrative of their identity...." (p. 221)

Another fraudulent aspect of the repressed memory business was the faddish diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder that often went along with the phony memories, an affliction heretofore almost as rare as hen's teeth. Therapists cozied up to this once esoteric disorder because it fit in so well with their theory about why no concrete evidence of satanic ritual abuse was ever found; i.e., the satanic cults had so thoroughly programmed their victims that the personalities that experienced the horrors of abuse were repressed. Naturally it would take a therapist many hours at lucrative compensation to conjure up the repressed personalities and all the horrific "memories" of abuse. To make sure they got paid, the therapists got the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders "updated" to make the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder "real" so the insurance companies keyed to the Manual would have to pay for treatment.

This is a courageous book that bends over backwards to be fair, yet is uncompromised in its expression of the truth.

Rating:
Summary: A step backwards in the fight against child abuse
Review: Loftus was the first to make such a public declaration of skepticism about the theory of repressed and recovered memory, and considering the climate in which this book was written her bravery is commendable. At the time--and still perhaps today--some therapists diagnosed a history of incest within minutes of the intake session, spurious evidence was routinely admissible in the courts, and Multiple Personality Disorder was apparently as common as the flu. Things have changed, and there are more than a few red-faced recovered memory enthusiasts around these days.

One of the things that becomes obvious in this book is the fact that, while the debate was a raging one, few people who took part in it understood what it was really about. The recovered/false memory debate is not about whether the sexual abuse of children is a lie, or that the family is the seat of all evil. It is an essentially scientific debate about the operations of memory and the clinical applications of such knowledge. Loftus navigates through the cultural and rhetorical detritus of the debate to this core issue, and we benefit from her position as an expert researcher.

The book is clearly written for lay people, or for clinicians wanting a very quick summary of the issues. More clinically pertinent summaries of the research findings and theories are available elsewhere. If you're a therapist or researcher looking for professional information, you'll find the journalistic style slow going. However, if you're a lay person, the book is an excellent introduction to the debate.

The core debate that Loftus addresses is not whether or not sexual abuse exists. Rather, what she wisely chose to target was the essential issues of defining "repression" and its validity as a concept, how memory storage and retrieval operate, and what the relationship between psychological trauma and memory impairment is. She demonstrates that the concept of repression is a dubious though not necessarily invalid one, but that far too much assumption and clinical arrogance were invested in the recovered memory mania of the 80s and 90s.

This book was obviously controversial, but despite its lay orientation and stylistic flaws I believe it will endure as an important work in the history of psychotherapy. The legion of detractors demonstrated the truth of Loftus' thesis by construing the book as an attempt to disprove the existence of incest. And, because Loftus is a woman, she was a complicated target and therefore subjected to more condescending and intense attacks. Her accomplishment in this book was not to settle any questions, but to take the risk of attacking cherished, widely held, and richly funded clinical errors that were derailing public mental health and the reputation of psychotherapy. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Important book. A must-read.
Review: This book is a much-needed cry for sanity, much like Sagan's _The Demon-Haunted World_. The author, Elizabeth Loftus, is a well-known and well-respected psychologist who specializes in eyewitness memory; anybody who has taken a Gen Psych course should recognize her name.

As a budding psychologist, I found Loftus's comments on the therapeutic community both insightful and well-directed. Her arguments are powerful and difficult to deny; she convinced me shortly after the first few chapters.

Sexual abuse is a problem. A big one. But attempting to root out totally unconfirmed instances of sexual abuse is, as well. Loftus tries to walk a line between compassion for people who have truly been abused and those who believe they have, and scientific accuracy.

Her sharpest knives are reserved for the therapists. The tools of therapy used to "recover" abuse memories which have no corroborating evidence are the same as those used to "uncover" reports of alien abduction, past lives, infant memories, and ritual cult torture. All the above are truly unlikely, so why would memories recovered using this method about abuse be any more accurate than memories about big-eyed aliens?

All in all, this book does a marvelous job in presenting its points and should be a must-read for any serious student of psychology. It shows what a fragile thing memory really is; a lesson we all need to learn.

Rating:
Summary: Myth of Repressed Memory
Review: This book was the first book I read that provided clarity around repressed memories and their impact on families. It presents the slippery slope initiated by well-meaning people (therapists, psychiatrists, other survivors)trying to help a person recover from a painful childhood experience that leaves the person unable to effectively cope in their everyday world, separating them from family and friends. I was particularly appreciative of two chapters: Loose Spirits and Lost in a Shopping Mall. It provided grounding for me in "how" the pattern of paranoid behaviors and hallucinations could be triggered. It also points out the necessity of finding a therapist who is willing to challenge what seems to be "real memories". It provides hope that recovery truly is possible, if the right help can be found. Thank you Dr. Loftus and Ms. Ketcham.

I am a family member of a person suffering from this debilitating phenomena. Watching the degeneration of a loved one is painful for everyone but particularly painful when "others" reinforce the unreal memories and put the family in a position of no longer being able to help someone they care about. I wish my sister would find a "good therapist" who would allow her to retrieve her soul and her life the way the women are doing in the Loose Spirits chapter.

Rating:
Summary: Balanced views
Review: This is a very useful and enlightening book for anyone wanting to learn more about the problems of memory and trauma. I write this review because one of the other reviews (the single star) was apparently written by someone who has not read the book. Loftus says none of the things that the reviewer thinks she might say (or "apparently" says). This type of ill-informed and anti-intellectual response is typical of the recovered memory types who believe that memory can be recovered in "true" or pristine form--no informed person believes this, nor is it necessary to believe it as a victim of trauma unless one has an agenda to set forth. Loftus makes all this clear.