Former American Psychological Association Ethics Chair Dr. Kenneth Pope and forensic psychologist Dr. Laura Brown co-wrote a response to the ongoing False Memory Syndrome (FMS) controversy in their 1996 book Recovered Memories of Abuse.  In it they chronicled the rise of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, and  noted the impact it had on the general public (and in some cases, on mainstream psychology).  Most important, they examined the context in which the FMS movement arose, and called into question the methodology and conclusions of the research that supports the FMSF’s major claims.

One of the key observations made by Drs. Pope and Brown is that the emergence of FMS did not occur in a scientific or therapeutic context.  Citing Judith Herman’s 1992 book Trauma and Memory, the authors note, “…that the study of trauma is inherently political, given that any discussion of trauma requires the uncovering of abhorrent social realities that a society may wish to minimize or deny.” 

The political nature of the FMS debate originates in cultural values.  The authors note that our society considers sexual offenses especially heinous.  In most states, for example, parents have a legal right to exact physical violence in the form of corporal punishment, or yell at kids, or otherwise act in a threatening manner.  Sexual contact between children and adults--even if not overtly violent--is illegal across the nation.  This results in an extraordinary tension between the drive to protect childhood and our firm beliefs in parenting freedom.  Worse, this tension rests upon an understanding that is murky, often clouded by intricate circumstances involving emotional needs and financial dependency.  To compound it all, the question of childhood sexual abuse often finds reduction in two mutually incompatible narratives: “You did this to me,” as opposed to “No I didn’t.”

Under these circumstances, the public often values bottom-line answers over empirical accuracy.  The tendency is to believe either that all claims of recovered memory of abuse have to be true, or that all claims of recovered memory are inherently false.  As Drs. Pope and Brown wrote:

Sexual abuse of children is a highly charged topic seeming to create impatient social demands for instant clarity that may be superficial, misleading, or downright wrong, rather than patient tolerance needed until ambiguities can be carefully, adequately explored….The pull to arrive at this sort of pseudo certainty is strong when the issue is childhood sexual abuse.

Here, the authors point out that sweeping generalization in any direction could lead to severe problems for the therapist, the patient, and the accused.  It is in this regard that Drs. Pope and Brown had serious reservations about the claims made by each side of this debate regarding the scope of this problem.  On the one hand, some believe that as many as 38% of the population has experienced some sort of childhood sexual abuse, while some FMS advocates put the figure at 3.3 per million, or .003%.  Although the authors point out that some of this disparity can be explained by differing definitions of sexual abuse (e.g., some only count heterosexual vaginal intercourse, while others include oral and anal sex, mutual masturbation, erotic kissing, or lewd behavior without physical contact), some of the disparity also originates in methodological error.  In one instance, they cite FMSF co-founder Hollida Wakefield’s assertion that nine out of every ten accusations of sexual abuse by children are false They questioned how Wakefield could be so sure that was the case, since she didn’t offer any empirical studies to support the contention.

While both sides might have reached questionable conclusions, the authors note that the claims made by those supporting the FMS hypothesis were especially egregious.  After all, the opponents of the FMS hypothesis had at least some empirical basis for the 38% figure.* Proponents of the FMS could not really offer anything other than the Lost in the Mall study to support a claim of false memory implantation, and even then the figures it reached would not account for the numbers cited by proponents. 

In fact, Drs. Pope and Brown seemed especially dismayed by the lack of methodological rigor in the pro-FMS camp.  For starters, how does one actually determine if a memory is accurate or not?  In this regard, the authors cited a number of considerable number of pro-FMS sources.  In this literature, they observed:

It continues to be unclear if the protocol of any research purporting to validate the FMS diagnosis in large numbers of persons used any criterion other than the decision-rule that all recovered memories of abuse are inherently false.  Statements by some FMSF proponents have seemed to characterize recovered memories of trauma as objectively false per se.  FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board member Harrison Pope and his colleague James Hudson….emphasized that ’[t]raumatic experiences are memorable’…; asserted that there has never been a confirmed case of ’noncontrived amnesia among neurologically intact individuals over the age of 6 who experienced events sufficiently traumatic that no one would be expected to simply forget them’…; and asserted that trauma survivors in scientifically valid studies unanimously remembered the events….’:  Founding FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board members Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager…wrote, “People who undergo severe trauma remember it….” Martin Gardner…asserted that ’[b]etter-trained, older psychiatrists do not believe that childhood memories of trauma can be repressed for any length of time, except in rare cases of actual brain damage….And there is abundant evidence that totally false memories are easily aroused in the mind of a suggestible patient….’  FMSF…itself published the claim: ‘Psychiatrists advising the Foundation members seem to be unanimous in the belief that memories of such atrocities cannot be repressed.  Horrible incidents of childhood are remembered…..’**

Drs. Pope and Brown also take to task other claims made by the FMSF and supporters, among them the contention that sexuality between adults and children is usually either benign or beneficial to the child.  In that regard, they cited a 1994 paper written by Stephen Ceci, Mary Lyndia Crotteau Huffman, Elliot Smith and Elizabeth Loftus titled “Repeatedly Thinking about a Non-Event:  Source Misattributions among Preschoolers” (Consciousness and Cognition, v.3):

It is not clear that fondling or even fellatio are experienced by infants and young children as assault; they may at times be pleasurable or neutral, thus not carrying the psychic trauma needed for repression.

The authors also quoted a NY Times article about Rev. Dr. Ralph Underwager where the minister/shrink asserted “….‘scientific evidence’ showed 60% of women sexually abused as children reported that the experience had been good for them.”  Underwager further contented that the same could be true for boys too.

Once again, we have a figure (60% of women), an invocation to “scientific evidence,” with no empirical studies offered to substantiate that claim.  As to the claim made by Loftus et al that young children undergoing rape not involving penetration might not carry sufficient enough trauma for repression, that could very well be true.  Such children could even recall the experience as neutral or pleasurable.  But as was the case with Children of God founder David Berg, even if remembered fondly, the molestation can harm the child.  And in Berg’s case, the negative consequences of his nostalgic memories of abuse damaged the lives of literally thousands of people.

Perhaps the most serious question raised by Recovered Memories of Abuse is the relevance of prior (and future) research of false memory to the issue so central to the FMSF.  The most glaring fallacy in the FMS hypothesis is the conflation of two distinct issues: “false” memory, and memory distortion.  Psychologists, by and large, have understood for many years that distortion in memory takes place.  Many a layperson could tell you the same thing.  It’s commonsense, really.  But does forgetting specific details in a story such as “The War of the Ghost,” a story that the subject has read twice, in a non-stressful situation, that is also outside his conceptual framework, constitute a “false memory”?  As Drs. Pope and Brown wrote:

The use of the terms ‘false memory’ and ‘true memory’ are problematic in light of research and theory about memory.  Most paradigms seem to suggest that ‘true’ and ‘false’ are naive or misleading labels when applied to memory, which tends toward a mixture of the accurate and inaccurate.  Additionally, a review of the research on this topic finds a confusion of meanings; a ‘false memory’ in one study refers to the inclusion of the wrong word in a list…., while in another it might describe a complex series of interactions that have been deceptively suggested to a research participant by a family or friend…., or by a researcher who represents the information as coming from the research participant’s parent….  In the popular literature, such terminology often reflects the standpoint of the writer, and the writer’s assumptions about whether a reported memory is valid or not.  In such instances, the label ‘true’ or ‘false’ may have little or nothing to do with the validity or invalidity of the reported memory and reflect instead the writer’s response to the political pressures in this area.

Moreover, the authors raised questions about the application of research done on memory distortion to the issue central to the FMSF’s core reason for existing: namely, the defense against untrue allegation of childhood sexual abuse made by adults who recovered memories of the crime during therapy.  They levy four major criticisms of the research cited in the last five posts as it specifically applies to recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse.  In the next few posts, I will revisit the research, the examples and conclusions presented in the last five.

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*That figure came about in the course of a 1994 study done by University of New Hampshire psychology professor Dr. Linda Meyer Williams titled “Recall of Childhood Trauma: A Prospective Study of Women’s Memories of Child Sexual Abuse” (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, v. 62).  In this study, Williams followed up on 129 women who had actually suffered childhood sexual abuse, as documented at the time by hospital and police records.  Forty-nine women (37.9%) responded to a list of questions.  The flag question asked if they were sexually abused as a child.  For those women who recalled the abuse, 16% acknowledged that they had in fact forgotten it at one time in their lives, but eventually remembered it.

Dr. Meyer Williams’ methodology has since been called into question, and its clear in Drs. Pope and Brown’s recitation of the study that they have some skepticism about it too.  If someone answered no to a flag question, for example, it could be that they just don’t want to talk about it, or admit it to strangers (especially researchers).  That doesn’t necessarily mean that all of those women forgot the abuse.  Rather, it means that there is no good way of determining how many were simply denying the abuse, and how many honestly couldn’t remember.

**The sources cited in this passage:

Gardner, Martin.  1993.  “The False Memory Syndrome.”  Skeptical Inquirer, v. 17

Loftus, Elizabeth.  1988 (1980).  Memory:  Surprising New Insights into How We Remember and Why We Forget.  NYC: Ardsley House. 

Loftus, Elizabeth, Maryanne Garry & Julie Feldman,  1994.  “Forgetting Sexual Trauma:  What Does It Mean when 38% Forget?”  Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, v. 62,

Pope, Harrison & James Hudson.  1995.  “Can Individuals ‘Repress’ Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse?  An Examination of the Evidence.”  Psychiatric Annals v. 25.

Wakefield, Hollida & Ralph Underwager.  1994.  Return of the Furies:  An Investigation into Recovered Memory Therapy.  Chicago, IL:  Open Court.