Return of the Furies
An Investigation into Recovered Memory Therapy
by Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager
When this book was written and published "Recovered Memory Therapy" (RMT) practices and products were rampant and seemingly unchecked in popularity. An immense amount of personal and of familial destruction followed.
Twenty three years later RMT, a once popular approach to therapy, is largely debunked among professionals in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. "Recovered Memory Therapy" is discouraged by professional counseling associations with strong admonition about avoiding a "do it yourself therapy" generating "memories" (American Psychological Association). Major "Recovered Memory Therapy" Institutions (prior to this text publication) now have been disassembled with assets seized or siphoned to former leaders in the Recovered Memory movement due to a wave of lawsuits.
Law enforcement has had numerous scandals and reforms implemented as a result of overzealous use in response to accusations obtained using RMT. In the courts RMT testimony and evidence once accepted in the 1980's and early 1990's, was soon contested and now they are routinely dismissed. I spoke to a practicing lawyer on July 23, 2015 and was told that no judge at the state or federal level he has known (experienced in 3 different states) would any longer accept RMT based testimony. We should be very thankful that the days of RMT testimony being used without physical evidence, forensic evidence or corroboration are over in our courts of law. "Return of the Furies" arrived on the scene in 1994 and the rising tide of false allegations, decimated families, and the imprisoning of accused innocents began to slow.
Law enforcement has had numerous scandals and reforms implemented as a result of overzealous use in response to accusations obtained using RMT. In the courts RMT testimony and evidence once accepted in the 1980's and early 1990's, was soon contested and now they are routinely dismissed. I spoke to a practicing lawyer on July 23, 2015 and was told that no judge at the state or federal level he has known (experienced in 3 different states) would any longer accept RMT based testimony. We should be very thankful that the days of RMT testimony being used without physical evidence, forensic evidence or corroboration are over in our courts of law. "Return of the Furies" arrived on the scene in 1994 and the rising tide of false allegations, decimated families, and the imprisoning of accused innocents began to slow.
The book is heavily annotated with notes to originally sourced research. The text is totally focused on detailing the evidence that discredits "Recovered Memory Therapy". It makes a strong case that the products of such therapy create "false memories" that reflect the cues, suggestions and active imagination of the client who is often, in the end, the true victim.
One of the reasons for reading the text is to examine how a book like this was so effective. There is a motivation in the "dedication" of the book to the friends falsely accused without evidence or corroboration (the Freyds). The accused both had no medication history, no mental health histories, no criminal records and no previous allegations. They were falsely accused and when they refuted the uncorroborated allegations they were labelled as "deniers". They were fortunate. They did not go to jail as many hundreds of other innocents had (I only count officially exonerated only..many more served entire sentences based on recollection only without any other evidence).
The authors of this text who had in the past worked to uncover childhood sexual abuse in the 50's and 60's saw the immense swelling of questionable and outright false accusations in the 80's. The authors saw the damage thrust onto families first hand. Recovered Memory Therapy can and often yields bizarre and uncorroborated detailed memories that are imagined to be from decades earlier. Any attempt the innocent make to refute false accusations earns the label "denier" among those who accepted accusations based on memories alone. The accusations often are described decades after they are said to have happened with no physical evidence and no corroboration.
This text presents a philosophical , cultural, psychological, therapeutic and legal analysis of the discredited therapy. The text deals with the historical clarification of the original literature on repressed "memories" (discussion of original Freudian writings) the technical difference between dissociation and "repression" (often confused) and how to detect and productively manage memories of true abuse. The entire treatment erodes the foundations that support the idea the "repressed memories", as depicted in popular literature, can exist. These authors with a deep understanding of the childhood sexual abuse from their experience in uncovering true perpetrators and victims were the perfect authors to expose the destruction brought on but what they saw as the fraud of "Recovered Memory Therapy."
There were of course other cognitive and experimental psychologists who also acted as legal consultants (like Elizabeth Loftus) who also contributed to slowing and reversing the wave of false accusations. This book is not a general treatment on memory, but instead a direct and focused attack on an approach to therapy that is clearly destructive with little external validation. The book is a treasure trove of information on memory including the neural mechanics, natural distortions and decay of memory. I would not advise reading through the text like a novel but instead focusing on areas that might be of interest. The chapters and subtitles can point you to areas of interest.
Finally the book is dated. Stretching from the 1970's into the early 1990's was the heyday of "Recovered Memory Therapy" and this book came out in 1994. This practice has since been reigned in among professional circles and institutions that are distancing themselves from the practice due to the wash of lawsuits that followed the wake of family destruction that the technique fostered. It is an interesting read because the tide actually turned and this book was a start in that turning. There was personal motivation, authors with experience in real child abuse cases, documented and validated professional research and a philosophical treatment of depth all in the same text.
Quotes that struck me as I poured through the text are listed below.
Many Innocent People Accused:
"We have learned that there are thousands of persons (as of 1994) that have been falsely accused. We learned that it is very difficult to defend yourself against accusations of sexual abuse. We have learned that the presumption of innocence does not apply when you are accused of sexual abuse of children. We learned that an accusation of sexual abuse can elicit from each person involved a primitive atavistic level of emotion which is little understood. We have learned that many judges treat a person accused of sexual abuse more harshly than they do convicted murderers." pg 6
Good Intentions:
"What began as an admirable effort to protect children has evolved into a system of laws, justice and law enforcement authorities, social workers, and allied professionals that intrudes into American families with almost despotic power." pg 15
Most accusations are false:
"Every Bayesian analysis of the decisions made by the child abuse system that we have found concludes that the most probable and most frequent type of error is an unacceptable level of false positives, that it, identifying an individual as abused or an abuser when it is not true.
This is true even when a 95 percent accuracy level for decision making is assumed as Gambrill (1990) does. Starr (1979) assumes a procedure that is 83% accurate in correctly identifying abusive situations. Still he reports a ratio of 20 false positives to one true positive." pg 17
Instinct to protect Children is a powerful motivation:
"Portraying innocent, helpless and dependent children in need of protection elicits very powerful emotion. The emotional appeal of children to juries has been known and exploited at least from the days of Aristophanes in ancient Greece." pg 37
"The paranoid style is a style of mind characterized by heated exaggeration and over reactions, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasies. It is characteristic of a paranoid mentality never to accept personal responsibility for personal for failures or errors. The blame is always located outside some entity. If anybody should be so bold as to challenge this shifting of responsibility then that person becomes the enemy against whom all manor of vengence and destruction can be directed." pg 41
Culture:
"The therapeutic state has triumphed and is eroding both freedom and reason. The concepts and convictions of those who believe in unfounded dogmas and unsupported claims of the system that has developed around child sexual abuse suggest that this is another experience of conspiracy theory, victimization, and a paranoid style of thinking that has entrapped many many citizens." pg 43
Data from Recovered Memory Therapist:
"Herman's reports suggests the need to account for women who joined incest survivor groups even though they had no memory of abuse, and then under the impact of powerful group influence developed uncorroborated and probably fabricated memories, led to the extension of repression to these women also." pg 70
Who is impacted by this therapy?
"This is how it works. If a person has vague complaints about anything, or real emotional problems, ti may be caused by sexual abuse. The antisexuality and the abandonment of personal responsibility and reason have opened the door to interpret anything with any superficially valid idea. Gaining insiht and understanding and then explaining the current malaise, whatever it is, with past events is curative and healing. If you don't recall having been abused, it may come to you because you have repressed it. But repressed memories can be recovered. The cure is to create recovered memories of childhood abuse and become enraged at the abuser." pg 72
Commentis on Recovered Memory Survey Project:
"Although we had anticipated that most of the families would be dysfunctional and that the adult child reporting a repressed memory of childhood sexual abuse would have a history of significant psychological disturbance, the questionaire results do not support this hypothesis. Instead the data suggest that these are functional, intact, successful and affluent families. The parents are well educated-three fourths of the fathers and two thirds of the mothers have gone to college and 30 percent of the fathers and 17 percent of the mothers have graduate degree. The annual median family income is $60-69,000 (in 1993).
Three fourths of the parents are still married and three fourths report being active in their church or synagogue. The majority report routinely eating dinner together as a family, going on family vacations, and being actively involved in their children when the child was growing up. It appears these families did what you were suppose to do to have a good family....
The parents seldom had any warning that anything was wrong prior to the accusation....
The feature common to the sample appears to be the therapy. received...Although many of the parents know little about the therapist or type of therapy those who do report similar information. The memories were recovered in therapy in almost all cases. The book Courage to Heal (Bass and Davis 1988) was frequently used along with other survivor or self help books. Hypnotherapy, dream interpretation, and rape counseling were reported along with incest survivor groups, eating disorder groups and 12 step programs such as Adult Children of Alcoholics." pg 79
"The accusers think anyone who does not completely believe them is against them, so skeptical siblings often lose contact with their accusing brothers and sisters. Siblings who take the accuser's side may become alienated form the parents. Sometimes a sibling will visit the accusing side's therapist or read Courage to Heal and also recover memories of abuse." pg 80
Retractors are a small set of those with false memories:
"It is a small and select group and atypical in some ways. For example one for the most difficult things to do for most people to do is to openly admit error, as retractors courageously do, and this strength sets this group apart." pg 102
A Retractor Story of Interest:
"My husband stood by me and was at first caught up in it, as was everyone in my family. Then, as time went on and I got worse and worse, he stopped and said "Hey this is nuts. Something is wrong here." It was then that my husband stopped believing everything that came out of my mouth and he saw through the doctor's smoke screen.
Since last September I have managed to crawl out of the hell hole my doctor dug for me. I try every day to make up for those 5 long years that I was away from my husband and kids-I never can. I can never say I am sorry enough. But every day I am discovering new things about what it's like to be human again." pg 107
Health Insurance runs out and person becomes "cured":
"After Lynn ran out of insurance she was discharged from the hospital. Away from this (Recovered Memory Therapy) program, she gradually recovered...."
"What allowed me to realize that the 'memories' of abuse by my parents were not true was time away from that therapy group. I do not believe this could have happened if I had remained in the group...." pg 112
General Patterns for those who retract:
"Accused parents try desperately to discover what is going on, push for specifics concerning the allegations, and attempt to meet with there child's therapist. The attempts are seldom successful. Most often, the accuser refuses to meet with her parents or discuss the situation 'until you admit what you did.' Brothers, sisters, nonaccused parents, and extended families members are caught in the middle. Often all contact is severed, Families are destroyed.
When an accusing child eventually retracts the allegations, a major factor appears to be getting away from therapy. Sometimes insurance runs out and the person is discharged from the program. A sibling, husband or wife may finally become skeptical although most spouses support the husband's or wife's accusation) and encourage them to leave a therapy program that is not helping them. Persistent brothers and sisters appear to play a key role in persuading their accusing sibling to re-examine their newly discovered memories and the therapy that produced them. Occasionally, an individual simply begins to doubt her memories. This some times happens as a result of encountering media attention to the FMS Foundation and false memories. Sometimes a significant event such as a death, serious illness, or birth is a factor. But leaving the therapist appears to be necessary." pg 122
Dangerous and destructive self help therapy books:
"the experience of survivors" is not a trustworthy guide (Dawes 1989, 1994). The entire field of decision theory research shows that the human mind is NOT a good instrument for handling data." [much research in memory points to inaccuracies due to physical limitations, distortions due to emotion and memories have been created by experimental psychologists in humans unaware of the process] "There are so many ways subjective bias distorts and twists information. Because decisions are flawed and basically irrational it is only through the assiduous exercise of human reason that positive outcomes can be produced.
"[Dangerous books include those] emphasizing emotion as the guide to truth and encouraging the destructive emotions of anger and rage." pg 136-7
Flashbacks have long been known to be a "true memory"
McHugh (undated) points out, flashbacks cannot be assumed to represent a memory of an actual life event He notes that flashbacks are common in people who have been frightened or traumatized and are universal everywhere...as studies of flashbacks following war experiences indicate, flashbacks are not replications of the actual event, but are development from the experience of a 'worst fear scenario"..."Instead, it [flashback] is likely to be an expression of the patient's worst fears generated out of the focus in therapy on abuse. This is especially probable when the person is in a survivors group where others are describing their own horrible flashbacks of terrible abuse." [so these may be the result of exposure and then developed during suggestive questioning] pg 140
Another danger signal from a therapist:
"offering subjective personal feelings and intuition as basis for knowing what they know. McHugh (1994) terms this [as a]'romanticist tendency' and observes, "The romanticist tendency in psychotherapy is to rely upon feelings for evidence, on metaphors for reality, on inspiration and myth for guidance....that cause patients and their families much suffering" pg 153
Experiments in Human Memory Conclude:
"Research on the nature of memory and forgetting does not support the assumption of the recovered memory therapists that some abuse is so traumatic that all memories for it will be removed from consciousness by an active filtering process of repressions or dissociation until actively retrieved years later. Memory is a process of reconstruction and is subject to errors and distortions." pg 185
Source of Repression misunderstood by those doing Memory Retrieval:
Freud: "The theory of repression developed out of Freud's attempt to deal with what he perceived as the patients unacceptable impulses which led to fantasies.....Freud however also saw memories as remodeled and subjected to falsification. he did not see them as complete inventions...." pg 237
Memories and analytical therapies:
The traditional analytic therapist is concerned with the patient's perception of reality rather than historical accuracy...It is simply a mistake to assume that childhood memories retrieved in therapy are historically truthful (Nash 1992, Wakefield 1992)
Important indicators of false accusations according a "Recovered Memory Therapy" supporter:
A Recovered Memory Therapy supporter, Gardner (1992), believes that there are true retrieved memories and real accusations. He also identifies characteristics, any one of which, may indicate the "memories are false" based on his experiences (he self reported over 400 appearances as an expert in court cases). Conclusion he has drawn from his analysis:
(1) "False accusations are often characterized by a strong need to bring abuse to the attention of the public along with the belief that one's psychological problems come form the abuse."
(2) "An indication that the allegation is likely false is the involvement of an inadequately trained or incompetent therapist who specializes in uncovering "repressed abuse" and who finds abuse in the majority of his or her patients."
(3) "Memories uncovered with the use of hypnosis run the risk of being false"
(4) "the failure to see the alleged perpetrator and get his input reflects the therapist overdetermined bias and therefore STRONGLY suggests a false accusation."
(5) "An important indicator of a false accusation for Gardner is when the accuser cuts off contact with those who don't believe the accusation and surrounds herself only with enablers such as support groups, therapists, survivor groups and friends and relatives who support and encourage the accusations." pg 333-4
Culture and Society:
"The system manufactures victims and creates a world filled with monsters, monstrous acts, and indescribable dangers. Civility, courtesy, kindness, and generosity disappear under the weight of fear, anxiety, hatred and rage."
"When there is mutuality and love between a woman and a man it is less likely that they, or one of them, will abuse a child." pg 378,379
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*** WARNING ***
If you are seeking help for personal struggles and a therapist, counselor or friend says that "recovering childhood memories can help you get better" then IMMEDIATELY get up from your chair (or off the couch), run to the door, open it and flee. Hundreds of thousands have lost families, years of productive living and squandered immense wealth with tragedy inducing therapy that produces horrid false memories, splinters families, isolates the client and is documented to cause decline in mental health.
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This is an effort to Break the Cycle of Shame
and Save Others from Similar Tragedy!
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