Are these myths below used in your loved one's treatment?
2) "Carefully implemented techniques will result in the recall of accurate memories."
3) "One should not doubt personal memories as being historically accurate."
4) "Repeating and expanding stories of what you believe was your abuse promotes healing."
5) "Similar symptoms always indicate specific causes."
Beware!
ALL of the above
ALL of the above
are FALSE and can cause great harm.
For more detail read on:
Memory based treatments use so many differing titles and terms it is helpful to list the false assertions they often hold in common. This blog is an effort to make these dangerous treatments more recognizable. ALL of the above postulates have been repeatedly verified by competent, credentialed, published professionals in peer reviewed research as false and can do great harm to clients and their families.
The principles and assumptions of “memory therapies” are NOT changed with the change of titles and terms used by these “therapies”. To list these titles and terms, e.g. "Repressed Memory Therapy", "Recovered Memory Therapy", "Regression Therapy", "Dissociative Amnesia", "Theophostic Prayer" etc..., would be tedious and unproductive. What is important is to recognize the false postulates these “therapies” often have in common. False assumptions and principles need not be limited to formal “therapy" to be destructive. These can be implemented using long debunked "self help therapy books", by well meaning naive friends, by the uninformed or even fraudulent professionals.
The principles and assumptions above form the foundation of an approach to "healing" or "recovery" that leads to tragedy. The following are known to harm those who seek healing:
1) MYTH: "All memories are recollections of historical fact."
TRUTH: Memories are in fact very pliable and often inaccurate.
It is known from scanning brain activity that memories are recreated in the same part of the brain as imagined events thought of when prompted by a lab technician.
Memories decay over time, are very pliable and subject to many distorting influences. The most obvious impact is time because the longer it is between an event and its recollection the more inaccurate and distorted the recollection. Hours, days, weeks and months change memory significantly. Years and decades frequently result in the recollection bearing little or no resemblance to historical facts. Memories are recreated and are subject to emotional states both at the time of creation and then again at recreation.
Memories are vulnerable to a variety of physiological states and factors. Medication(s), sleep deprivation, dehydration, hormonal disruptions, strong emotional states, hypnosis and a many other physiologically influenced events have been repeatedly verified to create delusions and fantasies “recalled” as historical events. "Recollections” of "alien abductions", "satanic ceremonies" or abuse by "witches" are actually fantasies caused by physiological states but identified by the person as a "memory". The most famous memory case was in Salem (MA) where sleep deprived and sickly accusers had 19 people, who were called "deniers", executed for things “remembered” that never happened. Physiological factors are significant and unquestionably related to the inaccuracy of memory .
It has been well established that memories are vulnerable to influences such as suggestion (overt or subtle) , leading questions, postures or facial expressions of the questioners, media depictions (especially emotional), source confusion, fantasies, delusions, readings and often social pressure found in "support groups". These can create “memories” of events that never happened. The more emotionally vulnerable the person is, the more suggestible they may be. Some people appear to be more prone to suggestion than others but other influences on memory may also have greater or lesser impact based on individual vulnerabilities.
Memory is not a reliable source of historical fact. Unfortunately there are a variety of "therapies" dependent on the wrong assumption that memory is a "recording of actual events". This assumption can do great harm.
2) MYTH:"Carefully implemented techniques result in the recall of accurate memories."
TRUTH: There are no techniques for eliciting accurate memory.
Techniques to obtain accurate recollection has been extensively studied in the military and law enforcement. It is recognized fully that traumatic events are notoriously known for generating inaccurate memories even with the best of techniques. It is true that questioning techniques by experts who avoid leading questions, evade emotionally charged statements, are careful to be non-directive, seek neutrality, ask scripted prepared questions, never provide incomplete statements and never provide suggestive details have better success at prompting a more accurate recollection. Even under these rigorous conditions the unreliability of memory is fully recognized by experts.
Techniques often used among "recovered memory healers" and "mental health professionals" are the same techniques used in brainwashing, reprogramming and coercive persuasion. Checklists of symptoms said to be signs of abuse, using journal’s quotes, commentary out of context prepare the ground for false memories. False memories have been generated by researchers and clinicians using errant assumptions, leading questions, incomplete statements seeking more detail, guided imagery, hypnosis, entranced states or socially pressured environments.
In general there are no techniques for eliciting memory that yields consistently reliable and accurate recollection of events. True experts are fully aware of the tremendous fallibility of memory and would never use memory as a foundation for permanent healing or reconciliation.
3) MYTH:"In order to heal one must seek to dismiss any doubt about personal memories."
TRUTH: Doubt is, in fact, a very valuable aid in helping one determine the veracity of what you think is a historically accurate recollection.
The facts about memory in #1 make this a highly dubious statement. All the data indicates that this logic is not supported by the evidence.
Doubt is, in fact, a very valuable aid in helping one determine the veracity of what you think is a historically accurate recollection. Uncertainty can be a healthy sign that indicates the use of rationality and reason to evaluate your recollection. Seeking facts that verify your recollection are very important to properly evaluating if memory and fantasy are are confounded. This higher order cognitive function (reasoning leading to doubt) should never be dismissed in order to be become "happy and healthy". Sadly memory "therapies" often encourage dismissing this healthy doubt as the way toward "healing". Data on memory based therapies verify that usually people will become more isolated and mentally unstable as a result of this approach. When recovering memories is the goal of a "healing program" the result has been statistically observed to be an increase in suicidal ideation, familial isolation and increase in unemployed status. These outcomes do not indicate mental health improvement.
4) MYTH:"Joining a support group will help me deal with the truth about my abuse."
TRUTH: Support groups are notorious for generating false memories.
Support groups are notorious for assisting those in attendance to both generate false memories and extend the duration of those false memories (in some cases retracted or ignored after leaving the group). In fact early studies that attempted to verify that the support groups were helpful actually demonstrated that peer pressure helped generate more detailed false memories that had not been imagined prior to joining the group!
The impact of support groups was specifically cited by the US second circuit court of appeals when it ordered all cases and plea bargains based on "recovered memories" to be reversed or retried. Support groups were seen, based on evidence, to actually be a source of false memories that imprisoned innocent people.
Reliving and repeating, detailing and expanding stories of abuse in a social setting appears to increase false memory production among those in attendance. The production of false memories is not a genuine means to bring "true healing".
5) MYTH: "Symptoms always indicate particular causes."
TRUTH: Symptoms do not indicate precise causes.
Many memory based therapies assume that sexual promiscuity, the inability to remain in a marriage or repeatedly acting impulsively are all the result of childhood sexual abuse. No other explanation is pondered. Dialogues (written and spoken) will use leading questions, incomplete sentences with dangling details, videos and sharing that assume the that all "symptoms" point to "childhood sexual abuse" as a "cause". The well meaning "friend" or "professional" therapist encourages assumed and expected answers.
A person who has made numerous personal mistakes in their life can find comfort by blaming another. This person blamed is often the primary caretaker when they were younger. This approach to responsibility, can be labeled "making a monster", releases the decision maker from personal responsibility for the poor decisions. It can be a liberating feeling to believe that another person has caused the poor decision making. Released from responsibility the client is now "free" to become better and more responsible
In fact symptoms do not indicate precise causes. A person can have a fever for a variety of reasons including bacterial infection, hosting of viruses, poisoning, over exertion, inordinate hormonal releases or other physical stress. Saying that a fever is always caused by "a virus" would be inaccurate at best and tragic at worst.
Poor decision making is not ALWAYS the result of childhood sexual abuse but if one reads the list of symptoms offered in some of the "memory healing" texts, that are assumed to indicate childhood sexual abuse, then wrong conclusions are virtually certain to be made.
Symptoms alone do not, by themselves, always indicate specific causes. Poor personal decision making, lack of confidence, inadequacies or other personal deficiencies are not always, or even mostly, indicative of childhood sexual abuse. Many factors influence the choices people make including personal character, cultural expectations, physical condition, hormonal variations, sleep deprivation, psychotropic medications (and/or reaction to medications), social factors and any combination of these factors ALL can lead to a person making poor decisions. These myriad of factors can also generate a pattern of poor decision making over time especially when not recognized as factors.
Here are some of the studies that show these 5 principles above to be false.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVWbrNls-Kw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnMmweRRH9U
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16483114
http://www.justiceforcarol.com/
https://archive.org/stream/BesselVanDerKolkScientificDishonestyTheMysteriousDisappearing/VanDerKolk_djvu.txt
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume5/j5_3_2.htm
A relevant quote from this link:
"This type of case provides an example of the second meaning of the criterion of falsifiability. Repression, a Freudian theoretical concept, has been falsified (Bower, 1990; Garry & Loftus, 1993; Holmes, 1990; Wakefield & Underwager, 1992). Although proponents of recovered repressed memories offer three studies to support a claim of repression (Briere & Conte, 1989; Herman & Schatzow, 1987; Williams, 1992), none of them really assess repression nor do any of them provide any credible scientific evidence. Faced with the massive weight of over 60 years of research that falsifies the concept of repression, a reasonable judge must rule that testimony based upon the concept is not scientific, cannot be relevant or helpful to the finder of fact, and therefore, it is not admissible.
http://www.process.org/discept/2013/11/09/mental-health-malpractice-cover-up-castlewood-treatment-center-seeks-to-purchase-plaintiff-gag-order/ ..."I have collected literally hundreds of hours of interviews with people oppressed by false memories cultivated in irresponsible and unscientific treatment. I have spoken at length with heart-broken families torn apart by false — sometimes even impossible — allegations of revealed past abuse. I have documented individuals who came to recognize that their “recovered memories” were indeed false memories, as well as individuals who hold to bizarre and implausible beliefs revealed in the course of treatment. New cases come to my attention with distressing regularity..."
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