Notes of a Fringe-Watcher

MARTIN GARDNER

1 The False Memory Syndrome

n March 1992, a group of distin­ Then in the latter 1980s a bizarre guished psychologists and psychi­ therapeutic fad began to emerge in the I atrists, including CSICOP's Ray United States. Hundreds of poorly Hyman, banded together to form the trained therapists, calling themselves False Memory Syndrome (FMS) Foun­ "traumatists," began to practice the dation. The organization is headquar­ very techniques Freud had discarded. tered in Philadelphia under the All over the land they are putting direction of educator Pamela Freyd. Its patients under hypnosis and subtly purpose: to combat a fast-growing prodding them into recalling child­ epidemic of dubious therapy that is hood sexual traumas, memories of ripping thousands of families apart, which presumably have been totally scarring patients for life, and breaking obliterated for decades. Decades the hearts of innocent parents and Delayed Disclosure, or DDD, it has other relatives. It is, in fact, the been called. Eighty percent of the mental-health crisis of the 1990s. patients who are claimed to experience The tragic story begins with Freud. DDD are women from 25 to 45 years Early in his career, when he made old. Sixty percent of their parents are extensive use of hypnotism, Freud college graduates, 25 percent with was amazed by the number of mes­ advanced degrees. More than 80 merized women who dredged up percent of their parents are married childhood memories of being raped by to their first spouse. their fathers. It was years before he Here is a typical scenario. A woman became convinced that most of these in her thirties seeks therapy for women were fantasizing. Other ana­ symptoms ranging from mild depres­ lysts and psychiatrists agreed. For sion, anxiety, headaches, or the inabil­ more than half a century the extent ity to lose weight, to more severe of incestuous child abuse was minim­ symptoms like anorexia. Her thera­ ized. Not until about 1980 did the pist, having succumbed to the latest pendulum start to swing the other mental-health fad, decides almost at way as more solid evidence of child once that the symptoms are caused by sexual abuse began to surface. There repressed memories of childhood is now no longer any doubt that such abuse. Profoundly shocked by this incest is much more prevalent than suggestion, the woman vigorously the older Freud or the general public denies that such a thing could be realized. possible. The stronger her denial, the

370 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 more the therapist believes she is ten. Indeed, it festers as a lifelong repressing painful memories. source of shame and anger. Studies The patient may be hypnotized, or show that among children who wit­ given sodium amytal, or placed into nessed the murder of a parent, not a relaxed, trancelike state. Convinced a single one repressed the terrible that a childhood trauma is at the root memory. Not only do victims of child of the patient's ills, the therapist incest not repress such painful memo­ repeatedly urges the woman to try to ries (to repress a memory means to remember the trauma. If she is highly completely forget the experience suggestible and eager to please the without any conscious effort to do so); therapist, she begins to respond to they try unsuccessfully to forget leading questions and to less obvious them. That traumas experienced as a signs of the therapist's expectations. child can be totally forgotten for After months, or even years, decades is the great mental-health images begin to form in the patient's myth of our time—a myth that is not mind. Shadowy figures threaten her only devastating innocent families but sexually. Under continual urging, doing enormous damage to these memories grow more vivid. She psychiatry. begins to recognize the molester as In the past, when juries found a her father, or grandfather, or uncle. parent guilty of child incest, there has The more detailed the visions, the been corroborating evidence: photos, more convinced both she and the diaries, letters, testimony by others, therapist become that the terrible a history of sexual misconduct, or truth is finally being brought to even open admission of guilt. Juries consciousness. To better-trained psy­ today are increasingly more often chiatrists, these details indicate just judging a parent guilty without any the opposite. Childhood memories are confirming evidence other than the notoriously vague. Recalling minute therapy-induced memories of the details is a strong sign of fantasizing. "victim." As the false memories become Patients as well as their families can more convincing, the patient's anger be scarred for life. They are led to toward a once-loved relative grows. believe that bringing suppressed The therapist urges her to vent this memories to light will banish their rage, to confront the perpetrator, even symptoms. On the contrary, the to sue for psychic damage. Stunned symptoms usually get worse because by their daughter's accusations, the of traumatic breaks with loved ones. parents vigorously deny everything. Moreover, this treatment can also Of course they will deny it, says the cause a patient to refuse needed therapist, perhaps even suppress their therapy from psychiatrists who have own memories of what happened. The not fallen prey to the FMS epidemic. family is devastated. A loving daugh­ Pamela Freyd has likened the traum- ter has inexplicably been transformed atists to surgeons doing brain surgery into a bitter enemy. She may join an with a knife and fork. Others see the "incest survivor" group, where her epidemic as similar in many ways to beliefs are reinforced by hearing the great witch-hunts of the past, similar tales. She may wear a sweat­ when disturbed women were made to shirt saying, "I survived." believe they were in Satan's grip. The No one doubts that childhood Devil has been replaced by the evil sexual assaults occur, but in almost parent. every case the event is never forgot­ FMS takes many forms other than

Summer 1993 371 parental sexual abuse. Thousands of several hundred accused parents victims are being induced by traum- revealed that in almost every case atists to recall childhood participation their daughters had been strongly in satanic cults that murder babies, eat influenced by Courage to Heal. (See box their flesh, and practice even more for some of the book's more out­ revolting rituals. Although there is rageous passages.) widespread fascination with the From the growing literature of occult, and an amusing upsurge in the FMS cases I cite a few typical horrors. number of persons who fancy them­ A 28-year-old woman accuses her selves benevolent witches or warlocks, father of molesting her when she was police have yet to uncover any com­ six months old. "I recall my father put pelling evidence that satanic cults his penis near my face and rubbed it exist. Yet under hypnosis and soporific on my face and mouth." There is not drugs, memories of witnessing such the slightest evidence that a child of rituals can become as vivid as memo­ six months can acquire lasting memo­ ries of sexual abuse. ries of any event. Thousands of other patients, Betsy Petersen, in Dancing with highly suggestible while half asleep, Daddy (Bantam, 1991) tells of being are now "remembering" how they convinced by her therapist that she were abducted, and sometimes sexu­ had been raped by her father when ally abused, by aliens in spaceships she was three. "I don't know if I made from faraway planets. Every year or it up or not," she told the therapist. so victims of this form of FMS "It feels like a story," he replied, (assuming they are not charlatans) will "because when something like that write persuasive books about their happens, everyone acts like it didn't." adventures with extraterrestrials. The In 1986 Patti Barton sued her books will be heavily advertised and father for sexually abusing her when promoted on talk shows, and millions she was seven to fifteen months old. of dollars will flow into the pockets She did not remember this until her of the authors and the books' uncaring thirty-second therapy session. She publishers. Still another popular form recalls trying to tell her mother what of FMS, sparked by the New Age happened by saying, "Ma, ma, ma, obsession with reincarnation, is the ma!" and "Da, da, da, da!" recovering of memories of past lives. Geraldo Rivera, in 1991, had three Pop-psychology books touting the trauma survivors on his "Geraldo" myth that memories of childhood television show. One woman insisted molestations can be suppressed for she had murdered 40 children while decades are becoming as plentiful as she was in a satanic cult but had totally books about reincarnation, satanic forgotten about it until her memories cults, and flying saucers. Far and away were aroused in therapy. Well-known the worst offender is a best-seller entertainers have boosted the FMS titled Courage to Heal (Harper & Row, epidemic by openly discussing their 1988), by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. traumas on similar sensational talk Although neither author has had any shows. Roseanne Barr recently training in psychiatry, the book has learned for the first time, while in become a bible for women convinced therapy, that she had been repeatedly they are incest survivors. Davis thinks molested by her parents, starting she herself is a survivor, having when she was three months old! Her recalled under therapy being attacked story made the cover of People mag­ by her grandfather. A survey of azine. Barr's parents and sisters deny

372 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 Passages from Courage to Heal, the "Bible" of Incest Survivors

"You may think you don't have abuser, you must reconcile that memories, but often as you begin love with the fact that he abused to talk about what you do you. . . . You may have to grieve remember, there emerges a con­ over the fact that you don't have stellation of feelings, reactions an extended family for your and recollections that add up to children, that you'll never receive substantial information. To say, 'I an inheritance, that you don't was abused/ you don't need the have family roots." kind of recall that would stand up in a court of law. Often the "If your memories of the abuse knowledge that you were abused are still fuzzy, it is important to starts with a tiny feeling, an realize that you may be grilled for intuition. . . . Assume your feel­ details. ... Of course such ings are valid. ... If you think demands for proof are unrea­ you were abused and your life sonable. You are not responsible shows the symptoms, then you for proving that you were were." abused."

"If you don't remember your "If you're willing to get angry and abuse you are not alone. Many the anger just doesn't seem to women don't have memories, and come, there are many ways to get some never get memories. This in touch with it. A little like doesn't mean they weren't priming the pump, you can do abused." things that will get your anger started. Then once you get the "If you maintained the fantasy hang of it, it'll begin to flow on that your childhood was 'happy/ its own." then you have to grieve for the childhood you thought you had. "You may dream of murder or . . . You must give up the idea castration. It can be pleasurable to that your parents had your best fantasize such scenes in vivid interest at heart. ... If you have detail. . . . Let yourself imagine any loving feelings toward your it to your heart's content." it and have threatened legal action. A years of the time the abuse was former Miss America, Marilyn Van remembered! In 1990 the first convic­ Derbur, has been in the news pro­ tion based on "repressed memory" claiming her decades-delayed recollec­ occurred. George Franklin was given tion of abuse by her father, now a life sentence for murdering an 8- deceased. year-old in 1969 almost entirely on the It is an alarming trend that a dozen basis of his daughter's memory, states have revised their statute-of- allegedly repressed for 20 years, of limitations laws and now permit legal having witnessed his murdering her action against parents within three friend. A year later a Pennsylvania

Summer 1993 373 man was convicted of murder on the respected police officer in Olympia, basis of a man's detailed account of Washington, who was accused by his what he had seen when he was five, two adult daughters of sexually but had totally forgotten for 16 years. abusing them as children. Ingram's Although therapists usually deny family are devout Pentecostals who asking leading questions, tapes of their believe that Satan can wipe out all sessions often prove otherwise. If no memories of such crimes. Ingram memories surface they will prod a remembered nothing, but after five patient to make up a story. After many months of intensive questioning, he repetitions and elaborations of the came to believe himself guilty. Psy­ invented scenario, the patient starts chologist Richard Ofshe, writing on to believe the story is true. One "Inadvertent Hypnosis During Inter­ therapist, who claims to have treated rogation" (International Journal of 1,500 incest victims, explained her Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, approach. She would say to a patient: 11:125-155, 1992), tells how he fab­ "You know, in my experience, a lot ricated an imaginary incident of of people who are struggling with Ingram's sexual abuse of a son and many of the same problems you are daughter. After repeated suggestions have often had some kind of really that he try to "see" this happening, painful things happen to them as Ingram produced a written confession! kids—maybe they were beaten or Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist, molested. And I wonder if anything tells of his vivid memory of an like that ever happened to you?" attempted kidnapping when he was Another traumatist says: "You sound two. The thief had been foiled by to me like the sort of person who must Piaget's nurse, who bravely fought off have been sexually abused. Tell me the man. When Piaget was in his teens what that bastard did to you." the nurse confessed that she made up The FMS epidemic would not be the story to win admiration, even so bad if such therapists were frauds scratching herself to prove there had interested only in money, but the sad been a struggle. Piaget had heard the truth is that they are sincere. So were story so often that it seeped into his the doctors who once tried to cure consciousness as a detailed memory. patients by bleeding, and the church­ Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist at men who "cured" witches by torture, Johns Hopkins University, in "Psychi­ hanging, and burning. atric Misadventures" (American Scho­ Better-trained, older psychiatrists lar, Fall 1992), writes about a woman do not believe that childhood memo­ who under therapy came to believe ries of traumas can be repressed for she had been sexually assaulted by an any length of time, except in rare cases uncle. She recalled the exact date. Her of actual brain damage. Nor is there disbelieving mother discovered that at any evidence that hypnosis improves that time her brother was in military memory. It may increase certitude, service in Korea. Did this alter the but not accuracy. And there is abund­ woman's belief? Not much. "I see, ant evidence that totally false memo­ Mother," she said. "Yes. Well let me ries are easily aroused in the mind of think. If your dates are right, I suppose a suggestible patient. it must have been Dad." A two-part article by Lawrence Although the incest-recall industry Wright, "Remembering Satan" (New is likely to grow in coming years, as Yorker, May 17 and 24,1993), tells the it spreads around the world, there are tragic story of Paul Ingram, a some hopeful signs. Here and there

374 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 17 women are beginning to discover how Foundation responded to criticism cruelly they have been deceived and that somehow its efforts are a back­ are suing therapists for inducing false lash against feminism. Their reply: Is memories that caused them and their it not "harmful to feminism to portray parents great suffering. They are women as having minds closed to known as "recanters" or "retractors." scientific information and as being Another welcome trend is that satisfied with sloppy, inaccurate distinguished psychologists and psy­ statistics? Could it be viewed as a chiatrists are now writing papers profound insult to women to give about the FMS epidemic. I particularly them slogans rather than accurate recommend the book Confabulations information about how memory (Social Issues Research Series, Boca works?" Raton, Fla., 1992) by Eleanor Gold­ The point is not to deny that stein, and the following three arti­ hideous sexual abuse of children cles: "Beware the Incest-Survivor occurs, but that, when it does, it is Machine," by psychologist Carol not forgotten and only "remembered" Tavris, in the New York Times Book decades later under hypnosis. Some­ Review (January 3,1993); "The Reality thing is radically amiss when therapist of Repressed Memories," by Elizabeth E. Sue Blume, in her book Secret Loftus (psychologist, University of Survivors, can maintain: "Incest is Washington), scheduled for publica­ easily the greatest underlying reason tion in American Psychologist, and why women seek therapy. ... It is "Making Monsters," by Richard Of she my experience that fewer than half and Ethan Watters, in Society (March of the women who experience this 1993). Most of this column is based trauma later remember or identify it on material in those articles. Copies as abuse. Therefore it is not unrea­ can be obtained, along with other sonable that more than half of all women literature, from the FMS Foundation, are survivors of childhood sexual 3401 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA trauma." 19104. The phone number is 215-387- As Carol Tavris, author of Mismea- 1865, Fax: 215-387-1917. sure of Women, comments in her article The FMS Foundation is a nonprofit cited above: "Not one of these asser­ organization whose purpose is to seek tions is supported by empirical reasons for the FMS epidemic, to work evidence." for the prevention of new cases, and to aid victims. By the end of 1992, only This marks the beginning of Martin ten months after its founding, more Gardner's second decade as a regular than two thousand distressed parents SKEPTICAL INQUIRER columnist. His had contacted the Foundation for first column, "Lessons of a Landmark PK advice on how to cope with sudden Hoax," appeared in our Summer 1983 attacks by angry daughters who had issue. Many of his columns have been accused them of horrible crimes. reprinted (often with postscripts)-in his I trust that no one reading this books The New Age (Prometheus, 1988, column will get the impression that 1991) and On the Wild Side (Prome­ either I or members of the FMS theus, 1992). Some appear in the SI Foundation are not fully aware that anthologies Science Confronts the many women are indeed sexually Paranormal (Prometheus, 1986) and abused as children and that their The Hundredth Monkey and Other abusers should be punished. In its Paradigms of the Paranormal (Pro­ newsletter of January 8, 1993, the metheus, 1991).

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