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False Memory Syndrome 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.
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