Recovered Memory Data

Definition: http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/whatabout.html What about Recovered Memories? Jennifer J. Freyd, University of Oregon “Sivers, Schooler, and Freyd (2002, p 169) define recovered memory as “The recollection of a memory that is perceived to have been unavailable for some period of time.”

The Neurological Basis for the Theory of Recovered Memory http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/the-neurological-basis-for-the-theory-of-recovered-memory/

Recovered Memory Corroboration:

http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/suggestedrefs.html
Research discussing corroboration and accuracy of recovered memories: An Annotated Bibliography by Lynn Crook

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/index.html “…debate has focused on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. But the phenomenon extends to other traumas, including physical abuse or witnessing a murder. Almost everyone would agree that such traumas are normally remembered. That is, most people who experience such a trauma are likely to remember it, perhaps vividly and to the point of being intrusive. But do some people forget completely? A variety of scientific sources say “yes.” The purpose of this website, then, is to bring together the extensive and growing evidence of cases ignored or overlooked by self-described skeptics of various sorts. Peer-reviewed prospective studies and clinical studies continue to document this phenomenon. Moreover, cognitive psychologists have combined experimental data with these other sources to develop better ways of understanding this phenomenon.”

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/archive.html 101 Corroborated Cases of Recovered Memory

http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/ Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse Scientific Research & Scholarly Resources by Jim Hopper “Amnesia for childhood sexual abuse is a condition. The existence of this condition is beyond dispute. Repression is merely one explanation - often a confusing and misleading one - for what causes the condition of amnesia. At least 10% of people sexually abused in childhood will have periods of complete amnesia for their abuse, followed by experiences of delayed recall.”

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/tm/tm.html Research has shown that traumatized individuals respond by using a variety of psychological mechanisms. One of the most common means of dealing with the pain is to try and push it out of awareness. Some label the phenomenon of the process whereby the mind avoids conscious acknowledgment of traumatic experiences as dissociative amnesia .  Others use terms such as repression , dissociative state , traumatic amnesia, psychogenic shock, or motivated forgetting .  Semantics aside, there is near-universal scientific acceptance of the fact that the mind is capable of avoiding conscious recall of traumatic experiences.

How often do children’s reports of abuse turn out to be false? Research has consistently shown that false allegations of child sexual abuse by children are rare. Jones and McGraw examined 576 consecutive referrals of child sexual abuse to the Denver Department of Social Services, and categorized the reports as either reliable or fictitious. In only 1% of the total cases were children judged to have advanced a fictitious allegation. Jones, D. P. H., and J. M. McGraw: Reliable and Fictitious Accounts of Sexual Abuse to Children.Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2, 27-45, 1987. In a more recent study, investigators reviewed case notes of all child sexual abuse reports to the Denver Department of Social Services over 12 months. Of the 551 cases reviewed, there were only 14 (2.5%) instances of erroneous concerns about abuse emanating from children. These consisted of three cases of allegations made in collusion with a parent, three cases where an innocent event was misinterpreted as sexual abuse and eight cases (1.5%) of false allegations of sexual abuse. Oates, R. K., D.P. Jones, D. Denson, A. Sirotnak, N. Gary, and R.D. Krugman: Erroneous Concerns about Child Sexual Abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect 24:149-57, 2000….Children Tend to Understate Rather than Overstate the Extent of Any Abuse Experienced - Research with children whose sexual abuse has been proven has shown that children tend to minimize and deny abuse, not exaggerate or over-report such incidents. http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/csa-acc.html

The False Memory Debate - Research discussing corroboration for, and accuracy of recovered memories - An Annotated Bibliography - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psnews/message/743 from - Brown, D., Scheflin, A., and Whitfield, C. (1999). Recovered memories: the current weight of the evidence in science and in the courts. The Journal of Psychiatry & Law 27/Spring 1999. “The recovery of memories in clinical practice: Experiences and beliefs of British Psychological Society practitioners” Andrews, Bernice; Morton, John; Bekerian, Debra A.; Brewin, Chris R.; Davis, Graham M.; Mollon, Phil The Psychologist 1995 May, Vol. 8, pp. 209-214 ” “…recovery from total amnesia of past traumatic material involving both CSA and non-CSA experiences is (not) uncommon”" … our large-scale survey confirms and extends previous research…. Memory recovery appears to be a robust and frequent phenomenon.”

“Recall of childhood trauma: A prospective study of women’s memories of child sexual abuse.” Williams, Linda Meyer U New Hampshire, Family Research Lab, Durham, US Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology 1994 Dec Vol 62(6) 1167-1176 In a study of 129 women “with previously documented histories of sexual victimization” A large proportion of the women (38%) did not recall the abuse that had been reported 17 years earlier.” Women younger in age when abused and women “molested by someone they knew were more likely to have no recall of the abuse…Long periods with no memory of abuse should not be regarded as evidence that the abuse did not occur.”

“Recovered memories of abuse among therapy patients: A national survey.” Pope, Kenneth S.; Tabachnick, Barbara G.  Independent practice, Norwalk, CT, US Ethics & Behavior 1995 Vol 5(3) 237-248, “According to the therapists, about 50% of the patients who claimed to have recovered the memories had found external validation, a percentage that coincides with that obtained in the Feldman-Summers & Pope, 1994 study”

Corroboration of Child Abuse Memories http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/abuse/a/cooroborate.htm “Studies vary in frequency. Between 31 and 64 percent of abuse survivors in six major studies reported that they forgot “some of the abuse.” Numbers reporting severe amnesia ranged from under 12% to 59%….Studies report 50-75% of abuse survivors corroborating the facts of their abuse through an outside source. Corroboration of ritual abuse was lower. One study of ritual abuse found 3% corroboration in delayed memory patients and 20% corroboration in patients with continuous memories of ritual abuse. Another study put the numbers between 14% and 37%.” Reference: Bowman, Elizabeth. Delayed Memories of Child Abuse: Part I: An Overview of Research Findings on Forgetting, Remembering, and Corroborating Trauma. Dissociation, IX (4) pp. 221-231

Synopsis of data from “Memory, Trauma Treatment, and the Law” by Brown, Scheflin and Hammond, W.W. Norton and Co. New York and London, C 1998 (http://www.wwnorton.com) Page 370-381

The base rates for memory commission errors are quite low, at least in professional trauma treatment. The base rates in adult misinformation studies run between zero and 5 percent for adults and between 3 - 5 percent for children.

“Occasional unwitting misleading suggestions (Yapko, 1994a), even the suggestion of a diagnosis of abuse, cannot adequately explain illusory memories of child sexual abuse.” (p. 379)

It is almost totally impossible for anyone to make a memory error for the central plot of a memory simply by hearing disinformation. A variety of other factors would have to be in place. Even under hypnosis without several social influence factors, it is extremely rare (4-6% of 7-10%, less than one percent of people) may be influenced by disinformation.

Memory on Trial - Research suggests that children’s memory may be more reliable than adults’ in court cases …3/6/08 The U.S. legal system has long assumed that all testimony is not equally credible, that some witnesses are more reliable than others. In tough cases with child witnesses, it assumes adult witnesses to be more reliable. But what if the legal system had it wrong? Researchers Valerie Reyna, human development professor, and Chuck Brainerd, human development and law school professor — both from Cornell University — argue that like the two-headed Roman god Janus, memory is of two minds — that is, memories are captured and recorded separately and differently in two distinct parts of the mind. They say children depend more heavily on a part of the mind that records, “what actually happened,” while adults depend more on another part of the mind that records, “the meaning of what happened.” As a result, they say, adults are more susceptible to false memories, which can be extremely problematic in court cases. Reyna’s and Brainerd’s research, funded by the National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va., sparked more than 30 follow-up memory studies, many of them also funded by NSF. The researchers review the follow-on studies in an upcoming issue of Psychological Bulletin….Reyna and Brainerd’s findings are summarized in a new book, The Science of False Memory, published by Oxford University Press. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111230&org=NSF&from=news?

“Forgetting and Recovering the Unforgettable.” Psychological Science - Volume 19, Number 5 - May 2008 Steven M. Smith & Sarah C. Moynan “Some experiences, particularly those that are emotional and distinctive, may seem unforgettable. Can memories of emotional and distinctive events be blocked from consciousness, and if so, can those memories subsequently be recovered? Although there is considerable laboratory research demonstrating false memories, relatively few studies have examined blocked and recovered memories, as we did in the study reported in this article. As noted in reviews by Gleaves, Smith, Butler, and Spiegel (2004) and by Roediger and Bergman (1998), the false-memory debate must be informed by experimental laboratory research examining not only false memories, but also blocked and recovered memories….In the present study, we investigated whether interference can cause dramatic forgetting that is subsequently reversed when retrieval cues are provided. Using a combination of classic laboratory methods for manipulating interference and cuing, we repeatedly found high levels of blocked and recovered memories, even for materials that had sexually explicit and violent content. correspondence to Steven M. Smith, Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, e-mail: stevesmith@tamu.edu http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/ps/19_5.cfm

Duggal, S., & Sroufe, L. A. (1998). Recovered memory of childhood sexual trauma: A documented case from a longitudinal study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 11(2), 301-321. This account contains a prospective report of memory loss in a case in which there is both documented evidence of trauma and evidence of recovery of memory.

“Child Maltreatment, Vol. 2, No. 2, 91-112 (1997) DOI: 10.1177/1077559597002002001 Videotaped Discovery of a Reportedly Unrecallable Memory of Child Sexual Abuse: Comparison with a Childhood Interview Videotaped 11 Years Before David L. Corwin, Erna Olafson….This article presents the history, verbatim transcripts, and behavioral observations of a child’s disclosure of sexual abuse to Dr. David Corwin in 1984 and the spontaneous return of that reportedly unrecallable memory during an interview between the same individual, now a young adult, and Dr. Corwin 11 years later. Both interviews were videotape recorded.” http://cmx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/2/91

Consider This, Skeptics of Recovered Memory Author: Ross E. Cheit DOI: 10.1207/s15327019eb0802_4 Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 , pages 141 - 160 Formats available: PDF (English) Abstract : Some self-proclaimed skeptics of recovered memory claim that traumatic childhood events simply cannot be forgotten at the time only to be remembered later in life. This claim has been made repeatedly by the Advisory Board members of a prominent advocacy group for parents accused of sexual abuse, the so-called False Memory Syndrome Foundation. The research project described in this article identifies and documents the growing number of cases that have been ignored or distorted by such skeptics. To date, this project has documented 35 cases in which recovered memories of traumatic childhood events were corroborated by clear and convincing evidence. This article concludes with some observations about the politics of the false memory movement, particularly the tendency to conceal or omit evidence of corroboration. Several instances of this vanishing facts syndrome are documented and analyzed. http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327019eb0802_4?journalCode=eb

Pezdek, Hodge, D. (1999) July-August Planting false childhood memories: The role of event plausibility Child Development 70(4) p.887-895 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-3920%28199907%2F08%2970%3A4%3C887%3APFCMIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage partial synopsis : study found that although 3 (15%) of 20 participants recalled a plausible false memory of getting lost in a shopping mall, none of the participants accepted an implausible false memory that they had received a painful enema as a child from their parent.

Abuse, Memory, Science, Therapy, Ethics, Malpractice - Kenneth S. Pope, Ph.D. about this Site - This site provides free access to peer-reviewed research articles, abstracts, APA list utilities, guides, announcements, & other resources. http://web.archive.org/web/20010803163457/http://www.idealist.com/memories

theories on recovered memory:

http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/defineBT.html The phrase “betrayal trauma” can be used to refer to a kind of trauma (independent of the reaction to the trauma). E.G. This definition is on the web: “Most mental health professionals have expanded the definition of trauma to include betrayal trauma. Betrayal trauma occurs when the people or institutions we depend on for survival violate us in some way. An example of betrayal trauma is childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.” from http://www.loyola.edu/campuslife/healthservices/counselingcenter/trauma.html

The phrase “Betrayal Trauma theory” is generally used to refer to the prediction/theory about the cause of unawareness and amnesia as in: “Betrayal Trauma Theory: A theory that predicts that the degree to which a negative event represents a betrayal by a trusted needed other will influence the way in which that events is processed and remembered.” This definition is from: Sivers, H., Schooler, J. , Freyd, J. J. (2002) Recovered memories. In V.S. Ramachandran (Ed.) Encyclopedia of the Human Brain, Volume 4.(pp 169-184). San Diego, California and London: Academic Press. It has been proposed in the Betrayal Trauma Theory that “that psychogenic amnesia is an adaptive response to childhood abuse” and that “victims may need to remain unaware of the trauma not to reduce suffering but rather to promote survival.” Freyd, J.(1994) Betrayal Trauma: Traumatic Amnesia as an Adaptive Response to Childhood Abuse. Ethics & Behavior 4 (4) p. 307-330 http://www.questia.com/read/95814385 The amnesia allows the child maintain attachment to a person that a child needs to depend on for survival and development.

legal information:

Ground Lost: The False Memory/Recovered Memory Therapy Debate, by Alan Scheflin, Psychiatric Times 11/99, Vol. XVI Issue 11, “The appearance in the DSM-IV indicates that the concept of repressed memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. This satisfies courts following the Frye v United States, 293 F.1013 (1923) or Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical, 113 S. Ct. 2786 (1993) rules regarding the admissibility of scientific testimony into evidence in court.” And “Although the science is limited on this issue, the only three relevant studies conclude that repressed memories are no more and no less accurate than continuous memories (Dalenberg, 1996; Widom and Morris, 1997; Williams, 1995). Thus, courts and therapists should consider repressed memories no differently than they consider ordinary memories.” At http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p991137.html

http://www.jimhopper.com/memory-decision (the first page (.com) links to other pages of interest also) “The Validity of Recovered Memory: Decision of a US District Court” Judge Edward F. Harrington, Presentation by Jim Hopper, Ph.D. The legal documentation citation is: 923 Federal Supplement 286 (D. Mass. 1996), United States District Court - District of Massachusetts Ann Shahzade, plaintiff Civil Action No.: V. 92-12139-EFH George Gregory, Defendant.

Some quotes from the decision: “The factors to be considered when deciding if proffered testimony is valid ’scientific knowledge,’ and therefore reliable, are…” (p.3) “This Court finds that the reliability of the phenomenon of repressed memory has been established” and will allow the plaintiff to introduce evidence related to their recovered memories (p.3). “Dr. van der Kolk testified that repressed memories is not a scientific controversy, but… a political and forensic one” (p.5). “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV, 1994)…also recognizes the concept of repressed memories” (p.7). “in considering the admissibility of repressed memory evidence,” the court must rule on the “validity of the theory itself… for the law to reject a diagnostic category generally accepted by those who practice the art and science of psychiatry would be folly.” (p.9).

physiological evidence for memory suppression:

The Neurological Basis for the Theory of Recovered Memory http://members.aol.com/smartnews/Neurological_Memory.htm

synopsis of part of van der Kolk, B. A. & Fisler, R. (1995) Dissociation and the fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: Overview and exploratory study. http://web.archive.org/web/20021211024350/http://www.trauma-pages.com/vanderk2.htm van der Kolk and Fisler’s research shows that traumatic memories are retrieved, at least at first, in the form of mental imprints that are dissociated. These imprints are of the affective and sensory elements of the traumatic experience. Clients have reported the slow emergence of a personal narrative that can be considered explicit (conscious) memory. The level of emotional significance of a memory correlates directly with the memory’s veracity. Studies of subjective reports of memory show that memories of highly significant events are unusually accurate and stable over time. There are a variety of memory systems which usually operate outside of conscious awareness. These systems operate with some independence from the other memory systems. While people appear to easily assimilate expected and known experiences, aspects of traumatic experiences appear to get stuck in the mind, unaltered by time passing or experiences that may follow. The imprints of traumatic experiences appear to be qualitatively different from those of nontraumatic events. Explicit memories of personal facts or events are affected by lesions of the front lobe and hippocampus. These parts of the brain are also involved in PTSD neurobiology. Traumatic memories may be coded differently than ordinary event memories, possibly because of alterations in attentional focusing or the fact that extreme emotional arousal interferes with the memory functions of the hippocampus.

Traumas can interfere with several memory functions. van der Kolk divided these functional disturbances into four sets, traumatic amnesia, global memory impairment, dissociative processes and traumatic memories’ sensorimotor organization. Traumatic amnesia involves the loss of remembering traumatic experiences. The younger the subject and the longer the traumatic event is, the greater the chance of significant amnesia. Global memory impairment makes it difficult for these subjects to construct an accurate account of their present and past history. Dissociation refers to memories being stored as fragments and not as unitary wholes. Not being able to integrate traumatic memories seems to be the main element which leads to PTSD. In the sensorimotor organization of traumatic memories, sensations are fragmented into different sensory components.

Synopsis of part of van der Kolk, B. A. (1994). The body keeps the score: Memory and the evolving psychobiology of post traumatic stress. http://web.archive.org/web/20041204204758/http://www.trauma-pages.com/vanderk4.htm Trauma victims do not respond to stress the way normals do. Pressure situations may cause a feeling of retraumatization. High states of arousal may promote the retrieval of trauma memories and associated phenomena such as sensory information or behaviors connected to prior trauma. Therefore, traumatic memories may be considered state dependent. Under stress, people secrete endogenous stress hormones that affect memory consolidation strength. Through studies on animal models, it is assumed that the large secretion of neurohormones during a traumatic event in part causes long-term potentiation (LTP) and the over-consolidation of traumatic memories. This LTP may cause an organism to remember a trauma whenever aroused. Neuroepinepehrine may be the major hormone causing LTP. Endorphins and oxytocin may actually cause inhibition of the consolidation of memories. Reliving the traumatic event may cause stress hormones to strength the memory trace causing a positive feedback loop.

The limbic system is believed to be critically involved in memory storage and retrieval as well as giving emotional significance to sensory inputs. Research in brain imaging studies suggests that trauma patients may have limbic system abnormalities. One part of the limbic system, the amygdala, may assign free-floating feelings to input which are then elaborated upon by the neocortex and imbued with personal meaning. It may also integrate internal representations of the external world in memory image form associating emotional experiences with these memories. The septo-hippocampal system is thought to record memory in temporal and spatial dimensions, and plays an important role in storing and categorizing incoming stimuli in memory. Hippocampal damage is connected to over responsiveness to external stimuli. When stress interferes with the hippocampus’ mediation of memory, it is possible that some of the memory is kept by a system that records emotional experience, but there is no symbolic placement of it in time or space. In animals, high stimulation of the amygdala interferes with hippocampal processing. Strong affect may disallow proper evaluating and categorizing of an experience.

Professor uncovers the nature of memories - Associate Professor Michael Anderson recently published a new study of what the brain does when a person forgets By Caron Alarab 1/14/03 “A University researcher is receiving international attention this week for a recent experiment exploring why people forget. With a team of Stanford researchers, Associate Professor of psychology Michael Anderson found people can use certain brain regions to block memories just as they do to control physical actions. “It’s no longer possible to say that human beings can’t actively forget,” said Anderson, one of the nation’s leading memory researchers. “Our research demystifies the idea of memory suppression.” The findings, which were published in the Jan. 9 issue of Science magazine, support Sigmund Freud’s controversial century-old theory about the existence of voluntary memory suppression. For the experiment, Anderson recruited Stanford researcher John Gabrieli and the two co-wrote the Science article “Neural Systems Underlying the Suppression of Unwanted Memories.” http://www.dailyemerald.com/

Research Reveals Brain Has Biological Mechanism To Block Unwanted Memories 1/9/04 “For the first time, researchers at Stanford University and the University of Oregon have shown that a biological mechanism exists in the human brain to block unwanted memories. The findings, to be published Jan. 9 in the journal Science, reinforce Sigmund Freud’s controversial century-old thesis about the existence of voluntary memory suppression. “The big news is that we’ve shown how the human brain blocks an unwanted memory, that there is such a mechanism and it has a biological basis,” said Stanford psychology Professor John Gabrieli, a co-author of the paper titled “Neural Systems Underlying the Suppression of Unwanted Memories.” “It gets you past the possibility that there’s nothing in the brain that would suppress a memory - that it was all a misunderstood fiction.” The experiment showed that people are capable of repeatedly blocking thoughts of experiences they don’t want to remember until they can no longer retrieve the memory, even if they want to, Gabrieli explained.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040109072004.htm

The nature of traumatic memories: A 4-T FMRI functional connectivity analysis. Lanius RA, Williamson PC, Densmore M, Boksman K, Neufeld RW, Gati JS, Menon RS. Am J Psychiatry 2004 Jan; 161(1):36-44. RESULTS: Significant between-group differences in functional connectivity were found. Comparison of connectivity maps at coordinates x=2, y=20, z=36 (right anterior cingulate gyrus) for the two groups showed that the subjects without PTSD had greater correlation than the PTSD subjects in the left superior frontal gyrus (Brodmann’s area 9), left anterior cingulate gyrus (Brodmann’s area 32), left striatum (caudate), left parietal lobe (Brodmann’s areas 40 and 43), and left insula (Brodmann’s area 13). In contrast, the PTSD subjects showed greater correlation than the subjects without PTSD in the right posterior cingulate gyrus (Brodmann’s area 29), right caudate, right parietal lobe (Brodmann’s areas 7 and 40), and right occipital lobe (Brodmann’s area 19). CONCLUSIONS: The differences in brain connectivity between PTSD and comparison subjects may account for the nonverbal nature of traumatic memory recall in PTSD subjects, compared to a more verbal pattern of traumatic memory recall in comparison subjects.

replies to skeptics:

Imagination inflation: A statistical artifact of regression toward the mean. Pezdek K, Eddy RM Mem Cognit 2001 Jul; 29(5):707-18; discussion 719-29 “In the imagination inflation procedure of Garry, Manning, Loftus, and Sherman (1996), subjects rated a list of events in terms of how likely each was to have occurred in their childhood. Two weeks later, some of the events were imagined; control events were not. The subjects then rated the likelihood of occurrence for each event a second time. Garry et al. (1996) reported that the act of imagining the target events led to increased ratings of likelihood. This finding has been interpreted as indicating that false events can be suggestively planted in memory by simply having people imagine them. The present study tests and confirms the hypothesis that the results that have been attributed to imagination inflation are simply a statistical artifact of regression toward the mean.” Author contact: Department of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, California 91711-3955, USA. kathy.pezdek@cgu.edu

Originally published in Moving Forward, Volume 3, No. 3, pp 1, 12-21, 1995. The Highly Misleading Truth and Responsibility in Mental Health Practices Act: The “False Memory” Movement’s Remedy for a Nonexistent Problem by Judith M. Simon “Over the past few years, the “false memory” movement has manifested primarily as a media presence that discounts sexual abuse survivors as first-hand witnesses to their own experiences. Its message of disbelief has compromised the healing process of many and placed more children at risk by helping perpetrators escape accountability.” http://members.aol.com/conch8/antiTRMP1.html

Dr. Jim Freisen’s new book The Truth About False Memory Syndrome, “The number of studies which have subjected false memory syndrome to scientific inquiry is zero. There is nothing scientific about it. There is nothing which defines it. There is no list of symptoms which describes it, nor is there anything which helps us distinguish it from other syndromes. No studies. No such thing. That’s that. ” (Pg. 16) Shepherd’s House, 7136 Haskell St., #210, Van Nuys, CA 91406.

False Memory Syndrome Facts (not an FMSF sponsored site) at http://www.fmsf.com

False Memory Syndrome : A False Construct by Juliette Cutler Page “The concept of “recovered memory”, that is, memory of a traumatic event that had been forgotten for some period of time, has been variously explained by such mechanisms as repression, amnesia, and dissociation. However, there are over 100 years of reports and descriptions of recovered memory in the literature, including instances from times of war, torture, bereavement, natural disasters, and concentration camp imprisonment. (HOROWITZ) Many corroborated cases have been documented in instances of recovered memory of sexual abuse…”

“For example, women with known histories of abuse have been studied to determine if they had ever had periods in which the abuse had been forgotten. The abstract of Linda M. Williams’ 1995 study, Recovered memories of abuse in women with documented child sexual victimization histories. (Journal of Traumatic Stress, 8,649 — 673, 1995) states: The study provides evidence that some adults who claimed to have recovered memories of sexual abuse recall actual events that occurred in childhood. 129 women with documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked about abuse history. 17 years following the initial report of the abuse, 80 of the women recalled the victimization. One in 10 women (16 percent of those who recalled the abuse) reported that at some time in the past they had forgotten about the abuse. Those with a prior period of forgetting — the women with”recovered memories” — were younger at the time of abuse and were less likely to have received support from their mothers than the women who reported that they had always remembered their victimization. The women who had recovered memories and those who had always remembered had the same number of discrepancies when their account of the abuse were compared to the reports from the early 1970s. None of the women in this study who had forgotten the abuse were in therapy at the time they began to remember again, and women’s memories, when they returned, were consistent with the actual abuse.

Charles L. Whitfield, M.D. performed a review of 36 studies on over 6,000 children and adults who were abused as children. His results showed that between 16 and 78% of subjects in these studies experienced partial to total amnesia for their abuse for some substantial amount of time. Most of the subjects had been sexually abused as children. Eight of these studies involved only subjects with fully corroborated abuse histories, four had to a corroboration rate of 60 to 80 percent, and four had corroboration among half of the subjects. All groups were similar in occurrence of traumatic amnesia.

Elizabeth Loftus herself has published studies showing evidence of recovered memory. The 4 January 1996 issue of Accuracy About Abuse notes: Elizabeth Loftus, high profile FMSF advocate, published a paper with colleagues on Remembering and Repressing in1994. In a study of 105 women outpatients in a substance abuse clinic 54 % reported a history of childhood sexual abuse. 81% remembered all or part of the abuse. 19% reported they forgot the abuse for a period of time and later the memory returned. Women who remembered the abuse their whole lives reported a clearer memory, with a more detailed picture. Women who remembered the abuse their whole lives did not differ from others in terms of the violence of the abuse or whether the violence was incestuous. [Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18 (1994) 67-84.]

Loftus has also discussed “motivated forgetting”, and has presented the documented study of a college professor who became unable to remember a series of traumas, but after some time was able to recover those memories. Loftus remarked “after such an enormously stressful experience, many individuals wish to forget… And often their wish is granted.” (Loftus, 1980/1988, p. 73)” http://web.archive.org/web/20030608221633/http://www.feminista.com/v1n9/false-memory.html

How People Forget: The Truth About Delayed Memory Studies of Delayed Memory http://web.archive.org/web/20000609035705/http://ncasa.org/memory.html

That dissociation and amnesia are relatively common in child sexual abuse survivors is well-documented. There have been several recent studies that verify the repression of trauma and the fact of delayed memories: In a survey of 450 adults in treatment for child sexual abuse, 59% had periods in which they could not remember the abuse. (Briere and Conte, in press).

In a study of 53 women in therapy, Judith Herman and Emily Schatzow found that 74% were able to obtain corroborating evidence for the abuse, through witnesses, offenders’ diaries, pornographic pictures, offender confessions, and other sources. Nine percent found evidence that was “strongly suggestive, but not conclusive;” 11% did not try to confirm their memories; and only 6% found no supportive evidence. The conclusion of the researchers was that, “delayed recall of sexual abuse is as verifiable as any other form of disclosure.”

Interviews were conducted with 100 women who as children reported sexual abuse in 1973,1974 or 1975. The records of these girls were obtained from a city hospital emergency department which had interviewed the girls and the families and collected forensic evidence. In1990 and 1991 the women, aged 18-31, were interviewed for two hours for what they were told was a study that examined the lives and health of women who obtained care at the hospital. In the course of the interview, the women were asked about their childhood experiences with sex. They were asked whether they or their families had ever reported childhood sexual abuse, or if anyone in their family ‘got in trouble’ for his or her sexual activities. Thirty-eight percent of the women either did not remember the abuse or chose not to report it to the interviewer. The interviewer states,”…qualitative analysis of these reports and non-reports suggests that the vast majority of the 38% were women who did not remember the abuse. They responded openly to other personal matters, and over one-half of the women who were amnestic reported other childhood victimizations.”

In the recent case of Father James Porter - a Catholic priest who admitted molesting more than100 boys and girls - many of his victims, now adults, remembered the abuse only after hearing about the case through the media Even the first victim to come forward stated that there had been a period of amnesia for the abuse. In these cases, both the fact of the abuse and the reality of the delayed memories were confirmed.

Iatrogenic memory change. Examining the empirical evidence. Leavitt F Am J Forensic Psychol (19)2: 21-32, 2001. “Certainty of sexual abuse predated treatment in 33% of the cases. Therapeutic causation was unlikely in another 26% because personal certainty of abuse emerged on average 4.1 years after termination of treatment. The pattern was similar for groups treated with and without hypnosis. Remarkably few patients recovered first memories in therapy with the help of hypnosis. This study places the percentage at 4%. Thus, in the direct study of patients who recovered memory of childhood sexual abuse, hypnosis was not an important factor in the emergence of sexual abuse memories. …The results do not support widespread implanting of novel memories of sexual abuse by therapists.”

Suspected repressed childhood sexual abuse: Gender effects on diagnosis and treatment. Sullins CD Psychology of Women Quarterly 1998 Sep Vol 22(3) 403-418 “These results do not support reports that many therapists neglect clients’ current symptoms and instead focus on memories, use controversial techniques, make suggestive statements regarding abuse, or immediately assume that their clients have repressed memories.” J. Herman,

author of “Trauma and Recovery” replies to Ethan Watters “Doors of Memory” (Jan./Feb. ‘93) in Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/letters/1993/03/backtalk.html “by now exhaustively documented. Sexual abuse of children is common (best estimates: at least one girl in three, one boy in ten). It is not over reported but vastly under-reported (best estimates: under 10 percent of all cases come to the attention of child-protective agencies or police). False complaints do occur, but they are rare (best estimates: under 5 percent of all complaints). Most victims do not disclose their abuse until long after the fact, if ever. Though many suffer long-lasting psychological harm, the great majority never see a therapist.”

Is There a False Memory Epidemic? by Stephanie J. Dallam, RN, MSN, FNP ….Conclusions - There is no reliable evidence to substantiate claims that the false memory syndrome is a “growing problem”, a “crisis”, or that it constitutes an”epidemic”. Despite the False Memory Syndrome Foundation’s pledge to disseminate only accurate information on memory, their contact and membership statistics, as reported in their newsletters and in the media, reveal a disturbing lack of clarity and consistency. These same statistics, in turn, have provided credibility to claims that a false memory “epidemic” is sweeping the country. Although 25 studies have confirmed the reality of amnesia in sexually traumatized populations, no reliable research has provided evidence to substantiate the existence of the false memory syndrome as it is defined by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. http://web.archive.org/web/19991128134659/http://idealist.com/tat/97-07-03-epidemic.shtml

“The hypothesis that false memories can easily be implanted in psychotherapy (Lindsay & Read, 1994; Loftus 1993; Loftus & Ketcham, 1994; Ofshe and Watters, 1993, 1994; Yapko, 1994a) seriously overstates the available data. Since no studies have been conducted on suggested effects in psychotherapy per se, the idea of iatrogenic suggestion of false memories remains an untested hypothesis. (Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (D. Corydon), 1998, W. W. Norton 0-393-70254-5)

Media Manipulation

U-Turn on Memory Lane by Mike Stanton - Columbia Journalism Review - July/August 1997

The FMSF builds much of its case against recovered memory by attacking a generally discredited Freudian concept of repression that proponents of recovered memory don’t buy, either. In so doing, the foundation ignores the fifty-year-old literature on traumatic, or psychogenic amnesia, which is an accepted diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association. In his 1996 book “Searching for Memory,” the Harvard psychologist and brain researcher Daniel L. Schachter — who believes that both true and false memories exist — says there is no conclusive scientific evidence that false memories can be created….The foundation and its backers “remind me of a high school debate team,” says the Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel, an authority on traumatic amnesia. “They go to the library, surgically extract the information convenient to them and throw out the rest.”….Many therapists, like their patients, hesitate to speak out.Recently, though, they have begun to make a more concerted effort to mobilize a response. One of the most outspoken critics of the false-memory movement is a Seattle therapist, David Calof, editor until last year of Treating Abuse Today, a newsletter for therapists. He has identified what he calls the movement’s political agenda — lobbying for more restrictive laws governing therapy and promoting the harassment of therapists through lawsuits and even picketing of their offices and homes. Calof himself has been the target of picketing so fierce that he has been in and out of Seattle courtrooms over the last two years, obtaining restraining orders. He was spending so much time and money fighting the FMSF supporters’ campaign against him, he says, that he was forced to stop publishing the newsletter last year. He recently donated the publication to a victims’ rights group in Pennsylvania, which has resurrected it as Trauma. The new publisher says that views part of its mission as reporting on FMSF, since the mainstream media don’t.

Among journalists, perhaps the most relentless critic of the foundation is Michele Landsberg, a Toronto Star columnist. In 1993, she says, an Ontario couple, claiming to have been falsely accused, contacted her and asked her to write about their case. Unconvinced, she declined, and eventually started writing instead about the foundation.She attacked its scientific claims and criticized the sensational media coverage. She described how a foundation scientific adviser, Harold Merskey, had testified that a woman accusing a doctor of sexual abuse in a civil case might in fact have been suffering from false memory syndrome. But the accused doctor himself had previously confessed to criminal charges of abusing her. Landsberg also challenged the credentials of other foundation advisers. She noted that one founding adviser, Ralph Underwager, was forced to resign from the foundation’s board after he and his wife, Hollida Wakefield, who remains an adviser, gave an interview to a Dutch pedophilia magazine in which he was quoted as describing pedophilia as”an acceptable expression of God’s will for love.” Landsberg also wrote that another adviser, James Randi, a magician known as “The Amazing Randi,” had been involved in a lawsuit in which his opponent introduced a tape of sexually explicit telephone conversations Randi had with teenage boys. (Randi has claimed at various times, she said, that the tape was a hoax and that the police asked him to make it.) “Why haven’t reporters investigated the False Memory Syndrome Foundation?” she asks. “It’s legitimate to examine their backgrounds –here are people who really do have powerful motivation to deny the truth.” http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/97/4/memory.asp

Battle Tactics of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - Noel Packard - New School for Social Research, N.Y. History Matters Conference April 23-24, 2004 Censorship is also a tactic that FMS Foundation adherents use to silence voices they don’t agree with. Katy Butler, published a critical review of Ofshe’s and Watter’s book, Making Monsters (1994) in the Los Angeles Times. Later the newspaper’s book review editor received a vague threat of a lawsuit from Ofshe’s representative (K. Butler personal communication with Lynn Crook January 28, 2000). Later Butler was asked to write a story for Newsweek examining the uncritical acceptance of Foundation claims and to provide documented cases of recovered memory and traumatic amnesia. Upon learning of this assignment Foundation Advisory Board members Richard Ofshe and Fredrick Crews, as well as Peter and Pamela Freyd, wrote strongly worded letters of complaint to Newsweek which effectively canceled Butler’s assignment (Stanton 1997). Although these censorship activities were reported in Mike Stanton’s article “U-Turn on Memory Lane” (1997) Nevertheless, Newsweek editors confirmed that the FMS Foundation letters helped kill Butler’s article. Butler said at a national conference of investigative reporters and editors in Rhode Island in 1996: “I’ve worked hard very hard to tell both sides of the story. What’s interesting to me about all of this that telling both sides has started to seem like a risky act.” (Stanton 1997: 49)….In 1994 the editor of the Journal of Psychohistory Lloyd DeMause wrote to many professional subscribers to inform them that he feared a lawsuit by the FMS Foundation for publishing a special issue of his journal on cult abuse. Dr. Jean Goodwin a psychiatrist at University of Texas Medical Branch responded with a letter that conveys the overall feeling among the mental health community in the early 1990s. Goodwin: From a Psychohistorical viewpoint it is fascinating to watch this organization systematically limit freedom of speech in this area. Their suits of publishers have driven many books out of print. Board members have prevented publication of many articles. As far as I know you are the first journal editor they have targeted. The slander suit stopped the audio-tapping of many presentations in this area. The licensing attacks and the malpractice suits threaten freedom of speech in the psychotherapy consulting room, which is where it is supposed to be most free. Silence still is the priority for the perpetrator (Goodwin 1994) Goodwin’s letter captures the effect that Foundations’ tactics had on the therapy community in the early 1990s. Today the overall effect of the Foundation’s court cases and tactics is more muted. One newly graduated MFT told me that as far as she knows the Foundation has had no impact on the practices of MFTs at all. A social worker who teaches a certification class on mandated reporting includes the Foundation topic in her lectures, saying that the Foundation “made us clean up our act.” I’ve also heard a seasoned MFT who teaches a class titled, “Counseling as a Career Option” lament that practicing psychotherapy is becoming a profession only for the rich (both as practitioners and clients). Perhaps this is due to recent constrictions and costs associated with lawsuits, training programs, licensing and insurance policies? It appears that the Foundations’ efforts to drive non-cognitive therapy beyond the grasp of un-wealthy clients are having some success. Kondora’s and Beckett’s studies indicate that the Foundation has been successful in many of its efforts to manage public perception of child abuse victims, therapists and the people accused of child abuse. Kondora and Beckett show that not only has public perception of victimized children become skeptical, but in fact, the press often goes beyond the Victorian custom of neutrality on all fronts of the issue, to out-right sympathy for accused molesters. What began in the 1960s and 1970s as a child welfare movement has arrived today as an accused sex-offender welfare movement (Goldsmith 2003); and right in time for an era when people are having more babies, less birth control and have easier ways to create home based child pornography than ever before. The Foundation has won many expensive malpractice lawsuits that have made news headlines. Such cases have probably put a chill into more than one therapy session, which is what they are intended to do. The Foundation’s efforts in and out of the court room have provided reasons for health insurance companies to reduce insurance payments for mental health care and have tied those payments generally to mental health diagnoses. Training programs for clinical therapists have become more like the clinical training programs of the cold-war years, more science oriented, more stringent, more bio-logically and drug oriented, and less theory and talked based. Many of the support groups, networks, newsletters, journals, and even significant names in the child welfare movement of the 1980’s and 1990’s have faded, vanished or been displaced by on-line and other services of the FMS Foundation. Kondora, Lori L. 1997. A Textual Analysis of the Construction of the False Memory Syndrome: Representations in Popular Magazines; 1990-1995. Ph.D. diss. University of Wisconsin, Madison. - Beckett, Katherine. 1996. Culture and the Politics of Signification: The Case of Child Sexual Abuse. SOCIAL PROBLEMS, Vol. 43, No. 1, February: 57-76. http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/historymatters/papers/NoelPackard.pdf

books and articles on memory:

Memory and Abuse - Remembering and Healing the Effects of Trauma C. Whitfield M.D. Health Communications, Inc 3201 SW 15th St, Deerfield Beach, FL.33442-8190.

Traumatic Amnesia: The Evolution of Our Understanding From A Clinical and Legal Perspective, Dr. Charles Whitfield (Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, 4(2), 3-34, 1997)

Trauma and Memory: Clinical & legal understanding of traumatic amnesia (Chapter 12) in Burgess, Ann W. (ed): Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nursing. Appleton & Lange, Stamford, Ct., 1998, pp 171-186. C. Whitfield, M.D.

Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (D. Corydon), 1998, W. W. Norton (0-393-70254-5), 1-800-233-4830 or www.wwnorton.com.

Child Abuse & Neglect, 1999, 23, No. 12, pp. 1221-1224. Manufactured Memory, Altered Belief and Self Report Mirage: The Alleged False Memory of Jean Piaget Revisited by Frank Leavitt, Ph.D. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psnews/message/328

Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 4, 2, 1997, Brunner/Mazel.Inc. c 1997, Traumatic Amnesia: The Evolution of Our Understanding From a Clinical and Legal Perspective by C. Whitfield, M.D.

False allegations of child sexual abuse by children are rare

“allegations made by child victims match closely with confessions of pedophiles”

“The evidence indicates that very few (children) lied originally.”

“children tend to minimize and deny abuse, not exaggerate or over-report such incidents”

How often do children’s reports of abuse turn out to be false? Research has consistently shown that false allegations of child sexual abuse by children are rare. Jones and McGraw examined 576 consecutive referrals of child sexual abuse to the Denver Department of Social Services, and categorized the reports as either reliable or fictitious. In only 1% of the total cases were children judged to have advanced a fictitious allegation. Jones, D. P. H., and J. M. McGraw: Reliable and Fictitious Accounts of Sexual Abuse to Children. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2, 27-45, 1987. In a more recent study, investigators reviewed case notes of all child sexual abuse reports to the Denver Department of Social Services over 12 months. Of the 551 cases reviewed, there were only 14 (2.5%) instances of erroneous concerns about abuse emanating from children. These consisted of three cases of allegations made in collusion with a parent, three cases where an innocent event was misinterpreted as sexual abuse and eight cases (1.5%) of false allegations of sexual abuse. Oates, R. K., D.P. Jones, D. Denson, A. Sirotnak, N. Gary, and R.D. Krugman: Erroneous Concerns about Child Sexual Abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect 24:149-57, 2000….Children Tend to Understate Rather than Overstate the Extent of Any Abuse Experienced - Research with children whose sexual abuse has been proven has shown that children tend to minimize and deny abuse, not exaggerate or over-report such incidents. http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/csa-acc.html

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http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=ABUSE.SPR

Children’s Testimony More Reliable than Physical Exams

Description
Allegations made by child victims of sexual abuse closely match the confessions of perpetrators. In addition, physical exams are unreliable indicators of sexual abuse.

Children’s testimony more reliable than physical exams in cases of sexual abuse

Although many people find a child’s testimony in cases of sexual abuse hard to believe, a new study proves that their allegations should be taken seriously.

The study, conducted at Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati, shows that allegations made by child victims match closely with confessions of pedophiles. The study also shows that genital exams are most often normal in victims of sexual abuse, even when genital penetration is admitted to, making it all the more imperative to listen to what children say, according to the study’s authors….

The researchers reviewed the records of 31 pedophiles who confessed between 1994 and 1999. The case files contained all available victim, witness and perpetrator statements, and pertinent victim medical records. They analyzed each case for admissions or denials of specific sexual acts. They also analyzed victim medical histories, examinations and reports from criminal investigators for specific histories of sexual assault and exam findings.

The 31 perpetrators confessed to a total of 101 acts of sexual abuse, some of which they committed multiple times. The perpetrators abused 47 children. The 45 old enough to provide a history described 111 acts of sexual abuse.

The perpetrators confessed to 68 percent of their victims’ allegations, and they denied 6 percent. The only acts denied were some allegations of penile-vaginal and penile-rectal penetration, possibly because of the stiffer criminal penalties associated with penetration, according to Dr. Shapiro, an emergency medicine physician at Cincinnati Children’s. The perpetrators were not specifically asked about the other 26 percent of victim allegations….

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Recantation in Child Sexual Abuse Cases - Rieser, Margaret    - Child Welfare, v70 n6 p611-22 Nov-Dec 1991 - ERIC #: EJ436461 - Abstract: A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. Reviews the literature on children’s retraction of their disclosure of having been sexually abused. The evidence indicates that very few lied originally. The circumstances that underlie recantation, including false allegations, secrecy, denial, lack of support, pressure to recant, societal attitudes, and intervening events, are discussed, and suggestions for mitigating them are offered.
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal;jsessionid=JwfdTd5V4T6qY4phJJxhtp5Q21YtbyrvJwgCj7vHJK3nkQvnPz3p!-383582632?_nfpb=true&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=%22Rieser+Margaret%22&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=au&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&objectId=0900019b80147b75&accno=EJ436461&_nfls=false

Ralph Underwager

Information on Ralph Underwager:

Interview in Amsterdam in June 1991 by “Paidika,” Editor-in-Chief, Joseph Geraci.

PAIDIKA: Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individuals?

RALPH UNDERWAGER: Certainly it is responsible. What I have been struck by as I have come to know more about and understand people who choose paedophilia is that they let themselves be too much defined by other people. That is usually an essentially negative definition. Paedophiles spend a lot of time and energy defending their choice. I don’t think that a paedophile needs to do that. Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God’s will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A paedophile can say: “This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I’ve made.”

Paedophiles are too defensive. They go around saying, “You people out there are saying that what I choose is bad, that it’s no good. You’re putting me in prison, you’re doing all these terrible things to me. I have to define my love as being in some way or other illicit.” What I think is that paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness, they can say, “I believe this is in fact part of God’s will.” They have the right to make these statements for themselves as personal choices. Now whether or not they can persuade other people they are right is another matter (laughs).
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager2.html

WITNESS FOR MR. BUBBLES Transcribed from “Australia 60 Minutes,” Channel Nine Network  (Aired on August 5, 1990 in Australia) Produced by Anthony McClellan; Reported by Mike Munro….

(describes crimes)
Reporter: Six weeks ago (17 June 1990) we brought you a story that a number of people, including some in high places, wanted to keep secret: the case against Mr. Bubbles. In that report, parents named Tony Deren as the man who had sexually assaulted their children. Deren’s wife ran the kindergarten they attended. Tonight we investigate another crucial aspect of this disturbing case. You remember, police listed seventeen young victims, and more than fifty (54) criminal charges were eventually laid. But when the Mr. Bubbles case went to court, not one of the children was called to give evidence. The charges were thrown out, and Tony Deren was set free.

One of the key Deren witnesses was a hired gun from the United States, a psychologist named Ralph Underwager, who says he’s an expert in child sexual abuse. He testified that the children’s evidence had been contaminated, and they were too young to know what the truth was.

“Reporter: This is Ralph Underwager. Psychologist. He was paid $25,000, and gave crucial evidence in favor of Tony Deren. Evidence which helped Deren walk free….

Reporter: Always the same story. Three and four year olds being lured into bubble baths with a man who sexually abused them.

Professor Kim Oates: Having examined them, and talked with them, I’m absolutely convinced the children were sexually abused.

Reporter: There’s absolutely no doubt?

Oates: No doubt at all

(Voice over)
Reporter: That’s the evidence Professor Kim Oates wanted to give in court. But he was never asked. As head of the Child Protection Unit at the Camperdown Children’s Hospital in Sydney, he’s known around the world as an expert in detecting child sexual abuse.

(Back to what is being said with the Professor)
Reporter: So we have eighteen children who were examined, five of whom your staff say were definitely sexually abused, and all of them from the same preschool. What’s your reaction to that?

Oates: Well, I think if you look at the incidence of significant child sexual abuse in the community, significant enough to lay physical findings in the preschool age group, I think it’s extraordinary….

Reporter: This is Debbie’s medical report. Once again, it was positive; there was sexual abuse.

(Switch to interview with Debbie’s mother)
Debbie’s mother: I was entirely spun out on that because I, at that point, had been trying to tell myself that, no, this wasn’t happening, it wasn’t true, who would interfere with my child.

Another child (wasn’t identified): I put some things in his body, and he put some things in my body, but I didn’t want him to.

Reporter: Cindy’s medical report confirms she was abused. The doctor found signs consistent with traumatic dilatation of the anus….

Reporter: This is Boroko Court House, Port Moresby, New Guinea. In 1972, Deren was brought here, charged with the aggravated assault of two young girls. He’d interfered with them in a swimming pool. Something Deren admits. And both charges were proven….

Reporter: There’s no doubt scores of questions remain unanswered in the Mr. Bubbles case, and some of them relate to Ralph Underwager, the expert witness Tony Deren paid to testify on his behalf. Ralph Underwager was imperative to Tony Deren’s defense. As a supposed independent expert, he testified that the evidence of the Bubbles children had become contaminated. And, they were too young to understand their duty to tell the truth. But, here in America, we’ve certainly discovered Underwager’s reputation and credentials aren’t all they’re cracked up to be….

Dr. Anna Salter: Well, he is someone who makes his living going around the country and testifying against children in child sexual abuse cases. He says the same thing in essentially every case. Which is every . . .

(Voice over)
Reporter: And Anna Salter knows what she’s talking about. A Ph.D. from Harvard, and a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood. She says young children can be believed.

(Back to Salter)
Anna Salter: This is consistent with the literature. If you look at what is the best legal textbook in the country today on children as witnesses, “Child Witness: Theory and Practice”, John Meyers says clearly children as young as three can comprehend the duty to tell the truth.

Reporter: And this man is a highly respected legal scholar in America?

Anna Salter: I think he’s fairly clearly the chief leading scholar on child sexual abuse in the country.

Reporter: Six American states have given Dr. Salter a grant to check Underwager’s methods in court. And what did she find?

Anna Salter: That he isn’t accurate. That what he says in court does not necessarily fairly represent the literature.

Reporter: He distorts the facts?

Anna Salter: Uh, frequently. Sometimes he quotes specific studies, and he’s frequently wrong about what the studies say.

Reporter: So we thought we’d get Dr. Salter to analyze the evidence Underwager gave under oath at the Mr. Bubbles hearing, where he testified his qualifications had never been questioned. But in an American case, the Swann case, this is what the courts said about Mr. Underwager.

Anna Salter: The court remains convinced the psychologist did not have the qualifications to testify as a doctor. The trial court ruled that the psychologist’s proposed testimony was not proper because there was no indication that the results of the doctor’s work had been accepted in the scientific community.

Reporter: In the Mr. Bubbles case, he said his qualifications were never in question….

Reporter: Now, the second incident, in the Mr. Bubbles case, was where Underwager said that 90 percent of accusations against child molesters are wrong. Now, is that backed up scientifically?

Anna Salter: No, that’s gobbledegook. I don’t know of any study that would support that….

Reporter: Ralph Underwager was hired to defend Polly’s father. And as usual, he testified that nothing had happened. It was all a delusion, and Polly had simply made the whole story up. But then, Underwager was cross-examined by Polly’s lawyer, Charles Vaughan.

(Scene switch to Vaughan’s office)
Vaughan: He used the theory that it was a delusion of the child that she was doing a favor for the mother by saying this happened when it really didn’t happen, to gain the favor and to be the apple of the eye of the mother.

Reporter: A delusion that she was continually raped over four days.

Vaughan: That’s right….

Reporter: The jury took only an hour to decide Polly Barnes was telling the truth. And that Ralph Underwager’s testimony that nothing had happened, could be ignored. In fact, Underwager’s evidence was rejected so much, the jury awarded Polly three and a quarter million dollars.

(Scene switch to Underwager’s house)(Voice over)
Reporter: So while Underwager was being rejected here in America, he had no such trouble at the Mr. Bubbles hearing in Australia where he testified that the children were too young to tell the truth….

Reporter: Ralph Underwager has testified for the defendants in about four hundred child abuse cases.  http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/MrBubbles.html

State of Minnesota v. Deloch, 1990 WL 48536 (Minn.App.), April 24, 1990 “After the state rested its case, it brought a motion in limine regarding Dr. Ralph Underwager, a psychologist the defense planned to call as a witness. Dr. Underwager’s testimony was directed to two issues: (1) the techniques used by Dr. Carolyn Levit in examining alleged child sexual abuse victims, and their impact on the child; and (2) characteristics of the memory process, especially learned memory versus acual recall of a real event. The trial court excluded Dr. Underwager’s testimony.
Appellant’s argument that the trial court erred in excluding Dr. Underwager’s testimony about Dr. Levitt’s examination procedures lacks merit. Before testimony by an expert witness may be admitted, the expert must be qualified by way of education or experience. Because Dr.Underwager is not a medical doctor, he does not have the expertise or qualifications to either evaluate Dr. Levitt’s examination technique for child abuse victims, or assess its acceptance or reputation in the scientific community.
The trial court did not err in excluding Dr. Underwager’s testimony about learned memory. The record does not establish that the scientific basis for his theory is reliable and broadly accepted in its field. Furthermore, the basic rule is that expert testimony, to be admissible, must be helpful to the jury, and we conclude that Dr. Underwager’s testimony….. would not necessarily be helpful. Dr. Underwager’s testimony would tend to inappropriately interfere with the role of the jury in assessing credibility. No evidence exists that Dr. Underwager’s testimony would add precision or depth to the jury’s conclusions.… Dr. Underwager’s testimony was excluded precisely because its helpfulness to the jury was seriously questioned. The trial court correctly excluded Dr. Underwager’s testimony. The evidence is sufficient to support the convictions.”

State v. Swan, 114 Wash.2d 613, 790 P.2d 610, May 3, 1990 At the trial of this case, the defense sought to qualify Dr. Ralph Underwager, a licensed psychologist, as an expert witness. The trial court ruled that the psychologist’s proposed testimony was not proper because there was no indication that the results of the doctor’s work had been accepted in the scientific community and because the testimony went directly to the credibility of the victims and invaded the province of the jury.
The court remains convinced [the psychologist] did not have the qualifications to testify as a doctor, and that the offered testimony, in any event, was within the common experience of all of us. The psychologist [w]as a researcher who did not have bona fide qualifications in the view of the Court. He was not involved in an independent research undertaking, but rather was approached to undertake research by an interested party with no interest [in] the outcome of the research. It is the Court’s memory [the psychologist's] research was undertaken at the behest of the insurance industry relative to civil claims for child sexual abuse.
It was not shown at trial that the psychologist’s position on child interviewing was accepted by the scientific community. The psychologist’s proposed testimony did not satisfy the test for admissibility set forth in ER 702 and was properly refused. http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager4.html

STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS C0-97-55 In Re: Investigation of Dr. Ralph Underwager, Ph.D., L.P. by the Minnesota Board of Psychology. Filed July 8, 1997  Affirmed - Kalitowski, Judge Ramsey County District Court File No. C59612185….Appellant Dr. Ralph Underwager challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to quash a subpoena issued by the Minnesota Board of Psychology (Board) in connection with an investigation by the Board. We affirm….Further, the investigation is being conducted to determine whether Underwager violated the rule of conduct that requires the informed consent of a client before a diagnostic interview can be electronically recorded. The Board is requesting that Underwager produce the written informed consent of S.K.H. from her psychological sessions with him. This document is clearly relevant to the determination of whether Underwager violated the rules of conduct.

Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Anna Salter, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees., 22 F.3d 730 (7th Cir. 1994)  Federal Circuits, 7th Cir. (April 25, 1994) Docket number: 93-2422

Psychologists Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield have written two books: Accusations of Child Sexual Abuse (1988), and The Real World of Child Interrogations (1990). They conclude that most accusations of child sexual abuse stem from memories implanted by faulty clinical techniques rather than from sexual contact between children and adults. The books have not been well received in the medical and scientific press. A review of the first in the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that the authors took a one-sided approach: “it may be that the adversarial system has so influenced this discussion [about child abuse] that objectivity no longer has value. The book contains almost 420 text pages and the authors cite over 700 references, but they do not really review this body of literature, they cross-examine it. When a given reference fails to support their viewpoint they simply misstate the conclusion. When they cannot use a quotation out of context from an article, they make unsupported statements, some of which are palpably untrue and others simply unprovable.” David L. Chadwick, Book Review, in 261 JAMA 3035 (May 26, 1989)….

Salter had for some years doubted that Underwager’s books and testimony accurately reflected the clinical literature. After receiving a grant from the New England Association of Child Welfare Commissioners and Directors to finance an annotated bibliography of studies on child abuse interviews, Salter decided to concentrate on the papers Underwager and Wakefield had cited in their 1988 book. Over the course of 18 months Salter read the original works Underwager and Wakefield had discussed. In January 1990 she delivered to the New England Association a monograph titled: “Accuracy of Expert Testimony in Child Sexual Abuse Cases: A Case Study of Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield.” This unpublished monograph has been widely circulated; Salter sent a copy to the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, which has made it available to prosecutors and other interested persons. The monograph is highly critical of the 1988 book and of Underwager’s testimony. Like Dr. Chadwick’s book review, the monograph states that the book misrepresents the studies, rips quotations from their context (and misleadingly redacts them), attributes to scholars positions they once held but have repudiated in light of more recent research, and ignores evidence contradicting its thesis. While Chadwick’s indictment of the book advances conclusions but not the supporting evidence, Salter’s is packed with details. For her interview with 60 Minutes Australia, however, Salter compressed her conclusions into popular language, telling Munro that Underwager “distorts the facts” and that his testimony in the Mr Bubbles case that 90% of all accusations of child molestation are wrong is “gobbledygook” unsupported by any scientific evidence….

What, then, does the record show about actual malice? Did Salter or Toth know that the statements were false? Did either one harbor doubts about the statements’ truth yet plunge recklessly ahead? The record allows no doubt about the answer to either question, for either defendant.

Salter testified by deposition that she read every one of the more than 500 papers her monograph discusses, and that she believes that her interpretation of these studies (and her condemnation of the Underwager and Wakefield interpretation) is correct. Salter’s view of the scholarly literature is congruent with Dr. Chadwick’s, and all of the other reviews we could find take Salter’s side rather than plaintiffs’. Sandra Shrimpton, Book Review (of Accusations …), 14 Child Abuse & Neglect 601-02 (1990); David L. Chadwick, Book Review (of Real World …), 15 Child Abuse & Neglect 602-03 (1991); Lenore Olson, Book Review (of Real World …), 37 Social Work 276 (1992); John E.B. Myers, The Child Sexual Abuse Literature: A Call for Greater Objectivity, 88 Mich.L.Rev. 1709, 1711-17 (1990) (discussing Accusations … and two books by other authors). Some judges have reached a similar conclusion. For example, the Supreme Court of Washington held that Underwager’s analysis and conclusions are not accepted by the scientific community, making it appropriate for a trial judge to preclude him from testifying. State v. Swan, 114 Wash.2d 613, 655-56, 790 P.2d 610, 632 (1990). See also Timmons v. Indiana, 584 N.E.2d 1108 (Ind.1992) (sustaining a decision to limit Underwager’s testimony severely). Cf. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., — U.S. —-, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). It may be that Salter, the judges, and the book reviewers all err in evaluating the Underwager-Wakefield work. Scientific truth is elusive. Nothing in this record suggests, however, that Salter either knew that she was writing falsehoods or feared that she might be doing so but barged ahead without checking….

Both Salter and Toth came to believe that Underwager is a hired gun who makes a living by deceiving judges about the state of medical knowledge and thus assisting child molesters to evade punishment. Persons who hold such opinions cannot be expected to look kindly on their subjects, and the law certainly does not insist that they shut up as soon as they are challenged. Van Straten, 151 Wis.2d at 917-18, 447 N.W.2d at 110-11 (repeated publication did not establish actual malice when the speakers believed their statements to be true). Underwager and Wakefield cannot, simply by filing suit and crying “character assassination!”, silence those who hold divergent views, no matter how adverse those views may be to plaintiffs’ interests. Scientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than by the methods of litigation. Cf. Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, No. 89-2441 (7th Cir. Apr. 6, 1994), slip op. 8-11 & n. 1, 20 F.3d 789, 796-97. More papers, more discussion, better data, and more satisfactory models–not larger awards of damages–mark the path toward superior understanding of the world around us.  http://vlex.com/vid/36092881

Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter  DOI: 10.1207/s15327019eb0802_2   Published in:  Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 , pages 115 - 124  Abstract - In 1988 I began a report on the accuracy of expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases utilizing Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield as a case study (Wakefield & Underwager, 1988). In response, Underwager and Wakefield began a campaign of harassment and intimidation, which included multiple lawsuits; an ethics charge; phony (and secretly taped) phone calls; and ad hominem attacks, including one that I was laundering federal grant monies. The harassment and intimidation failed as the author refused demands to retract. In addition, the lawsuits and ethics charges were dismissed. Lessons learned from the experience are discussed.    http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a784402311~db=all

ANNA SALTER, PH.D., is a psychologist in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1988, she began a study of the accuracy of expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases utilizing psychologist Ralph Underwager and his wife and practice partner, Hollida Wakefield, as a case study….Salter writes:  “The people who support and defend those accused of child sexual abuse indiscriminately, those who join organizations dedicated to defending people who are accused of child sexual abuse with no screening whatsoever to keep out those who are guilty as charged, are…not necessarily people engaged in an objective search for the truth. Some of them can and do use deceit, trickery, misstated research, harassment, intimidation, and charges of laundering federal money to silence their opponents.” — Confessions of a Whistle Blower: Lessons Learned, p. 122. http://fmsf.com/ethics.shtml