Repressed and False Recovered Memories

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Table of Contents

Introduction to Repressed Memory
Case Study #1
Case Study #2
Results
Conclusion
Reference

Introduction to Repressed Memory

The subject of repressed memories is both challenging and controversial. There is an understanding in the psychological field that repressed memories exist and certain events in life cue recall. It is debated whether the mind can suppress a traumatic event and whether those traumatic events could be recalled by therapy.

The first question we examine is the authenticity of the therapist who aides recall; how can repressed memories be implanted by a therapist? We present the case of Laura Pasley, who was a victim of false recovered memories. She was a woman who sought out treatment for Bulimia, and throughout her therapeutic sessions, she was convinced she had been sexually abused by her family as a child.

We then look at the empirically corroborated case of Claudia. Claudia sought out obesity treatment, and in her therapy sessions, she recalled memories of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her older brother. Contrasting Claudia’s case with Laura’s, we show how the mind may be able to repress an authentic traumatic memory.

Finally, we examine repressed memory from a public policy standpoint. Using the stories of Laura and Claudia as examples, we look at the issue of statute of limitations for crimes committed against adults when they were children. Should laws extending the statute of limitations is allowed, benefitting victims like Claudia, or should laws keep the statute of limitations from being extended, which would protect the falsely accused, such as Laura’s family.

We invite you to interpret our findings through your thoughts and feelings and draw what you feel are the proper conclusions.

Case Study #1

Laura Pasley’s ordeal began as she sought out treatment for bulimia, a secret she kept to herself most of her life. “Steve” was a highly regarded therapist and specialist in the treatment of eating disorders. It seemed as if Laura’s journey to recovery had begun.

Along with her eating disorder, Laura brought with her into therapy a lot of mental and emotional pain. She shared with Steve the emotional and financial strains of being a single mother. She was overwhelmed and afraid her life was out of control.

Steve overlooked many of the difficulties Laura had encountered in her adult life. He was more concerned with what he termed to be Laura’s “deeper” pain. Steve explained that she had experienced something so horrible that she repressed it deep within her. He explained the best treatment plan was an intense regimen of therapy, hypnosis, and hard work that would put her on a positive path.

Not long after beginning hypnosis, Laura began suffering flashbacks. These sudden and overwhelming images were of a young boy holding a pillow over an infant’s face. She instantly reached for Steve who told her this was a memory of her brother trying to kill her. Steve insisted these flashbacks were not simply images but events that had taken place.

Soon, repressed memories of child abuse surfaced. Sickening images of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her family were reinforced by Steve as fact. He blamed and condemned Laura’s family as evil and encouraged her to break away from them.

Steve moved Laura into group therapy with other sexual abuse victims. Here Laura listened to other’s stories of sexual abuse, satanic ritual abuse, and incest. She was encouraged to share her own experiences. Laura was given books and literature to read about sexual abuse and dysfunctional families.

Laura spent four years in therapy. Her life was out of control and not getting any better. She knew she needed more. She approached Steve and told him she wanted to write a book about her experiences at her job in the Texas correctional system. He refused to allow it, saying she was not done with her flashbacks. Laura was crushed by Steve’s reaction and consequently ended her therapy.

After Laura broke from Steve’s influence, she began to realize Steve had been lying to her. She read an article about a woman, who she knew from her therapy group. She had accused her family of horrifying abuse. The article gave different accounts of abuse than those she remembered from therapy, which began to give her insight that events she saw were false. Laura would eventually seek this woman’s family out and realize they were not the monsters she and the rest of the group had been told.

How was Laura’s therapist able to plant false memories into Laura’s mind? Studies have been conducted to test if memories, traumatic memories, in particular, could be implanted in a subject’s mind. In one study, the subject had a false memory validated as true by an older sibling. The memory was of the subject at five years old becoming separated from his family only to be found by a kind old man. As the study progressed, two days after hearing the story and initially having no memory of it, the subject recalled feeling fear at being lost and afraid he would never see his family again. In two weeks, the subject could even remember the balding head of the old man and the style of glasses he wore. By this time the subject described the memory that never happened as “vivid and clear” (Loftus & Coan, in press).

This study may show that another person’s corroboration of an event can be a powerful technique for instilling a false memory (Loftus 522). As we look at her story, we can understand how her therapist was able to accomplish this.

When Laura began therapy, she described how she initially wanted to discuss events in her adult life, but Steve “discounted their importance,” (Pasley 1) insisting the pain was deeper. The suggestive line of questions has been documented in other cases where a therapist discounts the present events, which led to a diagnosis of abuse, not unlike Laura’s. A patient told Primetime Live that he went to a therapist to deal with his father’s suicide, but the therapist kept insisting “there was something else” (ABC News, 1992). That “something else” turned out to be satanic ritual abuse, a diagnosis that was this therapist’s standard. A therapist’s subtle suggestions of deeper trauma may lead to a phenomenon called the “misinformation effect.” If one is repeatedly told that a certain event occurred- sexual abuse for example- one will keep vividly imagining it. The longer this imagining occurs, the more authentic the event becomes as one incorporates “plausible guesses and assumptions” into the event memory. (Hines, Lecture Notes).

One of the tools used by Steve to uncover Laura’s repressed memories was hypnosis. The reliability of hypnotically enhanced memory has been seriously questioned. According to Bowers’ study, “hypnotic attempts to improve memory increase the confidence in what is recalled more than the accuracy.” Hypnosis may cause a phenomenon known as “source amnesia” where one wrongfully attributes the origin of an event memory to the wrong source (Hines, Lecture Notes).

Laura’s therapist also made use of highly suggestive literature that may have induced memory. Steve gave Laura a copy of the book Courage To Heal. For a patient who does not recall instances of abuse but is being told by a therapist that she was abused, this passage on pg. 21 of Courage may be convincing enough: “If you are unable to remember any specific instances…but still have a feeling something abusive happened to you, it probably did” (Bass & Davis).

Steve also used group therapy to “help” Laura. Concerns have been raised that these groups may contribute to the construction of repressed memories and may lead to a condition called “proto-extension,” where a troubled person is encouraged to remember details from other survivor’s stories as “having happened to them as well.” (Ellis 276).

We believe the evidence shows the use of genuine treatment tools, such as group therapy, hypnosis, and literature when combined with an unethical agenda, may contribute to the implementation of traumatic experiences that never occurred. As the Loftus & Coan study of a boy lost in the mall demonstrates, the recall of implanted memories occurs gradually, with the details emerging over a protracted period. In two weeks the subject in the study went from no recall to the point of “vividly” recalling descriptions of people, locations, and conversations. It stands to reason that Laura’s experience, an ordeal that spanned over four years, would be an ample amount of time for the creation, implementation, and recollection of a veritable tapestry of false memories.

Case Study #2

The case of Claudia is not so much as complicated or hard to understand as it is heartrending. Most cases of sexual abuse and recovered memories are sad. The case of Claudia is explained well in “Recovery and Verification of Memories of Childhood Sexual Trauma” by Herman and Schatzow. (1987, pp. 8-10). Claudia had been a recluse most of her life and she believed that being obese was the reason she became a recluse. She was a twenty-seven-year-old emergency room nurse when she had enrolled in a weight loss program. This program was a controlled, hospitalized setting, specifically for weight loss of severely obese patients. In this program, she lost over one hundred pounds and her weight fell below two hundred pounds.

Following the weight loss, she began to have severe recollections of sexual abuse. Claudia’s memories of the abuse were vivid and included being handcuffed, burned with cigarettes, forced to perform sexual acts on her brother, as well as other sexual acts that were forced upon her. When she was thirty, she began group therapy sessions for incest survivors to try and deal with these flashbacks.

The memories she was recalling were of forced incest with her older brother. An article by Bower “Sudden Recall” (1993) indicates that Claudia remembered that she was approximately four years old when these events occurred. Her brother was ten years older than her. He left for military service when he was seventeen. This meant that Claudia’s abuse did not continue after the age of seven. Her brother was killed in military combat during the Vietnam War. After her recollections, she returned home where her brother’s room was kept unscathed as a shrine in his remembrance. Claudia searched his room to find evidence of her abuse. Herman’s example of physical evidence states that “In a closet, she found an extensive pornography collection, handcuffs, and a diary in which he planned and recorded his sexual “experiments” with his sister in a minute by minute detail.” (Herman, 1987, pp. 10).

It is not a rare occasion where a person’s memory can escape them during an event of trauma. Elliot’s study on “Traumatic events” stated that “This phenomenon appears to be more common among events considered particularly upsetting or distressing… and less common for events that contained no interpersonal violence” (Elliott, 1997, pp. 816). In the previous quote, the author also mentioned multiple examples of events that would be upsetting, one of which is childhood sexual abuse survivors. Recovered memories can also be of other upsetting situations, such as witnessing a murder or memories of war. People with post-traumatic stress disorder maybe some of the few who would recover memories.

In other notes of Elliot’s study, the researchers address the theory that many previously conducted studies state. This theory focuses on the idea that childhood memory recall is related to psychotherapy and that memory recalls are primarily derived from this type of process. They continue to say in the discussion section of their article that during their survey process they found that this theory was contradictory to what participants were reporting. Eighty-six percent of the reports indicated that their memories were triggered into recall by a different way than psychotherapy. Because of this, they concluded that psychotherapy can not be the only means to explain recovered memories. They suggested that there may be a need for further research to be done on memory encoding during childhood. (1997, pp. 818).

The majority of Elliot’s work helped to support the idea that it is plausible and possible to store and recover memory at a later date. His research also concludes that the severity of trauma is a good indicator of memory condition. Claudia’s case of lost and recovered memory is plausible because of the severity of the trauma. Her trauma resulted in an inability to recollect the memory. Her story indicates that her memory recovery was vivid and abrupt, but does not define the cause of her memory recovery.

Loftus and Freyd have discussed similar theories even though the opinions are opposing. The similarities of these theories were about why people like Claudia can repress certain traumatic memories. Freyd discusses the “betrayal theory and the need to preserve a necessary relationship” in his article, “Memory and Dimensions of Trauma.” He explains that a person receives the information and encodes it into their memory but it is filed within the unconscious. It stays within the unconscious as a means of survival. In the case of Claudia, her brother betrayed her. She then encoded her memories into her unconscious to be able to bear the thought of being betrayed. This preserved her relationship with her brother. It is stated in the article that, “Betrayal theory proposes that it is adaptive to forget certain kinds of betrayal”. (2001, pp. 140).

Loftus is a skeptic of the idea of memory repression. She believes that memory is too unreliable to always recall accurate depictions of past events. On the other hand, she also explained the view of different opposing ideas. In her book “The Myth of Repressed Memory” she called people who think that memory repression is true, “The Believers.” Loftus states that “Believers claim that even while the traumatic memories are safely buried, the emotions entombed with them seep into our conscious lives, poisoning our relationships and undermining our sense of self.” (1994, pp. 7). To relate this with Claudia’s case, it is mentioned in the article, “Recovery and Verification of Memories” that before she could reveal her story in group therapy she was extremely distraught and unable to sleep. It was only after she revealed her story in her group therapy session that she was able to sleep at home alone without a night light. (Herman, 1987, pp. 9). She began to feel comfortable in her skin as her previously unexplained anxiety began to fade. Loftus also includes that believers think that it is necessary to bring out these memories to solve their problems. There is no way to prove that all recovered memories are true or false.

The American Psychological Association (APA) Working Group on Investigation of Memories of Child Abuse is a collaboration of clinicians and researchers who were brought together to review the current literature in the hope to distinguish the proper way of working with child abuse memories. (Alpert et. al., 1996, preface) The working group agreed upon five main points to sustain an actual occurrence of recovered memory. The first point addressed that the controversies revolving around recovered memories should not affect the truth that child sexual abuse is an unrecognized problem in America. The second point they made is that most memories of child sexual abuse are remembered in part or in full. They then continued to say that it is feasible for memories of abuse to be forgotten and then later remembered. The fourth point stated that it is also possible to have pseudo-memories arise. The last point expresses that not all knowledge has been discovered about memories of child abuse. (Bartol, 2008, pp. 338) These points may also help a court and jury to understand these memories to convict or acquit charges on an offender. In the case of Claudia, her brother has passed and there is no need for prosecution.

Memory repression is a complicated and incomplete theory. There are only a few things researchers can show about repression. Memory repressions can exist and some may not be accurate or true. There are a lot of cases of recovered memories of sexual abuse in America that have not been addressed; therefore repression should not be ignored. Most victims remember some of their traumatic events and researchers still do not know everything about memory repression. There is always room for more research because testing for reliability and validity is important to science. Claudia’s case was an important aspect of many researchers’ designs. Her recollection is plausible evidence that can be used in studies to explain the legitimacy of recovered memories.

Results

The statute of limitations should be extended to provide justice to those who have suffered a horrific event concerning child abuse. In the United States legal system, this is a time frame given to bring a case to the courts. Although there is time allotted to bring forth evidence and a case, it is inadequate. Recovered memories are complicated and the victims need more time to understand them. From the psychological point of view, there is an assumption that our mind can bury the entire memory of the horrible experience in life that can be recalled in the form of a sound, a smell, or a sight. This phenomenon is studied by both psychologists and by lawyers, especially when people claim to have recovered memories of child abuse.

Laura Pasley is a case of a woman who suffered from false recovered memories. Her memories emerged from her therapy sessions with her doctor. Although there are cases where false memories have occurred, there are many cases where these memories are true and very detailed.

Claudia is of another case, which proves recovered memories do occur and there is no given time frame when they will. Claudia suffered from obesity and during her therapy sessions, she experienced flashbacks of sexual abuse carried out by her elder brother.

According to Freyd, the recovered memory continues to be subconscious until it is revealed during psychotherapy. However, for many individuals, these repressed memories are never recuperated and might cause some psychological problems throughout their whole life. However, many psychologists are still confused about the actual reasons for that phenomenon. Still, the panel of clinicians concludes that “It is possible for memories of abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be remembered.” (Bortal, 2004 p.229) In addition, Portal studies the frequency of the emerged memories of abuse and found out that only 15% of psychologists witnessed one repressed memory case during 1996. The extension of limitations could help increase this percentage. It is a fact that memories do emerge, whether the crime was committed 10, 15, 20 years from when they are committed; the victim is entitled to a fair trial.

In recent years, the court has faced many cases that involved recovered memories. The victims are the children who were abused by their adults, who years later experience memory recalls. In turn, the legislature presents this phenomenon as the “delayed discovery” (Lynn, 2002). The abusers, which are often parents or other members of the family, refuse the accusations and declare that the victims’ claims are false and are imposed by the psychotherapists. This is another vague reason to extend the statute of limitation since a child is incapable to prove parents’ guilt. Therefore, there is a high probability that the accused might avoid punishment. According to Bernan (2008), “a sufficient period to allow the prosecutors to be effectively initiated after the child has reached the age of majority” (pp. 84). However, the stated time is not enough for a person to realize he had suffered from the sexual abuse. Moreover, the psychological trauma a child had undergone might not be revealed right after the age of majority. That is why a veritable “majority age” means that a child should be psychologically mature to be ready to testify against the defendant. Regarding the case of the recalled memory, Claudia has far passed the age of majority until she found that she had been abused by her brother. In this case, the extension of the statute of limitation could have changed her life.

Unfortunately, the prosecutions for child abuse cannot be brought in case if the statute of limitations expires. The expiration does not give chances for a diligent trial since there was when the repressed memory was consciously pushed out of memory. Since the abuse was conducted when a person was a child, his testimony could be regarded as wrong because he/she is unaware of reality until some years later after the abuse (McNally, 2005 pp. 14). Therefore, it would be beneficial to extend the terms of prosecution taking into consideration the recovered memories of the adults. The extension of the statute of limitations will improve the prosecution process and crime investigation and contribute to a more rational and precise interpretation of the crime that would have been impossible in case a victim is still a child. Additionally, it will be more appropriate in Claudia’s case for the reason that her recalled memories turned out to be real and evidence-based.

According to the statute of limitation, the lawsuits that are connected with repressed memory cases should be framed within a certain limited period. The case becomes valid since the date of the occurrence that the act was committed. Because the period between the abuse and the corresponded recalls is not identified, it is necessary for an extension. The legal doctrine gives more advantages for the defendant who, after the terms expire, is left in peace (Appelbaum, 1997 p. 446). The Claudia case proves that the repressed memories are not just dreams but real flashbacks from the past and had her brother been alive, he’d be accused. Child abuse is a crime that should not go unnoticed. Claudia was sexually abused and traumatized and deserved a fair trial.

Secondly, since in most cases the limitation period lasts around a year, it would be difficult for the victims to persecute the case (Warner, 2008 p. 88). It is not a sufficient amount of time. Because the starting point counts from the day of injury discovery (Warner, 2008, p. 91) Claudia’s case would be doomed to be a failure from the start. From the psychological point of view, the recovered memory may emerge a decade later or even longer. In that regard, the prolongation would give a chance to aggrieved parties to take the advantage of their claims.

In most cases, the statute of limitation does not presuppose circumstances of the repressed memory because they appeared only in adulthood. The deviations of psychological state cannot be regarded as the obvious reasons for the trial (Lynn, 1998 p. 411). Based on the above case, forensic research justified the nature of the recalls. Additionally, several states accepted the legislation prolonging the statutory terms so that the limitation period starts no later than within 2 or 3 years after the abuse discovery (Lynn et al., 1998 p. 411). As it can be viewed, the extension of the statute of limitation will significantly contribute to the criminal investigation of cases connected with repressed memory recalls. Moreover, it will help other victims to foster the persecution of their hopeless cases. About Claudia’s Case, the harm that she had suffered did not give her any possibility to testify to the presence of the law infringement since the psychological trauma had blurred the memory that was revealed long after the crime.

In conclusion, there is much evidence for the extension of the statute of limitation. First of all, the extension of the statute of limitation should be introduced to cut the percentage of the crimes that could be punished only in this case. Secondly, the prolongation allows an abused child to recall memories to provide the trial with consistent claims. Thirdly, the extension of the statutory limitations would improve the crime investigation and contribute to the increase of public awareness and readiness to support the abused child. Moreover, this amendment will make the adult abused in childhood be more attentive to such phenomena as the recalled memory. Finally, the extension would imply a strict definition of the term required for the abused people.

Conclusion

Repressed memory and the implantation of false memories has been a controversial subject for many years. There are many reasons the laws should not be changed because of this controversy. The statute of limitations for crimes should not be extended to allow for recovered memories because repressed memory accuracy is difficult to prove, with two, dynamically opposed sides in the scientific community; many cases have been reported in which a therapist has aided in the recovery of memories that have since been proven false, and the statute of limitations protects people from having to defend themselves against stale claims.

Repressed memory has been a controversial subject in the scientific community for years. There are two distinct opinions on the subject. Some professionals believe that a traumatic event occurs and the mind forces it into an inaccessible corner of unconsciousness. Others believe that they can be unintentionally implanted by a therapist or authority figure with who the client desires approval (Loftus, 1993). With these drastic differences of opinion, how are lawmakers supposed to change the statute of limitations? They simply cannot, if the scientific community disagrees on this, it has no merit in a court of law. There have been many studies done on repressed memories with very mixed results. Elizabeth F. Loftus’ article describes three different studies in which they tried to determine the extent that repression occurs. The studies had drastically different results ranging from eighteen to fifty-nine percent occurrence (Loftus, 1993). Even E. Sue Blume, who wrote a book in which she described herself as the “creator of incest survivors,” made the observation that many patients do not have memories of abuse before entering therapy, but then acquire the memories during therapy (Loftus, 1993). This makes one wonder about the validity of repressed memories. The disagreement in the research on the subject leaves most scientific experts torn in their opinions. The only way to prove that the repressed memory occurred is through concrete physical evidence, and with most of the “crimes” taking place twenty, thirty, or even forty years earlier, it is extremely hard to find.

There have been many cases that report the implantation of false memories into a client by a therapist or perceived authority figure whether intentional or unintentional. The case of Laura Pasley for instance, in which a therapist knowingly drove his patient to complete dependence, and then made her believe she was remembering horrific past abuse. He did this by gaining the patient’s trust, then slowly implying her pain was “deeper” and “repressed.” Eventually, Laura began to believe him and she started to “remember” physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her family. After four years of therapy, she finally stopped going and was able to realize that her memories had been false, along with many other women who went to therapy with this man and had the same “memories.”(Pasley, 2009) It is extremely hard to prove that implanted memories are artificial, but some evidence on hypnosis suggests that it is possible to create memory distortion. People have recalled, a clean-shaven man having a mustache, straight hair as curly, and nonexistent broken glass by using hypnosis techniques (Loftus, 1993). Hypnosis can also cause “source amnesia” in which a subject wrongfully attributes the origin of an event memory to the wrong source (Hines, Lecture Notes). This gives credibility to the opinion that therapists could create false memories with implications and suggestions. The Courage to Heal is a book that has also been implicated in many cases of de-repressed memory. It has an in-depth review of memory repression that implies all people, including the reader, have repressed memories of abuse. A recent survey about families with de-repressed memories indicated that the book was involved in some way in almost every case (Bass & Davis, 1988). Cases like Laura’s and The Courage to Heal should be considered if lawmakers want to change the statute of limitations. What if Laura decided to press charges on her family for their abuse? They could have been convicted of crimes they did not commit. This is how the statute of limitations protects innocent people from false claims.

The statute of limitations was created to protect people from stale claims (Loftus, 1993). After a time, memories can become less clear or altered, and physical evidence becomes less reliable. This makes it difficult, if not impossible for the defendants to mount an effective defense. Everyone deserves the right to a fair trial, and after so much time, some crimes rely mostly on he-said-she-said with no concrete physical evidence. No one should ever be convicted based on repressed memory alone; there are too many factors that suggest memories can be implanted, leaving the accusers with the possibility of inaccuracy.

Extending the statute of limitations would result in the imprisonment of many innocent people whose relatives and friends were implanted with false memories. We can keep this from happening by leaving the statute of limitations where it stands and making sure every case that deals with recovered memory have concrete physical evidence. The laws in this country are based on the concept of “innocent until proven guilty,” even though we tend to forget that fact when dealing with child abusers. If we cannot prove that an offender committed a crime with no reasonable doubt then we cannot convict him of that crime. The state of Washington changed legislation in 1989 to include the permission to sue for damages due to child abuse up to three years after the victim remembered the abuse (Loftus, 1993). They used the delayed discovery doctrine, previously used in medical malpractice cases, to justify this claim. This means that in Washington the statute of limitations legally does not run out until “the plaintiff has discovered the facts that are essential to the cause of action.” This is detrimental to the legal system by setting a precedent that allows people to wait for the right evidence with no limitation at all. It gives the defendants no room to mount an effective defense, which all people have the right to. Getting rid of this and all similar legislation will help all innocent parties that are being falsely accused of child abuse on the basis of repressed memories.

In conclusion, there are many reasons that the statute of limitations should not be extended for recovered memories. As the public, we always need to be on guard for scientific evidence and make sure that the right person is prosecuted for the right crime. In the event of recovered memories, there are just too many factors against the idea to be changing the laws.

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