Recovered memory therapy

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Recovered memory therapy (RMT) is a psychotherapy that was developed in the 1980s as a way to recover “lost” childhood memories of abuse, as well as other memories of neglect and abuse. The use of recovered memory therapy has been a subject of ongoing controversy, and its use has been largely abandoned by the therapeutic community.

1 History
2 Supporters
3 Critics
4 Notes
5 References
6 See also
7 Sources
8 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Beginnings

When 'recovered memory therapy' - a layperson term for controversial therapies designed to retrieve forgotten 'memories' (e.g. hypnotism, rebirthing, body memory therapy, dream interpretation, Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing and so on) were first used by therapists, the results obtained from patients alarmed family members ^{[citations needed]}.

Self help books such as 'The Courage to Heal' by Bass and Davis on how to "know" if one had been sexually abused were published and became top sellers ^{[citations needed]}.

One Australian government inquiry^[1] into the practice of Recovered Memory Therapy, 2005, found that therapist respondents 'stated that the term RMT (Recovered Memory Therapy) is not used by health professionals but has been created by false memory associations for political purposes'. It found no apparent evidence for the practice then being used amongst registered therapists. By then many therapists in the USA and the UK had been successfully sued for using RMT which produced false memories, so perhaps this finding is not surprising.

[edit] Dissociative Identity Disorder

The rise of the use of recovered memory therapy coincided with a sharp rise in the occurrence of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder.) Skeptics of recovered memory therapy point out this sharp rise, in what had been considered an extremely rare disorder before 1980, as part of a body of evidence suggesting that the disorder, may be caused by false memories implanted by recovered memory therapy. Some have gone so far as to call it a "passing psychological fad".[1]

[edit] Decline

Recovered memory therapy lost credibility with a growing belief that the memories that were “recovered” were actually being planted by the therapist. Legislation had been introduced to help prosecute the family members who had allegedly perpetrated the abuse on those with recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, and sometimes juries jailed the accused solely on the basis of the recovered memories of the accuser. This practice of jailing family members on the basis of memory earned comparisons to the Salem witch trials (Jaroff). In one case, a girl who had had perfect attendance and grades as a teenager claimed, after visiting a therapist, that her family had performed ritual, Satanic sexual abuse on her all through her childhood. Also resulting from her visit to the therapist was that she began to claim to have developed 26 distinct personalities she said resulted from the abuse.^[2] Cases like this had become fairly common, and they often took a great toll on the family of the alleged victim, as the victims and their families grew further and further apart. Some of the therapists who used recovered memory therapy on their patients have been sued for millions of dollars by the families of the patients, and the families have often won those cases. In Joan Acocella’s Creating Hysteria - Women and Multiple Personality Disorder, she writes:

"If only for financial reasons, one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of psychotherapy seems to be coming to an end. “In all but a few years,” writes Paul Mchugh, the director of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, “we will all look back” on the multiple personality disorder movement “and be dumbfounded by the gullibility of the public in the late twentieth century and by the power of psychiatric assertions to dissolve common sense."^[3]

[edit] Supporters

It should be noted that some practicing psychologists do believe in the benefits and correctness of repressed memory therapy, or at least the theory that memories of traumatic events get repressed and deliberately searching for them is a viable and worthy practice for helping a person deal with their problems.^[2] Typically, the view of supporters is that sexual abuse is common and repression of traumatic events is common, and some studies support the theory that forgetting traumatic events is not infrequent.^[4] The Courage to Heal is a 1988 book that actively promotes memory recovery as a form of healing that is often cited by supporters.

Significant numbers of practicing psychologists encourage their patients to be imaginative in therapy. In one survey, 22% of the responding psychologists admitted to encouraging their patients to “give free rein to the imagination.” (Poole, Lindsay, Memon & Bull, 1995, pg. 432.)

The DSM-IV recognizes the existence of posttraumatic stress disorder, dissociative amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder--all of which are terms describing the fragmentation of memory due to traumatic experience. The DSM-IV is a widely used manual, with high credibility, in the therapeutic community. It is reasonable to conclude, on the basis of patient’s fragmented memories of childhood sexual abuse and the DSM-IV’s recognition that memory fragmentation, at the least, is definitely possible.

[edit] Critics

The Royal College of Psychiatrists summarized their position as:

"Psychiatrists are advised to avoid engaging in any "memory recovery techniques" which are based upon the expectation of past sexual abuse of which the patient has no memory. Such...techniques may include drug-mediated interviews ["truth serum"], hypnosis, regression therapies, guided imagery, "body memories," literal dream interpretation, and journaling. There is no evidence that the use of consciousness-altering techniques, such as drug-mediated interviews or hypnosis, can reveal or accurately elaborate factual information about any past experiences, including sexual abuse."

Critics of recovered memory therapy, like Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters (Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria), view the practice of "recovering" memories as fraudulent and dangerous. They base this assertion on several claims:

Traumatic experiences which obviously have happened, such as war time experiences, are not "repressed"—they are either forgotten or remembered clearly in spite of attempts to suppress them.
The "memories" recovered in RMT are highly detailed. According to RMT literature, the human brain stores very vivid memories which can be recalled in detail, like a video tape. This belief contradicts virtually all research on the way memories work.
The patient is given very extensive lists of "symptoms" including sleeplessness, headaches, the feeling of being different from others etc. If several of these symptoms are found, the therapist suggests to the patient that they were probably sexually abused. If the patient rejects this suggestion, they are "in denial" and require more extensive therapy. This is a form of catch-22.
During the questioning, patients are openly encouraged to ignore their own feelings and memories and to assume that the abuse has happened. They then explore together with this therapist, over a prolonged period of many months or even years, how the abuse happened. The possibility that the abuse has not happened at all is usually not considered.
The psychotherapists attempting to help clients to recover lost memories (in particular with the use of regression hypnosis) allegedly often actively use suggestion to aid in the recovery of these memories.

According to these critics, RMT techniques used for "reincarnation therapy" or "alien abduction therapy" are comparable to the techniques used in Satanic Ritual Abuse therapy. To verify the false memory hypothesis, researchers like Elizabeth Loftus ( 2006 detailed article on Recovered Memories, by Elizabeth Loftus) have successfully produced false memories of various childhood incidents in test subjects. This is viewed as further evidence that comprehensive false memories can be produced in therapy.

False Memory Syndrome Foundation Advisory Board members have repeatedly cite the Malmquist study (see e.g., Underwager & Wakefield, 1996; Ofshe & Watters, 1994; Loftus, 1993) as the one major study whereas those who are part of The Recovered Memory Project have many studies from which to site. FMSF Advisory Board members are often found to respond with information that is filled with inaccuracies or serious misrepresentations of fact.

[edit] Notes

↑ "Bass and Davis examine very traumatic experiences and offer hope to survivors of these experiences." http://www.division42.org/MembersArea/Nws_Views/articles/Reviews_Books/courage_to_heal.html

[edit] References

^ http://www.health.vic.gov.au/hsc/downloads/final_rmt_inquiry.pdf
^ Ofra Bikel (Producer). (1995). Divided Memories, Part 1 (Frontline television episode) [Videotape]. Public Broadcasting Service.
^ Acocella, Joan (1999). Creating Hysteria - Women and Multiple Personality Disorder. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
^ Hopper, Jim (2005-10-6). Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse: Scientific Research & Scholarly Resources. Retrieved on 2007-18-01. “A substantial body of empirical evidence of amnesia and delayed recall for abuse has existed for years.”

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources

Jaroff, Leon and Mcdowell, Jeanne. “Lies of the Mind.” TIME Magazine, p.52. November 29, 1993.
Ofshe, Richard and Watters, Ethan. "Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria". University of California Press; Reprint edition, 1996.
Loftus, Elizabeth and Ketcham, Katherine. "The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse". St. Martin's Griffin, 1st St. Martin's Griffin ed edition, 1996.

[edit] External links

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Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Hypnosis