The Recovered Memory Controversy

1. The Recovered Memory Controversy

2. True Story #1 • in 1986, Nadean Cool, a nurse’s aid in Wisconsin, sought therapy from a psychiatrist to help her cope with her reaction to a traumatic event experienced by her daughter • Psychiatrist used hypnosis and other suggestive techniques to uncover buried memories of abuse that Cool herself had experienced

3. Cool became convinced that she had repressed memories of • having been in a satanic cult • eating babies • being raped • having sex with animals • being forced to watch murder of her 8-year-old friend • Cool came to believe that she had more than 120 alter personalities: children, adults, angels, duck

4. Cool eventually came to believe that false memories had been implanted • Cool sued psychiatrist for malpractice • in March, 1997, after 5 weeks of trial, her case was settled for $2.4 million

5. True Story #2 • In Missouri, in 1992, a church counselor helped Beth Rutherford to remember that her father (a clergyman) had regularly raped her between the ages of 7 and 14 • also remembered • her mother had helped her father by holding her down • her father had impregnated her 2x • her father had forced her to abort fetuses herself with coat hanger

6. Father had to resign from post when allegations were made public • Later medical examination revealed that Beth was still a virgin and had never been pregnant • In 1996, Beth sued therapist and received $1 million settlement

7. The Phenomenon • Increasing numbers of people believe that they were sexually abused as children, but repressed the memory until it was later recovered, often with help of therapist

8. The Controversy • Are these memories real or false? • Stakes are high • must find justice and safety for victims of abuse; must prevent perpetrators from harming others • must protect individuals from false charges that can destroy their lives

9. The Two Camps • Recovered Memory • all memories recovered in therapy should be taken seriously • False memories are rare • If raise doubts, betray children and support pedophiles • Pseudomemory • Memories recovered in therapy should be viewed with skepticism • False memories can be manufactured by naïve/unscrupulous therapists • Many false accusations

10. Issues Dividing Two Camps

11. Review of Related Research • facts about childhood sexual abuse • prevalence • long-term effects • existence of amnesia

12. facts about memory • distortion of real memories • creation of false memories • reliability/accuracy of children’s memory • accuracy of “flashbulb” memories • facts about hypnosis • effects of hypnosis on memory

13. will conclude with recommendations regarding conditions under which • one should be skeptical of a recovered memory • one should believe a recovered memory

14. Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse • Prevalence among females • 15%-33% of general population • 35%-75% of clinical samples • Prevalence among males • 13%-16% of general population • 13-23% of clinical samples

15. depression suicidal behavior, self-mutilating behavior anxiety substance abuse eating disorders dissociation and memory impairment somatization personality disorders poor social and interpersonal functioning sexual problems high-risk sexual behavior revictimization Long-Term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse

16. Long-Term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse (continued) • 2/3 of CSA survivors experience negative long-term effects • 1/3 don’t show any sx at all • there is no specific sx that characterizes the majority of CSA survivors

17. Failure to Remember Child Sexual Abuse • repression: • implies the existence of a defensive process, ego protects the individual from the overwhelming anxiety that would be experienced if the memory were conscious • dissociative amnesia: • memory loss following a stressful experience • dissociation involves alterations or detachments in consciousness or identity • may include derealization or depersonalization

18. Failure to Remember (continued) • other terms • traumatic amnesia • delayed recall

19. Failure to Remember (continued) • normal forgetting • even if someone doesn’t remember a traumatic event, it’s not necessarily due to repression • lack of memory for events that occurred before age 3 or 4 (infantile amnesia) is normal • studies following up people who have experienced traumatic events found that 14% didn’t remember a motor vehicle accident and 25% didn’t remember being hospitalized one year later

20. Amnesia for Child Sexual Abuse • Some CSA survivors experience periods of amnesia for their abuse, followed by experiences of delayed recall • Williams (1994) • interviewed 129 women with previously documented histories, such as hospital records, of having been sexually abused as children • 38% did not recall the incident that had been reported to the authorities 17 years earlier, even with extensive probing of their abuse histories

21. Amnesia (continued) • Elliot (1997) • surveyed 364 who had experienced substantial trauma, such as a natural disaster, car accident, or physical abuse • 32% reported delayed recall of the event • most common among combat veterans, people who witnessed murder or suicide of family member, and individuals who had experienced CSA • other estimates range from 31%-64%

22. Some Methodological Issues • Many studies looking at prevalence of amnesia among CSA survivors are methodologically flawed

23. Example of Methodological Problems • Briere & Conte (1993) • subjects included 450 patients with h/o sexual abuse • “During period of time between when first forced sexual experience occurred and 18th birthday, was there ever a time when you could not remember forced sexual experience?” • 59% said yes

24. Briere & Conte (1993) • Could indicate 59% had repressed memory • Could indicate that these individuals interpreted question in other ways: thinking about it was too painful, tried not to think about it, couldn’t think about it without feeling terrible, etc. • All subjects were in therapy; responses could have been influenced by therapists’ beliefs about repression of memories

25. Williams (1994) • 38% did not recall, or at least did not report to interviewer, episode of abuse that had been documented 17 years earlier • problems: • definition of abuse included fondling to intercourse • subjects included individuals who were infants at the time of the abuse • subjects may have been reluctant to to disclose abuse to interviewer • majority of subjects did report other instances of abuse

26. Facts About Memory • distortion of real memories • creation of false memories • accuracy/reliability of children’s memories • accuracy/reliability of flashbulb memories

27. Distortion of Real Memories • Loftus’s studies on the “misinformation effect” • when people who witness an event are later exposed to new and misleading information about it, their recollections often become distorted

28. Example: • Subjects view videotape of auto accident at intersection. Later, subjects are asked asked questions about what they remember. • “Did you see the stop sign?” vs. “Did you see the traffic sign?” • “How fast was the Honda going when it contacted the Toyota?” vs. “How fast was the Honda going when it smashed into the Toyota?”

29. Loftus and her colleagues have conducted more than 200 experiments involving over 20,000 individuals that document how exposure to misinformation causes memory distortion

30. Creation of False Memories • Loftus’s “shopping mall” studies • asked subjects to try to remember childhood events that had been told to researchers by their parents, older siblings, or other close family members • 3 events were real; 1 event (getting lost in a shopping mall at age 5) was false • 29% “remembered” false event

31. Hyman and colleagues (reported in Loftus, 1997) • asked college students to recall childhood experiences told to the researchers by their parents • each subject given one false event (either an overnight hospitalization for a high fever and ear infection or a birthday party with pizza and a clown) • during first interview, no one “remembered” false event • during second interview, 20% “remembered” false event

32. Accuracy/Reliability of Children’s Memory • people tend to stake out extreme positions • “Children can’t be trusted” • “Children don’t make stuff like that up” or “He would never lie about something like that”

33. Research Addressing the Issue • Bruck et al. (1995) • 35 3-year-old girls were given a genital exam as part of a physical check-up; 35 girls were not • afterwards, each girl was asked to describe where doctor had touched her • girl was then given an anatomically correct doll and asked again to describe where doctor had touched her • 60% of girls who were touched in the genital region did not report this, even when given doll • 60% of girls who were were not touched indicated genital insertions or other intrusive acts

34. Garven et al. (1998) • young man visited preschool classroom, read a story, handed out treats • young man did nothing aggressive, inappropriate, or surprising • one week later, experimenter asked children whether young man had committed aggressive acts • used social influence techniques taken from real-life child abuse investigations • leading questions, telling children what other kids had supposedly said, expressing disappointment if answers were negative, praising children for making allegations

35. Garven et al. (1998) continued • Results • 55% of 4-to-6-year-olds said “yes” • 80% of 3-year-olds said “yes”

36. Ceci (1995; 2003) • asked preschool children to think about events they had actually experienced (e.g., an accident) and events they had not experienced (e.g., having to go to the hospital to get their fingers removed from a mousetrap) • each week for 10 weeks, interviewer asked children to choose one of the scenes and “think very hard and tell me if this ever happened to you” • at end of 10 weeks, children were examined by a new interviewer

37. Ceci (1995; 2003) continued • 58% described the fictitious event as if it had really occurred • children’s stories were very detailed, coherent, and embellished in ways that were not suggested originally • 27%, when told their memory was false, claimed that the event had actually happened

38. To Sum Up • both extreme positions of “children always lie” and “children never lie” are wrong • most children do recollect accurately most of what they have seen or observed • some children will say something happened when it did not • like adults, children can be influenced to report an event in a certain way, depending on the frequency of suggestions and the insistence of the person making them

39. Conditions that increase suggestibility • when child is very young (preschool) • preschoolers are more likely to have source amnesia, failing to remember whether they actually experienced something or heard about it from an adult • when situation is emotionally charged • when pressured by interviewer

40. Flashbulb Memories • highly detailed, seemingly photographic memories of unusual, shocking, or tragic events • memories are not always accurate

41. Neisser & Harsch (1992) • interviewed college students on the morning after the Challenger tragedy regarding how they had heard the news • re-interviewed subjects 3 years later about how they had learned about incident • not one student was entirely correct • 1/3 were completely wrong

42. Pynoos & Nader (1989) • subjects were children whose school yard had been terrorized by sniper • many children who were not at school on that day reported memories of hearing shots, seeing someone lying on ground, etc.

43. Facts About Hypnosis • hypnosis is measured using the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales • consists of 12 activities that test the depth of the hypnotic state • individuals are told that they are holding a very heavy ball; are scored as “passing” if their arm sags • individuals are told that they have no sense of smell, and a vial of ammonia is passed under their nose. Are scored as “passing” if they have no reaction • scores range from 0-12 • most people score between 5 and 7

44. hypnosis is stable during adulthood • correlation for MZ twins is higher than for DZ twins • person’s responsiveness to hypnosis remains fairly constant regardless of characteristics of hypnotist (gender, age, experience) • less susceptible person will not become hypnotized, despite his best efforts • negative attitudes and expectations can interfere with hypnosis

45. hypnotizability is not related to personality characteristics • gullibility, hysteria, psychopathology, trust, aggressiveness, submissiveness, imagination, social compliance • hypnotizability is linked to person’s ability to become absorbed in activities such as reading, listening to music, and daydreaming

46. Subject’s control over his/her behavior • under hypnosis • subjects believe that their behavior is effortless, that it is something that “just happens” without their intention or control • in fact, subjects do not behave passively • subjects do incorporate their own moral and cultural ideas into their behavior, their own understanding of what the hypnotist expects • subjects are very influenced by the expectations of the hypnotist

47. Hypnosis and Pain • Does pain relief reflect placebo effect? • for poorly hypnotizable subjects, pain relief from hypnosis is equal to pain relief from a sugar pill • for highly hypnotizable subjects, pain relief from hypnosis is 3x stronger than pain relief from sugar pill

48. Hypnosis and Age Regression • highly hypnotizable subjects can produce detailed and dramatic accounts of their first few months of life • even though the events did not occur • even though adults simply do not have the capacity to remember early infancy

49. Age Regression (continued) • when given suggestions to regress to childhood, highly hypnotizable subjects behave in a roughly childlike manner, are often quite emotional, and may later insist that they were reliving childhood • these responses do not actually resemble the speech, emotion, behavior, perception, vocabulary, or thought patterns of children

50. Hypnosis and Past Life Regression • Spanos et al. (1991) • asked hypnotized subjects to “regress” back past birth to a past life • 1/3 reported being able to do so • asked subjects to name leader of country, to say whether country was at peace or war, and to describe currency • subjects couldn’t answer questions correctly