Can a Survey of British False Memory Society Members Reliably Inform the Recovered Memory Debate?

Gudjonsson has conducted a timely and welcome survey of BFMS members, who are to be commended for their frank responses. However, their answers can provide only partial information about the nature, circumstances and consequences of recovered memories. Attention is drawn to features of the way the data are presented that could result in potentially misleading conclusions. The unsystematic inclusion and exclusion of missing values has resulted in inflated frequencies when missing data are excluded from overall proportions. Furthermore, nearly a third of respondents were not sure, or denied, that recovered memories were involved in the accusations. The data are presented with no distinction between these respondents and respondents reporting clear recovered memory accusations. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Surveying Families Accused of Childhood Sexual Abuse: A Comparison of British and New Zealand Results

Two independent surveys from opposite ends of the globe, the UK and New Zealand, completed by families which include a family member accused of sexually abusing a child, have produced remarkably similar results. The majority of accusations were made by well-educated white women about their biological fathers and/or their mothers, based upon memories often recovered within a therapeutic context, many years after the incidents were supposed to have taken place. Accusations included disproportionately high rates of rape, bizarre sexual behaviours and satanic ritual abuse in both surveys. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Repressed Memory Accusations: Devastated Families and Devastated Patients

The survey of British families reveals that the disputed ‘recovered memory’ accusations are mostly made by adult women who allege that abuse began prior to their eighth birthday. Therapy was involved in the recovery of memories in the vast majority of cases; satanic ritual abuse was remembered in a minority of cases. The accusations are devastating to the accused and other family members. But family members are not the only devastated group. Data from a recent report on patients who received compensation from a crime victims' compensation fund after recovering extensive histories of abuse in therapy reveal that some patients' lives are devastated after ‘memory’ recovery. Their health declines, they lose their jobs, they get divorced, and in some cases they lose custody of their minor children. Although these data do not prove that it was the therapy itself that made the patients worse, they do ring alarm bells about treatment outcomes for some recovered memory patients, and show a pressing need for information on this topic. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reports of recovered memories of childhood abuse in therapy in France

ABSTRACT

Recovered memories of abuse in therapy are especially controversial if the clients were not aware they were abused before therapy. In the past, such memory recovery has led to legal action, as well as a debate about whether such memories might be repressed, forgotten, or false memories. More than two decades after the height of the controversy, it is unclear to what degree such memories are still recovered today, and to what extent it occurs in France. In our French survey of 1312 participants (M_age?=?33; 53% female), 551 reported having done therapy at some point. Of that 551, 33 (6%) indicated they had recovered memories of abuse in therapy that they did not know about before therapy. Sexual abuse was the most commonly reported type that was recovered in therapy (79%). As in past research, discussing the possibility of repressed memories with therapists was associated with reports of recovered memories of abuse. Surprisingly, memory recovery occurred just as much in behavioural and cognitive therapies as it did in therapies focused on trauma. We found recovered memories in a proportion of clients who began therapy recently. Recovered memories in therapy appears to be an ongoing concern in France.     

Behavioural Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Associated with Recovered Memories

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is sometimes associated with recovered memories (RMs) of traumatic events. That is, the sufferer reports having forgotten traumatic events for a period of time, only to recall them later on. As the memories of traumatic events are recalled, post-traumatic stress disorder may emerge. The cause of recovered memories is uncertain and is the subject of debate. Some recovered memories may be reasonably accurate, while others may be ''recollections'' of imagined rather than actual events. It is unclear whether conventional PTSD therapies, such as behaviour therapy, are appropriate and effective in treating PTSD-RM. The present article considers these issues in the context of a case study, in which a patient with PTSD-RM was treated with behaviour therapy ( in vivo and imaginal exposure). The patient sought treatment because he wanted relief from his PTSD symptoms, regardless of whether his recovered memories were accurate (he was completely convinced in the accuracy of the memories). Treatment outcome was compared with the outcome of 13 PTSD patients who did not have recovered memories, who were also treated with behaviour therapy. Results suggest that PTSD-RM can be effectively treated with behaviour therapy. However, such treatment is unlikely to be appropriate for all cases of PTSD- RM. Selection criteria are discussed.     

Characteristics of recovered memories: a Dutch replication of Gudjonsson's (1997) British survey

A survey was conducted among members of the Dutch counterpart of the British False Memory Society (BFMS), the Werkgroep Fictieve Herinneringen (the Dutch False Memory Working Group; FMWG). FMWG members answered questions about the nature and circumstances of the allegations and provided information about the accuser. By and large, the results of this survey parallel those of the Gudjonsson (1997) survey among members of the BFMS. That is, most accusations were made by adult daughters about their biological fathers and arose in the context of psychotherapeutic treatment. Along with the survey among FMWG members, regional police forces were surveyed about the prevalence of recovered memory cases. Results yielded an estimate of 63 cases resulting in legal proceedings over the past two years. None of these cases resulted in a conviction. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linking thought suppression and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

There are two types of recovered memories: those that gradually return in recovered memory therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered outside the context of therapy. In the current study, we employed a thought suppression paradigm, with autobiographical experiences as target thoughts, to test whether individuals reporting spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) are more adept at suppressing positive and anxious autobiographical thoughts, relative to individuals reporting CSA memories recovered in therapy, relative to individuals with continuous abuse memories, and relative to controls reporting no history of abuse. Results showed that people reporting spontaneously recovered memories are superior in suppressing anxious autobiographical thoughts, both in the short term and long term (7 days). Our findings may partly explain why people with spontaneous CSA memories have the subjective impression that they have "repressed" their CSA memories for many years.     

Self Reports of Being Falsely Accused of Criminal Behavior

The occurrence of false accusations of illegal behavior is investigated using cross-sectional, long-term recall data for two generations of a national probability sample of individuals. The analysis examines whether being a “usual suspect” based on past criminal behavior; “guilt by association” based on the illegal behavior of one's friends; academic achievement based on self-reported grades in school; and sociodemographic variables including gender, ethnic majority/minority status, and socioeconomic status have an impact on the likelihood of being falsely accused of illegal behavior. The results indicate some consistency across the different subsamples in the characteristics of those most likely to be falsely accused of illegal behavior. Implications for policy and future research are considered.     

Trauma and autobiographical memory: contents and determinants of earliest memories among war-affected Palestinian children

The contents of earliest memories (EM), as part of autobiographical memory, continue to fascinate scientists and therapists. However, research is scarce on the determinants of EM, especially among children. This study aims, first, to identify contents of EM of children living in war conditions, and, second, to analyse child gender, traumatic events and mental health as determinants of the contents of EM. The participants were 240 Palestinian schoolchildren from the Gaza Strip (10–12 years, M?=?11.35, SD?=?0.57; 49.4% girls). They responded to an open-ended EM question, and reported their trauma exposures (war trauma, losses and current traumatic events), posttraumatic stress, depressive symptoms and psychosocial well-being, indicating mental health. The EM coding involved nature, social orientation, emotional tone and specificity. Results showed, first, that 43% reported playing or visiting a nice place as EM, and about a third (30%) traumatic events or accidents (30%) or miscellaneous events (27%). The individual and social orientation were almost equally common, the emotional tone mainly neutral (45.5%), and 60% remembered a specific event. Second, boys remembered more EM involving traumatic events or accidents, and girls more social events. Third, war trauma was associated with less positive emotional tone and with more specific memories.     

Merkmale eines Fehlurteils

Wrongful convictions punish accused persons who have committed no offence. Because the revision process basically only examines whether a verdict contains judicial errors and not whether it was correct or false, to correct a wrongful conviction there very often only remains the difficult way via an revision and a de novo trial. The author underlines some typical characteristics of wrongful convictions based on own experience in successful appeals which in particular involved wrongful accusations. Required are a systematic training of judges with respect to sources of error and an evaluation of errors of judgement by the Federal Ministry of Justice as a foundation for a reform of the right of appeal.     

Determinants of confirming and disconfirming responses to negative social labels

Two experiments explored the question of when people will respond to negative labels by confirming them and when they will respond by disconfirming them. In a field experiment subjects were accused of not taking advantage of the opportunities available in a nearby city, and in a laboratory experiment they were accused of having low self-confidence. After these accusations, subjects were given an opportunity to behave in ways that varied in the degree to which they were consistent with the experimenter's labels. For some subjects the experimenter's accusations included mention of the fact that the negative label also applied to many other members of their group, while for other subjects this group factor was not mentioned. The reference to the group either increased or decreased subjects' label-confirming behavior, depeding on whether the subject had provided the experimenter with evidence consistent with the label before the accusations were made. When the experimenter had this evidence, subjects subsequently confirmed the label more if the fact that the negative label applied to many group members was mentioned than if it was not mentioned. When the experimenter accused the subject without having any evidence, subjects disconfirmed the label more if the group was mentioned than if it was not.     

Mechanisms of autobiographical memory retrieval in younger and older adults

In this study, retrieval of autobiographical memories was compared within or without the context of a lifetime period and between younger and older adults. The results of two experiments demonstrated that memories were more accessible for younger and older adults when they were retrieved within a time period context than without such context. However, when the retrieval context was more constrained and limited to cue word memories, the benefit of retrieval context disappeared. The results also suggested that as compared with younger adults, older adults were more likely to selectively retain memories with distinctive characteristics, such as being self-relevant and emotionally intense, particularly when remote memories were involved. Mechanisms of autobiographical memory retrieval in younger and older adults.     

Understanding mass allegations of satanist child abuse in early modern Sweden: demographic data relevant to the Rättvik outbreak of 1670-1671

Demographic characteristics of 79 women who were accused of satanist child abductions in the parish of R?ttvik, Sweden, in 1670-1671; 53 adults who promoted such accusations by bringing children to interrogations; and samples from the general population of R?ttvik were compared. Results indicate that men were more likely to promote allegations of satanism than women and that these men were more likely to be married than the average R?ttvik male. Promoters of allegations were older than average parishioners, and land-owning people who were involved in the panic owned more land than landowners who were not involved. People who were involved in the panic knew less about Luther's catechism than members of the general population. It is suggested that most of these findings may reflect a tendency of people who lived in the proximity of children to become involved in the panic.     

Behavioral and environmental correlates of infant abuse in group- living pigtail macaques

The present study investigated the context of occurrence of infant abuse and the behavior of abusive mothers and their infants in pigtail macaques (Macaca nemestrina). Subjects were 8 abusive mothers with their infants and 8 control mother-infant pairs living in 3 captive social groups. The most common forms of abuse were infant crushing and dragging and the most common context of occurrence was social stress. Severe and mild abuse differed in the frequency but not in the type of abuse patterns. Abusive mothers had controlling parenting styles relative to nonabusive mothers, and abused infants played at a later age and less frequently than controls. This study replicates previous findings on the parenting styles of abusive macaque mothers and provides new evidence on the context of occurrence of abuse and its consequences for infant health and social development.     

Competitive victimhood as a response to accusations of ingroup harm doing

Accusations of unjust harm doing by the ingroup threaten the group's moral identity. One strategy for restoring ingroup moral identity after such a threat is competitive victimhood: claiming the ingroup has suffered compared with the harmed outgroup. Men accused of harming women were more likely to claim that men are discriminated against compared with women (Study 1), and women showed the same effect when accused of discriminating against men (Study 3). Undergraduates engaged in competitive victimhood with university staff after their group was accused of harming staff (Study 2). Study 4 showed that the effect of accusations on competitive victimhood among high-status group members is mediated by perceived stigma reversal: the expectation that one should feel guilty for being in a high-status group. Exposure to a competitive victimhood claim on behalf of one's ingroup reduced stigma reversal and collective guilt after an accusation of ingroup harm doing (Study 5).     

Significant life events and the shape of memories to come: a hypothesis

Much has been said about how significant life events modulate our response to stimuli that are integral to those events. However, we know less about the more general consequences of these events, that is, how they affect subsequent learning abilities that are seemingly irrelevant to the initial event. Here, it is proposed that significant life events, most often stressful in nature, alter future learned responses by inducing nonspecific and persistent changes in neuroanatomical structures. These changes are induced in the presence of sex and stress hormones, which are released either in response to the event itself or as a consequence of stages of life. To illustrate, the effects of acute stressful experience on learning processes and their regulation by the release of hormones are reviewed. I discuss how these events and their hormonal consequences alter anatomical substrates such as those involved in neurogenesis and synaptogenesis. It is proposed that these modulatory processes allow past experiences to change the shape of memories to come. In this way, memorable life events become less about the past and more about the future.     

Preferential processing of visual trauma-film reminders predicts subsequent intrusive memories

This study used an analogue design to test the hypothesis that preferential processing of visual trauma reminders in the aftermath of a stressful or traumatic event gives rise to subsequent intrusive memories. Shortly after the presentation of a stressful film fragment, participants (n=36) were asked to detect neutral targets (rotated buildings or nature scenes) in a single target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. During half of the streams, the target was preceded by a distracter. The distracters consisted of visual images extracted from an earlier presented stressful film (e.g., persons and objects that figured in the film). The degree of interference by these film reminders predicted subsequent intrusions recorded in a one-week diary. The results provide evidence that a deficient ability to obtain attentional control over perceptual “trauma” reminders during goal-directed behaviour may set people at risk for persistent intrusive memories. Implications for research investigating attentional bias and intrusive memories in context of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are discussed.     

Retrieval properties of negative vs. positive mental images and autobiographical memories in social anxiety: outcomes with a new measure

High (n = 41) and low (n = 39) socially anxious (SA) participants completed the Waterloo Images and Memories Interview (WIMI), a new assessment tool that measures the accessibility and properties of mental images and associated autobiographical memories that individuals may experience across both anxiety-provoking (negative) and non-anxiety-provoking (positive) social situations. Results indicated that both high and low SA individuals experience negative images and associated autobiographical memories in anxiety-provoking social situations, but the rates of endorsement of such images and memories among high SA participants were substantially lower than those reported in recent studies. Moreover, whereas low SA individuals were capable of accessing a relatively balanced array of both negative and positive self-representations that were rich in episodic detail, high SA individuals retrieved a higher, more unbalanced ratio of negative-to-positive images and memories, as well as impoverished positive images that were significantly degraded in episodic detail. Finally, negative images influenced the two groups differently, with high SA individuals experiencing more negative emotional and cognitive consequences associated with bringing such images to mind. These results are discussed in relation to theoretical models of learning and memory within the context of contemporary cognitive behavioral models of social anxiety.     

False or recovered memories?: Legal and ethical implications for therapists

The allegation that therapists encourage false memories of abuse in their clients presents a challenge to practitioners in the UK and USA. The development of the debate over false or recovered memories is briefly placed in its social and historical context. Some of the ethical and legal implications of this area of work for therapists are identified, using the concept of the Drama Triangle. Therapists may become involved in ethical dilemmas, and even in legal proceedings, by unwittingly being perceived by third parties as having taken on the roles of 'rescuer', persecutor' or 'victim'. Responses by therapists to this potential development could include adopting defensive forms of practice, promoting self-regulation, and establishing a more active presence in this wider debate.     

Characteristics of intrusive memories in a community sample of depressed, recovered depressed and never-depressed individuals

An accumulating body of evidence has revealed that intrusive autobiographical memories of negative events play a role in depression. Despite increasing understanding of the phenomenological experience of these memories, previous research in this area has been conducted in either nonclinical samples, or in clinical samples without an adequate control group. This study aimed to replicate and extend findings with dysphoric samples by comparing the content and characteristics of intrusive memories in clinically depressed (n = 25), recovered (n = 30) and never-depressed (n = 30) participants. Participants completed mood measures, and a battery of self-report questionnaires that indexed intrusive memory frequency, avoidance and characteristics. Intrusive memories were common and shared strikingly similar characteristics across the three groups. The key finding was that depressed participants reported higher levels of intrusion-related distress, associated emotions (especially sadness and helplessness), interference as a result of the memories and memory vividness compared to the never-depressed group. Despite similar levels of intrusion, there were group differences in avoidance such that depressed participants reported higher levels of avoidance than the never-depressed group. These results provide further support for the proposal that clinical interventions for depression could usefully incorporate components that aim to reduce intrusive autobiographical memories and target avoidance strategies.