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Recovered memory techniques are
bogus, report says


Copyright © 1998 Nando.net
Copyright © 1998 Scripps Howard

Nando's special report: 1997 Year in Review

LONDON (January 13, 1998 01:31 a.m. EST http://www.nando.net)
-- British psychiatrists have waged a devastating attack on
colleagues who use bogus techniques to plant false memories
of sexual abuse in patients, according to an unpublished report
which was delayed for more than a year because therapists
feared its criticisms.

A copy obtained by the Guardian shows that the inquiry
commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists has
concluded that any memory recovered through hypnosis,
dream interpretation or regression therapy is almost certainly
false.

It blames these "dangerous and powerful tools for persuasion"
for spawning hundreds of false accusations against parents,
destroying families and undermining the credibility of genuine
abuse victims.

Mistaken diagnoses have made patients more likely to feel
suicidal and to engage in self-mutilation, the report says.

Dr. Sydney Brandon, chairman of the report's working party,
said the General Medical Council, the governing body for the
British medical profession, should respond to complaints from
patients by striking off psychiatrists who persist in using the
techniques.

He urged colleagues to review their notes and if necessary
contact patients who believed their recovered memories.

The report's key finding is that people do not bury memories of
abuse. On the contrary, their problem is that they cannot forget.

"Despite widespread clinical and popular belief that memories
can be 'blocked out' by the mind, no empirical evidence exists
to support either repression or dissociation.

"No evidence exists for the repression and recovery of verified,
severely traumatic events, and their role in symptom formation
has yet to be proved."

False memories tend to date the abuse from an earlier age than
genuine cases, often when the person was an infant.

"The very inability to recall abuse is taken as a sign that abuse
has occurred but is being 'denied' through the process of
repression. The therapist and patient embark together upon the
process of recovering hidden memories," the report says.

Therapists are also criticized for using all-embracing symptom
checklists -- such as headaches, celibacy, promiscuity and
wearing baggy clothes -- that exclude few people.

Entitled "Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse:
Implications for Clinical Practice," the original report was
submitted to the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the summer of
1996.

Its findings appalled some members, who lobbied for it to be
disowned. A compromise was agreed whereby watered-down
guidelines were issued last October, but the report itself would
no longer be published under the imprimatur of the College.

Dr R.E. Kendall, the college president, confirmed that a revised
version will appear as an article in the British Journal of
Psychiatry in April, thus distancing the college from
controversy.

The report's four authors damn "memory enhancement
techniques," including:

-- Drug induced abreactions "produce material which is often a
product of fantasy."

-- Hypnosis "increases the confidence with which the memory is
held while reducing its reliability."

-- Age regression "accounts are at times so fantastic that they
are beyond belief and there is no evidence of (its) efficacy."

-- Dream interpretations "usually reflect the training and
personal convictions of the therapist".

By RORY CARROLL, The Guardian