"My Lie" by Meredith Maran
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-28/my-lie-meredith-maran
Repressed, recovered or false memories – a journalist explains the differences. How a spate of abuse allegations shattered thousands of families, including her own, in the eighties and nineties and whether the phenomenon could happen again.
Guests
Meredith Maran
journalist and author of several nonfiction books, including “Dirty,” “Class Dismissed,” and “What It’s Like to Live Now.”
Frank Kane
a volunteer spokesman for the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.
Richard McNally
professor and director of clinical training, department of psychology, Harvard, and author of "Remembering Trauma" and the soon to be published, "What is Mental Illness?"
Christine Courtois
a psychotherapist and author of the just published second edition of "Healing the Incest Wound."
Comments
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As a man, I am deeply disgusted by this hour's discussion. Allegations of rape and incest are to be taken seriously and ruining someone's life (and the love of a father for his child) under the excuse of "false memory" is despicable.
Ms. Maran chose an appropriate title for her book. Allegations of abuse that are patently not true are lies. Instead of involving the science of psychiatry, past accusers simply need to take responsibility for their actions and just say "I'm sorry".
This topic makes me very angry. I WAS sexually abused as a child, for many years. My memories are real and very specific. The only thing that ended it was the death of my abuser. It took me a long time to come to terms with my past, and it involved opening up to friends and family. This sort of false accusation sheds doubt in many people's eyes on my story and encourages people to question my motives. It forces me back in the closet thinking no one will believe me.
Meredith Maran was an adult, did she not consider the catastrophic repercussions that this accusation would have on her "best friend" & father! I hear no remorse in this woman's voice and she is so typical of today's phyco babel culture and I think is absolutely pathetic. She should be ashamed of herself.
I am sorry but this is the most disturbing story. It is so stupid and disrespectful that someone rewards his father’s love by being selfish and ruining his life based on stupid thoughts that have no scientific or real proof. I don’t think that NPR should promote this type of books.
I have worked as a therapist for 30 years and am also an author on the topic of child sexual abuse. Historically our society has both believed children about child sexual abuse and not believed children. Hypnosis should never be used in these reported or suspected cases. However, please also be aware of studies that indicate even children where sexual abuse has been substantiated by law enforcement can grow up and not remember the sexual abuse.
It is important to present a balance on this topic. Too many times children are not believed and child molesters are allowed to continue to harm children.
It would have been good to have another guest on the show to balance this author's view of the topic, the context of the time and where we are today.
I do not doubt much harm was done by well intentioned therapists then but believe we should be careful not to let the pendulum swing to far in the opposite direction. Dr. McNally's explanation of traumatic memory recall was overly simplistic in that not all brains function the same way. I believe years of childhood trauma (even if it is frequent verbal abuse) or neglect will affect the way the brain works and therefore the way memory is stored and recalled. I still do not have memory of most of my childhood and I do not trust the memories I do have. However, later in life I did discuss some situations with my mother and those that were clarified or validated with her were the catalyst to finally get an understanding of some of my own dysfunction. Luckily I have had counseling from professionals that agree it is not necessary (or may not even be healthy) to uncover detailed memory in order to improve my own emotional health.
Similarly perverse accusations are still promoted today by "counselors" who fail to investigate their clients' true status or motivation. Dr. McNally made a powerful point: if a person is in crisis for any reason (including internal imbalance -- whether hormonal, spiritual, intellectual, or psychological) it becomes very attractive to find another person to blame.
I've been on the receiving end of such fantasy accusations (luckily, of "emotional" rather than physical acts). I wish I could address the secretive clan of (in my case, female) "counselors" who invoked an imagined history. However, the women never identify themselves, or would claim confidentiality, making it impossible to discover the truth. Were they misled by their client intentionally? Or, did they implant suggestions in their client, driven by personal bias?
If I call any attention to historical facts, or make assertions about the inappropriateness of their professional behavior, it's cast as evidence of my guilt. How convenient!
Meredith, I appreciate you telling your story.
It's an odd experience for me listening to the show since I'm the brother to 2 sisters of a household where the same accusations came late in life toward my father. My father immediately and continually denied it in tears and was heartbroken.... he now suffers from cognitive impairment / Alzhiemers. Though he's stopped asking now, for the last 5 years, he continually brought it up and denied it and he wondered why his daughters have accused him.
When the accusations came, I didn't immediately believe it and didn't know how very important it was to my sisters that I believe it happened..... I didn't and that made me an outsider too.
I'll read your book, and wish my sisters could too. I just want to comment that there are many victims in these kinds of cases. Our family has never recovered from this event and continues to suffer to this day.
It seems to me that the commentary thus far seems to suggest that there is no such thing as repressed memory. I believe that assertion to be false, for two reasons:
1) During the course of extensive research over ten years ago for a law school class in family violence, I learned that two nurses in Massachusetts had done a study of patients who had been admitted as children to a hospital emergency room for treatment of abuse. The nurses contacted as many of the now grown up children as they could reach and interviewed them regarding their treatment years earlier as children. A significant percentage simply could not remember the details of their time in the emergency room, or the events which happened to them to send them to the emergency room.
2) A case of repressed memory happened to me. Let me hasten to add that I was never abused as a child; to the contrary, my parents were very loving to me and my siblings. I am reluctant to go into detail in a public space, but I learned at age 15, from my Mom, that something had happened to me at age 4, none of which I can remember. Mom was perplexed that I had no memory of this conversation, but learning what I learned at age 15 suddenly made clear a host of other memories which were related to the original incident.
While I firmly believe in the reality behind repressed memories, I also understand that genuine false memories can be created by a therapist, by hysteria in the family or the culture, and that the person believing the false memory sincerely does believe. The whole subject is a hugely difficult and sensitive one, for therapists, for prosecutors, for legal fact finders, and for families. My heart goes out to all who have been caught up in this difficult experience.
I only briefly heard this conversation while going to get lunch, but listening to her candidly talk about how she ruined peoples lives and reputations just disgusts me.
I'm so utterly sick of how the laws surrounding "sex offenders" is treated now, that what might of been considered a college prank for streaking 20-30 years ago can now get you labeled the same as a pedophile is beyond words.
And to hear of people abusing good faith to automatically believe people are telling the truth about sexual abuse and then literally tarring and feathering someone in public media over unproven claims is ridiculous.
Peoples lives are ruined over false claims, reputation never gained back, suspicion always following them, time lost in jail, money lost to defend themselves, etc. Yet when proven innocent, the "victim" gets off scott free often times.
And this author apologizing for people's pain, what hog wash, all she's trying to do is sell a book...
Please try to be fair and open-minded on this subject. No one is trying to minimize or dismiss the pain that incest-survivors have suffered. I listened to the entire show, and I did not get the impression that the author was doing that. I have not read her book, but the discussion did not aim to dismiss or invalidate true incest-survivors. She made that statement over and over again today, and I take her and the other guests word on that.
As an attorney, however, I have seen first-hand the equally tragic results of false memories. It happens on the witness stand, and in the 1980's and 1990's, it happened egregiously to fathers and other family members by innocent people who were caught up in a journalistic trend, if you will, that sensationalized "childhood sexual abuse". This author simply exposes that very real consequence. Nothing is pure ... there are always unintended consequences and competing interests ... please see that.
The pain of a falsely imprisoned "criminal" is at least equal to your pain as an incest survivor, I think most would agree. Please try to see beyond your pain to the pain of others who are falsely accused, convicted, and jailed. The "Burden of Innocence", as one writer put it, can be painful to carry.
To the woman before who was actually raped...your point is exactly correct. No rape/ molestation person actually forgets what happens to them. The whole point of truama is that YOU CANNOT FORGET IT. You can choose not to think about it. You can choose to go on in life. But forget --heck no! Simply said, the mind does not have a delete and recover botton. As some one who was raped I understand. No one in or out of the law would disagree with your valid happening. What a legitimate "victim needs to understand about Flase Memory Syndrome-is that the allegations come out "repressed and recovered memories" pried out, distilled, discvoered, manufactured, pieced together" and otherwise aided by hypnois VIA A THERAPIST. Generally speak and for damn good reason--Rules of evidence- do not allow for evidence gained by hypnois (dreams) to be allowable. Not to mention the rules of TAINT! Taint is what happens in a family, police interogation, or in the therapist's office were SUGGESTIONS OR QUESTIONS become FAct! The false allegations are just that --they are fabricated out of dreams etc etc etc. The therapists who actually believe in this "junk science" have beeh soundly and routinely discredited. And, thnakfully now this book and the movie Witch Hunt are discrediting and hopefully suspending the Prsecutors who do not bother to learn about Implanted Rrepressed Recovered False Memeory Syndrome. THey proceed on these case because they love the political hay they make with them. Please seeWitch Hunt and Do read My LIe. Both are a chronicaling of an unfortunate and true account and both are only the tip of the HUGE proverbial iceburg. Even Law & Order had a great show on this Phenom.
Sorry, no spell check--Hope it is readable.
God BLess to all the IRRFMS "victims who get legitimate help for whatever their needs are, and that they realize the real victim and real crime is sitting in the JUNK Science doctor's office.
I appreciate Meredith writing such a painful book. It's awful to know there are so many in the same situation
I was sexually molested by my best friends father at the age of 5-7...I remember this clearly. It was very hard to tell my family and when I did, so quickly shut down. I suppressed this until the age of 22 when I found out I had stage 3 cervical cancer. There was no reason to keep the abuse quiet anymore. We had to deal with it as a family and they listened this time.
I am sorry for those wrongly accused. It's as sick as my diagnosis. The more we talk about differences in memories, the clearer it will be to distinguish truth from lies.
I would like to thank you for this broadcast. It shared different sides of repressed memories, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was sexually abused as a child and found it hard to listen too at first, but by the end, I have more security for my own memories, I can have empathy for those that are/were falsely encouraged to believe something so horrific and to those that are falsely accused. Thank you again for the honesty and bravery of Meredith Maran.
As a Psychiatric Physician Assistant and Hypnotherapist, I feel it is important for listeners to understand not only how this happens and how easily that it can happen to anybody, but also how this phenomena is a useful tool in therapy. Ms. Maran does not deny the existence of REAL abuse or any other crime when she states that she has discovered how easily we can be deluded -both by ourselves and by unscrupulous others whose motives may be questionable. Neither do I. Still, memory is dependent on awareness and the "gorilla " phenomenon indicates that our conscious mind often misinterprets reality to make it seem more plausible. Second, anytime we are in a non-analytic mind state -whether due to formal hypnosis, deep meditation, prayer, or substance abuse, our mind can accept at the subconscious level any information presented. This "false memory" may be remembered as strongly or more so than reality. This is particularly true of highly emotional memories. In order to avoid creating false memories, ethical therapists are taught to use open-ended sentences that do not imply any specific state or true/false questions worded to avoid any implications. The therapist mentioned in the broadcast obviously had a vested interest in finding problems to treat this can inadvertentently lead to creating problems. On the other hand, many disciplines help heal traumatic memories by helping clients neutralize or re-script them so that they are less emotionally painful. In conclusion, the truth will make you free but it may not make you well-adjusted or happy. Finding truth is our first priority, but how we deal with that is the basis of therapy. Ms. Maran wisely asks,"What will be the result of a particular belief."
I found the program valuable, thank you! The evidence appears clear to me that memories are fallible and corruptible in a variety of ways. I am persuaded that I blocked out my memories of some things about which I felt some shame.
I think we need to accept that when memories differ we often can't be sure what did or didn't happen. The bottom line is that we need to learn how to heal our psychological problems as much as possible without causing new trauma.
John
My husband was accused in a similar fashion years ago. I can tell you 1st hand the therapist of the “victim” in his situation made things far worse than anyone. These unethical “professionals” should be held accountable, but instead get off scott free. Our legal system is not set up to handle “innocence”. Once a problem enters this type of system, it is guilty until proven innocent and then the innocence is still not believed. After my husband’s situation, I often say to people, “Until something like this happens to you, you wouldn’t believe that something like this could happen in America.” Years after this accusation, we are still feeling the pain of thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees.
The one aspect of this show that I found most disturbing is that Dr McNally's comments went unchallenged and were represented as the current state of scientific thought on the subject (i.e. that traumatic memories are always remembered with greater intensity than regular memories as in acute PTSD). This is patently false and contrary to many studies on the subject. His conclusions tainted the remainder of the discussion and contradict well understood and accepted diagnoses such as dissociative disorders (delineated in the DSM). Please don't just throw in an "Expert" on a subject to portray an air of objectivity when that expert is well known for his disdain for the topic under discussion - especially when he has a book to sell.
Thank you so much for airing this topic, which we have listened to with both sadness and hope. As a father of three adult children, one of whom has made such an accusation about me — but never to my face and never with specifics of time, place, and presumed acts — I can testify to the pain and alienation that it can bring to a family. I am fortunate in having a loving wife who has stood by me, and two children who love and trust me with their own children. I can only hope that my daughter hears this program, reads this book, and can begin to come to terms with her own mistaken beliefs. Although we have no idea how this case of false memory originated, we think it may well have been instilled by a therapist or an abused friend years ago, in the 1990s, in fact. We still live in the hope that self-realization could end her estrangement from our family. Her mother and I have never ceased to love her, and would welcome her back in a heartbeat. Whether or not we could ever re-establish relations with three of our grandchildren is another matter though, and something that hurts us terribly.
Mufti
I agree… I am greatly disgusted! Though my primary disgust is that this lady is SELLING this story. She is selling her book shamelessly here… A book based solely on how she ruined other people’s lives based on her lying accusations. If she truly felt remorse, why is she trying to get rich off of this? Every other answer is ‘if you ready my book you will know what I think about this or that’.
If she was truly sorry she would be giving this information out free of charge, not selling her story! Many people who want to help others provide their advice on a volunteer basis.
She is a horrible human being period!
Meredith freely admits in the beginning of the program that she never actually remembered actual abuse.
I am an incest survivor with repressed memory syndrome and believe me, when my memories surfaced there was no doubt as to their validity. I was shaking and screaming and in a complete state of terror. Please have the courage to present a more balanced point of view-check The Recovered Memory Project, at Brown University.
It’s very important to have a book like this come out now. In recent years, when talking to journalists I’ve found I no longer can simply say “McMartin” – referring to the most notorious of the mass molestation cases of the 1980s – and expect those reporters to know what I’m talking about. And as *that* memory fades, it becomes more likely that it will happen again, and the mistakes that cause so much harm in those kinds of cases, and the similar fad of recovered memories, will be repeated.
The “advocacy numbers” which take the serious and real problem of child sexual abuse and exaggerate it, are coming back. And I am aware of three cases involving McMartin-style allegations that have done enormous harm to families just in the past year. (None of these involved recovered memory, but they involved the same kinds of junk science and poor practice that fueled the mass molestation hysteria of the early 1980s).
That doesn’t mean there is no such thing as mass molestation or recovered memory. In each case, I suspect we’re dealing with a molehill of truth beneath a mountain of hype. But there is a vast difference between a memory that is recovered in a way that is genuinely spontaneous and one which is induced through the power of suggestion and/or the pressure of therapists.
Of course this harms those wrongfully accused, and especially children persuaded they were abused when they weren’t. But it also undermines the credibility of those who really have been abused and *should* be believed.
Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
Alexandria VA
http://www.nccpr.org
I was shocked that NPR portrayed only one side of this issue. While I believe that some people have "false memories," I know that many studies have shown that it is indeed possible--in fact, common--for victims of childhood sexual abuse to repress and then, years later, remember their abuse.
Here's a link to an early study where girls brought to a hospital following a sexual assault in the '70s were interviewed almost 20 years later by researchers. Although the girls' abuse was documented at the time--not by recall--and in many cases there was physical evidence of the abuse--38% no longer recalled it as adults.
http://icogsci1.ucsd.edu/~cg3s/cogs11/presentation%20papers/repressed-me...
When the author and the "experts" talked with empathy about "real" incest cases, I wondered if they meant only abuse that had never been forgotten? In any case, NPR should have presented the significant research validating many recovered memories. One-sided journalism is not journalism, IMO.
As I listened to the program today, I was bothered by comments of the moderator Katty Kay.
She seemd to be a "cheerleader" for the various speakers. This issue is very controversial and experts do not even recognize False Memory Syndrome as true diagnosis. Ms. Kay did not address that issue and appeared to accept at face value whatever the presenters said. When the one speaker stated that hundreds of persons had been falsey arrested and jailed for molest, Ms. Kay did not ask for any substantiation. Then the speaker said maybe 25 were still in jail. Again Ms. Kay did not note the discrepancy or ask for any proof..
Ms. Kay seemed to ignore, downplay or even disagree with the concerns of sex abuse victims who called in.
Ms. Kay did not address the differing views direclty. I am not sure if she was unaware of the complexities of this issue or if she was uncomfortable in dealing with the uncomfortable issue.
Ms Maran's revelation to herself and to the public hits a raw nerve of truth. That was obviously displayed by the highly emotional callers on your show today. Child sexual abuse is simply evil. Much like terrorism, it must be stopped. War must be waged against it. However, like terrorism, the campaign has been waged with too much emotion and too many mixed motives. And vulnerable children trying to please the ones waging this holy war are also thrown into the mix. It is clear we have sometimes attacked innocent, peace-loving muslims is our war against terrorism. Have vulnerable, young soldiers been thrown into that mix? So much propaganda covers up truth! May we get the terrorist; may we get the child abusers; may evil be stopped. But evil too often walks in sheep's clothing...in our holy-war campaingers. Too often innocent victims are hit instead of the proper targets. "My Lie" hits the truth. Painful as it may be, the truth is always healing. Out of the healing, children can come fourth without land mines laid by adults of mixed motives.
There are many problems with Maran's book. She never had any real detailed memories. Many with recovered memories of child abuse have proof these events happened.
There was no panic. This was the first time in history children were believed when they told about being abused. There was evidence the children at McMartin were abused. Most of the jurors at their trial believed the children were abused.
This book, intentional or not, is part of the backlash against child abuse survivors, and will hurt the support they get. It will hurt the chances that children will have of being believed when they state they have been abused.
Here are several websites with scientific evidence showing that it is very possible to forget a traumatic event and recall it later.
http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/
http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jjf/suggestedrefs.html
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/index.html
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/tm/tm.html
http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Recovered_Memories
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/docs/ShanleyBrief.pdf
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/abuse/a/cooroborate.htm
You are so wrong.
When you suffer the death of a living child from this horrible syndrome then we can talk.
proof, this a delusion. No proof. Never proof. False Memory.
DNA. False accusations. Delusions implanted from bad therapy, personal agendas, hypnotist.
Have you suffered the loss of a living child? Do you understand the grief? You don't....
can you personally understand? Have you been falsely accused? We will communicate when you can understand both sides.
Oh, this phenonmenom has not ended. I lost my daughter in 2006.