What is False Memory Syndrome?False Memory Syndrome was first identified in the early 1990s in the US as a damaging side effect of a psychological treatment called Recovered Memory Therapy 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. . This was fashionable in the late 80s and early 90s when therapists related clients' problems to abuse in childhood - usually sexual and often inflicted by the father. It involved putting the patient under hypnosis hypnosis State that resembles sleep but is induced by a person (the hypnotist) whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject. The hypnotized individual seems to respond in an uncritical, automatic fashion, ignoring aspects of the environment (e.g. or interpreting their dreams to unlock memories which therapists believed were so painful they had been blocked out of the conscious mind, often for decades. A well-regarded book called The Courage To Heal, published in 1988, suggested that one in three girls and one in seven boys had been sexually abused. But a key element of Recovered Memory Therapy was alienation from friends and family, so it was hard to discredit any allegations. In 1998, the Brandon Report, published in the British Journal Of Psychiatry, concluded that there was no evidence to support the recovered memory The remembrance of traumatic childhood events, usually involving Sexual Abuse, many years after the events occurred. The heightened awareness of child sexual abuse that developed in the 1980s also brought with it the controversial topic of recovered memory. movement. It added that hypnosis and dream interpretation were "powerful and dangerous" tools for which there was "no justification". The first case of False Memory Syndrome in the UK was reported in 1990 and the British False Memory Society was founded three years later. It is now aware of 1,600 families who have been affected in a similar way to Maxine Berry's. In 1998, a father was cleared of attacking his daughter after Preston Crown Court heard she'd mistakenly believed she had been abused. And in June 2000, art historian Philip Shaw, 49, from North London North London is a part of London, England which has several possible definitions. River & geography The part of London north of the River Thames (illustrated). , was cleared of sexual assault after a jury heard his alleged victim suffered from False Memory Syndrome. In America more than 15,000 families have now contacted the US False Memory Syndrome Foundation The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) was formed in 1992 by Pamela and Peter Freyd, with the support and encouragement of therapists Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager. . Madeline Greenhalgh, director of the British False Memory Society, believes the number who do come forward is just the tip of the iceberg. "Last year, more than 100 new families contacted us," she says. "But False Memory Syndrome is a hard thing to talk about. People are reluctant to come forward." CAPTION(S): False Memory victim Maxine Berry wrongly accused her dad of abuse |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion