Memory & Justice

Blue Mountains cult: part two of Nathan's story

2012-01-24T22:11:00.005+11:00

In a continuation of his Shepherd's Heart and Blue Mountains SRA cult story, Nathan Zamprogno writes:

"...I am telling this story in the sincere belief that I am speaking for the voiceless; for all the victims of cult abuse and for the victims of when any religious belief, even an originally well-intentioned one, turns sinister.

I am also writing in the conviction that if no one speaks out, other people inevitably will suffer in the future at the hands of the same group..."

His latest post, In which Nathan's wife is stolen away by a cult includes his coverage on TV, and speech at Parliament House, Canberra, in November 2011.

A wife lost to Shepherd's Heart SRA cult

2012-01-12T22:17:00.009+11:00

Sydney's Channel 9 recently covered the Shepherd's Heart cult, a group of Satanic Ritual Abuse believers based in Canberra.

'...Nathan was happily married... three years ago, his wife went out to a Bible class and never came home...'

'...I never anticipated that things would unravel in such a sinister way...'

'...They've robbed her family of a daughter, a sister a niece, and a granddaughter...'

'....These people believe they've been subjected to horrendous ritual satanic abuse, at the hands of their own families...'

'...Shepherd's Heart's leader is John Darnell, he and his wife Glenys are demonstrating what the church believes to be appropriate counselling...'

'...Shepherd's Heart calls it Dissociative Identity Disorder…which is based on a belief that followers have suffered abuse so awful, they've repressed the memories, and that only cult members can counsel them...'

Professor Grant Devilly, from Griffith University's Psychological Health research unit: '...My guess is an about 100 years time, we'll look back at this whole area of Dissociative Identity Disorder and Repressed Memory Therapy, and people will just shake their heads and say, what did they think they were doing...'

Watch A Current Affair The Shepherd's Heart – Lost to a Cult on YouTube

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True

2012-01-07T08:47:00.004+11:00

Richard Dawkins’ latest book is The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.

Dawkins sets out in the first chapter—”What is reality? What is magic?”—to define the terms in question. He lays out how we know what is real, through direct sensory perception, as well as by using instruments and methods to test theories using models, arguing that how we know things ultimately comes down to reliance on our senses...

...In “Are we alone?,” Dawkins notes that there are not many ancient legends involving aliens, and therefore discusses more modern phenomena such as the Heaven’s Gate cult.

He treats the victims of the cult humanely, with an effort to explain why they took the actions they did. He is very good in this chapter, which covers the gamut of alien abduction stories, and brings in the studies of a number of psychologists on subjects such as how memory works, false memory syndrome, sleep paralysis and such...

www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011

Conviction of the innocent: Lessons from psychological research

2012-01-07T08:35:00.002+11:00

What is the information that one can gather from psychological research regarding conviction of the innocent? Brian L. Cutler has edited a book that offers a comprehensive set of answers to this question. Its relevance cannot be discounted.

In the laboratory, false alarm responses in recollection and recognition may be either a disturbance (if researchers' focus is correct performance) or an interesting phenomenon worthy of serious scientific investigation (see false memory research), all without much consequence for participants...

...One of the most disconcerting aspects of the literature review on the likelihood of false convictions is the lag between research findings on one side and the law and its applications by the justice system on the other.

Discrepancies between the two domains are mostly responsible for flaws exhibited by the current justice system, which, regretfully, encompass all of its three acknowledged pursuits (legislative, adjudication, and corrections). Flaws of different magnitude and consequences are so staggering that one may ask whether the conviction of actual guilty parties is merely an accident in a system where subjectivity reigns...

metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc

Who are the Shepherd's Heart and what do they believe?

2011-12-21T21:32:00.001+11:00

At the Palimpsest, blogger Nathan Zamprogno writes:

John Darnell and his wife Glenys run a church in Canberra called the Shepherd's Heart. Formerly it was called The Fold Christian Fellowship. Because I have no aversion to calling things by their right name, I say they are dangerous lunatics.

I know this because they provided a treatment program to my beloved wife which has contributed to the ruination of her life.

I am writing, obviously, to warn others.

The Darnells believe they have a special calling. For years, they have received people (disproportionately, women) whose initial presentation may only be of emotional distress. Some may have diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illnesses. They believe that their calling is to assist their subjects recall, acknowledge and then heal from trauma, even abuse, experienced earlier in life. Critically, the subject may be entirely unaware they had endured this abuse and trauma until the Darnell's techniques produce distressing recollections that then have to be interpreted and processed.

The problem is that these recollections are false.

The implications are devastating, both for the subjects of such counselling and for their families.
There is also an uncomfortable implication for those poor souls who may actually have endured some form of abuse in their past, and for whom this style of counselling muddies the waters no-end.

This is a well known phenomenon called False Memory Syndrome. It is otherwise known as Repressed Memory Therapy (RMT). It has been widely reported, even in the Australian media, and the archetype case, that of a woman named "Sybil", has been comprehensively discredited and debunked.

In the more bizarre and extreme cases of RMT are interwoven fantastic claims that the abuse that subjects have endured (and note, never remembered, and had no prior awareness of) was of a sinister occult character, involving Satanic rituals, sacrifice, cannibalism and quite spectacular end-time conspiracies. This related phenomenon claims there is an concealed epidemic of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) in the world...

http://baliset.blogspot.com/2011/11/

Fight for law change over abuse accusation

2011-12-17T09:52:00.001+11:00

Jim Fairlie, 71, believes he should have legal redress against NHS Tayside and the former Perth and Kinross District Council after his daughter accused him of the abuse when she was undergoing controversial Recovered Memory Therapy.

He wants the duty of care that hospitals have for patients, or social workers have for children, to be extended to families. Although his daughter Katrina, now 41, settled her case for damages out of court four years ago, he believes families damaged by false accusations should also be able to sue.

He has written to justice secretary Kenny MacAskill calling for a change in the law. Fairlie, who was the SNP’s deputy leader between 1980 and 1984, says he is campaigning on behalf of thousands of families who have been affected by the now discredited Recovered Memory Therapy...

www.scotsman.com/news

Valerie Sinason and Fleur Fisher on the record

2011-12-11T15:16:00.008+11:00

In The Guardian, Will Storr interviews both Sinason and Fisher about the Carol Felstead case:

"...Sinason insists she doesn't use recovered-memory techniques. "I'm an analytic therapist," she says. "The idea of that is someone showing, through their behaviour, that all sorts of things might have happened to them."

Signs that a patient has suffered satanically include flinching at green or purple objects, the colours of the high priest and priestess's robes. "And if someone shudders when they enter a room, you know it's not ordinary incest."

Another warning, she says, is the patient saying: "I don't know." "What they really mean is: 'I can't bear to say.'" A patient who "overpraises" their family is also suspicious. "The more insecure you are, the more you praise. 'Oh my family was wonderful! I can't remember any of it!'"…

…Sinason talks of a popular ritual in which a child is stitched inside the belly of a dying animal before being 'reborn to satan'. During other celebrations, "people eat faeces, menstrual blood, semen, urine. There's cannibalism."

Some groups have doctors performing abortions. "They give the foetus to the mother and she's made to kill the baby…"

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/11/

Justice for Carol in Private Eye magazine

2011-12-04T07:56:00.004+11:00

By Rosie Waterhouse

THE damage caused to vulnerable mentally ill patients and their families by therapists who treat them as survivors of Satanic ritual abuse is revealed in the shocking and extraordinary case of Carol Felstead.

Carol, later known as Carole Myers, was found dead in mysterious circumstances in her flat in Wandsworth, south London, on 29 June 2005 aged 41. She was naked from the waist down and surrounded by medication. A post mortem examination found no dangerous levels of drugs in her system, however. The cause of death was "unascertained" and an inquest recorded an open verdict.

In a six-year battle to uncover the truth, the Felstead family, from Stockport, Cheshire, have unearthed a scandal surrounding Carol's treatment over 20 years by a medical profession and a therapy industry using high doses of medication and dubious 'recovered memory' and mind control techniques...

www.saff.ukhq.co.uk

Psychologist implanted horrific memories

2011-12-04T07:41:00.006+11:00

By JIM SALTER, Associated Press

The memories that came flooding back were so horrific that Lisa Nasseff says she tried to kill herself: she had been raped several times, had multiple personalities and took part in satanic rituals involving unthinkable acts. She says she only got better when she realized they weren't real.

Nasseff, 31, is suing a suburban St. Louis treatment center where she spent 15 months being treated for anorexia, claiming one of its psychologists implanted the false memories during hypnosis sessions in order to keep her there long-term and run up a bill that eventually reached $650,000.

The claims seem unbelievable, but her lawyer, Kenneth Vuylsteke, says other patients have come forward to say they, too, were brainwashed and are considering suing...

www.salon.com

Bizarre Claim Against Eating Disorder Clinic

2011-12-04T06:47:00.005+11:00

By JOE HARRIS

A woman claims a psychologist at an eating-disorder clinic hypnotized her while she was on psychotropic drugs, inducing false memories of being raped and belonging to a satanic cult.

She claims he did this recklessly, "based partly on her ability to pay for long-term continuous inpatient services," and told her that that if she sued, "her perpetration of various criminal and horrific acts of abuse would be revealed".

Lisa Nasseff sued the Castlewood Treatment Center and Mark Schwartz, Sc.D., (Doctor of Science) in St. Louis County Court. She seeks repayment of $650,000 in medical expenses, much of it unnecessary, which she says she laid out during more than a year of inpatient treatment....

www.courthousenews.com

Annual Conference of the Australian False Memory Association

2011-10-19T22:02:00.000+11:00

The Annual Conference and AGM of the Australian False Memory Association will be held on 29 October.

The main speaker will be well-known solicitor, Greg Walsh, who will speak about new developments in the legal field with regard to false memory cases.

Two members will relate their experiences – Michael, who was falsely accused and taken to court in Brisbane, but thankfully found to be innocent. And Nathan, whose wife was caught up in a cult-like ministry, will talk about his battle against the cult.

Registration opens at 9 am and the proceedings will commence at 9.30 am.
Venue: Killara Inn, Pacific Highway, Killara NSW

For more information, call 1300 88 88 77.

Memories you cannot swear by

2011-09-24T08:06:00.001+10:00

Conflicting accounts of the past may be due to the way our memory works, rather than lying, writes Amy Corderoy:

As the 10-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York passed last weekend, many people paused to remember where they were at the moment of the attacks.

Most people have a story; watching late-night television news, holidaying overseas and wondering where the next attack might be, rushing to tell friends of the disaster.

These types of "flashbulb" memories are the most vivid in our minds. But what if something we feel as such a vivid memory could be a fiction?
Advertisement: Story continues below

Research is starting to show that false memories are more common than most people think. And memories such as those of September 11 – highly charged emotional situations from many years ago – are perfect candidates....

smh.com.au/world/science

Valerie Sinason's credibility takes a dive

2011-08-14T08:35:00.023+10:00

Disturbing new material has surfaced in the latest Satanic Ritual Abuse scandal currently being played out in the UK. The Justice For Carol website is being regularly updated as new documents become available.

As Carol's family members point out at the site:

"...Carol’s medical history is littered with the who’s who of Satanic Ritual Abuse believers. The myth of Satanic Ritual Abuse is in our opinion a national scandal. And it is a scandal which needs exposing. In 1994, Valerie Sinason edited a collection of essays about putative satanic abuse. The book, Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse, was reviewed by one commentator as: ‘useful for anyone who needs a startling, clear demonstration of the amazing ability of 20th century human beings to persuade themselves firmly to believe in utter claptrap and nonsense.’ Carol almost certainly forms one of the case studies discussed in chapter 32 of the book...."

Sinason is considered an authority by many SRA believers, and her books and papers are often cited as references in their writings and publications.

Carol was also treated by other prominent believers in Satanic Abuse such as Dr Robert Hale, and her medical records contain a letter written by him:

"...The letter is dated 28 May 1993 and it is signed by Dr Hale. The letter confirms that Carol had received weekly therapy from Hale and Valerie Sinason, over an eight- month period. Significantly, Carol was placed on the mental health register in 1992. Dr Hale’s prognosis is that Carol was a victim of Satanist abuse and this abuse had begun in ‘very early childhood.’ In Carol’s psychiatric notes, it states that her parents were the High Priest and High Priestess of a Satanic Cult. Our family are supposed to have dug up graves and performed ritual sacrifices, which include murder. Here is a letter written by Valerie Sinason to a Dr Frances Raphael on 9th July 1997. In the letter Valerie Sinason confirms that Carol was the first Satanic Ritual Abuse patient that she had treated. As Carol was not a victim of Satanic Ritual Abuse, as there was no ritual cult whatsoever, as Carol was never abused or injured in any way, shape or form, and as the events attributed to Carol’s life did not happen and were incontrovertibly impossible, Dr Valerie Sinason’s method for treating patients such as Carol was clearly invalid, irrational, and dangerous...."

A copy of Sinason's letter has recently surfaced and is now available for download.

As the Felstead family make clear, claims made as a result of 'therapy' with Sinason and other practitioners are demonstrably false, even under cursory examination.

This surely further undermines Sinason's many assertions regarding the SRA phenomenon. Even before these latest revelations, her credibility appears to have been plummeting – at least in the UK.

This latest scandal contains lessons for other countries, including Australia – where there remains a hardened core of SRA believers within organisations such as ASCA and Liz Mullinar's Heal For Life Foundation.

More details at www.justiceforcarol.com

Matthew Meinck: the healer vanishes...

2011-08-07T10:07:00.030+10:00

Matthew Meinck was the unqualified psychotherapist and cult leader featured in the ABC documentary Over the Edge.

Since the documentary aired in April 2010, little has been heard from the self-described 'healer', and it is not known whether he is still practicing.

Meinck's wife Kate is still promoting her services as a chef at the couple's Chittering Valley Retreat in Western Australia, but there seems to be no mention of the healer himself. Mrs Meinck appeared in the documentary, and was seen dramatically disconnecting the ABC crew's lighting gear.

Earlier this year, the National Health Ministers' Advisory Council made a call for submissions regarding regulation of the psychotherapy industry.

A submission regarding Meinck's activities was made by Carline Humfrey, and can be downloaded here: No 157 – Carline Humfrey.pdf. There is also an index that can be downloaded at the AHMAC website, containing links to many of the other documents submitted: Submissions.doc

The ABC has made Over the Edge available for viewing online:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20100405/health/

Multiple personalities: a key question

2011-07-09T10:36:00.005+10:00

The editor of UK-based Dramatis Personae asks a question about Multiple Personality Disorder (also sometimes called Dissociative Identity Disorder):

"...Why is it the diagnosis only applies to (predominantly) white middle-aged women in the Western world?

The International Criminal Court, UN War Crimes Tribunal, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or indeed no other war crimes or genocide tribunal currently sitting or held in the past has ever heard of any testimony regarding the creation of multiple personality disorders amongst any women or children victims of atrocities.

And the atrocities are often beyond comprehension. In particular the use of rape as a 'weapon-of-war' has been established in use in the past, and continues in use even in modern times..."

Read The Western Middle Class White Woman's Burden

Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council

2011-07-09T09:28:00.002+10:00

From a submission to The Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, by The Australian False Memory Association:

"...An “adequate clinical basis” needs to be well defined and to include evidence based research and knowledge. The code would be stronger if qualifications and appropriate experience were specified and mandated in order for practitioners to “maintain the necessary competence in his or her field of practice”. A degree or diploma from a recognised and accredited institution should be a minimum requirement. Protection of title is also an important issue. There should be standards attached to a title such as “counsellor” or “psychotherapist” and only those meeting the standards should be able to use the title. Using the title without meeting the standards should be considered an offence..."

Download complete AFMA Submission (PDF)
More about the Advisory Council at www.ahmac.gov.au

Satanic abuse claims ‘doomed our girl’

2011-06-26T08:42:00.006+10:00

In the UK, Daniel Foggo in The Sunday Times describes how a woman whose death in 2005 remains a mystery had her wild beliefs of abuse nurtured by her doctors:

A family have described how their daughter’s life went into terminal decline after she was treated by psychiatrists and doctors who fostered false beliefs in her mind that she was the victim of satanic abuse.

Carole Myers was treated for 20 years by experts — including a former head of ethics for the British Medical Association (BMA) — yet the family say her deluded claims went unchallenged. She even alleged she had been abused at Conservative Central Office by two former cabinet ministers.

Myers eventually died at 41 in mysterious circumstances. A report by a Scotland Yard officer, Detective Sergeant Grant Lander, stated that he found it “quite incredible” that the satanic abuse claims were taken at face value by experts when they were demonstrably untrue.

Her case has alarming parallels with the satanic abuse cases of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Cleveland, Orkney, Rochdale and Nottingham — where parents were separated from their children on the basis of uncorroborated claims from self professed victims of ritual exploitation.

Since Carole’s death in 2005, her parents and brothers have pieced together much of her medical history and the murky events surrounding her death....

Read the Sunday Times article

Liz Mullinar's beliefs in the limelight

2011-06-13T07:51:00.039+10:00

Family justice index Dramatis Personae has recently broadened its coverage outside the British Isles – and Australia's highest-profile recovered memory advocate has attracted its attention.

With her grab bag of pop-psychology methods and toxic anti-family ideologies, Liz Mullinar is in good company.

Some of the individuals on the Dramatis Personae index might be dismissed as harmless eccentrics holding 'alternative' viewpoints. But regrettably, all too many have been able to wield considerable influence with health authorities and social welfare bodies in the UK and elsewhere. These include people such as Fleur Fisher, David Icke, Colin Ross and Valerie Sinason.

Mullinar herself falls into this category. Her organisation has lobbied for years to receive taxpayer funding – with a degree of success. Yet for any responsible health practitioner, there must remain serious questions about what she promotes as the Mayumarri Healing Model. Not least regarding its incorporation of discredited 'memory recovery' concepts, and simplistic ideas about human brain function.

Also deserving of scrutiny are the claims Mullinar makes about her 'abusive' childhood in England – particularly in relation to her father, Rev. Stephan Hopkinson. Indeed, there are indications that her accounts of certain events in the family history are not deemed accurate by her five brothers and sisters.

Dramatis Personae places Mullinar – and her beliefs – firmly in context. Across its many pages, drawing on a wide range of sources, the site records the impacts on family justice made by feminism, religion, pop psychology, pseudo-science, and ritual abuse mythology.

Liz Mullinar at Dramatis Personae

Now in English: 'The Ravages of False Memories' by Brigitte Axelrad

2011-06-09T20:05:00.003+10:00

Originally published in French, The Ravages of False Memories - or manipulated memory by Brigitte Axelrad has been translated into English by Robert Shaw.

The book aims to provide clear and informative answers for patients, families, professionals and lawyers who have questions about so-called recovered memory therapies (RMT) and their destructive consequences for all concerned.

As the publishers describe it: "...Truly a 'light in the darkness,' this book tries to throw light on the ravages of 'false memories recovered in therapy' twenty to thirty years after the alleged events are supposed to have happened, even if there is no independent corroboration of their existence. The questions and answers are little candles which illuminate and create beacons on the road towards understanding this sociological phenomenon. We hope it will help all those concerned about this scourge, which, in France, appeared at the end of the 1990s and has gained a greater and greater foothold in the darkness..."

This extended English edition includes an interview with Arnold Wesker and a short history of research into false memories. Published by the British False Memory Society.

Available from Amazon

Loftus receives Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award

2011-04-08T07:53:00.004+10:00

FROM THE AAAS PRESS RELEASE:

The 2010 AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award honors 'false memory' investigator Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California, Irvine. Loftus is “...an ideal example of a scientist who is distinguished for both advancing science and applying it to make critical contributions to society...” the association said.

She was honored “...for the profound impact that her pioneering research on human memory has had on the administration of justice in the United States and abroad...”

Loftus has testified at more than 200 civil and criminal trials. Such testimony has often been controversial, but her work has been vindicated by the finding that, of the more than 250 prisoners freed on the basis of subsequent DNA analysis, the most common reason for wrongful convictions was faulty eyewitness testimony.

www.news.aaas.org

Letter: Unregistered Health Practitioners Regulations

2011-03-26T16:52:00.006+11:00

From a reader in Melbourne, Australia:

Dear Editor,

I think it is apparent that there is a definite need for new regulations to protect consumers, from both the consumer’s point of view and also, in the long term, to protect the reputations of the various health professional organisations and the quality of healthcare their members provide.

From the point of view of a consumer (I, along with others, campaigned for the Victorian State Government 2005 Inquiry into Recovered Memory Therapy and have had experience with complaining to various bodies about the conduct of various therapists), I would say my major concerns are....

Read complete letter >

The traumas of UK family social policies

2011-03-18T10:14:00.026+11:00

Dramatis Personae is a web-based index of people who have played key roles in the UK family justice system.

The website describes its purpose as being "an initial reference guide for the public, journalists, historians and biographers, together with professionals, politicians and those whose lives have been impacted in the last 30 years and beyond through the traumas of English and Welsh child and family social policy".

Included are some fascinating insights into individuals such as Dr. Valerie Sinason. A psychotherapist, author and conspiracy theorist, Sinason continues to insist that Satanic Ritual Abuse is widely practiced in the United Kingdom – despite the lack of any credible evidence to support her claims.

It can't be denied that Sinason has had a colorful career. In 2001, she managed to convince Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor at The Independent, that patients at her Clinic for Dissociative Studies had discovered pictures on the internet of a man eating a dismembered baby.

Scotland Yard launched an investigation – but as it transpired, it was all a hoax, and The Independent had to publish a retraction. While certainly stretching the boundaries of taste – and artistic expression – the pictures turned out to be publicity material for Chinese performance artist Zhu Yu and his Eating People exhibit. Barbara Mikkelson at Snopes.com suggests the 'baby' was most likely constructed by placing a doll's head on a duck's carcass.

Dramatis Personae provides an excellent overview of the SRA Myth and the role it has played in UK society. According to the site – despite the efforts of 'true believers' such as Valerie Sinason – in 23 years, not a single individual has been jailed after a finding of guilt in a criminal court for offences involving a satanic ritual element, anywhere in the United Kingdom.

www.dramatis.hostcell.net

Psychology and power of false confessions

2011-03-18T01:05:00.004+11:00

by Ian Herbert

False confessions seem so illogical, especially for someone like Joseph Dick of the Norfolk Four, who got a double life sentence after confessing. Why do people confess to crimes they didn’t commit? Some do it for the chance at fame (more than 200 people confessed to kidnapping Charles Lindbergh’s baby), but many more do it for reasons that are far more puzzling to the average person...

Generally, it starts because people give up their Miranda rights. In fact, Richard A. Leo found that a majority of people give up the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. In fact, according to self-report data, innocent suspects gave up their rights more often than guilty suspects...

In some cases, the accused comes to believe that he or she actually did commit the crime. It’s been shown repeatedly that memory is quite malleable and unreliable. Elizabeth Loftus has repeatedly shown that the human brain can create memories out of thin air with some prompting...

Joseph Dick claims that this is what happened to him. His confession, testimony, and apology to the family were not lies, he maintains, but rather the product of a false memory. “It didn’t cross my mind that I was lying,” he said. “I believed what I was saying was true”...

www.psychologicalscience.org

This 'does not feel like justice'

2011-02-24T17:41:00.016+11:00

An extract from a talk given by a presenter at the AFMA conference in Melbourne last year:

It was 2006 and I was in Queensland on holidays when the police contacted me by mobile wanting to interview me. Two cousins had accused me of sexually molesting them, with the earliest incident supposedly having happened when I was fourteen years old, more than twenty years before the time of the accusation...

My previously peaceful and happy life was over, and from that point on not only my own life – but also the lives of all those who loved me and cared for me were thrown into turmoil.

After approximately 14 months of unbearable stress, I was formally charged. January 2008 was the committal hearing from which it was deemed that the case go to trial.

The trial went for five days, whereby the evidence given by my accusers was thoroughly examined by my counsel and found to lack substance.

For example, one claim made was that I was babysitting my cousin when an alleged offence occurred. This, despite the fact that at the time I was 14 years old, was living some 600km away, and also the accuser’s mother swore on the stand that I had never babysat her daughter. Still, my cousin was adamant that I was the perpetrator of the alleged crime.

The cost of this whole process – mentally, emotionally and financially – far outweighed the relief of having been acquitted of the charges.

I had watched my family being torn apart, my extended family alienated, we were left financially crippled from not one, but three trials and I was completely exhausted from dealing with the daily adversity of living with such accusations.

I am now trying to rebuild my life and to achieve some sort of peace. I have been helped to some extent by psychological counselling and by the support of a loving family. Still, I am left with a sense that a big injustice has been done to me and my family, and those who have caused it have not answered for it.

My accusers had no legal expenses, while I bore the costs of three trials and am still struggling to overcome the financial difficulties this has caused.

It does not feel like justice.

Complete transcript in the February 2011 edition of the AFMA Bulletin.
For enquiries email: confab11@dodo.com.au

Caveat emptor: counsellors and psychotherapists

2011-02-15T21:37:00.045+11:00

FROM THE EDITOR

When someone like Professor Ian Hickie raises the alarm about rogue psychotherapists and counsellors, it is a reminder that any individual seeking a therapist should exercise caution.

At the very least, practitioners should be publishing details of their qualifications on their websites – along with membership of professional peak bodies such as ACA or PACFA.

Many don't. For example, Odelia Carmon and Boudi Maassen promote their services as psychotherapists on the Natural Therapy Pages, yet provide no credentials whatsoever.

Others list qualifications either irrelevant, or vague. Alana Fairchild lists her 'tertiary degrees in Law and English Literature' along with claims that she has been 'trained in counseling and psychotherapy, meditation, astrology, dance, spiritual healing and direction...the psychic arts, vibrational healing and subtle healing therapies'.

Sandra Van Winkelhof mentions no qualifications, or membership of any professional organisation. Yet she makes a series of nebulous claims in 'EQ' jargon, implying expertise in post-trauma and drug addiction treatment. She also promotes herself as a practitioner of NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming – which is associated with hypnosis and quite dangerous in the wrong hands.

Quite a few are promoting dubious memory 'recovery' techniques. Dianne Sykes offers past life healing, while Tracie O'Keefe offers past lives therapy. Such approaches may be harmless – or not – but they certainly involve some form of hypnosis. Marlaine Nicholson-Smith at least makes that clear – although she does claim that hypnosis 'unlocks' the purported past life memories.

Matthew Meinck is one to avoid. He was the unqualified psychotherapist exposed by Sarah Ferguson on an award-winning Four Corners program in April 2010 – yet whose Chittering Valley Retreat appears to be still in business. Where's Meinck...and what's he doing? Many observers would be fascinated to know.

'Sandplay therapy' sounds innocuous enough. But one of its proponents, a Shunyam Peinecke, behaved so badly he was struck off the register of psychologists.

Note: As an introduction to some of the terms used by the psychotherapy industry in Australia, it is well worth reading the Crikey Clarifier by Stephen Andrew and Zoë Krupka.

Justice for Carol: the activities of Dr Fleur Fisher

2011-02-12T20:09:00.007+11:00

The 'Memory Wars' may have subsided, but the aftershocks are still reverberating. In the UK, members of the Felstead family write:

Our beloved daughter and sister, Carol, a vulnerable and mentally ill adult, was found dead in her flat at 17a Swanage Road, Wandsworth, London, SW18 2DZ on the 29th June 2005 at about 3:30pm. The cause of death was indeterminable.

Our family have been fighting for five years to get to the bottom of the extraordinary events surrounding her death. The facts are as follows: Carol died on 29 June 2005; our family were not notified of her death by the Coroner’s Office until the 14 July 2005. In the meantime, an eminent doctor, Dr Linda Fleur Fisher, had arranged Carol’s cremation and disposed of her personal possessions.

Dr Fisher told the Metropolitan Police, Battersea Coroner’s Office and Servite Housing Association that she was Carol’s next of kin and executor. She was accepted on her word and was not asked to provide any evidence to support these preposterous claims....

....The emergency 999 phone call was not mentioned at Carol’s inquest. Our family only became aware of Dr Fisher after a police officer inadvertently mentioned her name in a telephone conversation after the inquest had taken place. We did a quick internet search on Dr Fisher and were astonished to find out that she specialises in health care ethics and was formerly Head of Ethics at the British Medical Association....

...From Carol’s medical records and other information that we have acquired since Carol’s death, it appears that Carol had been given ‘regressive memory therapy’ or recovered memory therapy as it is commonly known. The basis for the therapy is that a patient turns up at a doctors with an innocuous complaint like stomach ache. No physical cause can be found, so the doctor asserts that the cause must be psychological. The patient is then referred for therapy.

The therapist asserts that the patient has suffered some kind of terrible abuse – which he/she has repressed and therefore have no conscious memories of whatsoever; this, unbelievably, is supposed to be the case, even if the abuse is meant to have occurred thousands of times over many years. The purpose of recovered memory therapy is to recover the ‘lost memories’. Some patients receiving this treatment have undergone drug-assisted interviewing (using sodium amytal), hypnosis and age regression. We believe that this therapy was responsible for Carol’s mental illness. After having this treatment, Carol became convinced that she had been a victim of events which never actually occurred.

After receiving recovered memory therapy, Carol’s medical records reveal that she made claims that are so preposterous that nobody would believe them without some evidence, except it seems Dr Fisher, Carol’s therapists and other like-minded individuals who never bothered to check if any of these ridiculous claims were actually true. Carol’s medical records also reveal that her therapy was supported with extensive medication....

http://justiceforcarol.com/

Parents awarded $1 million in RMT suit

2011-01-26T11:32:00.001+11:00

In the USA:
A Dane County jury has awarded $1 million to a former Madison couple who claimed therapists created in their daughter false memories of childhood sexual and physical abuse.

Jurors early Sunday found two of the three therapists who treated Charlotte Johnson in the early 1990s professionally negligent, said attorney Bill Smoler, who represented her parents, Dr. Charles and Karen Johnson...

host.madison.com/wsj/news

Scotland: the Fairlie family’s “memory wars” campaign

2011-01-23T20:22:00.003+11:00

Scottish politician Jim Fairlie and his family endured years of torment after baseless accusations of sexual abuse. Now, he has put his story into print and his harrowing indictment of “a system gone wrong” will make for uncomfortable reading in local health service, social work and legal circles:

“Rather than apologise, individuals and the authorities were prepared to try to cover up their mistakes and brand me a paedophile...

“It would have haunted me forever and there’s no way I could have lived with that. I have been asked many times if I ever felt suicidal. No, but I have often been homicidal!”

Unbreakable Bonds by Jim Fairlie is published by Austin and Macauley

Call for health ministers to regulate counselling and psychotherapy

2011-01-15T16:45:00.002+11:00

Rebekah Lawrence was the Sydney woman who jumped to her death during a psychotic episode triggered by a 'self-development' course:

While this is an extreme example of bad therapy, you have to wonder how many vulnerable people are being emotionally and psychologically damaged each day in Australia because health ministers are continuing to drag their feet on the issue of regulation.

At present, anyone can hang out a shingle and start practicing as a counsellor or psychotherapist in Australia, and isn’t that a scary thought?...

www.australianwomenonline.com

Radio interview: author Meredith Maran

2011-01-04T17:59:00.005+11:00

In the 1980s, stories of child sexual abuse were all over the headlines - child care centre workers were put on trial for sexually abusing dozens of children, daughters accused their fathers of sexually abusing them.

Perhaps the most chilling part of the story was how horribly common this was, and how close to home the perpetrators were.

The bogeyman wasn't lurking in a darkened street any more: he was working at your child's school. Or worse, he was their father.

Meredith Maran was a journalist covering the issue in the 1980s, when she started to remember that she too had been a victim of incest.

After sessions with therapists, she told her family that her father had sexually abused her.

But after several years, her faith in her memories faltered...

www.abc.net.au

Parents say therapists gave daughter false memories

2010-12-22T07:44:00.000+11:00

In 1991, Charlotte Johnson dropped a bomb on her parents. She accused her father, Charles Johnson, of sexually abusing her. Two years later she accused her mother, Karen Johnson, of being complicit in the sexual abuse and of being physically abusive to her. The abuse, she believes to this day, happened when she was a young child...

Charles and Karen Johnson, of St. Louis, say the abuse never happened and that mental health treatment providers encouraged and fostered false memories of abuse...

“The one thing that’s unusual and sets this case apart is the patient wants nothing to do with the lawsuit, is not a party, has raised no complaints whatsoever against the therapists,” says attorney David McFarlane, who represents the treatment providers and says they did nothing wrong...

www.madison.com

My lies tore our family apart

2010-12-16T08:38:00.001+11:00

Meredith Maran was the ultimate daddy’s girl. She and her father Stan would spend hours together, watching horse racing or going to baseball games...

However by the time she was 14 their close relationship had soured amidst a storm of adolescent rebellion. “There were some terrible screaming matches,” she recalls.

Over the next 20 years the relationship between father and daughter remained strained. They barely saw each other and Meredith admits to feeling angry and neglected. Her relationship with her mother Donna was distant too although she remained close to her younger brother Doug...

It could have been just an average tale of a moderately dysfunctional family but in 1988 an astounding claim turned all their lives upside down.

Out of the blue Meredith, who was then 37, accused her father of sexually abusing her as a child. The allegations rocked her family and Meredith’s relationship with her father was left in tatters. Worse still not everyone believed what she was saying. While Doug supported her their mother was adamant the abuse had never happened...

www.express.co.uk

Interview with author Meredith Maran

2010-12-16T08:31:00.001+11:00

As a committed feminist and journalist with a keen sense of justice, Maran’s zeal led her to therapeutic sessions for incest survivors, reform sessions for perpetrators, and ultimately to the conclusion that she herself had repressed memories of abuse. Her new book, My Lie, is a poignant and fascinating account of the events and processes that led her from accusation to retraction.

In the midst of international media attention, and only one day after the 2010 U.S. mid-term elections, Maran honored Process.org with this interview to discuss her new book, and what her experience, her “lie”, may tell us about false beliefs in general…

Doug Mesner interviews Meredith Maran at
www.process.org

ET and recovered memories

2010-10-20T07:55:00.001+11:00

Doug Mesner writes:

....That most reports of [contact with extra terrestrials] are based upon recovered memories is a well-known fact.

How are these recovered memories similar or different to those reporting satanic cult activity? Proponents of recovered memories of abuse, uncomfortable with the association to ET abduction, are quick to dismiss the parallel as a cheap-shot, a low-brow attempt at discrediting all recovered memories.

But, without a method by which one may reliably distinguish legitimate recovered memories from fabrications or confabulations, the abductees present a unique challenge...

www.process.org

Nightmare psychiatry: more on Colin Ross

2010-10-20T07:42:00.002+11:00

So, who is Dr. Colin Ross?

According to his website: "Dr. Ross is an internationally renowned clinician, researcher, author and lecturer in the field of dissociation and trauma-related disorders. He is the founder and President of the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma."

And, "In addition, Dr. Ross has authored over 130 professional papers, has reviewed for numerous professional journals and grant agencies and is a past President of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation." Dr. Ross has even acted as a consultant for the Showtime television series The United States of Tara about a troubled housewife who suffers from a case of the mythic Multiple Personality Personality Disorder (MPD), now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)...

....The fact that Ross specializes in DID, and the fact that he is a conspiracy theorist are not at all independent of one another. The theory of DID - unsupported by science (but well-worn as a fictional plot device) - is that certain traumas, particularly that of childhood sexual abuse, can prove so incomprehensible and damaging to the victim's psyche that, as a protective measure, the memory of this trauma is re-compartmentalized in some dark corner of the mind where it is then consciously inaccessible to the victim.

The victim who represses memories thus then develops "distinct identities or personality types" of which they also aren't consciously aware, but which "recurrently take control of the person's behavior".

It is these alternate identities that retain the traumatic memories for the victim. Treatment for this condition often relies on the recovery of these repressed traumatic memories. The victim, it is presumed, must confront these hidden traumas so as to assimilate them into the conscious mind, thereby making the mind "whole" again....

www.examiner.com

How the unwary fall victim to mind control

2010-10-17T16:26:00.000+11:00

Carli McConkey is not mentally ill. Neither drugs nor alcohol has led her to this point. Instead, in 1996 she joined a New Age personal development group called Universal Knowledge, seeking clarity.

Once McConkey converted to its aims, the group's leader, Natasha Lakaev, manipulated her, hit her, took hundreds of thousands of dollars from her, and worked her without pay for up to 22 hours a day, seven days a week...

...In person, Lakaev was sexy, powerful, charismatic. She told attendees to keep an open mind, to ''leave your logic at the door'', to avoid ''judgmentalism'' - a technique cults use to silence the internal voice of reason.

She introduced the group to a technique called ''accessing'' - beating a black mat and yelling frustrations at parents, friends, teachers. She told them they needed to cleanse their ''cellular memory'' of the impurities of this and past lives, and those of their ancestors...

www.theage.com.au

British Psychological Society: revised guidelines

2010-10-12T08:15:00.001+11:00

The BPS has issued an update to its Guidelines on Memory and the Law, Recommendations from the Scientific Study of Human Memory.

Quote: "People can remember events that they have not in reality experienced. This does not necessarily entail deliberate deception. For example, an event that was imagined, was a blend of a number of different events, or that makes personal sense for some other reason, can come to be genuinely experienced as a memory,..."

Download April 2010 revised version at:
www.bps.org.uk

Meredith Maran in The Guardian

2010-10-09T23:06:00.000+11:00

In the 1980s, Meredith Maran remembered her father abusing her. Years later, she wondered whether those memories were false.

When I was in my 30s, I accused my father of molesting me. I didn't see him or talk to him for eight years. I didn't let my children see him, either. And then I realised that it wasn't true.

In the late 1970s, a handful of feminist scholars had done some ground-breaking research and delivered some distressing news: incest wasn't the rare anomaly it had long been believed to be; it happened often, in normal families.

A psychological phenomenon called repressed memory had allowed this to go unacknowledged, even unknown. As Freud had first asserted a century earlier, the impact of child sexual abuse on young psyches was so profound that victims often lost their memories, for years or decades...

www.guardian.co.uk

A Candle in Darkness by Brigitte Axelrad

2010-09-30T07:21:00.006+10:00

This is the first book, written in French, on false memories "recovered" in therapy. It answers questions you may have about this phenomenon, its causes and its consequences. The ravages of false memories or the manipulated memory. The aim of this book is to answer questions and to teach patients, families, professionals, and lawyers about recovered memory therapies (RMT) and their destructive consequences for all the victims.

This book attempts to enlighten the ravages of "false memories recovered in therapy" twenty to thirty years after the alleged offenses, in absence of memory during this period, and with no independent corroboration of their existence.

The questions and answers, given in the book, are small candles that illuminate and clear the way towards better understanding of this sociological phenomenon. May it help all those affected by this scourge, which, in France, began in the late 90s and is gaining ground silently.

Available at:
http://www.amazon.fr

>> Update June 2011:
Now also available in English

'My Lie': Why I falsely accused my father

2010-09-22T19:36:00.000+10:00

For years, Meredith Maran believed her dad molested her. She talks about "recovered memory," and finding the truth.

In 2007, I was out for a walk with someone I wasn't even that close to. She asked me if I'd ever done anything I was ashamed of and had never forgiven myself for.

Without hesitation I said, yeah, when I was in my 30s I accused my father of molesting me, and then I realized it wasn't true.

She stopped walking and stood still, just staring at me and she said, "The same exact thing happened to me."

When I came home from that hike I started calling people I had known back then and speaking to some of the therapists I had seen during that period.

With the exception of my ex-lover, every other person I talked to who had accused her father in the '80s and early '90s now believed she had been wrong. Being a journalist, you realize there's a story there...

www.salon.com

The myth of mental illness

2010-09-11T19:48:00.001+10:00

Psychology shares a defect in common with the other so-called "soft sciences" — it is satisfied to describe things it cannot explain. The primary problem with a reliance on description with no explanations, is that such a field has no depth and no basis for intellectual growth.

This is why psychology's history is punctuated by fads, each hailed as a breakthrough, each eventually abandoned after its defects became obvious — psychoanalysis, various novel therapies, lobotomy, schizophrenia and autism blamed on refrigerator moms, Recovered Memory Therapy, Facilitated Communications and Asperger Syndrome.

But there's a more basic problem with a field that relies only on descriptions — it cannot become a full-fledged science....

www.arachnoid.com

Memories are easy to contaminate: study

2010-08-12T09:39:00.000+10:00

Australian research has shown how easily eyewitness accounts - a foundation stone of the judicial system - can be "contaminated".

The University of Sydney study found people could add new detail to, or even amend, their memory if they discussed their recollection with someone who saw the same event.

It was a subconscious process, said Dr Helen Paterson, whose research has focused on chatter between co-witnesses and its role as a "potent delivery mechanism" for false memories...

...She said the research underscored the need for police and the courts to discourage contact between co-witnesses who were usually barred from hearing each others' testimony in court.

"Despite these attempts to keep witness testimony independent, it is clear that witnesses often do talk to each other about the event," Dr Paterson said.

"Discussion among witnesses is difficult, if not impossible, to prevent."

news.smh.com.au

Utah: allegations within the FLDS Church

2010-08-05T19:47:00.002+10:00

The Anglican and Catholic churches have had their fair share of false memory cases. This one has been taking place within The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:

In July of 2004, Warren Jeffs’ nephew Brent Jeffs filed a civil lawsuit accusing Warren Jeffs and two other uncles, of repeatedly molesting him at his grandfather’s home in Sandy, Utah, when he was five years old...

In his book Lost Boy, Brent Jeffs claims that the alleged abuses occurred during Sunday services at his grandfather’s home, when Warren Jeffs would remove him from the children’s class and take him to a bathroom, where two unnamed uncles stood guard. In his lawsuit, Brent identifies the uncles as Warren’s brothers Blaine and Leslie and says that they participated in the abuse...

...Although he describes in an early chapter of his book the supposed abuse he received at the hands of his uncle, Brent Jeffs admits that he had no conscious memory of such events until he underwent regressive hypnosis therapy at the hands of Dr. Larry Beal, a psychiatrist hired and paid for by Dan Fischer, who was actively recruiting “victims” to make accusations against Warren Jeffs...

www.truthwillprevail.org

The cognitive interview explained

2010-07-17T16:50:00.009+10:00

As it was originally intended, the cognitive interview consisted of four primary mnemonic components:

(a) Mentally reinstate the context of the event;
(b) Report everything (i.e. don't censor recollections that you think are unimportant);
(c) Change perspectives (i.e., recall events from the point of view of someone else who witnessed the event);
(d) Recall events in a different order -- that were to be implemented as needed in a protocol that emphasized free-narrative, followed by focused-questions and recall formats."

However, when misused, a cognitive interview can facilitate the development of false memories.

Read about cognitive interviewing and more in the latest FMSF Newsletter
www.fmsfonline.org/currentnewsletter.html

Protection from shonky operators

2010-07-08T10:21:00.000+10:00

An untrained therapist operating in Perth and the south-west of WA, Matthew Meinck, was exposed by the ABC's Four Corners program earlier this year for his shonky practices.

Eleven of Mr Meinck's clients told the program he had falsely convinced them they had repressed memories of extreme sexual abuse by family members...

...In a statement following the Four Corners report, the Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council was considering two options.

They were individual states and terrories developing their own nationally agreed framework for unregistered health practitioners or the development of uniform national legislation enacted by each state and territory.

www.abc.net.au

Audio: False memories of abuse shatter families

2010-07-07T08:05:00.001+10:00

A victim recounting false memories of sexual abuse during sessions with unqualified therapist Matthew Meinck.

An audio download from ABC Radio in Perth WA.

www.abc.net.au/local/audio

North Carolina ruling sets precedent

2010-05-22T08:21:00.003+10:00

A recent ruling in a Carthage rape case will make new law in North Carolina.

The case against a Moore County man accused of raping his 8-year-old daughter in 1996 is based on a controversial theory called "repressed memory" syndrome. It has various other names, but all refer to the idea that traumatic events can be hidden - sometimes for years - and then suddenly recalled.

Superior Court Judge John O. Craig III recently listened for hours to testimony by two leading psychiatrists on the current state of scientific knowledge about repressed memory and to arguments by attorneys for the state and the defense before granting a defense motion to suppress any evidence involving this particular psychological phenomenon....

....possibilities that have been suggested, Craig said, include "distorted memory, confabulation, pseudo memory and self-suggestion that would be emerging from the patient's internal mental workings."

Without declaring recovered memory either invalid or valid science, Craig said he was acting on his inherent authority under the rules of evidence to exclude testimony on repressed memory as prejudicial and apt to confuse jurors.

"So in that regard I'm going to grant the motion to suppress," Craig said, asking the attorneys to craft a more detailed order.

The ruling, if upheld, will set a precedent in North Carolina, denying admission of recovered memory testimony, as no court in the state has previously ruled on the question in any criminal case. Parker said last week that the state has filed an appeal with the N.C. Court of Appeals.

www.thepilot.com

Further to this story, the state has appealed the ruling, and legal developments are covered at:
www.thepilot.com/news/2010/may/20/

Misremembering the past

2010-05-19T07:46:00.004+10:00

Peter Bowditch writes:
The ABC’s Four Corners program recently featured a story about a therapist who specialised in implanting false memories of sexual abuse into the minds of his patients. This sort of thing has been going on for years, but what made this case different is that the mental manipulation took place in an environment that resembled that of a cult, complete with a guru and a closed community set apart from the rest of the world.

The story raised several points about how the general public perceive therapists, cults and their members, and the workings of memory itself. The first misconception is about the qualifications of therapists. Much like the practice of alternative medicine, all the qualification necessary to declare oneself a therapist or a counsellor is to call oneself a therapist or counsellor.

Some titles are legally protected, such as “psychiatrist”, but as long as these titles are avoided there are no rules. (A similar case is in giving advice about diet, where the title “dietitian” is protected but anyone can call themselves a nutritionist.) I happen to have spent a lot of time at university studying cognitive psychology but I am in no way qualified to offer advice to people with psychological problems.

There is however nothing stopping me from hanging up a shingle and advertising that I can assist people with emotional problems, and I could even claim added credibility because I have read a few books in a formal academic environment....

www.ratbags.com

A suitable case for libel?

2010-05-07T07:30:00.002+10:00

Chris French is a professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and edits The Skeptic magazine. He writes:

As a member of the British False Memory Society, I and others like me are portrayed as giving comfort to child sex abusers. Is it worth suing our accusers?

Some weeks ago, I wrote a piece for the Guardian criticising the Reverend Pearl Luxon, the person in charge of the Church of England's child protection policy, who appears to believe that "there is no such thing as false memory". The Church continues to recommend a self-help book called The Courage to Heal as part of their child protection policy despite the fact that the book has been criticised as contributing to the formation of false memories of childhood sexual abuse both by the scientific and professional advisory board of the British False Memory Society (BFMS) and other experts in the field.

This led to accusations that I and other members of the BFMS as well as sociologist Jo Woodiwiss, were attacking survivors of child abuse and denying their experiences of a traumatic childhood...

www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog

UK psychotherapists attempting to avoid state regulation

2010-05-07T07:09:00.000+10:00

Thousands of psychotherapists are considering adopting new job titles to avoid government regulation of their profession.

Some will drop the title of psychotherapist or counsellor and describe themselves instead as "Jungian analyst", "psychoanalyst", "body therapist" or "humanistic therapist" instead.

Some 3,000 psychotherapists have signed a petition objecting to regulation by the government's Health Professions Council (HPC), which already regulates and disciplines other groups with registered titles, such as psychologists and arts therapists.

The mass defiance has split the profession and deeply troubles some members. It also angers and disturbs those who have suffered abuse at the hands of psychotherapists and their supporters...

www.guardian.co.uk

Bodily motions influence memory and emotions

2010-04-30T20:14:00.001+10:00

When talking about our feelings, we often use expressions that link emotions with movements or positions in space. If, for example, one receives good news, they might say that their "spirit soared", or that they are feeling "on top of the world". Conversely, negative emotions are associated with downward movements and positions - somebody who is sad is often said to be "down in the dumps", or feeling "low".

According to a new study published in this month's issue of the journal Cognition, expressions such as these are not merely metaphorical. The research provides evidence of a causal link between motion and emotion, by showing that bodily movements influence the recollection of emotional memories, as well as the speed with which they are recalled....

scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy

Recovered memories blog bites the dust.

2010-04-25T08:04:00.006+10:00

Note, 2 September 2010:

The letter originally posted here has been removed.

A blogger on recovered memory in the USA wrote telling us about receiving a court order to remove his blog and asking for legal support.
The Judge ordered him to ask us to remove his letter entirely and we have done so at his request, pending any further legal developments.

More on Meinck

2010-04-07T13:44:00.025+10:00

The activities of Matthew Meinck are nothing new to the people at CIFS, an Australian-based cult help website:

"...Over several years, Mr Meinck has managed to build an incredible level of influence over ordinary, intelligent people.

They turned to his alternative, meditation-based therapy to deal with depression, anxiety, self-esteem problems and traumatic pasts..."

There is also nothing new in so-called 'regression' therapies and the damage they have caused to countless families in Australia.

As a primer, it's worth reading these reports by Bettina Arndt and Richard Guilliatt

Rogue psychotherapist Matthew Meinck

2010-04-06T08:17:00.006+10:00

Last night, the ABC Four Corners program provided remarkable insights into Australia's unregulated psychotherapy industry. It included interviews with rogue therapist Matthew Meinck and several of his former clients.
Bizarre and implausible recovered memories featured prominently, but Meinck seemed unapologetic and denied doing anything wrong.
Some people may be surprised to learn that Meinck's therapeutic methods are not particularly unusual. In Australia over the years, many other psychotherapists – both qualified and unqualified – have engaged in similar so-called 'memory recovery' techniques. This has resulted in untold grief for clients and their families.
One notorious case dragged through the NSW courts for years, after the use of regression techniques not unlike those used by Meinck.
The Four Corners program is available for viewing online at
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20100405/health/

Australian television: Over the Edge

2010-04-02T22:52:00.003+11:00

Coming up on ABC Television, Four Corners, Monday April 5th:

"...The harrowing story of the therapist whose work led some patients to believe they'd committed or been the victim of shocking sexual crimes. One patient shocked her family with the accusations, one told the police, while yet another was driven to madness.

Across Australia thousands of healers and therapists practice without any formal qualification or supervision. Now reporter Sarah Ferguson shows what happened when one of those therapists used unproven techniques to have his patients delve into so called "hidden memories". The result? Trauma, criminal investigations and families torn apart.

Seven years ago a young woman consulted untrained health therapist Matthew Meinck. The treatments involved massage, counselling and meditation retreats. Initially she found the sessions helpful. Over time the counselling changed. Using techniques that experts suggest are close to brain-washing she became convinced that she had "repressed" memories that involved extreme sexual abuse involving her father and her brothers.

She was deeply disturbed by incidents, supposedly dredged up from her unconscious mind. There was just one problem though. None of the memories were true.

This young woman suffered terrible trauma and her story is not isolated. This week Four Corners reveals that she was just one of several people whose lives have been thrown into turmoil following consultations with this self styled therapist.

How can anyone without qualification set up a service that allows them to delve into almost every aspect of a patient's life without any training? Why is there no regulation of these type of therapists? Is this an industry out of control and how many people's lives have been affected by it?..."

"Over the Edge" will be broadcast on Monday 5th April at 8.30 PM on ABC 1 and replayed on 6th April at 11.35 PM.
Will be available online for a limited time after initial broadcast on iView.

Video: How much do you trust your own memories?

2010-03-18T21:59:00.003+11:00

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has just aired an edition of its science program Catalyst with a special report on repressed memories. It includes coverage of the Paul Shanley case and interviews with Elizabeth Loftus, Richard McNally and James Chu presenting views from both sides. Report by Jonica Newby.

Video and transcript at:
www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2848614.htm

Why do women identify themselves as victims of childhood sexual abuse?

2010-03-13T09:49:00.001+11:00

Sociologist Jo Woodiwiss argues that a pervasive self-help culture has led women to look to the past for the causes of their troubles, sometimes inferring childhood sexual abuse from no more than a checklist of symptoms:

"The fierce debate over "recovered memories" of childhood sexual abuse was rekindled last week when an open letter from the scientific advisory board of the British False Memory Society was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury requesting that the Church of England withdraw support for The Courage to Heal, a self-help book aimed at victims of such abuse.

Professor Chris French's follow-up article on the science of memory is interesting, but it would be potentially more productive to explore why and how women (it is largely women) turn to self-help or therapy in an attempt to explain and/or improve their lives, and ultimately come to identify themselves as victims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA)..."

www.guardian.co.uk

Call for church to withdraw support for 'Courage to Heal'

2010-03-03T16:17:00.000+11:00

Scientists specialising in false memory syndrome have written to the archbishop of Canterbury criticising The Courage to Heal, which they describe as 'misleading' and 'potentially harmful'.

The book, which is promoted in the church's child protection policy, could lead readers to suspect they were sexually abused as children when they were not, the scientists warn.

They put their concerns in an open letter to Rowan Williams in which they criticise scientific inaccuracies and "baseless claims" in versions of the book that are recommended by the church.

The letter was organised by a group of scientists who specialise in "false memory syndrome", where people having counselling can develop memories of events that never happened...

www.guardian.co.uk

Recovered Memories and Ufology

2010-02-17T17:34:00.002+11:00

The scenarios described in UFO abduction accounts are remarkably similar to the “recovered memories” found in the pop-psychology literature associated with repressed memory syndrome.

This form of therapy takes as a given the explanation that most adult emotional problems are the byproducts of, repressed into forgotten, childhood sexual abuse.

But in ufology the roles are reversed - the childlike aliens are the abusers of adults.

Alien abduction scenarios often detail painful medical procedures centering on the probing of the body’s orifices – that which the alien lacks. The abductees are powerless victims suffering at the hands of emotionless diminuative figures.

Obviously, the similarity of the scenarios found both in “recovered” memories of childhood abuse and alien abduction accounts points toward a cultural crisis regarding notions of childhood, sexuality, and power.

Even figures within the world of ufology itself now say that recovered memories of alien abduction are perhaps only symbolic, though they also believe that this aspect of the abduction “phenomenon” is promoted by, and in the service of, the aliens....

On the Aesthetics of Ufology by Mike Kelley
More at www.blastitude.com

Meet the real-life doctor from United States of Tara

2010-02-12T20:30:00.003+11:00

According to one expert witness, it was the worst case of medical malpractice he had ever seen.

The patient, Ms. Roma E. Hart, had been grossly over-medicated into a prolonged state of deranged confusion, during which time the offending psychiatrist, Dr. Colin A. Ross, had instilled her with exotic and perverse delusions: To wit, the rather implausible belief that her family was involved in an occult crime-ring dedicated to a supernatural evil, and that Hart herself had been forcibly impregnated by extraterrestrials, birthing a hybrid infant (presumably in the course of a routine alien abduction).

The magnitude of Ms. Hart's mistreatment during her submission to psychiatric "care" brought her to the precipice of death on several occasions...

Full story at Boston Underground Examiner

See a demonstration of eyebeams in action at Dallas Observer

Brought to our attention by Doug Mesner at process.org

From the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba

2010-02-12T20:18:00.000+11:00

...It is difficult to believe that in the year 2001 a Manitoban politician spoke in the provincial Legislature in support of a discredited 1990s pop psychotherapy fad that started in the late 1980s, caused great harm to thousands of innocent lives before it began to flame out in 1996. I and many others are deeply interested in the recognized professional sources that the minister referred to in the House in support of these sexual abuse psychotherapy ideas and Bill 8.

I understand there are a few die-hard feminists living in some sort of a time capsule, desperately unwilling to admit the demise of the repressed childhood memories idea. If you detect a sense of anger in my voice, I make no apologies for it. The time is long overdue for politicians in Canada to recognize the incredible amount of harm done by the ravages of fraudulent recovered memory therapy...

Hansard, Tuesday, May 7, 2002

USA: ruling in priest sex abuse case may set precedent

2010-01-23T10:41:00.000+11:00

Former priest Harry Monroe

A Marion County judge will let jurors hear testimony about the "repressed memories" of a man whose allegation of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest is based on memories so painful that experts say he lost access to them for decades.

The decision by Superior Court Judge David Dreyer could break new ground in Indiana. Henry Karlson, an Indiana University law scholar, said he's not aware of a case in
Indiana in which a jury has been allowed to hear evidence about repressed memories...

...Dreyer ordered Wednesday that the repressed-memory case and a case involving a former altar boy at St. Catherine must go forward. Another judge ruled in 2007 that a third case should go forward. The trials should begin later this year. None is likely to be as hotly contested as the repressed-memory case.

Both sides have lined up Harvard University experts and others to testify about the validity of repressed memories. Karlson said repressed-memory testimony has been used in hearings before judges who are trying to rule on statutes of limitations issues. This order, sending the issue to a jury, is different.

"Ultimately," Karlson said, "this is going to force the court of appeals and the Indiana Supreme Court to make a determination on the use of repressed memory in cases of this nature."

www.indy.com

Teeth grinding: proof of repressed memories?

2009-12-31T20:08:00.001+11:00

After prompting by a therapist, some McMartin children said they had been molested by actor Chuck Norris and had seen people fly around the room. These statements should have cast doubt on their other statements (produced by leading questions by therapists who assumed from the start that molestation had taken place), but they did not. It was the most expensive trial in California history, and some of the defendants spent years in jail awaiting trial, but it was ultimately determined that the accusations contained no truth whatsoever.

People believe things that don't make sense and that we know are not true. People used to believe that the sun went around the earth. Some people believe they were kidnapped by witches or aliens and subject to sexual molestation.

These things don't make sense. Yet people believe them.

It doesn't make sense that my sister believes that her teeth-grinding is proof of a repressed oral sexual assault. I grind my teeth too, and I was never molested. The same is true of millions of other Americans...

More at eileenbruchakmadeamistake.blogspot.com

N.B. The blog from which this was taken no longer exists, due to legal action taken against the blogger concerned. If you would like to contact him, please email the editor of this site.

Research: two types of recovered memories?

2009-12-22T20:33:00.003+11:00

Are individuals able to accurately recall long-forgotten episodes of traumatic events like childhood sexual abuse? How accurate are such memories? Over the past 15 years, this issue has given rise to one of the most intense controversies to afflict the fields of psychology and psychiatry. Whereas some have forcefully argued that such reports should be taken at face value, others have countered with equal vehemence that they are likely to be the product of therapist suggestion. Likewise, studies have indicated that individuals reporting these recovered memories are more likely to recall false memories in the laboratory, implying that at least some recovered memories are false. Conversely, recent studies have shown that people with recovered memories tend to underestimate their prior remembering, indicating that some cases of recovered memories may be authentic. The aim of the current proposal is to integrate these seemingly conflicting views. Methods of cognitive psychology and neuroscience will be employed to investigate whether different recovered-memory experiences can reflect both false and authentic memories. This project is the first that will make a distinction between abuse memories recovered during therapy versus spontaneously recovered memories of abuse.

A project led by researcher Elke Geraerts

More information about her work at Miller–McCune

Hypnosis and regression: self-help course led to woman's suicide

2009-12-08T21:00:00.002+11:00

An Australian coroner said Tuesday that participation in an intense self-help course led a woman to suffer a psychotic breakdown before she stripped naked and leaped to her death from an office window in front of horrified co-workers.

The coroner's findings come four years after 34-year-old Rebekah Lawrence's death in Sydney, providing a sense of relief to family members who had long argued the young woman never would have killed herself if not for her participation in a seminar called The Turning Point...

...Turning Point officials acknowledged during inquest hearings in August that the course was intense and included the controversial technique of childhood regressive therapy. Such therapy uses hypnotic techniques designed to emotionally regress people to childlike states so they can confront issues from their past.

www.nytimes.com

Image: AAP

Dangerous Persuaders.

2009-11-23T15:26:00.004+11:00

How do cults gain recruits? Why do so many people seeking personal development find themselves becoming dependant on a powerful organisation? Are there any legal restraints on how groups recruit members? How dangerous are cults and personal development courses?

Louise Samways, a practising psychologist, explains what cults and personal development courses are, how they operate, and the mind-control techniques they use on recruits. She describes how these types of organisations ensure their message is continually reinforced, and how people become unable to question the group's demands or to break away from it.

From her book Dangerous Persuaders:

"...In particular there needs to be better understanding of how easily memory can be distorted and totally false memories created in people. “Recovered” memory “therapy” has become a common technique used to cause rifts within families. The victim of such techniques becomes increasingly dependent on their therapist and “new family” who believe their recovered memories of abuse..."

"...gurus and leaders assume that what comes up from a person’s subconscious...are memories of something that actually happened. This is not necessarily the case, but ‘evidence’ manufactured or exaggerated under hypnosis can give cults ammunition to destroy other relationships in the recruits’ lives, thus making them more dependent..."

Dangerous Persuaders was published by Penguin and is now out of print, however it can be downloaded as an e-book

Bad Science: validity of 'repressed memories' challenged in court

2009-11-16T08:03:00.000+11:00

Defrocked priest Paul R. Shanley was convicted in 2005 of preying on children in his Boston parish for decades. Shanley's case came to light amid a clergy sex abuse scandal in 2002 when church records revealed that officials knew of pedophile priests among them but did little to stop it.

There were dozens of priests and hundreds of victims involved, but Shanley's case is unusual in that there is no corroborating evidence of his crimes. Often in cases of accusations of sexual abuse — even ones that occurred years earlier — there is some other supporting proof. But the only evidence against Shanley was the memory of a now-grown man who said he didn't recall the abuse until 2002 when he heard about a newspaper article on the clergy abuse scandal. That, he claimed, triggered a flood of memories of abuse that had occurred decades earlier at Shanley’s hand.

The problem? What the victim claims is unheard of in science...

www.livescience.com

NZ: Peter Ellis – the case for a Commission of Inquiry

2009-11-16T07:57:00.001+11:00

In December 2008, author Lynley Hood and former National MPs Don Brash and Katherine Rich wrote to Justice Minister Simon Power. They requested that a Commission of Inquiry be established into the Peter Ellis/Christchurch Civic Creche case.

They argued: "That the wrongs done in the creche case have not been righted after all this time is nothing short of a scandal. They said the case was New Zealand’s most egregious miscarriage of justice..."

www.peterellis.org.nz

Prosecutor not malicious in Satanic sex abuse case: top court

2009-11-16T07:52:00.000+11:00

OTTAWA - The Crown attorney who pressed a controversial satanic sex-abuse case against two foster parent families in Saskatchewan did not act maliciously, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.

In a 7-0 decision Friday, the court erased a malicious prosecution finding against Matthew Miazga. Miazga, police officer Brian Dueck, and child therapist Carol Bunko-Ruys were all accused of malice in the 1991 case against the Klassen and Kvelo families based on complaints from three children.

The children told police that they had been sexually abused and forced into satanic rituals including the mutilation and killing of animals, dismemberment of babies and drinking of human blood.

The charges were all stayed after the children admitted to making up the accusations...

THE CANADIAN PRESS

Forgotten memories are still in your brain

2009-09-10T07:31:00.006+10:00

For anyone who’s ever forgotten something or someone they wish they could remember, a bit of solace: Though the memory is hidden from your conscious mind, it might not be gone.

In a study of college students, brain imaging detected patterns of activation that corresponded to memories the students thought they’d lost.

“Even though your brain still holds this information, you might not always have access to it,” said neurobiologist Jeffrey Johnson of the University of California, Irvine. His remarks appeared in the study he co-authored, published Wednesday in Neuron.

That recalling a memory triggers the neurological patterns encoded when the memory was formed is a tenet of cognitive science. Less understood, however, is what becomes of those patterns at moments of incomplete recall...

www.wired.com

S.M.A.R.T. Ritual Abuse/Mind-Control Conference 2009

2009-09-02T09:09:00.007+10:00

On the weekend of August 15-16, skeptical journalist Douglas Mesner attended a conference for alleged victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse and Mind-Control in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. This is the first of his 2-part report:

The crude sales booth at the far end of the conference room marketing a more advanced species of tin-foil hat does nothing to allay the suspicion that this is to be a congregation of raving delusional paranoiacs. The hats – an aged, slightly hunched, and shifty-eyed woman quietly explains – are made from a type of metallic fiber weave. They are effective in blocking the transmissions that They use to get inside your mind.

…And the attendees of S.M.A.R.T’s (Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today) twelfth annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control conference are all too aware of exactly who “They” are. They may be your neighbors, minister, parents, or co-workers. They might be known as Freemasons, the Illuminati, or Rosicrucians… but they are all Satanists. They covertly trade slaves, organize secret sex rings, brainwash victims, and work insidiously toward a one-world Luciferian empire...

...Four practising mental health professionals give speeches during the course of this conference, each praising the “courage” of the “victims”, asserting the validity of recovered memories, and even sharing their own stories of encounters with the sinister Them...

www.process.org

Sydney: AFMA Conference 2009.

2009-08-29T10:28:00.002+10:00

The Australian False Memory Association is pleased to present an informative program for our 2009 Annual Conference.
This comes at a time when public opinion holds that false memories and false accusations are yesterday’s news. Although the incidence of new cases has reduced since its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, new cases continue to be reported. Sadly, for many families affected by false memories, reconciliation remains just a dream.

Keynote Speakers
• Dr Stefanie Sharman, Lecturer, Academic Staff, School of Psychology,
Faculty of Science, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
• Dr Travis Gee, Lecturer in Clinical, Health and Counselling Psychology,
University of Southern Queensland.
• Irene Curtis, founding member and first President of AFMA.

Saturday 17th October 2009
St Ives Uniting Church (Calvin Room)
Corner of Mona Vale Rd and Douglas Street East, St Ives, Sydney

For more details, call AFMA on 1300 88 88 77.

The first image of memories being made

2009-06-21T08:16:00.006+10:00

The increase in green fluorescence represents the imaging of local translation at synapses during long-term synaptic plasticity.
Image credit: Science

The ability to learn and to establish new memories is essential to our daily existence and identity; enabling us to navigate through the world. A new study by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro), McGill University and University of California, Los Angeles has captured an image for the first time of a mechanism, specifically protein translation, which underlies long-term memory formation.

The finding provides the first visual evidence that when a new memory is formed new proteins are made locally at the synapse - the connection between nerve cells - increasing the strength of the synaptic connection and reinforcing the memory. The study published in Science, is important for understanding how memory traces are created and the ability to monitor it in real time will allow a detailed understanding of how memories are formed...

www.physorg.com

Phantom incest case sparks compensation claim

2009-05-20T23:19:00.009+10:00

A twenty-year-old case of unproven incest has prompted one of its assumed victims to start a legal procedure against the Dutch state. The woman, Elise Watts, is demanding a formal apology and compensation for her suffering as a child, she told Rotterdam's local TV station, RTV Rijnmond.

The case centres around a day-care centre for toddlers in Vlaardingen, near Rotterdam. In 1989, 14 children at the Bolderkar creche, which gave the affair its name, were thought to be the victims of incest. The child protection agency placed them into foster care, and 14 fathers were accused of incest after psychological tests which were considered dubious.

The tests were meant to establish whether incest had actually occurred. The case was prompted by a therapist who was treating an aggressive three-year-old girl at the centre. The therapist concluded the girl must have been abused by her father and raised the alarm.

In the disputed tests, psychologists confronted children at the care centre with a role-play involving life-sized, anatomically correct dummies representing their undressed fathers. The children's responses were used as evidence against the fathers, but that was thrown out by the court in The Hague. The researchers were accused of ignoring that young children tend to give socially desirable answers to adults which may be beside the truth, and that three-year-olds are too young to realise the implications of such answers.

In the end, all fourteen cases were dismissed and no-one was convicted. Ever since, the "Bolderkar affair" has been mentioned as a prime example of group hysteria and overprotective government child care workers.

The woman who is pleading for compensation was three years old when she was forcibly separated from her father and placed into foster care. Watts says the experience has traumatised her and has cast a dark shadow over her childhood. Her legal representative, lawyer Dirk Vermaat, confirms she suffered considerable psychological damage from the affair.

A spokesperson for the Bolderkar told reporters the case is extraordinary, but declined to give any further comment. There has been no reaction from the state's legal representative.

www.nrc.nl

Perverting the course of justice

2009-04-19T06:41:00.007+10:00

In Australia, a former judge has been jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice, after telling a series of lies about a relatively minor traffic offence. From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Marcus Einfeld's indignant denials of dishonesty in the face of contrary evidence were most likely because he had crafted an "alternate reality" in his head to match his opinion of himself, a psychologist says.

Einfeld's apparent arrogance may have influenced the way he remembered the "pattern of dishonest behaviour" revealed on TV this week, said Ben Newell, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of NSW...

...When confronted on the ABC about a history of identifying others as responsible for his traffic infringements, Einfeld said: "I can't remember the details of some things that happened many, many years ago without having a document in front of me, or my diary or anything to help me remember."

Dr Newell said: "We know memory is entirely reconstructive ... it's not a read out of events exactly as they happened.

"When he ... said 'You're asking me to remembers things 10 years ago' and 'How can I do that?' it seemed he'd convinced himself some things couldn't be the case."

Another example of this was when Einfeld explained his lie by saying: "I think I firmly believed I was not the driver of the car on that day."

"For us it seems like he's just a bare-faced liar, but if you wanted to have any sympathy towards him, one justification might be that he'd created this story in his head," Dr Newell said...

..."He had probably led this fictional version of the story for so long, he might indeed have found it difficult to distinguish fiction from reality by, in a sense, creating his own false memory of what had occurred....

Inside the two heads of Marcus Einfeld

Witch Hunt: the movie

2009-04-16T16:45:00.007+10:00

On the night John Stoll was roused from his bed and carted off to jail, his attitude bordered on the cavalier.
"Aren't you worried?" His lawyer wondered.
"Hell no, I ain't worried," John answered. "I didn't do this. You can't convict me of something I didn't do."
It was more than two decades before John Stoll was free again.
Executive Producer Sean Penn proudly presents "Witch Hunt," a gripping indictment of the United States justice system told through the lens of one small town.
It's John Stoll's story, but it's also the story of dozens of other men and women who found themselves ensnared in a spiral of fear, ignorance and hysteria.
These people are Americans, working class moms and dads, who were rounded up with little or no evidence, charged and convicted of almost unimaginable crimes. All sexual. All crimes against children.
Years, sometimes decades later, they would find freedom again, but their lives and the lives of their children would be changed forever.
This film shows viewers what the real crime in this case is, not molestation, but the crime of coercion...

www.witchhuntmovie.com/index.html

Crisis of Faith: the case of Paul Shanley

2009-03-11T12:23:00.002+11:00

By JoAnn Wypijewski
The Nation – Law & Justice – February 25, 2009

Sex panics make for bad law. It could be said that they make for bad science, too, except that what has driven some of the most notorious legal cases to emerge from such panics has been more a masquerade of science, a belief tricked out in the language of medicine and social science to distract from the mumbo jumbo at its core. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is set to be the latest arena to test that belief, taking up the admissibility of "dissociative amnesia," or "repressed memory," in a case that some powerful interests no doubt hoped was as settled as the grave.

The petitioner is Paul Shanley, a once famous "street priest" who became infamous in the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, was tried in 2005, convicted and sentenced to twelve to fifteen years in prison. Because the media, particularly the Boston Globe, were central to the allegations and the frenzy that provided the context, it has always been difficult to see the case plainly. But because justice, as opposed to its many stand-ins, is blind, imagine yourself or one you love as the defendant at the bar.

In October 2004 Dr. Daniel Brown, a Boston psychologist, took the witness stand in a pretrial hearing at Middlesex Superior Court and offered what would become the state's only foundation for its prosecution. There was no evidence in the case, just a claim that depended entirely on faith. Dr. Brown was in the courtroom to give it the imprimatur of science.

The accuser asserted that from the age of 6, in 1983, he had been raped and otherwise indecently assaulted by the defendant for three years in a busy church on Sunday mornings. Each assault, it was alleged, instantly erased his memory of what had just happened, so that the boy re-approached the defendant in a state of innocent unknowing, to be assaulted again, to forget everything again and again, and then move on in life without the slightest inkling of the experience until twenty years later, when it all came back to him...

www.thenation.com/doc/20090316/wypijewski

Heart pill to banish bad memories

2009-02-18T07:52:00.005+11:00

Scientists believe a common heart medicine may be able to banish fearful memories from the mind.

The Dutch investigators believe beta-blocker drugs could help people suffering from the emotional after-effects of traumatic experiences.

They believe the drug alters how memories are recalled after carrying out the study of 60 people, Nature Neuroscience reports....

More at: news.bbc.co.uk and www.abc.net.au

Original report (payment or subscription required): Nature Neuroscience

British Psychological Society: Memory and the law.

2009-01-29T19:56:00.010+11:00

A very significant document was released last year by the British Psychological Society. It is called Guidelines on Memory and the Law – recommendations from the Scientific Study of Human Memory.

According to the introduction, its purpose is to: "provide those involved in legal work (criminal and civil) with an accessible and scientifically accurate basis from which to consider issues relating to memory as these arise in legal settings".

Ten key points from the report are as follows:

i.) Memories are records of people’s experiences of events and are not a record of the events themselves. In this respect, they are unlike other recording media such as videos or audio recordings, to which they should not be compared.

ii.) Memory is not only of experienced events but it is also of the knowledge of a person’s life, i.e. schools, occupations, holidays, friends, homes, achievements, failures, etc. As a general rule memory is more likely to be accurate when it is of the knowledge of a person’s life than when it is of specific experienced events.

iii.) Remembering is a constructive process. Memories are mental constructions that bring together different types of knowledge in an act of remembering. As a consequence, memory is prone to error and is easily influenced by the recall environment, including police interviews and cross-examination in court.

iv.) Memories for experienced events are always incomplete. Memories are time-compressed fragmentary records of experience. Any account of a memory will feature forgotten details and gaps, and this must not be taken as any sort of indicator of accuracy. Accounts of memories that do not feature forgetting and gaps are highly unusual.

v.) Memories typically contain only a few highly specific details. Detailed recollection of the specific time and date of experiences is normally poor, as is highly specific information such as the precise recall of spoken conversations. As a general rule, a high degree of very specific detail in a long-term memory is unusual.

vi.) Recall of a single or several highly specific details does not guarantee that a memory is accurate or even that it actually occurred. In general, the only way to establish the truth of a memory is with independent corroborating evidence.

vii.) The content of memories arises from an individual’s comprehension of an experience, both conscious and non-conscious. This content can be further modified and changed by subsequent recall.

viii.) People can remember events that they have not in reality experienced. This does not necessarily entail deliberate deception. For example, an event that was imagined, was a blend of a number of different events, or that makes personal sense for some other reason, can come to be genuinely experienced as a memory, (these are often referred to as ‘confabulations’).

ix.) Memories for traumatic experiences, childhood events, interview and identification practices, memory in younger children and older adults and other vulnerable groups all have special features. These are features that are unlikely to be commonly known by a non-expert, but about which an appropriate memory expert will be able to advise a court.

x.) A memory expert is a person who is recognised by the memory research community to be a memory researcher. It is recommended that, in addition to current requirements, those acting as memory expert witnesses be required to submit their full curriculum vitae to the court as evidence of their expertise.

Download the complete document at
www.false.memory.syndrome.googlepages.com

Western Australia: bizarre repressed memory cult

2009-01-20T23:34:00.008+11:00

Colleen Egan
Sunday Times, Perth, January 17, 2009

In Western Australia, families are being ripped apart by a self-styled cult leader whose followers believe they have repressed memories of rape.

About 20 people have become devotees of a New Age "healer'', Matthew Meinck, who owns a retreat property in Chittering Valley.

Meinck, an Australian-born former monk, believes that people retain in their bodies memories of abuse that can be retrieved during intense deep-tissue massage, regressive therapy and gruelling meditation sessions lasting up to two weeks...

...The Sunday Times has interviewed eight people who were under the influence of Meinck from about 2003.

During long retreats at the property, they became convinced they had been sexually abused by parents, extended families, workmates and - eventually - each other.

Several laid complaints to police and one man even confessed to ``raping'' his children and a babysitter before being admitted to Graylands Hospital and realising the memories were not real...

www.news.com.au/perthnow

There has been a huge response to the article in The Sunday Times, and a follow up can be found here:

More lives ruined by cult's bizarre control

The Amnesia Gene

2008-12-10T07:54:00.007+11:00

Why some people are more likely to forget traumatic events
By Rajamannar Ramasubbu

Human memory is highly influenced by emotion. In healthy subjects events that are emotionally charged—and it doesn’t matter if the emotions are positive or traumatic—tend to be much better remembered than emotionally neutral events. This psychological tendency comes with a glaring exception, however: in some individuals, extremely stressful or traumatic events can induce amnesia, so that they lose the ability to remember what happened. In some instances this loss can lead to the erasure of a vast amount of memory, so that people even forget basic facts about their identity, such as where they live or what their name is.

Amnesia induced by negative emotions is considered a psychological defense mechanism that protects the organism from the consequences of extreme trauma and catastrophic fear. However, recent studies suggest that emotion induced memory loss can also prevent appropriate coping mechanisms, so that people never learn to deal with their painful emotions...

Scientific American

Unforgettable amnesiac dies at 82

2008-12-10T07:50:00.007+11:00

In 1953, Henry Gustav Molaison underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories.

Subsequently, for five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science. As a participant in hundreds of studies, he helped scientists understand the biology of learning, memory and physical dexterity, as well as the fragile nature of human identity...

www.nytim es.com

Misinformation packaged as fact

2008-11-23T19:58:00.005+11:00

UFOs, miracle diets, astrology, satanic ritual abuse, recovered memory: a new book traces our irrational love of misinformation.

By Louis Bayard

The U.S. government blew up the twin towers. The AIDS virus was engineered by scientists to kill African-Americans. Chinese explorers landed on American shores in 1421. Crystals will heal you. Aliens landed at Roswell. The Priory of Sion is protecting the secrets of the Messianic bloodline. Barack Obama is a Muslim.

If you believe any of those propositions, you are ... well, let's tack toward charity. You have been swept along in a tide that the British polemicist Damian Thompson likes to call "Counterknowledge."

Moreover, you are legion. Millions of unwary souls from every quadrant of Earth are swallowing a daily diet of quackery, conspiracy theory, bogus history and faux science. We haven't just turned off our bullshit detectors, we've permanently disabled them. And in so doing, Thompson argues, we've made for ourselves "a thrilling universe in which Atlantis is buried underneath the Antarctic, the Ark of the Covenant is hidden in Ethiopia, aliens have manipulated our DNA, and there was once a civilization on Mars."

Thrilling but, of course, wrong. Demonstrably wrong in most cases. And yet we're ready to buy in, aren't we? Dear God, what won't we buy into? UFOs, miracle diets, astrology, Bible prophesy. Satanic ritual abuse, recovered memory. Aromatherapy, reflexology, craniosacral therapy.

What ties together all these ancient and not-so-ancient belief systems is, by Thompson's reckoning, simply this: They all purport to be knowledge without actually being knowledge. They are "misinformation packaged as fact"...

www.salon.com/books/review/2008/10/02/counterknowledge/

The secret of achieving a spotless mind

2008-10-24T13:37:00.006+11:00

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
The Independent
Friday, 24 October 2008

Jim Carrey has memories of a painful relationship wiped from his brain in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Scientists have devised a way of eradicating bad memories in a study that raises the prospect of treating people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which occurs when frightening experiences from the past are recalled, often involuntarily.

Researchers carried out their work on laboratory mice and they emphasise that it may be many years before it can be applied to humans, but the findings provide evidence that it is possible in principle to eliminate bad memories from a person's mind...

...The study, published in the journal Neuron, used genetically modified mice that had been specifically bred to overproduce a neurotransmitter called CaMKII (alpha calcium-calmodulin-dependent protein kinase two), which is involved in memory.

The scientists found that high levels of CaMKII appeared to trigger the rapid erasure of stored memories and that only those memories that were in the process of being retrieved were actually erased, while other ones remained intact.

Dr Tsien said that memories are formed in the brain by the strengthening of the chemical connections between different nerve cells, yet by interfering with the way CaMKII works in the brain it is in effective possible to lose a memory...

www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-secret-of-achieving-a-spotless-mind-971483.html

What is hypnosis?

2008-10-11T20:10:00.003+11:00

From Mystic Cowboy

Most people think they know what hypnosis is, even most practitioners. Merriam Webster Dictionary says this:

“Hypnosis (from the Greek hypnos, “sleep”) is often thought to be “a trance-like state that resembles sleep but is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject.”

Notice the part that says “is often thought to be.” The simple truth is that there is no one universally accepted definition for hypnosis...

...One particular use of hypnosis is especially controversial, memory retrieval. Hypnosis can be used to uncover repressed memories. It can also be used to implant false memories.

It takes a clinical practitioner of great skill who maintains great ongoing awareness to cleanly expose memories. Even then there is still a question of the validity of those memories. False Memory Syndrome is real.

Recollections “uncovered” by hypnosis can be very vivid. They can also be induced by suggestion. Unless recovered with the help of a skilled forensic hypnotist, such memories should be treated as therapeutic metaphors, not facts.

They may be useful metaphors within the context of therapy but the likelihood of those memories being historically accurate is small...

Complete article at: Mystic Cowboy

Posted using ShareThis

False memories and near-death experiences

2008-09-18T18:27:00.003+10:00

By Jane Dreaper
Health correspondent, BBC News

Many people report seeing a bright light

A large study is to examine near-death experiences in heart attack patients.

Doctors at 25 UK and US hospitals will study 1,500 survivors to see if people with no heartbeat or brain activity can have "out of body" experiences.

Some people report seeing a tunnel or bright light, others recall looking down from the ceiling at medical staff.

The study, due to take three years and co-ordinated by Southampton University, will include placing on shelves images that could only be seen from above...

...Dr Sam Parnia, who is heading the study, said: "If you can demonstrate that consciousness continues after the brain switches off, it allows for the possibility that the consciousness is a separate entity.

"It is unlikely that we will find many cases where this happens, but we have to be open-minded.
And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories..."

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7621608.stm

Australia: "repressed memories alive and well"

2008-09-15T13:26:00.007+10:00

Sex case 'witch-hunt'
Harriet Alexander

Accused ... Brian Spillane outside court this morning.
Photo: Dean Sewell

Three men accused of sexually assaulting schoolboys at St Stanislaus' College claim the allegations have been fanned by "moral panic" and question the veracity of witnesses' accounts.

Brian Spillane, Peter Dwyer and John Gaven pleaded not guilty to sexual assault in Bathurst Local Court today.

The Director of Public Prosecutions said police expected at least 40 complainants to provide statements and the case has been adjourned to November.

But outside the court, Greg Walsh, the lawyer representing the defendants, said the media and police treatment of the allegations had been "an absolute disgrace... Repressed memories are alive and well. These men are innocent. The allegations are bizarre and they have arisen in suspicious circumstances...."

The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 2008

One of the allegations doing the rounds is that students were hypnotised by lights being used in a Nativity play at Christmas.

When truth gives up the ghost

2008-09-12T07:00:00.005+10:00

By JOE BENNETT
The Dominion Post | Wellington, New Zealand | Wednesday, 10 September 2008.

I am not a cognitive neuro-scientist but I recently met one at a party. He told me rather a lot about memory. I've forgotten most of it, of course, but I do recall him telling me that memory comes in long-term and short-term varieties and that neither is much cop. The short- term memory's feeble; the long- term memory's fictional.

Every second of every day we are besieged by trillions of bits of sensory data. Most of it simply bypasses the memory banks and heads straight for the great sea of oblivion. If it didn't our heads would soon bulge out to one side and then burst.

Apparently the short-term memory, even when in mid- season form, can only hang on to about half a dozen separate bits of stuff.

Permanently excluded from that half dozen are the name of the person you've just been introduced to and where you put your glasses. But at least the short- term memory is honest. What little it hangs on to is by and large true.

The long-term memory is a lot more capacious but a lot less honest. It works like a Marxist historian. It revises the past...

Complete article at: www.stuff.co.nz/4687582a1861.html

A response from Gordon Waugh

Joe Bennett’s article on how memory is continually re-written was impressive for its accuracy and simplicity.

It also explains how sex abuse counsellors have recently helped tens of thousands of ACC clients re-write their childhood memories and, in the absence of any credible evidence, claim that they were sexually abused by fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles, grandfathers ad infinitum. Those unverified stories qualify claimants for taxpayer-funded ACC compensation and other benefits.

Of course, ACC and its counsellors say they don’t need actual evidence of abuse. They merely have to believe the unverified client narratives and diagnose a constellation of effects from their absurdly unscientific list of hundreds of so-called indicators of sexual abuse - which most people on this planet normally exhibit anyway.

ACC won’t pay counsellors the munificent $75-per-session fee unless counsellors say the client was abused. I have yet to encounter a case in which a counsellor could not detect alleged sexual abuse.

Gordon Waugh
Auckland, New Zealand

AFMA Annual Conference 2008

2008-09-06T18:10:00.009+10:00

The Australian False Memory Association is holding its Annual Conference and AGM in Melbourne, on 18th October.

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS:
Ms Tanya Vogt is the newly appointed Team Leader in Workforce Strategy and Regulation in the Service and Workforce Planning Section of the Victorian Department of Human Services. She will give us an update on the progress of the recommendations from the 2005 Victorian Government Inquiry into Recovered Memory Therapy.

Dr Grant Devilly has recently researched the influence of debriefing on those exposed to trauma and on eyewitness memory. He will relate his research to issues surrounding recovered memories. His next research will focus on the differences in quality and confidence of true memories and those that result from misinformation.

Dr Margaret Schofield of La Trobe University will be represented by her Research Assistant, who will report on the ‘Guidelines for Working with Recovered Memory’ issued by the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA).

The final session will feature a reconciled family who will discuss their situation and its possible implications for others.

9.30 am 18 October 2008

Venue:
The Unitarian Church
110 Grey Street
East Melbourne

For more information, call AFMA on 1300 88 88 77

How false memories affect behavior

2008-08-23T11:54:00.004+10:00

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2008)

Do you know someone who claims to remember their first day of kindergarten? Or a trip they took as a toddler? While some people may be able to recall trivial details from the past, laboratory research shows that the human memory can be remarkably fragile and even inventive.

In fact, people can easily create false memories of their past and a new study shows that such memories can have long-term effects on our behavior.

Psychologists Elke Geraerts of the University of St. Andrews and Maastricht University, Daniel Bernstein of Kwantlen Polytechnic University and the University of Washington, Harald Merckelbach, Christel Linders, and Linsey Raymaekers of Maastricht University, and Elizabeth F. Loftus of University of California, Irvine, found that it is possible to change long-term behaviors using a simple suggestive technique...

www.sciencedaily.com

Mud thrown is ground lost

2008-08-23T10:08:00.005+10:00

An article from 1999 by Alan W. Scheflin gives an excellent overview of the whole False Memory/Recovered Memory Therapy debate:

...The most acrimonious, vicious and hurtful internal controversy in the history of modern psychiatry.
From its very beginning in the late 1980s, it has been more an "ad hominem" war, appealing to feelings and prejudices, rather than a matter of reasoned professional disagreement.
As such, it has demonstrated the wisdom of Louis Nizer's cogent observation that "mud thrown is ground lost..."

www.psychiatrictimes.com

New Zealand: The impact of false recall on eyewitness accounts

2008-08-22T17:22:00.002+10:00

Research showing that memories can often be manipulated and falsified when people discuss their experiences has earned a Victoria University PhD student a prize at the MacDiarmid Young Scientists of the Year Awards.

PhD psychology student Lauren French says her research could have an impact within the justice system that relies on accurate eyewitness recall.

Ms French's research tested whether people’s memories change eyewitness reports when the people are exposed to false information via a discussion with others who have supposedly experienced the same event.

To do so, Ms French collaborated with researchers in Japan, using polarisation filter techniques that enable two people to watch what they believe to be the same movie but that is actually two movies with different detail.

The partners then discussed their recall of the movies...

www.scoop.co.nz

Lying Spirits no more.

2008-06-19T20:00:00.016+10:00

The excellent Lying Spirits website has ceased operation.
For some time now, it has provided a very good introduction to the fallacies behind so-called Theophostic Counselling.
Run by journalist and author Jan Fletcher, Lying Spirits showed how amateur psychology can be blended with theology to create a very dangerous cocktail.
A belief in recovered memories is central to Theophostic Counselling – although, thanks to the efforts of Jan Fletcher and others – the organisation promoting it appears to have modified its official position (to a degree).
More work needs to be done in this area however, and there is even a chance Lying Spirits itself could be revived.
Although Jan is unable to maintain the site herself due to other commitments – she is currently seeking a person to take it over and keep it up to date.
If you're interested, send us an email and we will put you in touch.

A Christian journalist’s report on Theophostic Ministry by Jan Fletcher can be downloaded here.

A therapeutic culture of the self.

2008-06-02T19:35:00.005+10:00

Victimizing Christians: developing therapeutic mentality

May-June 2008, Vol. 16, No. 3

Psychological counseling theories and therapies have given Americans a new way of thinking and have turned our country into a therapeutic culture of the self—where the self and how it feels about itself are at the center of meaning. People from coast to coast have embraced a psychological mindset that puts emotional deprivation and woundedness as the root cause of nearly every personal and social problem. This mindset has the potential to make everyone into a victim needing the services of the ever-expanding mental-health system. Fifteen years ago Charles Sykes wrote a book titled A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character, in which he says:

The ethos of victimization has an endless capacity not only for exculpating one's self from blame, washing away responsibility in a torrent of explanation—racism, sexism, rotten parents, addiction, and illness—but also for projecting guilt onto others.¹

Sykes also says, "The impulse to flee from personal responsibility and blame others seems far more deeply embedded within the American culture."² In fact, he declares, "The National Anthem has become The Whine," and explains, "Increasingly, Americans act as if they had received a lifelong indemnification from misfortune and a contractual release from personal responsibility...

...While, indeed, there are real victims, the psychotherapeutic mindset has trivialized the horrors that some people have experienced by so expanding the meaning that now everyone qualifies if they want to. The role of victim can actually be quite enticing. Besides qualifying for sympathy from friends, engaging in endless psychological therapy centered on self, and gaining exoneration from responsibility and guilt, being a victim provides a new identity of being the hero or heroine in one's own drama of overcoming horrendous obstacles in the grand quest for psychological healing. Rather than having to face the ugly fact of their own sin without excuse or reason or blame-shifting, they choose to be victims. Dr. Carol Tavris and Dr. Elliot Aronson describe the usefulness of victimhood that comes from recovered memory therapy in their book titled Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts...

Complete text at: www.psychoheresy-aware.org

Why emotional memories of traumatic life events are so persistent.

2008-05-13T19:43:00.011+10:00

Many believers in 'memory recovery' assert that traumatic memories are stored within the cells of the body in some unique manner that is 'unknown to science'.
Recent scientific research suggests this assertion is based on fallacy.
Traumatic memories are, it appears, stored in the brain just like any other memory:

ScienceDaily (May 11, 2008) — Emotional memories of traumatic life events such as accidents, war experiences or serious illnesses are stored in a particularly robust way by the brain. This renders effective treatment very difficult. Researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich have now successfully tracked down the molecular bases of these strong, very persistent memories.

Following co-presentation with nausea, conditioned mice avoid the sugar solution for months. (Credit: Image courtesy of ETH Zurich)

The expression “post-traumatic stress disorder” is once again constantly on everyone’s lips in relation to those returning from the Iraq war or survivors of catastrophes such as the tsunami. This is not a new development, since it always occurs when people experience extreme situations. It is known that emotional memories of both a positive and a negative kind are stored by our brain in a particularly robust way.

Consequently they have a very large effect on our behaviour and, in the case of adverse memories, they can place considerable restrictions on the way we go about our lives. As a result, we avoid places, smells or objects that remind us of the traumatic experience, because they may trigger severe anxieties. Isabelle Mansuy, Professor of Cellular Neurobiology at ETH Zurich and of Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences at the University of Zurich, and her research group have now shown that the enzyme calcineurin and the gene regulation factor Zif268 decisively determine the intensity of emotional memories. For the first time, this has enabled the regulatory processes at the synapse, which are important for emotional memories, to be linked to the processes in the cell nucleus...

Complete text at: www.sciencedaily.com

Freud's theory of repression 'should be dropped'

2008-04-15T19:08:00.006+10:00

Sigmund Freud in a 1921 file photo. Photo: AP
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

There is "no evidence" for Sigmund Freud's "theory of repression" - that the "burying" of traumatic memories by the unconscious mind causes psychiatric disorders - even though it has been a cornerstone of his psychoanalytic theory for a century, according to Prof. Yacov Rofé, head of Bar-Ilan University's interdisciplinary department of social sciences. Rofé conducted the "first" comprehensive study of 100 years of scientific literature related to this phenomenon and published his findings last month in Review of General Psychology. In a 23-page article that includes many hundreds of references, he wrote that there is "no empirical evidence to support repression's existence" - thereby invalidating what Freud himself described as the "foundation stone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests." Thus, Rofé declared, it is time to "bury" Freudian repression, both as a cause and a factor in the treatment of psychiatric disorders.
By revealing the fundamental lack of scientific evidence for Freud's core tenet of repression, the study undermines long-held assumptions about the overall legitimacy of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. But by rejecting the Freudian worldview as a template for the understanding and treatment of psychopathology, Rofé's work opens up another, important question: How are we to understand mental illness?
"One would think that after such an extended discussion of the theory of repression by the psychoanalytic community, as well as clinicians and experts from other disciplines, there would be some solid evidence to support Freud's theory of repression," wrote Rofé. "Instead, I found none whatsoever."
Ever since Freud articulated his views, rival theories of psychopathology - based on behavioral, cognitive and biological models - "have challenged psychoanalysis in their characterization of clinical observations," he said. "But these schools of thought also suffer from fundamental empirical difficulties. We may need a new theory of psychopathology - perhaps a new concept of repression - that can provide insight into the underlying causes of psychiatric disorders." Complete article at: The Jerusalem Post

Whatever Happened to 'Jane Doe'?

2008-01-06T20:14:00.000+11:00

In ruling on a lawsuit prompted by a noted recovered memory case, the California Supreme Court has decided overwhelmingly in favor of social scientists Elizabeth Loftus and Melvin J. Guyer and the Skeptical Inquirer.
Carol Tavris describes it as an important victory for open, skeptical inquiry and free speech:
http://csicop.org/si/2008-01/tarvis.html

AFMA Annual Conference, 10 November.

2007-10-23T18:33:00.000+10:00

The Australian False Memory Association is holding its Annual Conference on Saturday, 10 November 2007 at the St Ives Uniting Church, St Ives, Sydney.
Guest speakers:
Dr Deryn Strange
Dr Strange is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. She has published widely in the social and cognitive processes involved in memory, is a writer of chapters in two forthcoming books and has presented papers at professional conferences in New Zealand, Australia and USA. She was a key speaker at last year’s 4th International Conference on Memory held in Sydney.
Mr Greg Walsh
The Sydney lawyer, Greg Walsh, appears frequently for defendants who have been accused of child sexual assault arising particularly from recovered memories. His experience in such cases is a source of the understanding of the legal issues arising in prosecution of allegations of child sexual abuse and examples of the legal processes and their outcomes.
For more information call 1300 88 88 77
Website: www.afma.asn.au

The not-yet-a-therapist and the Satan-chasing psychologist.

2007-10-07T17:35:00.000+10:00

One of our four children went to a female "Christian" therapist who was still in training to get her MFCC. This not-yet-a-therapist worked under the direction of Satan-chasing psychologist, Dr. F. What better way for a student to impress Dr. F. than to find a patient who had actually suffered satanic ritual abuse?
My daughter had sought help at a time when her basic problem was overwork; she had a job, 3 children, and 3 stepchildren. This not-yet-certified therapist, however, helped my daughter to believe that her problems were caused by repressed memories of satanic ritual abuse.
The little bit of reality that grew into memories of satanic rituals and horrible abuse was almost certainly a real memory of a fluoroscope machine in a dark room that our pediatrician used when she was little.
As a consequence of the therapy, our daughter was told to tell all her siblings never to talk to us, write to us, or see us again.
Another daughter who was also overworked in her effort to be the perfect professional, wife, and mother went to the same therapist. When her sister told this second daughter about her new memories, it wasn't long before she also believed she had endured satanic ritual abuse...

Complete text in the latest edition of the FMSF Newsletter (PDF)

Fractured families.

2007-10-07T16:35:00.000+10:00

Parents falsely accused of sexual abuse by their now adult children are bravely speaking out about their heartbreak through a book which puts their accounts into the public domain for the first time.
The book, Fractured Families, was launched at an event hosted by Earl Howe at the House of Lords on 15th May 2007. It charts the tragic stories of how adults have become estranged from loving parents.
It describes the damage done by well-meaning healthcare professionals, counsellors and therapists and by irresponsible self-help literature.
Some of the stories have a happier ending, with the accusers retracting their accusations and beginning a process of reconciliation.
Sixteen parents have decided to break the silence and stigma of allegations of historic child sexual abuse. They represent thousands of families known to the British False Memory Society, and perhaps many more that remain isolated in their pain.

More details in the latest British False Memory Society newsletter (PDF)