Related Research Articles
The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, Michelle Smith, which used the discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make sweeping lurid claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations which afterwards arose throughout much of the United States involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and powerful world elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifices, pornography, and prostitution, an allegation that returned to prominence in the form of QAnon.
In psychology, false memory syndrome (FMS) describes a condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by false memories, recollections that are factually incorrect yet strongly believed. Peter J. Freyd originated the term partly to explain what he said was a false accusation of sexual abuse made against him by his daughter Jennifer Freyd and his False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) subsequently popularized the concept. The principle that individuals can hold false memories and the role that outside influence can play in their formation is widely accepted by scientists. However FMS is not recognized as a psychiatric illness in any medical manuals including the ICD-10 or the DSM-5.
Repressed memory is a controversial concept, particularly in legal contexts where it has been used to impugn individuals unfairly and inaccurately, leading to substantial harm. At the same time, an American Psychological Association working group indicated that while "most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them, it is possible for memories of abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be remembered". Although Sigmund Freud later revised his theory, he initially held that memories of childhood sexual trauma were often repressed yet the traumas unconsciously influenced behavior and emotional responding.
Elizabeth F. Loftus is an American psychologist who is best known in relation to the misinformation effect, false memory and criticism of recovered memory therapies.
Repression is a key concept of psychoanalysis, where it is understood as a defense mechanism that "ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it." According to psychoanalytic theory, repression plays a major role in many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of the average person.
The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse is a self-help book by poet Ellen Bass and Laura Davis that focuses on recovery from child sexual abuse and has been called "controversial and polarizing".
Recovered-memory therapy (RMT) is a catch-all term for a controversial and scientifically discredited form of psychotherapy that critics say utilizes one or more unproven therapeutic techniques to purportedly help patients recall previously forgotten memories. Proponents of recovered memory therapy claim, contrary to evidence that traumatic memories can be buried in the subconscious and thereby affect current behavior, and that these memories can be recovered through the use of RMT techniques. RMT is not recommended by mainstream ethical and professional mental health associations.
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) was a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 and dissolved in late 2019.
Richard Jason Ofshe is an American sociologist and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups, confessions, and interrogations.
The Thurston County ritual abuse case was a 1988 case in which Paul Ingram, county Republican Party Chairman of Thurston County, Washington and the Chief Civil Deputy of the Sheriff's department, was accused by his daughters of sexual abuse, by at least one daughter of satanic ritual abuse, and later accused by his son in 1996 of abusing him between the ages of 4 to 12.
R. Christopher "Chris" Barden Ph.D., J.D., L.P. is a scientist, clinical psychologist and attorney who lives in Plymouth, Minnesota. He served as the director of the National Association for Consumer Protection In Mental Health Practices (NACPMHP) from 1995-2005. In 2005, the NACPMHP merged into the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH), a national health care consumer protection agency whose members include physicians, scientists and researchers.
In psychology, a false memory is a phenomenon where someone recalls something that did not happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened. Suggestibility, activation of associated information, the incorporation of misinformation, and source misattribution have been suggested to be several mechanisms underlying a variety of types of false memory.
Ethan Watters is an American journalist. He is the author of articles for The New York Times Magazine, Spin, Details, Mother Jones, Glamour, GQ, Esquire, and the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine as well as books. He has also appeared on a number of media outlets such as Good Morning America, Talk of the Nation, and CNN.
Motivated forgetting is a theorized psychological behavior in which people may forget unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously. It is an example of defence mechanism, since these are unconscious or conscious coping techniques used to reduce anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful impulses thus it can be a defence mechanism in some ways. Defence mechanisms are not to be confused with conscious coping strategies.
Memory implantation is a technique used in cognitive psychology to investigate human memory. In memory implantation studies researchers make people believe that they remember an event that actually never happened. The false memories that have been successfully implanted in people's memories include remembering being lost in a mall as a child, taking a hot air balloon ride, and putting slime in a teacher's desk in primary school.
The Jane Doe case is an influential childhood sexual abuse and recovered memory case study published by psychiatrist David Corwin and Erna Olafson (1997). The case was important in regards to repressed and recovered traumatic memories because, being a well-documented study, it had the potential to provide evidence for the existence of the phenomena. The case served as an educational example of childhood sexual abuse and recovered traumatic memory until further investigation by Elizabeth Loftus and Melvin J. Guyer revealed serious concerns about its background and validity. The original article appeared in Child Maltreatment in 1997, accompanied by a series of articles by five additional psychologists and memory experts: Paul Ekman, Stephen Lindsay, Ulrich Neisser, Frank W. Putnam, and Jonathan W. Schooler, giving their own comments and interpretations about the case.
Making Monsters may mean:
The Ramona false memory case concerns a California man, Gary Ramona, who successfully sued psychiatrists who he said had implanted false memories of abuse into his daughter. This was the first instance of a lawsuit against a therapist over implanted memories. It was also the first instance of a person who was not a patient bringing a malpractice suit in this field.
Spectral Evidence: The Ramona Case: Incest, Memory, and Truth on Trial in Napa Valley is a 1997 book written by Moira Johnston and published by Houghton Mifflin Company about the Gary Ramona false memory case.
The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse is a 1994 book by Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham, published by St. Martin's Press.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Butler, Katy (1995-02-05). "Did Daddy Really Do It? : A debate rages over incest-recovery therapies that can create false memories of sexual abuse : THE MYTH OF REPRESSED MEMORY: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse, By Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham (St. Martin's Press: $22.95; 290 pp.) : MAKING MONSTERS: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria, By Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters (Scribner's: $23; 340 pp.)". Los Angeles Times . p. 2 . Retrieved 2018-10-14.
- 1 2 3 "Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria". Publishers Weekly . 1994-10-03. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
- 1 2 3 Butler, Katy (1995-02-05). "Did Daddy Really Do It? : A debate rages over incest-recovery therapies that can create false memories of sexual abuse : THE MYTH OF REPRESSED MEMORY: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse, By Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham (St. Martin's Press: $22.95; 290 pp.) : MAKING MONSTERS: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria, By Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters (Scribner's: $23; 340 pp.)". Los Angeles Times . p. [3]. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
- 1 2 Kihlstrom, John F. (1995-07-13). "Making Monsters: False memories, psychotherapy, and sexual hysteria". New England Journal of Medicine. 333 (2): 132–133. doi:10.1056/NEJM199507133330219.