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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 controversial and now discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations, which arose afterward throughout much of the United States, involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. Some allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifice, pornography, and prostitution.
In psychology, false memory syndrome (FMS) was a proposed "pattern of beliefs and behaviors" in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by false memories of psychological trauma, recollections which are strongly believed by the individual, but contested by the accused. False memory syndrome was proposed to be the result of recovered memory therapy, a scientifically discredited form of therapy intended to recover memories. Originally conceptualized by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, the organization sought to understand what they understood as a general pattern of behaviors that followed after a patient underwent recovered memory therapy and to come up with a term to explain the pattern. The principle that individuals can hold false memories and the role that outside influence can play in their formation is widely accepted by scientists, but there is debate over whether this effect can lead to the kinds of detailed memories of repeated sexual abuse and significant personality changes typical of cases that FMS has historically been applied to. FMS is not listed as a psychiatric illness in any medical manuals including the ICD-11, or the DSM-5. The most influential figure in the genesis of the theory is psychologist Elizabeth Loftus.
Repressed memory is a controversial, and largely scientifically discredited, psychiatric phenomenon which involves an inability to recall autobiographical information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. The concept originated in psychoanalytic theory where repression is understood as a defense mechanism that excludes painful experiences and unacceptable impulses from consciousness. Repressed memory is presently considered largely unsupported by research. Sigmund Freud initially claimed the memories of historical childhood trauma could be repressed, while unconsciously influencing present behavior and emotional responding; he later revised this belief.
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.
The "lost in the mall" technique or experiment is a memory implantation technique used to demonstrate that confabulations about events that never took place – such as having been lost in a shopping mall as a child – can be created through suggestions made to experimental subjects that their older relative was present at the time. It was first developed by Elizabeth Loftus and her undergraduate student Jim Coan, as support for the thesis that it is possible to implant entirely false memories in people. The technique was developed in the context of the debate about the existence of repressed memories and false memory syndrome.
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 professional mental health associations. RMT can result in patients developing false memories of sexual abuse from their childhood and events such as alien abduction which had not actually occurred.
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 and 12.
In psychology, a false memory is a phenomenon where someone recalls something that did not actually 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.
The Freudian Cover-up is a theory introduced by social worker Florence Rush in 1971, which asserts that Sigmund Freud intentionally ignored evidence that his patients were victims of sexual abuse. The theory argues that in developing his theory of infant sexuality, he misinterpreted his patients' claim of sexual abuse as symptoms of repressed incestuous desire. Therefore, Freud claimed that children who reported sexual abuse by adults had either imagined or fantasized the experience.
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 a 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 supposedly 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.