http://ritualabuse.us/research/
Related Research
Recovered Memory Data with information on recovered memory
corroboration, theories on recovered memory, legal information,
physiological evidence for memory suppression, replies to skeptics and
books and articles on memory http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/recovered-memory-data/
Basic Information on Dissociative Identity Disorder with sections on
Basic Information on DID from the DSM-IV-TR, The History of DID/MPD,
Diagnosing DID, Responses to those that state that DID is iatrogenic
or a social construct, MPD/DID connection to severe abuse, Recent
information and DID resources - http://ritualabuse.us/research/did/basic-information-on-didmpd/
Delineates the etiological antecedents of Dissociative Identity
Disorder (DID) and enumerates upon the scientific evidence proving the
existence of DID. This paper explains the diagnostic criteria of DID,
its incidence rates and cross-cultural characteristics, present
arguments to counter the idea that suggestibility may be a factor in
its misdiagnosis and delineate the data that shows a clear connection
between traumatic wartime experiences and dissociation and trauma and
DID. It considers the historical development of the debate surrounding
DID, including its increased diagnosis around the turn of the last
century, reasons for its decline in diagnosis in the mid part of the
last century and reasons for its increased diagnosis toward the end of
the 20th century. It deliberates upon the claims made by several
researchers that DID can be created in the laboratory as well as the
critiques surrounding those claims. It discusses the neurobiological
evidence proving the connection between DID and certain
neurobiological indicators. Included is a discussion of the modern
theory of iatrogenic DID and a critique of this theory. A debate about
the creation of DID as a social construction and critiques of this
theory are presented as well. It concludes, by presenting the argument
that the research on DID shows it to be a valid psychiatric diagnosis
which robustly meets all the necessary validity requirements.
http://ritualabuse.us/research/did/the-etymological-antecedents-of-and-scientific-evidence-for-the-existence-of-dissociative-identity-disorder/
Describes the methods and criteria used for diagnosing and assessing
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The symptoms and etiology of DID
are discussed. The use of client histories, different psychological
tests and the test results of different test items are discussed in
terms of their applicability to a diagnosis, as well as their validity
and reliability. Differential diagnoses and their effect on the
diagnosis of DID are enumerated upon. The dissociative spectrum and
ritual abuse are discussed briefly, in order to help clarify the
symptomology and etiology of DID.
http://ritualabuse.us/research/did/the-diagnosis-and-assessment-of-dissociative-identity-disorder/
Presents research showing the biological basis for the theory of
recovered memory. It defines recovered memory as the phenomenon of
partially or fully losing part or a specific aspect of a memory, and
then later recovering part or all of the memory into conscious
awareness. This paper includes data from the works of van der Kolk and
Fisler, Knopp and Benson and Bremner. Supporting data will include
PTSD studies on Vietnam veterans and survivors of childhood trauma,
subjective reports of memory, measurements of stress-responsive
neurohormones, animal research on neurohormones, neuroimaging and MRI
brain studies. Different theories of memory and amnesia are also
presented.
http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/the-neurological-basis-for-the-theory-of-recovered-memory/
The existence of recovered memory is a fact. Anyone that denies this
is ignoring large amounts of data.
The information for this part is a synopsis of data from "Memory,
Trauma Treatment, and the Law" by Brown, Scheflin and Hammond, W.W.
Norton and Co. New York and London, C 1998 (http://www.wwnorton.com)
Page 370-381
The base rates for memory commission errors are quite low, at least in
professional trauma treatment. The base rates in adult misinformation
studies run between zero and 5 percent for adults and between 3 - 5
percent for children. These numbers are quite different than what you
might here from the pro-fms people or the media.
"Occasional unwitting misleading suggestions (Yapko, 1994a), even the
suggestion of a diagnosis of abuse, cannot adequately explain illusory
memories of child sexual abuse." (p. 379) Occasional suggestions about
abuse are not generally effective, except in highly suggestible
people.
My conclusion is that memory contamination is very unlikely, except
under extreme conditions. From the data presented, it sounds like it
is almost totally impossible for anyone to make a memory error for the
central plot of a memory simply by hearing disinformation. A variety
of other factors would have to be in place. Even under hypnosis
without several social influence factors, it sounds like it is
extremely rare (4-6% of 7-10%, less than one percent of people) may be
influenced by disinformation.
It sounds like most people would almost have to be in a cult or in a
cult like situation or under considerable duress to produce an untrue
memory. Theories that claim that a "false" memory can be created
simply by hearing an erroneous statement or because a person is
looking for "filler" to complete the central plot of their memory, are
probably wrong.
But, if all the information in the media and society available to most
survivors is biased toward the incorrect position that memories of
abuse are false. And a survivor is manipulated and pressured by their
family emotionally and cognitively, it is very possible that a
survivor may wrongly believe that their memories are not true.
Media Manipulation by False Memory Proponents
U-Turn on Memory Lane by Mike Stanton - Columbia Journalism Review -
July/August 1997
The FMSF builds much of its case against recovered memory by attacking
a generally discredited Freudian concept of repression that proponents
of recovered memory don't buy, either. In so doing, the foundation
ignores the fifty-year-old literature on traumatic, or psychogenic
amnesia, which is an accepted diagnosis by the American Psychiatric
Association. In his 1996 book "Searching for Memory," the Harvard
psychologist and brain researcher Daniel L. Schachter -- who believes
that both true and false memories exist -- says there is no conclusive
scientific evidence that false memories can be created....The foundation
and its backers "remind me of a high school debate team," says the
Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel, an authority on traumatic
amnesia. "They go to the library, surgically extract the information
convenient to them and throw out the rest."....Many therapists, like
their patients, hesitate to speak out.Recently, though, they have
begun to make a more concerted effort to mobilize a response. One of
the most outspoken critics of the false-memory movement is a Seattle
therapist, David Calof, editor until last year of Treating Abuse
Today, a newsletter for therapists. He has identified what he calls
the movement's political agenda -- lobbying for more restrictive laws
governing therapy and promoting the harassment of therapists through
lawsuits and even picketing of their offices and homes. Calof himself
has been the target of picketing so fierce that he has been in and out
of Seattle courtrooms over the last two years, obtaining restraining
orders. He was spending so much time and money fighting the FMSF
supporters' campaign against him, he says, that he was forced to stop
publishing the newsletter last year. He recently donated the
publication to a victims' rights group in Pennsylvania, which has
resurrected it as Trauma. The new publisher says that views part of
its mission as reporting on FMSF, since the mainstream media don't.
Among journalists, perhaps the most relentless critic of the
foundation is Michele Landsberg, a Toronto Star columnist. In 1993,
she says, an Ontario couple, claiming to have been falsely accused,
contacted her and asked her to write about their case. Unconvinced,
she declined, and eventually started writing instead about the
foundation.She attacked its scientific claims and criticized the
sensational media coverage. She described how a foundation scientific
adviser, Harold Merskey, had testified that a woman accusing a doctor
of sexual abuse in a civil case might in fact have been suffering from
false memory syndrome. But the accused doctor himself had previously
confessed to criminal charges of abusing her. Landsberg also
challenged the credentials of other foundation advisers. She noted
that one founding adviser, Ralph Underwager, was forced to resign from
the foundation's board after he and his wife, Hollida Wakefield, who
remains an adviser, gave an interview to a Dutch pedophilia magazine
in which he was quoted as describing pedophilia as"an acceptable
expression of God's will for love." Landsberg also wrote that another
adviser, James Randi, a magician known as "The Amazing Randi," had
been involved in a lawsuit in which his opponent introduced a tape of
sexually explicit telephone conversations Randi had with teenage boys.
(Randi has claimed at various times, she said, that the tape was a
hoax and that the police asked him to make it.) "Why haven't reporters
investigated the False Memory Syndrome Foundation?" she asks. "It's
legitimate to examine their backgrounds -here are people who really do
have powerful motivation to deny the truth."
http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/97/4/memory.asp
Battle Tactics of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - Noel Packard
- New School for Social Research, N.Y. History Matters Conference
April 23-24, 2004 Censorship is also a tactic that FMS Foundation
adherents use to silence voices they don't agree with. Katy Butler,
published a critical review of Ofshe's and Watter's book, Making
Monsters (1994) in the Los Angeles Times. Later the newspaper's book
review editor received a vague threat of a lawsuit from Ofshe's
representative (K. Butler personal communication with Lynn Crook
January 28, 2000). Later Butler was asked to write a story for
Newsweek examining the uncritical acceptance of Foundation claims and
to provide documented cases of recovered memory and traumatic amnesia.
Upon learning of this assignment Foundation Advisory Board members
Richard Ofshe and Fredrick Crews, as well as Peter and Pamela Freyd,
wrote strongly worded letters of complaint to Newsweek which
effectively canceled Butler's assignment (Stanton 1997). Although
these censorship activities were reported in Mike Stanton's article "U-
Turn on Memory Lane" (1997) Nevertheless, Newsweek editors confirmed
that the FMS Foundation letters helped kill Butler's article. Butler
said at a national conference of investigative reporters and editors
in Rhode Island in 1996: "I've worked hard very hard to tell both
sides of the story. What's interesting to me about all of this that
telling both sides has started to seem like a risky act." (Stanton
1997: 49)....In 1994 the editor of the Journal of Psychohistory Lloyd
DeMause wrote to many professional subscribers to inform them that he
feared a lawsuit by the FMS Foundation for publishing a special issue
of his journal on cult abuse. Dr. Jean Goodwin a psychiatrist at
University of Texas Medical Branch responded with a letter that
conveys the overall feeling among the mental health community in the
early 1990s. Goodwin: From a Psychohistorical viewpoint it is
fascinating to watch this organization systematically limit freedom of
speech in this area. Their suits of publishers have driven many books
out of print. Board members have prevented publication of many
articles. As far as I know you are the first journal editor they have
targeted. The slander suit stopped the audio-tapping of many
presentations in this area. The licensing attacks and the malpractice
suits threaten freedom of speech in the psychotherapy consulting room,
which is where it is supposed to be most free. Silence still is the
priority for the perpetrator (Goodwin 1994) Goodwin's letter captures
the effect that Foundations' tactics had on the therapy community in
the early 1990s. Today the overall effect of the Foundation's court
cases and tactics is more muted. One newly graduated MFT told me that
as far as she knows the Foundation has had no impact on the practices
of MFTs at all. A social worker who teaches a certification class on
mandated reporting includes the Foundation topic in her lectures,
saying that the Foundation "made us clean up our act." I've also heard
a seasoned MFT who teaches a class titled, "Counseling as a Career
Option" lament that practicing psychotherapy is becoming a profession
only for the rich (both as practitioners and clients). Perhaps this is
due to recent constrictions and costs associated with lawsuits,
training programs, licensing and insurance policies? It appears that
the Foundations' efforts to drive non-cognitive therapy beyond the
grasp of un-wealthy clients are having some success. Kondora's and
Beckett's studies indicate that the Foundation has been successful in
many of its efforts to manage public perception of child abuse
victims, therapists and the people accused of child abuse. Kondora and
Beckett show that not only has public perception of victimized
children become skeptical, but in fact, the press often goes beyond
the Victorian custom of neutrality on all fronts of the issue, to out-
right sympathy for accused molesters. What began in the 1960s and
1970s as a child welfare movement has arrived today as an accused sex-
offender welfare movement (Goldsmith 2003); and right in time for an
era when people are having more babies, less birth control and have
easier ways to create home based child pornography than ever before.
The Foundation has won many expensive malpractice lawsuits that have
made news headlines. Such cases have probably put a chill into more
than one therapy session, which is what they are intended to do. The
Foundation's efforts in and out of the court room have provided
reasons for health insurance companies to reduce insurance payments
for mental health care and have tied those payments generally to
mental health diagnoses. Training programs for clinical therapists
have become more like the clinical training programs of the cold-war
years, more science oriented, more stringent, more bio-logically and
drug oriented, and less theory and talked based. Many of the support
groups, networks, newsletters, journals, and even significant names in
the child welfare movement of the 1980's and 1990's have faded,
vanished or been displaced by on-line and other services of the FMS
Foundation. Kondora, Lori L. 1997. A Textual Analysis of the
Construction of the False Memory Syndrome: Representations in Popular
Magazines; 1990-1995. Ph.D. diss. University of Wisconsin, Madison. -
Beckett, Katherine. 1996. Culture and the Politics of Signification:
The Case of Child Sexual Abuse. SOCIAL PROBLEMS, Vol. 43, No. 1,
February: 57-76. http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/historymatters/papers/NoelPackard.pdf
On Nov 14, 3:25 am, "Paul Nutteing (valid email address in post
Post by Paul Nutteing (valid email address in post script )Article on ritual abuse from tag, a group studying and supporting work
concerning trauma, abuse and dissociation.
http://www.tag-uk.net/articles/sexualritualabuse.php
Association: The Key To Recovery - article on the history of MPD/DID
http://www.m-a-h.net/article-history.html
The Shock Doctrine - by Naomi Klein - Chapter 1 - The Torture Lab -
Ewen Cameron, the CIA and the maniacal quest to erase and remake the
human mind.
http://books.google.com/books?id=b1uQNYbE8DkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=...
05079831#PPA25,M1
Videotaped Discovery of a Reportedly Unrecallable Memory of Child
Sexual Abuse: Comparison with a Childhood Interview Videotaped 11
Years Before
David L. Corwin, Erna Olafson This article presents the history,
verbatim transcripts, and behavioral observations of a child's
disclosure of sexual abuse to Dr. David Corwin in 1984 and the
spontaneous return of that reportedly unrecallable memory during an
interview between the same individual, now a young adult, and Dr.
Corwin 11 years later. Both interviews were videotape recorded. The
significance, limitations, and clinical implications of this unique
case study are discussed. Five commentaries by researchers from
differing empirical perspectives who have reviewed these videotape-
recorded interviews follow this article.
10.1177/1077559597002002001
http://data.memberclicks.com/site/apsac/jane_doe.pdf
http://cmx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/2/91