Doubt Growing by Experts on Cases of ‘Recovered Memory’

Explosive allegations that the leader of Chicago’s archdiocese sexually abused a young man 17 years ago are based on a “recovered memory,” a controversial therapeutic technique that is legally recognized by nearly two dozen states but is drawing growing skepticism from psychiatrists and other experts in human memory.

Steven J. Cook, 34, filed a $10-million lawsuit against Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and another priest on Nov. 12, charging that they sexually molested him when he was a 17-year-old student at a Roman Catholic high school in Cincinnati and attended a seminary on weekends.

But unlike most adults who say they were abused as youngsters, Cook contends he did not deliberately hide his experience for all these years out of shame or fear. Rather, like a growing minority of adults making such claims, he says that he only recalled the abuse a month ago while undergoing therapy.

In his lawsuit, Cook says he began recalling the alleged abuse in October and that it “included kissing, fondling of the genitals and buttocks” and sodomy by Bernardin. The complaint adds that Cook was “repeatedly subjected to psychological coercion, duress, religious duress and mental infirmity to the point that he has been unconscious and unaware of the sexual abuse that took place.”

Bernardin, a highly respected Catholic prelate, has vigorously denied the allegations, and an array of supporters have flocked to his defense.

Cook’s is the latest in a stream of such cases in the last five years. In lawsuit after lawsuit, an increasing number of alleged victims have based their charges on recent “recovery” of a long suppressed memory.

They rely on a much-disputed theory popularized by therapists, marriage counselors and some psychologists. It holds that the trauma of sexual abuse may cause a child to block the memory from his or her mind.

Long afterward, perhaps decades later, an event can trigger its return, they say. So too can a discussion with a therapist. Either way, the horrible happenings of the distant past return as a vivid, powerful memory.

An array of respected psychologists consider the theory valid, and it has led to a series of court judgments on behalf of victims.

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But prominent memory experts--while making no specific judgments on the Cook case--have been debunking the notion of late, calling it an “embarrassing mistake” that is sweeping the field of human behavior.

“People don’t forget important things that happen to them. If you were sexually involved at age 17, you don’t just forget that,” said Dr. Paul McHugh, director of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

In an essay in the American Scholar magazine titled “Psychiatric Misadventures,” McHugh compares the recent wave of “recovered memory” cases to the mass release of psychiatric patients in the 1970s. Both were mistakes, he said, that followed the “cultural fashion” of the day.

In the 1970s, mental health professionals were swept along by the notion that psychiatric institutions were repressive places. Better to “liberate” the patients than to confine them in these institutions, it was said.

In the 1990s, therapists have been swept along by the conviction that the sexual abuse of children is far more common than acknowledged before, McHugh said. Some advocates say one in three young girls is sexually abused. If that is so, many therapists are ready to believe extraordinary numbers of adults who now say that they suffered abuse, even if they recalled it only recently.

Skeptics, such as McHugh and University of Washington psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, do not question the prevalence of abuse. But they do question the accuracy of recovered memories.

“In fact, severe traumas are not blocked out by children but are remembered all too well,” McHugh wrote.

He cited as an example the children of Chowchilla, Calif., who were kidnaped in their school bus in 1976 and buried alive. After their rescue, the children had highly detailed recollections of the entire event. McHugh also cites stories from Holocaust survivors, many of whom were rounded up as children.

“They have intense memories. They can’t get the memory out of their mind. That’s the problem--the over-remembering. They can’t forget,” he said in an interview.

Critics have pointed to therapists who are inclined to believe that their troubled clients most likely suffered a sexual trauma. If so, their recovery may require them to distill the memory of this trauma and to confront the perpetrators.

But some medical experts fear that memories are being created, not just recovered. At its recent annual meeting, the American Medical Assn. passed a resolution condemning the “misuse of hypnosis and other techniques in memory enhancement.” These techniques “are fraught with problems of potential misapplication . . . in the area of childhood sexual abuse,” the resolution said.

“No experiments have demonstrated conclusively that memories can be repressed and then reliably recovered,” writes Loftus in the current issue of the American Bar Assn. Journal. While a patient’s reports of dreams and flashbacks can prove useful in therapy, she says, studies have been unable to show that these recurrent visions are authentic renditions of past events.

Nonetheless, 23 states, including California, have lifted their statutes of limitations in civil cases since 1988 to cope with the wave of suits citing recovered memories. Typically, a plaintiff must file a complaint within five years of a damaging event. That helps ensure that witnesses and other evidence will still be fresh and available.

But plaintiffs’ lawyers in recovered memory cases have successfully contended that their clients cannot be held to these standards because they were unaware until recently that they had been abused.

The best known case of a recovered memory arose in 1989 when Eileen Franklin-Lipsker had a flashback to 20 years earlier. She recalled her father, George T. Franklin, killing her 9-year-old friend Susan Nason, a Foster City, Calif., child whose 1969 murder had never been solved.

There is no statute of limitations in murder cases. Despite inaccuracies in the woman’s recollections, she gave compelling testimony against her father. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

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Many of the recovered memory suits involve incest. They have spawned not only much litigation, but also angry support groups on both sides. Around the nation, “incest survivors” groups meet regularly. In Philadelphia, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation says it represents more than 3,000 individuals, mostly parents, who say they have been wrongly accused by their children.

Certainly, many well-respected psychologists support the idea that victims of abuse can block out their memories for years.

“I have no question that this happens. It has been well-documented,” said Judith Alpert, professor of applied psychology at New York University. She cited examples of World War I veterans who, decades later, had flashbacks to battle scenes they had forgotten.

The sexual abuse of a child “can be so painful that it is as though you leave your body. It’s as if it happened to someone else,” she said. “That memory can be locked away for 20 or 30 years. Something can trigger a memory and it comes back.”

In general, therapists who work with such patients say they believe that most of these recovered memories are accurate. For example, Judith Herman, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, said 39 of 53 patients in her group therapy who had memories of child abuse were able to find some evidence--from discussions with family members to old diaries--that tended to confirm they were abused.

Although the skeptics and believers dispute most points, they tend to agree on two issues.

First, people who have recovered memories are not lying, they say. Even the skeptics agreed that virtually all those who come forward with reports of a recovered memory sincerely believe the accuracy of their recollections.

Of course, this certainty makes for powerful testimony in court, regardless of whether the recollection is accurate.

Second, the youngest victims of abuse are most likely to have blotted out the memory.

“In general, the younger the child and the more violent the experience, the greater the likelihood and the severity of the amnesia,” Herman wrote in the Harvard Medical Health Letter.

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Without commenting directly on Cook’s case, several psychiatrists said a claim would be more plausible if the alleged abuse had occurred at age 7, rather than 17.

Stephen J. Rubino, a New Jersey attorney representing Cook, said his client’s recollection of abuse emerged gradually through therapy, but he refused to discuss other details of the case.

“These are tough cases to try,” he said, “and I want to present my client’s case to the judge, not in the press.”