‘Recovered Memory’
* The “recovered memory of child sex abuse” hysteria is even worse than described in your article “Doubt Growing by Experts on Cases of ‘Recovered Memory’ ” (Nov. 26). Not only have states lifted the time limit for filing civil suits for financial recovery upon “discovering” “repressed” memories of sex abuse in childhood, but states are rushing to eliminate the time limit for instituting criminal prosecution. Putting 50- and 60-year-old parents in prison, and not just extracting their assets earned over a lifetime on the basis of “recovered memories,” is all the more preposterous when considering the scientific evidence to support the underlying notion.
Analogizing recovered memories of years of sex abuse to World War I veterans who many years later recover scenes of combat mixes apples and oranges. Veterans not recalling every bloody battle scene are not the same as their repressing the entire experience of having been in the war. They knew they were veterans.
The clinical study with its less than robust conclusion that there was “some evidence . . . that tended to confirm actual abuse” for patients who allegedly recovered such memories is less than robust research. The patients were in group therapy and were suspected of having been abused. Only about a quarter complained of “major memory deficits.” After the “intense stimulation” of hearing other patients’ stories of early abuse, some patients reported the “recovery of additional memories.” For many patients there was no external validation of the memories and support for some others fell far short of convincing proof.
Older parents are paying a lot of money to mature children who are paying a lot of money to lawyers after having paid a lot of money to therapists who promote recovery of these memories. Let’s stop this clinical malpractice and legal farce before the cry wolf reaction takes over, and we revert to the sorry period when genuine allegations of sexual abuse were universally disbelieved.
RICHARD GREEN MD, JD
Los Angeles
The writer is a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and an attorney.
