(3 of 8)
The backlash has already begun. In Texas this summer, a woman patient won a settlement from two therapists and a psychiatric hospital after suing them for therapeutic negligence and fraud. She claimed that four years of recovered false memories had made her a "walking zombie." It was the first of what some reputable therapists fear will be many such rulings that will ultimately give their profession a black eye.
An increasing number of recovered-memory accusers have recanted, and some have reunited with their families and joined them in suing the therapists and clinics they claim led them astray. Many of them are among the more than 7,000 individuals and families who have sought assistance from the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, a Philadelphia-based organization that has taken the lead in publicizing the wrongdoings and in helping the victims of recovered-memory therapy. Pamela Freyd, who co-founded FMSF in 1992, has yet to be reconciled with her accuser daughter.
Growing controversy and concern in the mental-health community has led the American Psychological Association to appoint a false-memory working group to investigate the phenomenon. At a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association last May, the issue of false memories was addressed in three sessions and heatedly debated by experts on both sides. The American Medical Association's house of delegates also indicated its discomfort with such memory-enhancement techniques as guided imagery, hypnosis and body massage, all of which heighten suggestibility and are widely employed by recovered- memory therapists. Use of these practices in eliciting accounts of childhood sexual abuse, the AMA delegates concluded, was "fraught with problems of potential misapplication."
"I wish I could say the debate just involves a few kooks," says Stephen Ceci, a Cornell University developmental psychologist who is a member of the American Psychological Association's work group. "It's much broader than that, happening among the cream of the crop of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists." The battle could not have come at a worse time, says Ceci; some professionals are currently pushing for increased coverage of mental health in the President's proposed national health plan. "It's not a good time for us to be airing our dirty laundry."
Still, the opposing camps are doing just that, arguing bitterly about repressed memories. Critics of recovered-memory therapy insist that there is no scientific evidence for the reality of repression and that many, if not most, of the recovered-memory claims are false. Advocates have no doubts, citing studies on amnesia and clinical experience showing that repression is commonplace. Given that psychology is an inexact science, any resolution of the issue seems distant, at best.