Recovered Memory Project

We have been away on other projects all semester, but we’re delighted to be back and we have big plans for 2012. But first, an update on the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which apparently published its last newsletter in November. We had posed five simple yes/no questions to Pamela Freyd last summer in the hopes that the Foundation might provide some clear answers.

That did not come to pass, but the FMSF did provide some responses. They were evasive in some cases and downright false in others. But at least the Recovered Memory Project now has a proper citation in the newsletter of the organization that has studiously avoided acknowledging, let alone addressing, the 100-plus corroborated cases in the archive. The rest of this post addresses the FMSF’s most deceptive answer of all. The others will be addressed in a future post:

The first question we posed was: Will you inform your readers that the Johnson case in Wisconsin, as documented here, had nothing to do with hypnosis or “digging for memories” as you have falsely claimed in several places?

The response in the newsletter is deceptive and almost entirely fact-free. It begins with a quote from a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision six years before the verdict in this case. That decision allowed the Johnsons to get access to their daughter’s medical records based on their claim that she had been hypnotized. As it turns out, the medical records proved she had not been hypnotized.

The FMSF newsletter then cites the Johnson’s closing arguments at trial. Closing arguments are just that, arguments. They are not facts or evidence of anything. How telling, then, that the FMSF has chosen to post the closing arguments in this case but not any actual evidence. (They are only posting the closing arguments by one side, however. The “educational foundation” apparently does not want to confuse its members by providing both sides.)

The FMSF response to our question ends with a vague discussion about the “standard of care.” But what Pamela Freyd keeps fudging is that the “standard of care” argument in this case was not about “recovered memory therapy.” Look at what FMSF Advisory Board Member Hollida Wakefield said under oath when asked specifically about whether this case involved recovered memory therapy:

Q: What is your understanding as to whether Dr. Reisenauer engaged in recovered memory therapy?

A: Okay. Again, my understanding is that they did not actively engage in such things as let’s see how many more memories you can come up with. Let’s hypnotize you. Let’s do visualization. They did not do that.

Testimony of Hollida Wakefield; Johnson v. Rogers Memorial Hospital (January 20, 2010), p. 173 (emphasis added.)

So, why did Pamela Freyd tell a newspaper reporter that this case was a victory against therapists who “use a variety of dubious techniques, including hypnosis, to try to excavate supposedly repressed memories”? No matter how many times she asserts otherwise, the fact remains that the Johnson case had nothing to do with hypnosis or excavating for memories.

Pamela Freyd, FMSF Executive Director

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation announced in its recent newsletter that their final email newsletter will be sent in October 2011. We hope that Pamela Freyd, Executive Director of the FMSF, will use the occasion to respond to a few simple questions:

1. Will you inform your readers that the Johnson case in Wisconsin, as documented here, had nothing to do with hypnosis or “digging for memories” as you have falsely claimed in several places?

2. Will you correct the record about the use of Betrayal Trauma Theory in court? You falsely insinuated that Betrayal Trauma Theory was not accepted in court, when in fact, as documented here, it has passed the Daubert test.

3. Will you acknowledge the evidence of guilt against serial child molester, Billy Banks, who was embraced by the FMSF? Your newsletter reported on his case without mentioning the evidence of guilt, which is documented here, including recent charges (to which he pled guilty).

4. Will you acknowledge that Wayne Sergent, mentioned favorably in the FMSF newsletter, admitted, as documented here, that his “false memory” defense was a ruse?

5. Will you acknowledge that memories recovered in therapy led to the conviction of Calvin Huss, who, as documented here, confessed to the crimes?

We hope that you will use the occasion of the final FMSF newsletter to respond to these questions, and we will report back after the October newsletter is published.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that Jim Keenan can proceed with his recovered-memory lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis for personal injury and fraud. The court decided that Keenan should be able to present expert testimony that describes “memory repression and the characteristics that are present in an individual suffering from repressed memory.” (Doe 76C v. Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis; Court of Appeals of Minnesota, June 27, 2011). Overturning the trial court’s decision in the case, the appellate court also concluded that “genuine issues of material fact exist about when appellant was put on notice of a potential fraud claim.” Accordingly, Keenan’s claim that the archdiocese failed to disclose that Father Adamson had a history of sexual abuse will be allowed to go forward. One strong indication that the church knows that this claim is meritorious is that their spokesman is quoted as saying that the church “will continue to try and resolve the matter without the necessity of a trial.”

Pamela Freyd, Executive Director the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, said recently that the FMSF may soon quietly disappear. They apparently think that their work is done.  But the unanimous decision of this three-judge panel once again demonstrates that, fortunately, recovered memory deniers have not won the so-called memory wars. Instead, common sense still prevails at the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Ralph Underwager, Founding FMSF Board Member

Steven Elbow wrote an article in the Madison Times last December about the Johnson case, discussed in the post below.  Yesterday, Mr. Elbow wrote a remarkable follow-up story titled “Rethinking the ‘false memory’ controversy.” Mr. Elbow came to the view that the FMSF is ”a highly organized public relations machine.” He also came to understand how the FMSF ignores or denies the fact that “there have been numerous cases of repressed memory that have been verified by witness accounts, DNA, perpetrator confessions or other means.” (Perhaps he came across the Archive of more than 100 corroborated cases on this web site.) Finally, Mr. Elbow saw the FMSF Executive Director, Pamela Freyd, in a new light when she defended Ralph Underwager’s interview with a Dutch pedophile magazine. The stated purpose of the magazine was “to demonstrate that paedophilia has been, and remains, a legitimate and productive part of the totality of human experience.” One can only wonder why the Executive Director, who claims to abhor child sexual abuse, refuses to distance the FMSF from Underwager’s revealing interview with a pro-pedophile magazine.

In an unusual and highly controversial lawsuit by Charles and Karen Johnson against the therapists who treated their adult daughter, a jury in Wisconsin recently awarded the parents $1 million. Their daughter Charlotte was not party to the suit, and her lawyer successfully moved to quash a subpoena that would have forced her to testify at trial.[1] Three therapists were named in the suit; the jury found one non-negligent, and they apportioned liability between the other two on a 70-30 percent basis. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation has cast the case as a victory against therapists who, according to Executive Director Pamela Freyd, “use a variety of dubious techniques, including hypnosis, to try to excavate supposedly repressed memories.”

But that is an incredible distortion of the case. The case did not involve hypnosis—even though the parents used the spectre of hypnosis as an argument to obtain access to their daughter’s confidential medical records. Indeed, the case did not involve any of the other “techniques” mentioned by Pamela Freyd. Hollida Wakefield, the primary expert for the Johnsons, admitted that the therapists “didn’t actively try to get her to recover memories,” that they did not use hypnosis, that there was no “digging for memories,” and that there was no evidence that the therapists planted any memories of abuse.[2] In short, there was no evidence that the memories in this case were caused or created by therapy.  Read more…

Dr. Jennifer Freyd, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, has written extensively about Betrayal Trauma. Her 1996 Harvard Press book by the same name is subtitled The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Sexual Abuse. Betrayal Trauma Theory has been the subject of many studies since then. It has been widely cited and was featured in the prestigious 2010 Nebraska Symposium on Memory and Motivation. Yet, an item in the Fall 2010 newsletter of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation suggests that Betrayal Trauma is not accepted in the scientific community because a state judge in Clark County, Washington, after conducting a Kelly-Frye hearing, disallowed it for a particular application not involving memory. What the FMSF omitted in its newsletter is that Dr. Freyd’s Betrayal Trauma Theory has been accepted in federal court under the Daubert standard. 

In U.S. v. Chatman (CR 07-178-RE), the state moved to allow Dr. Freyd’s testimony. Here is the government’s memorandum in support of admission. According to the Minutes of the Proceedings on May 15, 2008: “The court finds that Dr. Freyd’s reasoning and the methodology underlying her testimony is scientifically valid, that the proposed testimony is relevant, and that the testimony will assist the jury by providing information beyond common knowledge.” This testimony helped convict a 32-year-old cheer-leading coach of two counts of abusive sexual contact on a 16-year-old girl. Betrayal Trauma Theory was also admitted in a state administrative proceeding in Oregon that was upheld on appeal. See, Waisanen v. Clatskanie School District, 215 P.2d 882 (2009).

The FMSF newsletter has reported with approval on several Daubert rulings that have supported positions adopted by the foundation. FMSF Advisory Board member August Piper has called the Daubert approach “a good road map” for deciding what constitutes scientifically valid evidence. We are waiting to see whether an organization that claims to have an educational purpose will inform its readers that Betrayal Trauma Theory has passed that test. Or will they leave the false impression from their Fall 2010 newsletter uncorrected?

Pamela Freyd, FMSF Executive Director

One purpose of the new blog format of this site, launched four months ago, is to make sure that important people and events in the “memory wars” are not forgotten. The detailed post about Billy Banks, a serial child molester embraced by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, is one example of a significant story that has largely been overlooked.

Wayne Sargent is another. Sargent earned an uncritical mention in the “Legal Corner” section of this FMSF newsletter, edited by Pamela Freyd, after he successfully appealed his criminal conviction for sexually assaulting his two minor step-children and one of their friends. See, State v. Sargent (1999). The court ruled that Sargent should have been allowed to present a “false memory” expert to the jury. But the FMSF never reported the rest of the story.

Sargent was convicted by a jury after a second trial that included a “false memory” expert for the defense. That conviction was upheld by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, a court that is often touted by the FMSF for the 1997 Hungerford decision. But the second appellate decision, State v. Sargent (2002), was never mentioned in the FMSF newsletter. Neither were the remarkable events that unfolded after his second trial. Before being sentenced, Sargent admitted that his “false memory” defense was a ruse. He confessed his guilt, apologized to the children, and, as reported by the Associated Press, told the judge: “I wasn’t in denial for what I had done, but I just didn’t want to pay the consequences.” Judge Smukler, mindful of the fact that Sargent put three children through two separate trials before admitting the truth, sentenced him to 21 to 54 years in prison.

As the calendar turns to 2011, we would all do well to remember Wayne Sargent, who hid behind the “false memory” defense for years. We should also remember that the FMSF, which claims to abhor child sexual abuse, never condemned Mr. Sargent and never informed its readers that the case once heralded in their newsletter as a victory was actually nothing more than a baseless defense offered by a craven child molester.

Meredith Maran has a new book called My Lie: A True Story of False Memory. The book tells the story of how Maran accused her father of sexual abuse and much later decided that her accusations were false. This story turns entirely on the author’s veracity.

So, is Meredith Maran a reliable narrator? Her recent interview with Douglas Mesner indicates that she is not. In that interview, which has since been promoted by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Maran is quoted as saying: ”I spoke at length with both Pam and Peter Freyd, who are the founders of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, and I also spoke at length with their daughter with whom they are estranged. So I would listen to Jennifer Freyd tell me her version of what had happened in her family, and I would listen to Pam and Peter — Pam, in most cases — tell me what she believed. And they were opposite.” (Here is a screenshot of that portion of the interview, posted on November 29.)

But Jennifer Freyd has not given an interview about these matters since the early 1990s. Indeed, Maran makes it clear in her book that Professor Freyd ”told me that she no longer discusses her family of origin in public” (p. 205). Later, she reiterates that Professor Freyd ”wouldn’t talk about her family, and I begged” (p. 231). Begged.

So why did Maran recently claim that she had “listen[ed] to Jennifer Freyd tell me her version of what had happened in her family”? More importantly, how can we trust anything in this “true story” given that the author cannot even tell a straight story about her own recent research for the book?

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation claims to condemn the sexual abuse of children. In their words, “Child sexual abuse is a reprehensible crime….Every effort should be made to help victims of sexual abuse and to create a social climate in which such mistreatment does not continue to take place.” So why did they sympathize with Billy Banks, a serial child molester?

This is the first in a series of occasional posts that will highlight and document cases in which the FMSF has taken the side of someone charged with child sexual abuse without apparent regard for the evidence of guilt.

The Case against Billy Banks

Billy Banks was convicted in 2005 on 10 counts of sexual battery on a child under 12 years of age. (Three counts were overturned on appeal—two on double jeopardy, and one was outside the statute.) The charges included acts of rape, forced oral sex, and fondling of his daughter and his adoptive niece from 1965 to 1970. Banks was also facing two charges of lewd, lascivious or indecent acts on a child under 16 for sexually abusing his two granddaughters 20 years later, in 1990-1. After being convicted on the first counts, Banks pled no contest to one of these later counts. He was sentenced to life on the sexual battery charges and three and a half years for the charge to which he pled no contest.

Read more…