Your search for: subjects:"False Memory Syndrome"

Is repressed memory fact or fiction? What role should therapists play in determining the truth? What if any, weight should these "memories" be given when prosecuting claims of child sexual abuse? Noted experts seek answers that could affect thousands of lives.

Tabloid talk shows and the courts are ...

Is repressed memory fact or fiction? What role should therapists play in determining the truth? What if any, weight should these "memories" be given when prosecuting claims of child sexual abuse? Noted experts seek answers that could affect thousands of lives.

Tabloid talk shows and the courts are overflowing with adults alleging sexual and other abuses they endured as children. Parents have been hauled into court, convicted, and jailed over their children's claims of abuse, many of which have been based upon "memories" that have surfaced after therapists employed dubious techniques and suggestive "therapies". In some cases, the abuse really did occur. Alarmingly, in other cases, it did not.

Noted psychologist and author Robert A. Baker states that experienced and responsible therapists vehemently disagree about the nature, source, and reliability of these "memories". In Child Sexual Abuse and False Memory Syndrome doctors, therapists, victims, researchers, and others search for answers in seven major areas: memory and its recovery, childhood trauma, repression and amnesia, hypnosis, suggestibility, professional problems and ethical issues, as well as needed research and legal implications.

As one of the most hotly debated topics of the past decade, false memory has attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners in many of psychology's subdisciplines. Real-world issues surrounding the credibility of memories (particularly memories of traumatic events, such as sexual abuse) ...

As one of the most hotly debated topics of the past decade, false memory has attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners in many of psychology's subdisciplines. Real-world issues surrounding the credibility of memories (particularly memories of traumatic events, such as sexual abuse) reported by both children and adults have been at the center of this debate. Were the adults actually retrieving repressed memories under the careful direction of psychotherapists, or were the memories being "created" by repeated suggestion? Were children telling investigators about events that actually happened, or were the interviewing techniques used to get at unpleasant experiences serving to implant memories that eventually became their own? There is evidence in the psychological research literature to support both sides, and the potential impact on individuals, families, and society as a whole has been profound. This book is an attempt to cut through the undergrowth and get at the truth of the "recovered memory/false-memory creation" puzzle. The contributors review seminal work from their own research programs and provide theory and critical evaluation of existing research that is necessary to translate theory into practice. The book will be of great value to basic and applied memory researchers, clinical and social psychologists, and other professionals working within the helping and legal professions.

Smoke and Mirrors is an uncompromising look at how false sexual abuse allegations originate, gather momentum, and often culminate by ripping apart the lives of innocent people. Campbell, a nationally known authority in forensic psychology, argues how false allegations of sexual abuse can occur ...

Smoke and Mirrors is an uncompromising look at how false sexual abuse allegations originate, gather momentum, and often culminate by ripping apart the lives of innocent people. Campbell, a nationally known authority in forensic psychology, argues how false allegations of sexual abuse can occur anywhere to anyone.

In Part One he examines false allegations of child sexual abuse. The typical scenario in these cases originates with the vague, ill-defined statements of a young child. Adults, misinterpreting these ambiguous remarks, conclude that the child has been sexually abused. The child, subjected to numerous interviews, then describes events that never occurred with staggering psychological and legal ramifications.

In 1989 Elizabeth Carlson, a Minneapolis housewife, went to a psychotherapist for help with depression. Before long the therapist suggested to her that perhaps her problem was actually multiple personality disorder (MPD), a condition that according to the "experts" was connected to childhood abuse ...

In 1989 Elizabeth Carlson, a Minneapolis housewife, went to a psychotherapist for help with depression. Before long the therapist suggested to her that perhaps her problem was actually multiple personality disorder (MPD), a condition that according to the "experts" was connected to childhood abuse. With coaching from the therapist-and under heavy medication-Carlson soon came up with more than twenty-five personalities, including Wild Child, Sister Mary Margaret, and Little Miss Fluff. Horrifying abuse memories invaded her consciousness. She had been molested, she said, by her parents, her grandparents, her great-grandparents. Her family was part of a satanic cult. They raped and killed. They aborted babies and ate the afterbirth. Or did they? In Creating Hysteria Joan Acocella tells how, over the past three decades, thousands of women seeking help for various psychological problems were told that they had multiple personality disorder and were sucked into this nightmarish therapy. In session after session, under their therapists'' prompting, they produced "memories"-and screaming reenactments-of childhood victimization. Asked to search within themselves for hidden personalities, they came up with entire squadrons: children, harlots, angels, devils. Prior to the 1970s, multiple personality disorder was considered an exotically rare condition. But beginning in the 1980s, an estimated 40,000 people, most of them women, had been initiated into this newly popular disorder. This groundbreaking book describes how a group of reckless therapists used hypnosis, drugs, and sheer persuasion to mold their patients'' symptoms into multiple personality disorder. While these practitioners were publishing books and running workshops on how to "spot" MPD, the patients were languishing in hospitals_in some cases for years. They sacrificed their marriages, their jobs. Some even lost their children. Creating Hysteria analyzes the forces that fed into the MPD epidemic: media sensationalism, Christian fundamentalism, the culture wars, and feminism. (Though ruinous to women, this diagnosis was endorsed by many feminists.) Money was another factor. MPD, the experts said, took years to cure. An MPD diagnosis was one way of getting around the new restrictions placed on psychotherapy by managed care. Eventually, victims of this cruel hoax discovered what had happened to them and began suing their therapists. As a result, the MPD empire is now crumbling. In her brilliant concluding chapters, Acocella describes the damage this bizarre craze did to the profession of psychotherapy, to the child-protection movement, and to women''s rights. The patients ultimately triumphed, but the wreckage will take years to clear away. Manufactured Epidemic: The True Story of MPD From 1985 to 1995 an estimated 40,000 Americans, most of them women, were told they suffered from multiple personality disorder. Feminists, fundamentalists, and a substantial portion of the mental health community endorsed this "Sybil-ing" of America. Sensation-seeking television talk shows took up the MPD rallying cry. In Creating Hysteria, Joan Acocella tells a riveting tale of therapists betraying their patients, of a psychotherapy profession at war within its own ranks, and finally of expatients rising up and putting an end to the MPD scandal."Creating Hysteria exposes one of the most frightening mental roller coaster rides taken by thousands of people in modern times. Joan Acocella brilliantly illuminates how the mental health profession spearheaded, perhaps inadvertently, a fin-de-siècle hysteria, the fallout from which will take us into the next millennium. Anyone who has ever been interested in mental health should read this book."_Elizabeth Loftus, president, American Psychological Society"A remarkable exposé of an embarrassing and mischievous epidemic instigated by a small group of ''multiple personality'' proponents. This book provides ample warning for patients and therapists alike."_Her