A REVIEW
Memory and Abuse:
Remembering and Healing the Effects of Trauma, by Charles L. Whitfield, M.D.
Reviewed by Lloyd deMause
Historians, psychotherapists and social scientists all depend upon human memory for their work. Yet most are abysmally ignorant of the extensive body of experimental and clinical research on memory, repression and dissociation and recovery of traumatic memories. This splendid book by Charles Whitfield provides a comprehensive tour of the world of memory, remembering and healing abuse. Those who read it will never again feel adrift in the current atmosphere of claims and counter-claims about whether memories of abuse can be forgotten and later remembered, and psychotherapists will be able to have a set of scientific principles to determine if recovered memories of abuse are true or false.
After reviewing the experimental and clinical literature on remembering and forgetting, Whitfield cites extensive literature showing that from 16 to 64 percent of traumatized people could not remember their traumatic experience (at all, not just details) after it happened, often only being able to begin memory recovery after triggers or even reentry into state-dependent situations similar to the neuro-physiological original state when the trauma occurred. For instance, Sirhan Sirhan had absolutely no recollection of killing Bobby Kennedy until he became as excited and worked up as he was during the murder, and only then remembered pulling the trigger.
In his chapter on “The False Memory Defense,” he asks how
common traumatic forgetting might be, in light of the tens of millions of
children that are sexually and physically abused in
Then Whitfield presents an extensive look at the claims of “false memory syndrome” advocates, beginning with their admission that the documentation for “false memory” “means that the report we received fits the pattern described in our literature,” a literature which consists of newsletters giving accounts of people who say they have been falsely accused of perpetrating sexual abuse. By examining the statistics on how many of the 50 to 80 million survivors of sexual abuse are likely to have made false accusations, Whitfield estimates that between 3,000-24,000 untrue memories could hypothetically represent true “FMS.” The False Memory Syndrome Foundation admits it does not know how many of its over 11,000 members have been falsely accused, but when asked the question, “How do we know we are not representing pedophiles?” reply “We are a good-looking bunch of people: graying hair, well dressed, healthy, smiling…”
The FMSF has a group of experts who advise them and who defend accused abusers at trials. The leading “expert,” Elizabeth Loftus, cites two people who support her attack on the reality of recovered memories, both FMSF board members, George Ganaway and David Holmes. Their studies, Whitfield points out, attempt to prove the non-existence of repression by studying ordinary memory and forgetting, but neither appears to understand the difference between ordinary and traumatic memories. Since extremely painful memories are stored and recovered in ways that are somewhat different from insignificant details of everyday events, their work is hardly relevant, even though the media has depended almost entirely upon their opinion in its recent attack on traumatic memory recovery. Even the famous “lost in the mall” memory implantation study that Loftus cites so often to the courts while defending accused abusers turns out not to be an experiment at all. Whitfield says it amounts only the following: “Five subjects, all friends and relatives of our research group, were led to believe they had been lost in a shopping mall at the age of five.” Loftus states in her book, The Myth of Repressed Memory, “These five cases offered proof…that it is possible to create foals memories for childhood events.” When on cross-examination she was asked about a follow-up study she did where only one out of eight falsely remembered being “lost in a mall,” her questioner said, “five case histories are not a scientific study, are they, Dr. Loftus?” and she replied, “Well, it’s not an experiment. Let’s put it that way.” Since most of us can remember being “lost in a mall” if we try hard enough (“I looked around, and couldn’t see my mom for a minute”), how this disproves the reality of terrifying memories full of affect is unknown.
Verifying recovered memories is possible, though difficult for a psychotherapist, who is not a detective. FMS advocates suggest that if therapists find clients remember abuse, they should “get on the telephone and search out any prior records that might indicate abuse. They further suggest that they should immediately bring in the person’s family and ask them for evidence of past abuse.” Besides being unethical and causing the client to distrust the therapist, this route would prove futile, says Whitfield, citing a study by Herman and Schatzow of 53 incest survivors of whom 65 percent found external evidence for their experiences, but not a single one from medical or other records. And to expect an abuser to confirm their abuse—especially when it might have been committed in an alcoholic haze or other condition and been repressed—is particularly naďve. More useful, says Whitfield, is internal verification and corroboration of traumatic memories, and he devotes a full chapter to the clinical work on this internal kind of verification.
Whitfield is not unaware that there are practitioners who abuse the therapeutic relationship in regards to traumatic memory recovery. He examines how the helping profession can handle this problem, which blends with other problems of malpractice and injury, and he gives many insights into how to avoid a “triangle” of accused abuser, therapist, and client with its inherent problems in inhibiting the progress of recovery and inherent damage to the falsely accused. The charge of “implanting false memories,” however, has rarely been documented, and in his chapter on the first “memory manipulation suit,” that of the father of Holly Ramona against his daughter’s therapist, which ended in awarding $500,000 in damages to the father, he shows how dangerous it is for lay juries to consider such matters. The jury actually found there was a possibility that the molestation did take place, but that “it was difficult for us to agree that this could happen to one person over many years and for her to completely suppress it.” That is, the jury wasn’t familiar with the clinical literature. Since the psychiatrist who testified for the father that his daughter had not been abused later “admitted to having a patient orally copulate him in his office,” the validity of his testimony is questionable to say the least.
With tens of thousands of lawsuits on the way, plus extensive legislation being introduced to control what psychotherapists say to their clients, Whitfield’s book comes in the nick of time. Since all major psychological and psychiatric organizations have shown little interest in defending their members, one fears, however, the wall of denial will prevent effective consideration of the scientific evidence regarding abuse and memories until it is too late.