Because I know there are cases where people have repressed memories of things that were terrible.
But because I also know that there are cases in which the "memories" have been inadvertantly created by a well-meaning therapist. I mean, I grew up in So-Cal during the McMartin Preschool era and watched as people had their lives ripped apart over "memories" created in large part by therapists asking leading questions.
I really don't know what I would say to a friend if s/he came to me and said that that s/he had started to recover memories of sexual abuse and I had not known for a fact that there had been abuse. I really don't.
Ditto this. I watched people I knew well sent to prison during the Wenatchee Child Sex Ring scandal in the mid 90s. I saw families torn apart. And I knew one of the young women whose accusations sent people to prison, including her own parents.
She, to this day, doesn't know what the truth was. She was convinced at the time that what she said about her father was the truth. But now... She's come to realization that she may have destroyed her family over something someone else planted in her brain. And now, she's never going to know.
The daughter of another family was sent to an institution when she wouldn't accuse her parents of sexually molesting her. That doesn't sound very much like they were interested in the truth.
Not hijacking at all. To me, at least, all these subjects are very, very closely related; I don't have the same experiences you do, but those same alarm bells were ringing in my head, too.
I actually deliberated pretty hard over whether to include more about repressed memory therapy, the witch hunts it inspired, and the neuropsychology of memory "recovery"; I decided against it for a number of reasons, but none were based on doubt that the information was important or that it related directly to the topic at hand.
It's kind of scary watching this sort of thing happen around you.
A friend of ours was one of the accusers in a linked case to the BIG case. And we watched her go from being absolutely sure that that was what happened to, "I don't know what's real anymore."
At first you're all supportive, then you start realize that, "Wait, this is not right. This could not have happened like this..." And by that time it's too late.
When some friends of ours went to prison because when they reported one of their foster sons for molesting one of the other foster kids, he turned around and accused them and instead of an actual investigation we saw the witch hunt descend, we all realized, including the first young woman, that this wasn't good, really not good. But when it's happening, it's like "Don't you want to lock up child molesters?" And of course you say, "Yes." Then they just start...
It got real ugly in that town and it still is to an extent. The town is still very divided along "Did they/didn't they?" lines.
Yeah, that letter touched a nerve here, too. I hesitate to respond directly to her as well. She's definitely hurting, but after watching what happened in Wenatchee, WA, and a case in Tacoma where a sherriff's deputy was accused by his adult daughter of performing ritual child sexual abuse on her, I had my doubts. I mean, I have no doubt she's sincere. But... Yeah, what you said.
One of the doctors in the Psych department is the leading expert refuting repressed memories. She is a really interesting (and brave) person.
Yeah, I've got a friend who I have no doubt was at the very least emotionally abused, but the only psych she trusts is doing stuff that seems memory-recovery-ish to me, and it scares the shit out of me.
I mean, I don't know what to think of the blogger at feministing; I don't know her or her situation. But it certainly rings alarm bells.
Memory recovery techniques have...a lot in common with cult-style brainwashing. If your friend isn't totally immersed in this stuff yet, it might be worth giving her some materials on RMT--forewarned, and all...
Recovering repressed memories always can bring out the skeptic in me. Especially when I've read enough to understand how easily it is to create a memory. I also can't help but feel like if someone has repressed memories, perhaps that's where they should stay.
On a different (but somewhat related) note. I got into an argument this weekend about how rape victims react. He was talking about a girl that had showered and washed her clothes and didn't even seem upset...so therefore she must just be trying to get the guy in trouble. That's what he and his wife (who worked at the medical center) thought. I, of course, started a pointed discussion about how there is no "right way" to react or act, but I wondered if since you have more experience/knowledge in this than I do, if you have any good site or stats I could throw at these morons.
I know there are good sites; I don't have the URLs on hand, but I'll see if I can dig them up tonight or tomorrow.
I can also speak from personal experience, as someone who spent four-plus years as a crisis advocate; again, I'll need a bit of time to arrange my thoughts so I can give you something useful and minimally rambly. =)
Good post. Reading wise (theory reading, not psych reading, but very interesting) a good person on this topic is James Kincaid. His books Child-Loving and Erotic Innocence (particularly the later) are about the social construction of childhood along side the construction of modern sexuality. One of the things that he addresses are the ways in which the social narratives we've constructed around child abuse (and the figure of the child itself) make it virtually impossible to write the kind of letter that you've just written, but that that is exactly the reason why it's important to look closely at these narratives. If we live in a society that believes that the only two true answers to "were you abused as a child?" are "yes" and "I don't know," that says a lot more about the ways in which we construct children in relation to sexuality (as so infinitely desirable that someone is always, somewhere, waiting to assault them) than it does about the actual frequency of childhood sexual assault, which is certainly not negligible, but not
( ... )
...the social narratives we've constructed around child abuse (and the figure of the child itself)...Oh, definitely--the whole structure is built on the foundational idea of children's testimony as inviolate (which is then often extended to the testimony of adults' "inner" children, etc.). It's all Rousseau's fault, really
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Apparently when I was a baby, I was happiest when carried around at arms' length. I do *not* envy my parents that particular backache. And M and I have been sharing beds for the better part of a decade and have only comparatively recently started to occasionally be able sleep snuggled or overlapping (as opposed to, say, back-to-back).
It's not even so much that I dislike physical contact than that...I don't know...it overwhelms me easily. It takes a lot of trust for me to be able to relax around someone with whom I'm in physical contact.
Actually, that's one of the reasons I got interested in massage therapy--to me, touch is a big deal, something that can have a lot of impact--positive and negative--and I think that's true for more people than generally acknowledge it. Learning to be touched is as challenging as--if not more challenging than--learning to touch.
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Because I know there are cases where people have repressed memories of things that were terrible.
But because I also know that there are cases in which the "memories" have been inadvertantly created by a well-meaning therapist. I mean, I grew up in So-Cal during the McMartin Preschool era and watched as people had their lives ripped apart over "memories" created in large part by therapists asking leading questions.
I really don't know what I would say to a friend if s/he came to me and said that that s/he had started to recover memories of sexual abuse and I had not known for a fact that there had been abuse. I really don't.
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She, to this day, doesn't know what the truth was. She was convinced at the time that what she said about her father was the truth. But now... She's come to realization that she may have destroyed her family over something someone else planted in her brain. And now, she's never going to know.
The daughter of another family was sent to an institution when she wouldn't accuse her parents of sexually molesting her. That doesn't sound very much like they were interested in the truth.
Sorry, a little bit of hijacking.
The subject still sets off some alarm bells.
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I actually deliberated pretty hard over whether to include more about repressed memory therapy, the witch hunts it inspired, and the neuropsychology of memory "recovery"; I decided against it for a number of reasons, but none were based on doubt that the information was important or that it related directly to the topic at hand.
Reply
A friend of ours was one of the accusers in a linked case to the BIG case. And we watched her go from being absolutely sure that that was what happened to, "I don't know what's real anymore."
At first you're all supportive, then you start realize that, "Wait, this is not right. This could not have happened like this..." And by that time it's too late.
When some friends of ours went to prison because when they reported one of their foster sons for molesting one of the other foster kids, he turned around and accused them and instead of an actual investigation we saw the witch hunt descend, we all realized, including the first young woman, that this wasn't good, really not good. But when it's happening, it's like "Don't you want to lock up child molesters?" And of course you say, "Yes." Then they just start...
It got real ugly in that town and it still is to an extent. The town is still very divided along "Did they/didn't they?" lines.
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One of the doctors in the Psych department is the leading expert refuting repressed memories. She is a really interesting (and brave) person.
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I mean, I don't know what to think of the blogger at feministing; I don't know her or her situation. But it certainly rings alarm bells.
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A really good starting point: http://skepdic.com/repress.html
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On a different (but somewhat related) note. I got into an argument this weekend about how rape victims react. He was talking about a girl that had showered and washed her clothes and didn't even seem upset...so therefore she must just be trying to get the guy in trouble. That's what he and his wife (who worked at the medical center) thought. I, of course, started a pointed discussion about how there is no "right way" to react or act, but I wondered if since you have more experience/knowledge in this than I do, if you have any good site or stats I could throw at these morons.
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I can also speak from personal experience, as someone who spent four-plus years as a crisis advocate; again, I'll need a bit of time to arrange my thoughts so I can give you something useful and minimally rambly. =)
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It's not even so much that I dislike physical contact than that...I don't know...it overwhelms me easily. It takes a lot of trust for me to be able to relax around someone with whom I'm in physical contact.
Actually, that's one of the reasons I got interested in massage therapy--to me, touch is a big deal, something that can have a lot of impact--positive and negative--and I think that's true for more people than generally acknowledge it. Learning to be touched is as challenging as--if not more challenging than--learning to touch.
Reply
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