Recovered Memory Therapy: Responses to All

Abstract

I am pleased at the extent of response to my article. I believe that the issue of recovery work is an important one that deserves careful discussion in our profession, and I thank my colleagues who have replied to this article for their part in further developing this discussion. James Lein Lein said that my article should be considered in the context of the positions of an organization not discussed in my article, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF). I confess that I do not understand the relevance of Lein's discussion of the FMSF to my discussion. My article was not intended to be reflective of the positions of the FMSF. For the record, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. positions of the FMSF are not relevant to the validity or invalidity of my arguments. Lein implied that research is exclusively used in trials to discredit women who have recovered of sexual abuse. However, research frequently is used in the courts on behalf of women and children who have brought actions against their therapists for professional malpractice (Alkon, 1997; Associated Press, 1996; Gregory, 1997; Gustafson, 1996a, 1996b; Jones, 1997; Yapko, 1994). Lein implied a straw man argument by asking, Is a false because it is not totally complete, down to the tedious details, or because it contains inaccuracies? This was not what I said. I said that recovery techniques may lead to recovery of accurate [but] they can also result in the recovery of distorted or wholly constructed memories (Stocks, 1998, p. 431) and that there are no procedures that have been demonstrated to reliably distinguish confabulations from accurate memories (p. 431). Lein was correct that a is not necessarily false because of inaccuracies in details. However, it is just as correct that such a is not necessarily true either. Lein missed the point when he characterized my article as advocating the assiduous avoidance of abuse memories. I did not take such a position. well-supported position of my article was that recovery techniques recover confabulations as well as accurate and that there is no way to distinguish between them. warning in the article was that recovery techniques are procedures that entail documented risks without balancing benefits. His quotation of LeDoux (1992) was misleading. It did not refer, as Lein states, to memories, but rather memories. entire sentence reads: findings suggest that are indelible and normally maintained by subcortical circuits involving the (p. 280). These are not of events, but rather of responses to events. Earlier in the article, LeDoux noted that the amygdala generates responses based on features of the event rather than the total event. The responses and established would therefore not necessarily correspond to the ongoing conscious perceptions of the individual (p. 277). It is not necessarily the case that an emotional memory would lead to a correct narrative memory. As soon as we talk about an memory, it is transcribed into the declarative system and is subject to social influence. This opens the door to distortion and confabulation. Lein ended his reply with a quotation from Karon and Widener (1997) that purported to provide evidence that recovery techniques can lead to remission of symptoms. article dealt with the treatment of war neuroses during World War II. However, an evaluation of Karon and Widener's sources did not support the contention that recovery work helped war neurosis patients. Many, if not most, of the cases did not involve repressed memories of the traumatic incident. Most of the sources were descriptive of war neuroses rather than evaluative of treatment. …