Memories Of Childhood Sexual Abuse Research Articles

Linking thought suppression and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

There are two types of recovered memories: those that gradually return in recovered memory therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered outside the context of therapy. In the current study, we employed a thought suppression paradigm, with autobiographical experiences as target thoughts, to test whether individuals reporting spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) are more adept at suppressing positive and anxious autobiographical thoughts, relative to individuals reporting CSA memories recovered in therapy, relative to individuals with continuous abuse memories, and relative to controls reporting no history of abuse. Results showed that people reporting spontaneously recovered memories are superior in suppressing anxious autobiographical thoughts, both in the short term and long term (7 days). Our findings may partly explain why people with spontaneous CSA memories have the subjective impression that they have "repressed" their CSA memories for many years.

Postscript: Evidence and counterevidence.

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The Social Logic of “False Memories”: Symbolic Awakenings and Symbolic Worlds in Survivor and Retractor Narratives

Taking an interactionist, narrative approach to psychology's “memory wars,” I analyze the accounts of self‐identified survivors of childhood sexual abuse (traditionally emphasized by “recovered” memory advocates) and the accounts of retractors—those who reject their former memories of childhood sexual abuse (traditionally emphasized by “false” memory advocates). Although typically held to be oppositional, both groups conform to similar patterns of storytelling. Both survivors and retractors use scripted symbolic awakenings to account for their past mnemonic “errors” and their more recent discovery of “truth.” Such symbolic awakenings are important mechanisms of mnemonic and autobiographical revision. Further, both groups use vocabularies of cognitive constraint to claim that cognitive authority figures once controlled their ability to interpret and remember their experiences. I approach the question of childhood sexual abuse and memory with attention to the distinctly social influences on cognition. I argue that the experiences of recovering and retracting memories involve similar social processes of remembering and storytelling.

Dispelling Confusion About Traumatic Dissociative Amnesia

How survivors of trauma remember--or forget--their most terrifying experiences lies at the core of one of the most bitter controversies in psychiatry and psychology: the debate regarding repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. Most experts hold that traumatic events--those experienced as overwhelmingly terrifying and often life-threatening--are remembered very well; however, traumatic dissociative amnesia theorists disagree. Although acknowledging that traumatic events are usually memorable, these theorists nevertheless claim that a sizable minority of survivors are incapable of remembering their trauma. That is, the memory is stored but dissociated (or "repressed") from awareness. However, the evidence that these theorists adduce in support of the concept of traumatic dissociative amnesia is subject to other, more plausible interpretations. The purpose of this review is to dispel confusion regarding the controversial notion of dissociated (or repressed) memory for trauma and to show how people can recall memories of long-forgotten sexual abuse without these memories first having been repressed.

Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

The study explored types of memory for childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in a clinical sample of 30 women and identified factors that led some women (n = 24) to report recovered memories. Questionnaires produced three types of memory: always (n = 6), recovered (n = 14), both (n = 10); however, analysis of narrative data also revealed the use of language that could not be categorized into discrete types. Recovered memories were linked to three categories of experience (cumulative reactions, atypical reactions, and atypical experiences). Subcategories identified specific contexts associated with those experiences. Findings suggest that further research is needed on the phenomenology of memory experiences using language derived from CSA survivors and a better understanding of the long-term process of interpretations of key experiences that result in reports of recovered memories.

The Reality of Recovered Memories

Although controversy surrounds the relative authenticity of discontinuous versus continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), little is known about whether such memories differ in their likelihood of corroborative evidence. Individuals reporting CSA memories were interviewed, and two independent raters attempted to find corroborative information for the allegations. Continuous CSA memories and discontinuous memories that were unexpectedly recalled outside therapy were more likely to be corroborated than anticipated discontinuous memories recovered in therapy. Evidence that suggestion during therapy possibly mediates these differences comes from the additional finding that individuals who recalled the memories outside therapy were markedly more surprised at the existence of their memories than were individuals who initially recalled the memories in therapy. These results indicate that discontinuous CSA memories spontaneously retrieved outside of therapy may be accurate, while implicating expectations arising from suggestions during therapy in producing false CSA memories.

Autobiographical memory, eyewitness reports, and public policy.

Abstract In the first part of this article I summarize the source-monitoring perspective on the cognitive processes involved in differentiating between mental events from different sources (e.g., of what one witnessed during a crime versus of what one later heard a cowitness describe). In the middle section of the article I consider, from the perspective of the source-monitoring framework, four issues pertaining to remembering in forensic situations: 1) adults' memory reports, 2) children's memory reports, 3) recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, and 4) eyewitnesses' suspect-identification decisions. I then comment briefly on research psychologists as expert witnesses before offering some concluding comments. None of our worldly possessions rivals the value and utility of our of our own personal past. We would quite literally be lost without them. And autobiographical memory pops up frequently in applied domains. Consider, for example, the autobiographical memory questions that health care providers routinely pose to their patients (e.g., many servings of fruits and vegetables do you eat in a typical day? was the last time you had a cold or the flu? long have you had that cough?). Similarly, journalists often ask politicians to remember their past behaviours and knowledge states (e.g., did the Prime Minister know and when did she/he know it?), and consumer scientists often ask people questions about their prior experiences of shopping for or using various products. Likewise, studies of such public policy issues as voting behaviour or financial expenditures are, in essence, tests of autobiographical memory. (see chapters in Durso et al.'s Handbook of Applied Cognition, 1999, for discussions of research and theory pertaining to memory in a wide variety of applied domains, many of which have public policy implications.) Below I first provide a sketch of a theoretical perspective on autobiographical memory (namely, the source monitoring framework of Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). I then consider, from the perspective of that framework, four issues pertaining to remembering in forensic situations: 1) adults' memory reports, 2) children's memory reports, 3) recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, and 4) eyewitnesses' suspect-identification decisions. After these capsule reviews, I comment on research psychologists as expert witnesses, then close with some concluding comments. A Source-Monitoring Perspective on Autobiographical Memory When you were a child, were you ever bitten by a dog? If so, take a moment to recall as much as you can about that event. Can you see the surroundings? What did the dog look like, and how did it come to bite you? Do you remember sounds, such as the dog snarling or yourself screaming? Smells? Can you remember the pain of the bite itself, or your emotional reaction at the time? What were you wearing? Can you recollect anything about what was going on 24 hours before the dog bit you? Whose dog was it? (If you were never bitten by a dog, you can do the same exercise with any other memorable one-off event, such as breaking a bone or winning a prize.) As Tulving (2002) has pointed out, autobiographical reminiscence can be described as mental time travel, with the rememberer transported into the past to re-experience, albeit only partially, a moment of his or her personal history. How do we accomplish this feat? Human memory has been studied at various levels of analysis and with diverse methodological tools for a century or so, but we are still far short of a complete understanding of how it works. Yet we have learned a good deal along the way, much of it at odds with lay intuitions. For example, lay people sometimes describe as though they were sensurround videotapes, with each experience stored on its own cassette and housed in a vast autobiographical library. From this perspective, although it is sometimes difficult to locate a tape and details may become blurred with the passage of time, a unitized record of each experience is in principle available for playback (for a discussion of metaphors of memory, see Roediger, 1980. …

Delayed recall of childhood sexual abuse memories and the awakening rise and diurnal pattern of cortisol

Traumatic stress associated with childhood sexual abuse (CSA) may result in chronic alterations of stress-sensitive neurochemical systems (e.g., the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis and sympathetic–adrenal medullary activity). Some authors have suggested that these alterations might help explain why some individuals, after a period of inability to remember, demonstrate delayed recall of CSA memories (i.e., “recovered” memories). The present study is the first study that explored morning cortisol responses and circadian cortisol profiles among women with recovered ( n = 7), repressed ( n = 8), or continuous ( n = 6) memories of CSA and women without a history of CSA ( n = 9). Although there were group differences in current depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms, we found no differences in cortisol awakening response or daytime profile between women reporting recovered, repressed, or continuous memories of CSA as compared to women without a history of CSA. Implications for neurobiological models intended to explain the delayed recall of CSA are discussed.

Effects of prior knowledge and expert statement on belief in recovered memories: An international perspective

We tested the hypothesis that beliefs in the purported attributes of recovered memories of child sexual abuse (CSA) are associated with knowledge of the “recovered/false memory debate”, and that such beliefs will be related to assessments of the credibility of statements made by participants in a vignette about CSA. Participants from five countries (the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Israel) responded to a questionnaire regarding beliefs about recovered memory as well as self-reported exposure to and knowledge of the debate. In addition, they assessed the credibility of statements made by a daughter (reporting recovery of memories of sexual abuse by her father), her father (denying the allegation and accusing the daughter's therapist of implanting in her false “memories” of abuse), and two experts (each supporting one of the two protagonists). We found that prior knowledge of the debate across countries was linked to beliefs in specific attributes of recovered memories and to a subset of the credibility assessments of statements made by the protagonists and their experts. For individuals, however, credibility assessments were unrelated to knowledge of the debate, but they were related to beliefs about memory recovery. Finally, credibility of the protagonists' statements was differentially associated with those made by the daughter's and the father's experts. The results suggest that whereas familiarity with the debate does not affect the credibility of the statements made by the complainant and the accused, expert testimony does, as has been found in prior research. The psycholegal implications of this conclusion are discussed.

Recovered Memory Debate Revisited: Practice Implications for Mental Health Counselors

With the high incidence of childhood sexual abuse and the attendant serious negative consequences resulting from it clearly documented, there is a high probability that many mental health counselors will at some point in their career provide treatment to members of this population. Since memory retrieval is an integral part of the treatment protocol when working with such clients, it is imperative that clinicians have a good understanding of the controversy over recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. This article revisits the controversy, provides a detailed discussion of the issues involved, and offers practice implications for mental health counselors.

RETHINKING AGENCY IN MEMORY: SPACE AND EMBODIMENT IN MEMORIES OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

Contemporary ‘forensic’ models of memory emphasise the need for continuity and stability in relation to self‐hood and identity and attention can be too readily focussed upon the ‘literal’ and ‘accurate’ recollections of past events. Such concerns, however, neglect the practical uses of remembering in specific contexts and moments in time. Attending to these practical uses of memory can enable a reading of the contradictory positions and ambivalences experienced by individuals aiming to make sense of a complex set of memories of child sexual abuse. Part of the reason these memories are experienced as highly complex is related to the ways in which such memories hold survivors accountable for not only the past, but present sexual actions, where management of choices take place. Drawing on Haaken's feminist transformative model of memory and Halbwach's ideas on group membership, we argue for a reworking of remembering by inviting an engagement with its relational, practical and collective qualities. Issues surrounding the organisation of social spaces in negotiating choices and agency, the localised contexts of remembering and the way in which the body is called on to manage these issues will form the basis of the analysis. Specific attention will also be given to how the past and present interrelate with regard to the management of adult survivor identities.

Forgetting of Prior Remembering in Persons Reporting Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Case studies of individuals reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse suggest that some overestimate their prior forgetting of the abuse. People reporting recovered or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse and control subjects reporting no history of abuse participated in two experiments examining this "forgot it all along" phenomenon. Participants in Experiment 1 were more likely to forget that they had previously recalled a studied item if they were cued to think of it differently on two recall tests than if they were cued to think of it in the same way on the two tests. This effect was stronger for recovered-memory participants than for continuous-memory and control participants. In Experiment 2, participants recalled autobiographical events three times over a period of 4 months. Much as in Experiment 1, they underestimated prior remembering when the events had been recalled in a different emotional frame (positive vs. negative) on the previous occasion. This underestimation was more pronounced for recovered-memory participants than for continuous-memory and control participants.

Imagination and memory: Does imagining implausible events lead to false autobiographical memories?

Previous studies have reported that imagination can induce false autobiographical memories. This finding has been used to suggest that psychotherapists who have clients imagine suspected repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse may, in fact, be inducing false memories for the imagined events. In this study, at Time 1 and then, 2 weeks later, at Time 2, 145 subjects rated each of 20 events on the Life Events Inventory as to whether each had occurred to them in childhood. One week after Time 1, the subjects were told that 2 target events were plausible and 2 were implausible. They were then asked to imagine 1 plausible and 1 implausible target event. Plausibility and imagining interacted to affect occurrence ratings; whereas imagining plausible events increased the change in occurrence ratings, imagining implausible events had no effect on occurrence ratings.

“No Truth Machine”: Law, Psychoanalysis, Uncertainty

Both law and psychoanalysis make certain truth claims. This essay considers instances in which each has evaluated the truth claims of the other and found them wanting. The essay begins by looking at legal materials and commentaries surrounding repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse and the therapies in which such memories come to light. Many of these materials contrast psychoanalytic knowledge to legal knowledge, locating speculation and potentially dangerous uncertainty in the former. Yet courts and others employ notable analogies between legal and psychoanalytic processes while simultaneously insisting on their incommensurability. Following an analysis of this tension, particularly as it plays out in one recent case, the essay turns to Freud's 1906 lecture on the usefulness of psychoanalytic techniques to legal proceedings and their search for facts. Freud, too, makes his case through a tenuous analogy between law and psychoanalysis. While courts and others may see the two as antagonistic, Freud imagines his own field as indispensable to law in enabling it to exploit the unconscious in the service of fact. Thus each field lays claim to truths that appear to elude the other, simultaneously perceiving in the other field a precarious likeness of itself.

Autobiographical memory specificity in adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse

Some psychotherapists believe that adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) are characterised by memory deficits for their childhood. Using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), we asked nonabused control participants and participants who reported either continuous, recovered, or repressed memories of CSA to retrieve a specific personal memory in response to either positive or negative cue words from either childhood or adolescence/adulthood. The results indicated that participants who believed they harboured repressed memories of abuse tended to exhibit the greatest difficulty retrieving specific memories from their childhood. Neither posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nor major depression was related to diminished memory specificity.

Dissociative symptoms and how they relate to fantasy proneness in women reporting repressed or recovered memories

Women with repressed or recovered memories have raised levels of dissociative symptoms. There are two interpretations of this. One emphasizes the defensive function of dissociation, while the other emphasizes the overlap between dissociation and fantasy proneness. This study aimed to investigate these two interpretations. Women with repressed ( n = 16), recovered ( n = 23), and continuous memories ( n = 55) of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and control participants ( n = 20) completed measures of self-reported childhood trauma, depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, dissociation, and fantasy proneness. Women reporting repressed, recovered, and continuous CSA memories did not differ in self-reported childhood trauma, depression, and trait anxiety, but all scored significantly higher on these measures than the control group. However, contrast analyses revealed that women reporting repressed and recovered CSA memories also scored higher on dissociation than did those reporting either continuous CSA memories or no history of abuse. Our results further revealed that women who report CSA memories, whether repressed, recovered or continuous, have raised fantasy proneness levels. Hence, we found no support for the idea that dissociative symptoms can be fully accounted for by fantasy proneness.

Symptom overreporting and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse.

The authenticity of recovered memories is a much debated issue. Surprisingly, no study has systematically looked at symptom overreporting in people claiming recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). In a first sample we administered the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) to individuals who said they had recovered CSA memories (n=66), individuals who said their CSA had always been accessible (continuous CSA memory group; n=119), and controls who said they had no CSA experiences (n=83). In a second sample individuals reporting recovered (n=45) or continuous (n=45) CSA memories completed the Morel Emotional Numbing Test (MENT). Our aim was to compare these groups with regard to their tendency to overreport symptoms. The results indicate that people with recovered memories do not score higher on the SIMS and the MENT than other CSA survivors suggesting that symptom overreporting is not typical for people reporting recovered memories.

I haven't thought about this for years! Dating recent recalls of vivid memories

In three studies, we examined memories for previous recall. In Studies 1 and 2, undergraduates were asked whether they had vivid memories about various childhood events. After a one-hour (Study 1) or 2-week (Study 2) interval, they completed a second questionnaire containing new, but also previously presented childhood items. Participants estimated how recently they had thought about old and new items. A non-trivial proportion of recent recalls of vivid childhood memories was dated incorrectly. In Study 3, women with recovered and continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) completed the childhood events questionnaires used in studies 1 and 2. After a one-hour interval, they indicated how recently they had thought about new, but also previously presented childhood items. Compared to women with continuous CSA memories, women with recovered memories underestimated their prior remembering. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Clinical characteristics of adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse.

The authors assessed women and men who either reported continuous memories of their childhood sexual abuse (CSA, n = 92), reported recovering memories of CSA (n = 38), reported believing they harbored repressed memories of CSA (n = 42), or reported never having been sexually abused (n = 36). Men and women were indistinguishable on all clinical and psychometric measures. The 3 groups that reported abuse scored similarly on measures of anxiety, depression, dissociation, and absorption. These groups also scored higher than the control group. Inconsistent with betrayal trauma theory, recovered memory participants were not more likely to report abuse by a parent or stepparent than were continuous memory participants. Rates of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder did not differ between the continuous and recovered memory groups.

Considerations for experts in assessing the credibility of recovered memories of child sexual abuse: The importance of maintaining a case-specific focus.

In this article, the authors argue that a variety of psychological factors stand in the way of providing expert advice to the courts in terms of assessing the credibility of a complainant’s account of sexual abuse when there is a significant delay in reporting. These include difficulties in assessing (a) the complainant’s account of how he or she claims to have remembered or forgotten the abuse, (b) whether (and how) the claim of abuse originated within a therapeutic setting, and (c) the difficulty of generalizing from empirical evidence. It is argued that all of these issues can be more easily avoided if experts maintain a case-specific focus. In this article, the authors review both the psychological and legal controversies surrounding the false‐recovered memory debate, discuss how courts approach the admissibility and use of recovered memory testimony, and conclude that expert witnesses should carefully consider the above points before drawing general conclusions from the literature and applying them to individual cases.