Memories Of Childhood Sexual Abuse Research Articles

The Effects of Memory Recovery Techniques on Jurors’ Perceptions of Recovered Memories

<p>The current study examined the impact of memory recovery techniques (guided imagery and dream interpretation) on mock jurors’ perceptions of recovered memories. Participants (<em>N</em> = 181) were randomly assigned to read one of four vignettes representing a therapist who uncovered memories of child sexual abuse in an adult female client using guided imagery, dream interpretation, technique concealed, or memories were continuous as opposed to recovered. Participants then responded to a series of questions regarding plaintiff credibility, defendant guilt, and external influences. Lower ratings of plaintiff credibility and defendant guilt emerged, along with higher ratings of external influence when guided imagery or dream interpretation was used by the therapist compared to when the technique was concealed. The same pattern of findings held when the dependent variables of interest reflected <em>credible vs. not credible</em> and <em>guilty vs. not guilty</em> decisions. The current study highlights the necessity of informing jurors as to the processes by which memories are recovered.</p>

“As Time Went On, I Just Forgot About It”: Thematic Analysis of Spontaneous Disclosures of Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

This study was a thematic analysis of transcripts of interviews of child sexual abuse survivors discussing their experiences of recovered memories. This study included 27 English-speaking participants from 3 major Canadian cities: Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa. Seven participants identified as male and 20 as female. Participants ranged in age from 31 to 69 with a mean age of 47. The educational background of participants ranged from 9th grade to doctoral levels. Out of the sample of 27, 21 participants reported some period of amnesia for their CSA experiences. Three primary global themes emerged in the transcripts of participants describing adult emergent recovered memories: flashbacks, triggers, and denial. Three global themes emerged in the transcripts of participants describing partially discontinuous memories: dreams/nightmares as the “how” of memory recovery, triggers, and active processes of forgetting.

Memory for Childhood Sexual Abuse Can Be Shaped by Social Conversations: A Commentary on Fagin, Cyr, and Hirst

SummaryConversations can affect memory, including victims' memories of childhood sexual abuse. As reviewed by Fagin, Cyr, and Hirst, victims disclose different types of information to different audiences. This in turn affects their memory of the abuse; the discussed details are reinforced and the related, but not discussed, details are forgotten. The current commentary extends these arguments in three ways. First, it is important to note that not all victims disclose their abuse, and thus, not all victims are subject to conversational influences. Second, when victims disclose their abuse they may also experience verbal overshadowing effects, exhibiting impaired recall for the discussed perceptual details. Finally, when disclosing their abuse victims sometimes have conversational goals other than accuracy. Depending upon the audience victims may exaggerate details or focus on how they emotionally responded. These decisions also have memorial consequences; people remember and believe what they said rather than what they experienced. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Expert Testimony Influences Juror Decisions in Criminal Trials Involving Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

We examined the impact of expert witness orientation (researcher or clinical practitioner) and type of testimony (testimony for the prosecution, defense, both prosecution and defense, or no testimony) on mock jurors’ decisions in a sexual abuse trial. Participants acted as mock jurors on a sexual abuse criminal trial based on recovered memory that included expert witness testimony. Results showed that expert witness testimony provided by a researcher did not impact mock jurors’ guilt ratings any differently than the expert witness testimony provided by a clinical practitioner. However, type of testimony had a significant effect on jurors’ guilt ratings such that jurors who read only defense or only prosecution testimony made decisions favoring the relevant side.

Memory Disorders in the Law Courts

This paper reviews the ways in which memory disorders and memory distortions arise in the criminal courts. Amnesia for offences is considered in terms of automatisms, alcohol, and crimes of passion. False memories arise in false confessions, allegations of false memory for child sexual abuse, and, just occasionally, with respect to delusional memories. More generally, memory and neuropsychiatric disorders may have implications at each stage of the legal process (fitness to plead, the insanity defence, cases of automatism, diminished responsibility, and at sentencing). However, patients with memory and neuropsychiatric disorders remain very vulnerable within legal and court processes.

Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse: The Unconscious Strikes Back or Therapist-Induced Madness?

(1994). Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse: The Unconscious Strikes Back or Therapist-Induced Madness? Annual Review of Sex Research: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 101-121.

The classification of recovered memories: A cautionary note

Traditionally, recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) have been classified as those emerging spontaneously versus those surfacing during the course of suggestive therapy. There are indications that reinterpretation of memories might be a third route to recovered memories. Thus, recovered memories do not form a homogeneous category. Nevertheless, the conceptual distinctions between the various types of recovered memories remain difficult for researchers and clinicians. With this in mind, the current study explored whether recovered memories can be reliably classified. We found that classification is rather problematic in a subset of cases. To reduce potential bias, we urge for the development and subsequent use of a more reliable classification system and multiple expert raters in research on recovered memories.

Psychogenic amnesia for childhood sexual abuse and risk for sexual revictimisation in both adolescence and adulthood

This study was an investigation of the additional risk conferred by the experience of psychogenic amnesia for memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) on the likelihood of becoming a victim of sexual assault in later life. A total of 210 community respondents completed a retrospective web-based trauma survey. The majority of respondents were female (74.3%) and their ages ranged from 16 to 65 years, with a mean age of 33 years. Chi-squared analysis revealed that survivors of CSA demonstrated significantly greater risk (58%, χ2 = 44.461, p = 0.0005) of experiencing sexual assault in adolescence in comparison with their non-abused counterparts (13%). Furthermore, survivors who reported having been amnesic for their abuse-related memories demonstrated a higher rate of adolescent revictimisation (86%) than survivors who had retained continuous memories of their victimisation (48%, χ2 = 8.626, p = 0.003). Overall, once-amnesic survivors of CSA demonstrated 6.6 times the risk of sexual assault and an eight-fold risk for rape during adolescence in comparison with their non-abused counterparts. It is proposed that the elevated risk conferred by amnesia for CSA might be mediated by two distinct pathways, both of which are associated with the use of dissociation as a defence mechanism.

Documenting The Paedophile: Virtual White Men In The Era Of Recovered Memory

Abstract This essay argues that Andrew Jarecki's 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans is part of a larger recent film trend in which remembered scenes of adult/child sex are used to reconfigure the meaning of white masculinity. In several recent films, memories of child sexual predators emerge on screen in scenes best described as 'virtual'. In particular, the white paedophile appears in liminal filmic spaces that replace historically specific reference points with the virtual codes of an explicitly technologically mediated reality. Building on theories of virtuality developed by Katherine Hayles and Brian Massumi, this essay argues that the white paedophile technologically re-mediates residual forms of while masculinity and refunctions them for the era of neo-liberalism. Jarecki's Oscar-nominated documentary best reveals the technological relations through which the white paedophile appears as the virtual image of a neoliberal 'real', part of a visual code of memory produced for what Stuart Hall calls new times. Keywords Paedophile; sexuality; memory; virtuality; film; documentary; masculinity; whiteness; Andrew Jarecki; Capturing the Friedmans Every time you think you have the truth in this film it sort of slithers away down some corridor and suddenly you're left wondering again. I felt that was one of the things that had to come across about the film, was how hard it was to find the truth, how hard it is to find the truth, how our memories change over time to suit our needs. You know, we think we put our memories away in a box and we can go check on them later and they'll be the same; they're never the same, they're just these electro-chemical bubbles that continue to bubble over time. Andrew Jarecki, Interview with Charlie Rose (24 June 2003). Many critics argue that we are in ait era defined by memory. The post- 1945 period is marked by a generalised trauma culture, one that has produced what Eric Santner calls a 'rhetoric of mourning' iterated as 'shattering, rupture, mutilation, fragmentation, to images of fissures, wounds, rifts, gaps, and abysses'.1 This insight is echoed by such diverse critics as Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman, Ian Hacking, and Andreas Huyssen, each of whom posits a turn toward memory as the historical discourse of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.2 Film critics have also noted a marked memory turn in the cinema of this era, particularly in films treating crises in white masculine authority in the United States. In films like Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000) and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), memory becomes the vehicle through which such authority crises are introduced, negotiated and resolved into new forms of white masculine identity. What is less frequently noted however is a peculiar subset of the new memory genre: films treating haunting memories of childhood sexual abuse. In films such as Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Gregg Aiaki s Mysterious Skin (2004), and Nicole Kassell's The Woodsman (2004), memories of child sexual abuse repeatedly return prototypical white men to scenes of a specifically sexual vulnerability. This condition of vulnerability is then resolved cinematically, through the crafting of the white 'paedophile' as both sexual type (empirically distinguishable from normal men) and virtual image (outside the representation of either past or present). Memory is yoked to a regime of what Katherine Hayles and Brian Massumi theorise as 'virtuality,' allowing the white paedophile to emerge as the vehicle for the reformation of troubled white masculinity as well as the medium for new technological relations of reality associated with neoliberalism. This essay focuses on Jarecki's 2003 documentary Capturing the Friedmans, arguing that this Oscar-nominated documentary best reveals the technological relations through which the white paedophile appears as the virtual image of a neoliberal 'real', part of a signature visual code in what I call memory for new times. …

From the archive: ‘Psychotherapy and memories of childhood sexual abuse: A cognitive perspective’ by D. S. Lindsay & J. D. Read (1994). Applied Cognitive Psychology, 8, 281–338 with commentary

AbstractCognitive psychological research on the fallibility of human memory is reviewed, focusing on evidence of memory distortions and illusions, with the aim of sharing research on memory with clinical psychologists and practitioners who use memory recovery techniques to help clients recover memories of suspected childhood sexual abuse. The authors' review of the memory literature suggested that incautious use of memory recovery techniques may lead some adult clients who were not abused to come to believe that they were. They consider current methods of assessing whether or not clients have repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse and techniques to minimise the risk of creating illusory memories or beliefs.

From the archive: ‘Testimony and evidence: A scientific case study of memory for child sexual abuse’ by S. Bidrose & G. S. Goodman (2000). Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14, 197–213 with commentary

AbstractOver the past 25 years, Applied Cognitive Psychology had been an outlet for research that is both theoretically strong and has important applied implications. There are many articles during my tenure as Editor that reflect these qualities. However, one of the papers that I continue to be impressed with is this paper. In this study ‐ much like Neisser's (1981) case study of John Dean ‐ the authors compared the testimony of four girls regarding their alleged sexual abuse, with actual documentary evidence recorded by the leader of a ‘sex ring’. Approximately 80% of the girls' allegations were confirmed. This study is noteworthy because it provides real‐world data that addresses compelling questions regarding the reliability of children's abuse memories.

Autobiographical memory specificity among people with recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

Individuals who report to have recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) almost by definition believe that these memories were previously inaccessible for them. We examined whether poor autobiographical memory specificity for all kinds of events (i.e., events not necessarily related to CSA) may underlie such impressions of amnesia. Thus, we examined whether people who report recovered memories of CSA ( n = 44) would exhibit more difficulty retrieving specific autobiographical memories compared to people who never forgot their abuse experiences (continuous memory group; n = 42) and people without a history of abuse (controls; n = 26). The standard Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) was administered to these 3 groups along with measures of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology. Controls were significantly better at retrieving specific autobiographical memories relative to individuals with continuous and recovered CSA memories, who did not differ from each other. Thus, reduced autobiographical memory specificity was not particularly pronounced in people with recovered memories of CSA. Poor autobiographical memory specificity is unlikely to explain the impression of amnesia reported by this group.

Failing to report details of an event: A review of the directed forgetting procedure and applications to reports of childhood sexual abuse

Recent reviews of child sexual abuse (CSA) disclosure indicate that many victims delay disclosing abuse for some period of time (e.g., London, Bruck, Ceci, & Shuman, 2005). During this period of non-disclosure, CSA victims may avoid thinking about or discussing their abuse experiences. Some scholars argue that this may lead to a directed forgetting (DF) effect, whereby later recall of the unrehearsed memories becomes more difficult (e.g., M. A. Epstein & Bottoms, 2002). This paper reviews the DF literature and discusses the potential contribution of DF to silence. The review begins with a description of the basic DF protocol used, discusses underlying mechanisms thought to be responsible for the DF effect, and then examines applications of the DF protocol to memory for emotion-laden word lists and autobiographical events. Overall, the applied studies demonstrate that DF effects generalise beyond memory for innocuous word lists; however, we describe several important avenues of research that require further exploration. Most noteworthy, and particularly relevant to the common application of DF to memory for CSA, are those studies that examine the influence of DF on children's autobiographical memory.

Expert testimony in recovered memory trials: Effects on mock jurors' opinions, deliberations and verdicts

AbstractThe current study examined the impact of adversarial expert testimony on deliberations and verdicts in a mock trial involving recovered memories of child sexual abuse. Participants (N = 238) were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions in a 2 (Defense Expert: absent or present) × 3 (Plaintiff Expert: absent, general or specific/therapist) factorial design. After reading the mock trial transcript, participants completed a questionnaire and deliberated to reach a jury verdict. The defense expert's statements effectively reduced the number of pro‐plaintiff verdicts and the plaintiff's credibility. These effects were not mitigated by the plaintiff experts, suggesting that the plaintiff experts may only confirm jurors' prior pro‐repression beliefs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A New Solution to the Recovered Memory Debate.

The controversy regarding recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been characterized by two perspectives. According to one perspective, some people repress their memories of abuse because these experiences have been so emotionally traumatic, and they become capable of recalling the CSA only when it is psychologically safe to do so many years later. According to the other perspective, many reports of recovered memories of sexual abuse are false memories, often inadvertently fostered by therapists. In this article, we provide evidence for a third interpretation that applies to a subset of people reporting recollections of CSA; it does not require the concepts of repression, trauma, or false memory. These people did not experience their CSA as traumatic; they either failed to think about their abuse for years or forgot their previous recollections, and they recalled their CSA spontaneously after encountering reminders outside of psychotherapy. Their recovered memories are corroborated at the same rate as those of people who never forgot their abuse. Hence, recalling CSA after many years is not the same thing as having recalled a previously repressed memory of trauma.

The Recovered Memory Controversy: A Representative Case Study

The recovered memory controversy has been an ongoing debate within the mental health profession for the past two decades. Disagreement remains in the field over the veracity of “forgotten” memories of childhood sexual abuse that are recalled or recovered during therapy. At the heart of the controversy are the concepts of repression and dissociation as well as the impact traumatizing events have on the encoding of memory. This article provides an overview of the central factors in the longstanding debate and presents a detailed clinical case study involving independent corroboration of memories of childhood sexual abuse recovered during treatment, which the author believes provides additional support for the potential veracity of recovered memories.

Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Recovered-Memory Experiences of Childhood Sexual Abuse

People sometimes report recovering long-forgotten memories of childhood sexual abuse. The memory mechanisms that lead to such reports are not well understood, and the authenticity of recovered memories has often been challenged. We identified two subgroups of people reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. These subgroups differed dramatically in their cognitive profiles: People who recovered memories of abuse through suggestive therapy exhibited a heightened susceptibility to the construction of false memories, but showed no tendency to underestimate their prior remembering. Conversely, people who recovered memories of abuse spontaneously showed a heightened proneness to forget prior incidences of remembering, but exhibited no increased susceptibility to false memories. This double dissociation points to mechanisms that underlie recovered-memory experiences and indicates that recovered memories may at times be fictitious and may at other times be authentic.

Response: Most people who think that they are likely to enter psychotherapy also think it is plausible that they could have forgotten their own memories of childhood sexual abuse

Pezdek and Blandon-Gitlin (in press) found that 25% of their participants reported as plausible or very plausible that they themselves could have been a victim of childhood sexual abuse without being able to remember it. In addition, they found that the 25% figure increased to 61% for participants who reported that they were likely at some point in their life to seek psychotherapy. Given past work showing that it is easier to implant a false memory for plausible events, and counter to Pezdek and Blandon-Gitlin's conclusions, these data point to a substantial danger of implanting false memories of childhood sexual abuse during therapy in many people and in most people who are likely to go into therapy. Theoretical issues regarding plausibility are discussed.

Recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: Current findings and their legal implications

Recent research on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has shown that there are at least two types of recovered memory experiences: those that are gradually recovered within the context of suggestive therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered, without extensive prompting or explicit attempts to reconstruct the past. By focusing on well‐known imperfections of human memory, we were able to find differing origins for these recovered memory experiences, with people recovering memories through suggestive therapy being more prone to forming false memories, and with people reporting spontaneously recovered memories being more prone to forgetting prior incidences of remembering. Moreover, the two types of recovered memory reports are associated with differences in corroborative evidence, suggesting that memories recovered spontaneously, outside of suggestive therapy, are more likely to correspond to genuine abuse events. In this paper, we summarize recent research on recovered memories and we argue that these scientific findings should be applied in the justice system, but also in clinical practice.

Prevalence and correlates of sleep paralysis in adults reporting childhood sexual abuse

Sleep paralysis (SP) occurs when rapid eye movement (REM) activity and concomitant paralysis of the skeletal muscles persist as an individual awakens and becomes conscious of his/her surroundings. SP is often accompanied by frightening hallucinations that some researchers suggest may be confounded with memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA; [McNally, R. J., & Clancy, S. A. (2005). Sleep paralysis in adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 19, 595–602]). The purpose of this study was to evaluate relationships between CSA and SP. Based on self-report, participants ( n = 263) were categorized into three CSA groups: confirmed, unconfirmed, or no history of CSA. Relative to participants reporting no CSA history, those reporting CSA reported more frequent and more distressing episodes of SP. Post hoc analyses revealed that participants with clinically significant post-traumatic symptoms (irrespective of CSA history) also reported more frequent and more distressing episodes of SP. Significant correlations were found among SP indices and measures of post-traumatic symptoms, depression, dissociation, and absorption. Implications and future research directions are discussed.