Victims of Memory

Critical Acclaim for Victims of Memory

"By debunking the claims of 'recovered memory' therapy, this book begins to redress a very unfortunate misstep in the history of the mental health profession. It presents the long-awaited rebuttal to The Courage to Heal and other 'bibles' of the recovered memory movement. It calls upon us to embrace the scientific method in our efforts to understand and treat emotional ills and leave dogma behind.

It is regrettable that the unfounded claims and questionable therapeutic methods of the recovered memory movement have been largely accepted by our society, leading even to the imprisonment of innocent people. It will henceforth be much more difficult for us to look the other way, as Pendergrast has presented the problem with great clarity. Ignore this book at your peril!

—J. Alexander Bodkin, M.D., Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author of multiple clinical psycho- pharmacology studies

—Harrison G. Pope, Jr., M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author of more than 250 scientific articles, reviews, and books

~ • ~

"Victims of Memory is a riveting personal account that should make the growing debate over repressed memories of child sexual abuse take on new urgency. Mark Pendergrast, as a parent, not only exposes his own chilling experiences and those of many other parents he interviewed, but with journalistic integrity and skill, he documents the relation between this social crisis and broader cultural and historical roots of female victimization."

—Annette B. Weiner, David B. Kriser Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, New York University; author of Women of Value, Men of Renown

~ • ~

"Victims of Memory provides the most scholarly, comprehensive, readable explanation available on how memory works and doesn't work, and how illusory memories can be created. It is a wide-ranging and thoroughly fascinating book.

"Pendergrast does not deny or ignore real child sexual abuse. But he has clearly shown how psychotherapy has gone astray and produced the current scourge of pseudomemories and confabulations. The current fad of 'recovered memory therapy' may become the albatross of psychotherapy, as more and more citizens learn the facts presented here.

"Victims of Memory takes the reader on a mental mystery tour, unearthing the historical backgrounds of psychotherapy, hypnosis, possession states, the Salem witch trials, suggestibility, the roles of women, the family, healers across time, the myth of satanic cults, and multiple personalities. This is scholarly research at its best, written in a fascinating, easy style, on some of the most discussed topics of the day—how does memory really work, how are pseudo-memories created, and what has led therapy to take this peculiar turn?"

––Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D., Emeritus Adjunct Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley; expert on social influence, author of over 100 professional articles

~ • ~

"I know several incest survivors, all of whom always remembered their ordeals, and I admire their courage and determination to build happy lives. Before I read this book, I assumed that what 'everyone knew' was correct—that memories of abuse, especially sexual abuse, were often repressed until unearthed by special therapeutic techniques. Pendergrast has turned this assumption upside down for me.

"As a journalist and editor, I applaud Pendergrast's insistence on making clear where he differs with some of the people in the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, whose cause he generally supports, and stressing that we cannot prove a negative (that repressed memories don't exist). As one who has written on psychology, I agree with his skepticism about therapists who have a single, reductive interpretation of personal problems. As a feminist, I agree that we cannot make a specific therapeutic dogma into a touchstone of political correctness.

Above all, as a parent, I feel for his pain over his daughters' accusations and rejection. For what makes this effort truly remarkable is that Pendergrast has written this even-handed, careful book when he is himself an accused father. I cannot remember ever before both admiring the research in a book and being moved to tears by it, but that's how I feel about Victims of Memory."

—Joan Kennedy Taylor, National Coordinator; Association of Libertarian Feminists; author of Reclaiming the Mainstream: Individualist Feminism Reconsidered, and When to See a Psychologist, with Lee Shulman

~ • ~

At a time when we are all too ready to believe any charge concerning sexual molestation, Mark Pendergrast has written a very important book. He shows how easy it is for psychotherapists—often, no doubt, well intentioned—to implant false memories in the minds of clients. He also depicts the terrible tragedies that can result. A well-written, well-researched, very stimulating book—obligatory reading for all of us who are directly or indirectly concerned with problems of real or imagined child abuse.

—Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., psychologist; author of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

~ • ~

As an investigator familiar with the horrendous therapeutic" misuse of supposedly advanced methods of mind-probing, I heartily support the important, vital message of Victims of Memory. Yes, incest and child abuse do occur, and they certainly must be dealt with appropriately. But, as we read here, in our over-reaction to real abuse, society has dragged hundreds of innocents to the same bonfires upon which perished the accused witches of former times.

'The reader of this book cannot close it without the chilling realization that the specter described is just around the corner— for any one of us. And unless we learn quickly, it is not guilt or innocence that will decide the matter, ignorance, ambition, stupidity and avarice will do that for us all."

—James Randi (The Amazing Randi), magician and investigator; author of Flim-Flam! and other works

~ • ~

"Beautifully written, profoundly moving, and thoroughly researched, Victims of Memory is a gripping account of one father's reaction to a horrendous nightmare, part of a national tragedy. Investigative journalist Mark Pendergrast has covered the vast 'repressed memory' terrain. He has captured not only the personalities of all those involved, but the science (or lack thereof) underlying it all. His compassionate—even feminist—treatment makes for compelling reading.

"Victims of Memory will make you angry. Victims of Memory will make you scared. Victims of Memory will make you cry. Victims of Memory will make you think."

—Elizabeth F Loftus, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Washington; author of The Myth of Repressed Memory

~ • ~

"Every psychotherapist, licensing board member, legislator and malpractice attorney in America should read Victims of Memory.

In this well-researched and beautifully written work, Mark Pendergrast has crafted a brilliant expose of one of the most dangerous consumer frauds of the century.

"Child abuse is too serious a social problem to be dealt with in this irresponsible manner. All responsible citizens support the implementation of effective programs to reduce the incidence of child abuse, assist victims, and punish those who harm children. Efforts to attain these important goals must, however, be based on fact rather than prejudice, on science rather than hysteria, and on reason rather than political ideology.

Victims of Memory provides the documentation and emotional power necessary to spark reform of a mental health system run amok."

—R. Christopher Barden, Phil, J.D., L.R, Psychologist and attorney, Adjunct Professor of Law, Univ. of Minnesota Law School, member; Minnesota Board of Psychology.

~ • ~

"In this informative and disturbing book, Mark Pendergrast strives mightily to make sense of the recovered memory controversy that lately has engulfed his family. His efforts are suffused with the anger of an accused man protesting his innocence, but also with an impressive amount of research into how medical and psychiatric hokum has been used to oppress women in the past and today as well. Victims of Memory is a fascinating read for anyone exploring how modern gender conflicts are being fought on the battlefield of sex abuse and memory therapy—and a must for those personally caught in the crossfire."

—Debbie Nathan, journalist; author of Women and Other Aliens

~ • ~

"A disturbing form of therapy is growing like a cancer inside the nation's mental health care system. Tens of thousands of well-meaning but naive therapists are using hypnosis, drugs, and other techniques to convince clients that their troubles result from having repressed for decades memories of sex abuse by their fathers and/or other relatives.

'The same techniques are being used to arouse memories of abuse by aliens on UFOs, abuse in previous incarnations, and in nonexistent satanic rituals. Young children in day-care centers are being persuaded by incompetent therapists that they were victims of horrible molestations. Judges and jurors, ignorant of how easily such memories can be fabricated, are sending adults to prison for life, for crimes they never committed.

Sensationalistic books, movies, and talk shows keep the cancer growing. Now, at last, investigative journalist Mark Pendergrast, a victim himself of false charges, has written a detailed, accurate, thoroughly documented, wise, compassionate, up-to-the-minute history of this terrible witch hunt. Pendergrast's mind-opening book should be read by every psychologist, doctor, social worker, nurse, judge, attorney, police officer, journalist, minister, movie-maker, and talk-show host. It should be read by anyone not yet aware of the awful injustices resulting from a crank theory of memory repression so evil in its unintended consequences that one can only weep and pray that the plague will not be long-lasting.

—Martin Gardner, science writer; author of Science: Good, Bad and Bogus and other works

~ • ~

An unusually well-written and exceptionally comprehensive discussion of the 'recovered memory' controversy. Fascinating reading about the facts and fictions regarding child abuse, incest, multiple personalities, and the questionable psychotherapies that are often used to treat these serious problems.

—Albert Ellis, Ph.D., President, Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy; author of A New Guide to Rational Living

~ • ~

"In his impassioned, richly literate, and thoroughly researched book, Pendergrast tells an appalling, heart-breaking horror story of the forces of mental health gone berserk. He introduces us to naive, often undertrained, sometimes perhaps insane therapists who use the highly suspect phenomenon of 'repressed memory' to bring people in pain under their control, convincing them that terrible things have been done to them without their awareness; that the world they experience and remember is not their real world at all; and that all the love they thought they had gotten from their families was merely a sadistic effort to enslave and exploit them. Pendergrast introduces us to patients so eager for the sanctuary of victimhood and escape from responsibility for their lives that they will give up all else for it. And he introduces us to a society so fractured by the collapse of the family that many of its members have come to believe that the greatest threat to their lives comes from those who love them the most.

'This is a courageous, terrifying, and necessary book."

—Frank Pittman, M.D., psychiatrist, family therapist, Psychology Today advice columnist; author of Turning Points: Treating Families in Transition and Crisis

~ • ~

"As an anthropologist and sometime-historian of 'multiple personality,' I have long been concerned with the interplay between psychiatric theory and personal experience. In the verbatim interviews forming the heart of Victims of Memory, Pendergrast lets us hear from all those involved -- recovered-memory therapists, those who believe they have retrieved such memories, accused parents, and retractors who now believe that their abuse memories were inadvertent fabrications.

Most observers agree that there is a great deal of questionable psychotherapeutic practice abroad in the land. Without indicting therapy as a whole or attempting to minimize the prevalence of actual abuse, Pendergrast documents the nature and extent of such malpractice. Bad ideas in the service of a good cause are still bad ideas. Pendergrast has performed a real service in showing the interconnection, dubious nature, and sometimes evil results of the ideas underlying recovered memory therapy.

—Michael G. Kenny, D.Phil., Professor, Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada; author of The Passion of Ansel Bourne: Multiple Personality in American Culture

~ • ~

"As an editor for a popular publication of the recovery movement, I watched with increasing concern as the repressed-memory phenomenon progressed in the past few years. I became alarmed at the degree to which certain counseling specialists in sexual abuse, eating disorders, alcoholism, women's and men's issues, codependency and dysfunctional families were influencing not only the 'remembering' process, but the substance of what was remembered. At the same time, there was a cumulative effect as recovery books, television talk shows, and support groups sold the crisis therapists' ideas to the public.

"We have heard plenty of these horrifying stories from self-identified 'survivors.' What we have not seen enough of so far, are accused parents who are willing to use their own names and tell their own stories. To do so takes courage, the realization that there is little left to lose, and a commitment to truth and justice. Pendergrast combines his skills as a scholarly researcher with his own painful story in a sensitive treatment of this phenomenon. As a consequence, Victims of Memory loses neither its objectivity nor its sense of personal urgency."

—Andrew Meacham, former associate editor, Changes magazine and Health Communications book publishers

Victims of Memory

Mark Pendergrast

Copyright ©1995, 1996, 2013 by Mark Pendergrast

Courtesy of Upper Access, Inc., Book Publishers

Smashwords Edition

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Quotations from the following song lyrics were used by permission:

Memories of You, lyrics by Andy Razaf, music by Eubie Blake. 1930 by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., renewed. Publisher: Razaf Music (extended term), c/o The Songwriters Guild of America (on behalf of Andy Razaf). All rights reserved.

American Tune by Paul Simon. 1973 by Paul Simon Music. All rights reserved.

Floundering by Carly Simon. 1983 by C'est Music. All rights reserved.

Contents

Foreword by Melody Gavigan

Introduction Victims of Memory

Chapter 1 How to Become a Survivor

The Horror of Real Incest — The Search for Lost Memories — The Courage to Accuse — Other Survivor Literature — Emotional Incest — Men Can Be Survivors, Too — A Textbook for Memory Invention — The Academics — Ritual Abuse and Multiple Personalities — Entering the Mainstream: The Terrible Truth

Chapter 2 The Memory Maze

Reconstructing the Past — Psychological Turf Wars — Repression: For and Against — Proof' for Repression — Lenore Tern Story-Time — Miss America and Other Famous. Victims — Cases of Real Denial — Elizabeth Loftus: That Woman" — Wilder Penfield, Karl Lashley, and the Search for the Engram — Implicit and State-Dependent Memory — Neuroscience and Repressed Memories — The Connectionist Computer Model — Memory Palaces and Haunted Houses — Infantile Amnesia and Preverbal Abuse — Common-Sense Conclusions

Chapter 3 How to Believe the Unbelievable

Hypnosis: Memory Prod or Production? — Age Regression: Let's Pretend — Past Lives and Unidentified Flying Fantasies — Facilitated Communication and the Human Ouija Board — Dream Work — Sleep Paralysis — Flashbacks or Visions? — Body Memories and Panic Attacks. — Symptoms: Pickle Aversion and Eating Disorders — Drugs — Cognitive Dissonance and Group Contagion —The Contexts of Insanity

Chapter 4 Multiple Personalities and Satanic Cults

Sybil and Her Traumatized Alters — Ralph Allison's New Frontier — James Friesen's Multiple Demons — Diagnosing the Elusive Multiple — Manufacturing MPD — Dissociative Disorder Units: Terror in the MPD Mills — Dissociation and the Absent-Minded Professor — Grade Fives, Temporal Lobe Spikes, and Personality — Satan's Minions — A Warning from Thigpen and Cleckley

Chapter 5 The Therapists

Sam Holden, Christian Counselor — Janet Griffin, MSW — Horace Stone, Minister/Counselor — Leslie Watkins, PhD, Clinical Psychologist — Charlotte Halpern, Psychiatrist — Jason Ransom, Body Worker — Katherine Hylander Past Life Hypnotherapist — Sally Bixby, Psychotherapist — Robin Newsome, Retractor Therapist

Chapter 6 The Survivors

Virginia Hudson, Incest Survivor (Letter) — Susan Ramsey, Incest Survivor — Diane Schultz, Incest Survivor — Frieda Maybry, Ritual Abuse Survivor — Patricia Delaney, Survivor and Lawyer — Angela Bergeron, Multiple Personality Survivor — Elaine Pirelli, Survivor Who Remembered Being Impregnated — Melinda Couture, Sexual Abuse Survivor and Wife of Accused Father — Sally Hampshire, Incest Survivor Who Has Always Remembered

Chapter 7 The Accused

Hank and Arlene Schmidt, Accused Parents, and Frank Schmidt, Their Son — Bob Sculley, Accused Father — Julia Hapgood, Wife of Accused — Dr. Aaron Goldberg, Accused Father — Joe Simmons, Accused Father — Gloria Harmon, Accused Mother — Bart Stafford, Accused Sibling — Rhonda and Paul Hallisey, Accused by Facilitated Communication

Chapter 8 The Retractors

Olivia McKillop, Retractor — Laura Pasley, Retractor — Maria Granucci, Retractor — Leslie Hannegan, Christian Retractor — Nell Charette, MPD Retractor — Stephanie Krauss, Retractor from a Psychiatric Hospital — Robert Wilson, Retractor

Chapter 9 And A Little Child Shall Lead Them (And Be Led) . . .

McMartin: the First Day-Care Scandal — Research on Suggestibility — Abusing Kids in Outer Space and Other Allegations — The Fells Acres Nightmare — The Rape of the Souza Family — Believing the Children — Peggy Buckey's Post-traumatic Stress

Chapter 10 A Brief History: The Witch Craze, Reflex Arcs, and Freud's Legacy

The Witch Craze — Demons — The Nerve Doctors and the Hysterics — Hypnotism — Charcot's Circus — Freud's Mental Extractions — Did Freud Lead His Patients? — Multiple Personalities — Emil Kraepelin and His Patient

Chapter 11 Why Now?

A Nation in Search of a Disease — Victims All — Pop Therapy — The Frantic Pursuit of Happiness and the Boomers — Psychics and Exorcists — The Women's. Movement — Politically Correct Excesses — The Fragmentation of the Family — Righting Wrongs — Media Madness and Sexual Schizophrenia — A Concluding Note

Chapter 12 Survivorship as Religion

The Substitute Faith — Defining Religion — Conversion — Ecstatic Religion and the Possessed Shaman — Minirth-Meier and the Christian Hunt for Memories — Rage and the Worship of Self — Bradshaw: The Evangelist of Dysfunction — Saving the World — Survivorship as Sect — Seeing Cults Everywhere — Constant Rage Can't Last

Chapter 13 Conclusions and Recommendations

The Scope of the Problem — The Backlash: Whose Back? Whose Lash? — Who's in Denial Now? — Avoiding the Truth Trap — Moderates and Other Therapists — The Professional Associations Respond — Where the Money Is — Therapists Facing the Future: Flocks of Edgy Birds — Pat Schroeder and the Politics of Recovery — The Hazards and Uses of Therapy — The Verdict on Repressed Memories — How to Tell True from Illusory Memories — When a Friend Remembers — A Hug Is Not Sex Abuse — Humans Are Resilient — Crying Wolf — Unwanted Bedfellows — Legal and Professional Recommendations — To Parents, Children, and Therapists

Appendix: Myths & Realities

Endnotes

Bibliography

For my wonderful daughters, with infinite love. May this book be the first step toward renewed dialogue and reconciliation.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the following people for reading various portions of the manuscript and providing valuable commentary that helped to shape the final product: Irene Angelico, Alexander Bodkin, Brent Cohen, Paul Foxman, David Galland, Melody Gavigan, Marylen Grigas, Jonathan Harris, Suzanne Johnson, Michael Kenny, Stephen Lindsay, Elizabeth Loftus, Andrew Meacham, Bill Mitchell, Sherrill Mulhern, Debbie Nathan, Ulric Neisser, August Piper, Larry Ribbecke, Dan Schacter, Paul Schumacher, Margaret Singer, and Saul Wasserman. Of course, they do not necessarily agree with all statements in Victims of Memory.

Others who provided articles, information, or expertise include: Ralph Allison, Gerald Amirault, Patty Amirault, George Bergen, Sanford Block, Peggy Buckey, Joseph deRivera, Chris Dodge, Elizabeth Feigon, Elaine Foster, Pamela Freyd, Frank Fuster, George Ganaway, Gina Green, Evan Harrington, Kimberly Hart, Roma Hart, Steven Hassan, Lawrence Langer, Susan Leighton, Stephen Lindsay, Anita Lipton, Matt Love, Maria Luise, Harry MacLean, James McGaugh, Paul McHugh, J. Gordon Melton, Paul Okami, Karen Olio, Britt Pendergrast, Nan Pendergrast, Judith Peterson, Harrison Pope, Dennis Powers, Don Read, Nancy Schoerke, Roger Scotford, Howard Shane, Patty Sheridan, Ray Souza, Shirley Souza, Herbert Spiegel, Larry Squire, Kathy Swan, Ralph Underwager, Elie Wiesel, Linda Meyer Williams, and the late Nicholas Spanos.

I wish I could name all of the therapists and other anonymous correspondents who shared their painful life stories with me. Regardless of their attitudes toward the recovered-memory controversy, I value their willingness to talk with me openly about a difficult subject. Thanks to Survivors of Incest Anonymous and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation for helping me to locate many of those I interviewed.

I took advantage of the wonderfully efficient interlibrary loan system here in Vermont and received cheerful, prompt service, particularly from Linda Willis and Norma Lemieux at the Midstate Regional Library. I also thank the staff at the Trinity College Library in Burlington, Vermont, for their excellent collections on Freud, feminism, sexual abuse, and other subjects.

I owe much to those who helped me through this difficult time of my life: my grief group, my local Quaker Clearness Committee, gatherings of other accused parents, several compassionate professional counselors, my good friends and family, and, especially, my partner Betty, for her unstinting love and support.

David Robinson provided final line-editing and grammar-proofing. Rebecca Awodey and Liz Carren did a wonderful job of designing the book cover, and Sandy Milens once more made photo sessions friendly and relaxed.

To my primary editor, Jim Peck, much gratitude for once again bringing his wit, insight, and grammatical pedantry to the task of making this the best possible book. I owe almost everything else to publishers Steve and Lisa Carlson, who provided further editing, typesetting, publicity, advice, and hand-holding.

Mark Pendergrast

__________

A Note on Name Changes:

Throughout this book, the names of private individuals (such as incest survivors, their therapists, retractors, accused parents, etc.) have been changed to protect their privacy. Other details, such as their locations of residence, have also been altered. The exceptions to this rule (such as those whose names have previously been identified, well-known researchers, and those who have requested that their correct names be used), should be apparent in the text. When pseudonyms are used, any similarity to the name of a real person is coincidental and unintended.

__________

Your face beams

In my dreams

'Spite of all I do.

Everything

Seems to bring

Memories of you.

—1930 popular song lyric

Notice on Prodigy, a computer bulletin board (1992)

I had a strange experience a week ago and wondered if this has ever happened to anyone else. 2 weeks ago in therapy, I tried to get in touch w/my inner child, but was unable to do so. I felt silly trying to find a safe place and didn't want to deal with such a spoiled brat anyway . . . I felt bad that I couldn't do it, like I let my therapist down. Last Monday night, I tried to do it at home on my own. I sat cross-legged on the bed with the lights off, and burned a stick of incense to help me relax. I visualized myself as a child and found my safe place, but it didn't progress much beyond that. Having used self-hypnosis tapes for weight loss, I tried some of those techniques--deep breathing, relaxing the entire body, etc. I let my mind wander, and I noticed my lips feeling kind of swollen and bruised. numb. I felt a fullness in my mouth and had to breathe only through my nose. Then my head seemed to be moving by itself. I began to panic, but I knew I had to continue, to see where it would lead I had my hands clasped in front of me, and it was like some force beyond my control was loosening and separating my fingers. My hands unclasped and my arms started to raise up and out to my sides, as if someone were spreading my arms out and pinning me down. I felt myself leaning back into a reclining position, and then I had the vague sensation of something penetrating me. I don't know what happened then--it just stopped I never got any clear visuals, or smells, or anything else; I'm one of those dramatic people, and the adult in me has written this off as hysteria. It never became really frightening for me, more like an intellectual exercise, but my therapist says I tend to intellectualize my abuse. I tried to re-create the experience the next day (and last night) to prove that I was just making it up, but I couldn't do it. Have any of you ever had a similar experience? I'd be grateful for any input/feedback you can give me.

Thank you,

Rebecca

Foreword

Anyone could have a false memory. In fact, inaccurate memories occur to everyone, in some form, because every act of memory is simply our best effort at imaginative reconstruction.

My first therapist, who was so successful at implanting the memory that my father molested me, never used sodium Amytal, hypnosis, guided imagery, or any memory aid other than pressure and suggestion. My first false memory was a vague image that anyone might have—a dark outline of my father looming above me. That picture was all I had to go on for a long time, until I sought hypnosis, and then the vague picture became a series of sharp, horrible images. I thought that the original picture was obscure because I was just not trusting enough yet, and I didn't feel safe enough to get it all out in the open. I didn't think I'd get better, or that my symptoms would go away, until I could successfully abreact the episode, reliving it with full emotion. For three years, I completely believed that my father had committed incest on me.

Misinformation from therapists or books can provide a powerful formula for changing any person's entire belief system. That is what Victims of Memory is about—how perfectly normal people like me could come to believe in such horrible delusions, and how responsible therapists and critics can bring an end to this madness. Mark Pendergrast, himself an accused parent, has written a much-needed book. As an investigative journalist and scholar, Mark has delved into the complicated social, cultural, and individual factors that lie behind the accusations. If I had been able to read a book like this before seeking therapy, I believe I could have been spared years of anguish.

Everyone involved in this mess is suffering—not only the accused, but the patient who recovers the memories, as well as other family members and friends. We are all left with the residue of what I call emotional vigilantism.

The accused are marked forever, even if they were lucky enough to have been vindicated.

The self-identified incest survivors who believe that they were abused for years, but had completely forgotten about it, struggle with the loss of their families and of their very identity. They have been forced to rewrite their pasts.

Others who continue to suffer are the stragglers—those who never progress beyond vague feelings, but who waste years in recovery groups straining for a memory of abuse so that they can hang their problems on it.

The retractors must rebuild their lives and change from helpless, frightened victims to realistic adults taking responsibility for themselves and their problems. Fortunately, for me and many other retractors, a new personal power comes from within. I know now that I am the master of my life—not the victim of some external events that supposedly happened to me 30 years ago.

The therapists, too, are going to need our compassion as they struggle with the terrible things that they have done to their patients. I wouldn't want to bear their guilt.

The phenomenon of recovered memory is much more widespread a problem than most people realize at this point. Even though the media are just now giving it the attention it deserves, we have a long way to go in understanding how memory works and separating facts from popular beliefs. Our culture appears to be searching for simple solutions to very complex problems, and it is all too easy to latch onto early sexual abuse trauma theory as a one-size-fits-all answer.

There are no simple answers. Victims of Memory provides no fool-proof solutions, but it is a giant first step towards understanding a seemingly inexplicable phenomenon, one that will engage psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and other scholars for many years to come. They will all want to understand how, in a technologically sophisticated culture near the end of the 20th century, millions of perfectly sane people came to believe in monstrous events that never took place. We who have lived through it can bear witness. I was one of those who accused my innocent father. Mark Pendergrast, who can personally tell us what it feels like to bear the brunt of such an accusation, has written a wise, compassionate book for all of us. Read it with care. This book could change your life.

—Melody Gavigan Editor, The Retractor Newsletter

Introduction: Victims of Memory

Childhood is less clear to me than to many people .. . for no reason that I know about, certainly without the usual reason of unhappy memories. For many years that worried me, but then I discovered that the tales of former children are seldom to be trusted. Some people supply too many past victories or pleasures with which to comfort themselves, and other people cling to pains, real and imagined, to excuse what they have become.

—Lillian Hellman, Pentimento (1973) [¹]

There is no question that sexual abuse in America is far more prevalent than anyone was willing to admit just a decade ago. Despite the immense amount of publicity given to the subject in recent years, it is still likely that real incidents of abuse are woefully under-reported, because victims are often too fearful or ashamed to reveal it.

At the same time, however, there is growing evidence that illusory memories of sexual abuse are being unintentionally promulgated and validated by misguided therapists, resulting in devastating grief and irrevocably damaged family relations.

When you are accused of sexual abuse in our society, at least during the late 20th century, you are automatically presumed guilty unless proven innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt—a virtual impossibility.

Watching Sixty Minutes in 1986, I remember closely observing Ray Buckey, his sister, his mother, and his grandmother, all accused of sexually abusing their young charges at the McMartin Preschool, and thinking, So this is what perverted child molesters look like. They denied everything, yet dozens of innocent children accused them of horrendous acts. To me, Ray Buckey's attempts to remain calm indicated sociopathic callousness. His wheelchair-bound grandmother, who expressed outrage at the charges, protested too much, I thought. They were obviously guilty. Why would so many pre-schoolers make up grotesque stories of rape, slaughtered animals, and satanic rituals? I dismissed the notion out of hand.

Yet it has become quite clear now that Ray Buckey and his family were innocent, and that the children were led to make their accusations by extensive, coercive questioning by adults, as I document in Chapter 9. Buckey, after five years of unjust incarceration, has been released and is trying to rebuild his life. Now in his late 30s, he plans to go to law school.

I imagine that some readers opening this book will begin with that same supposition of guilt regarding me that I once harbored for the Buckeys. Both of my adult daughters—first one, then the other—have cut off all contact with me, based on vague, unspecified allegations of childhood sexual abuse. (Though I would like to find out what they think I did and discuss it with them, they will not allow any communication.) Why would they take such drastic measures if there were no basis for the allegations? Even if they did stumble into some misguided therapy, the reader might infer, there surely must be a kernel of truth to my daughters' allegations. I must have done something.

At first, I tortured myself with these same thoughts, as did most other accused parents I interviewed. My only real defense is the truth. I didn't sexually abuse my children. In hindsight, I know that I wasn't a perfect parent. But then again, neither are most parents. Raising children is the most important and most difficult job on earth, and it is even more challenging in the aftermath of a divorce. There are many things I would indeed apologize for, if only I could, but they were normal human foibles.

I did not want to write this book. It's much too painful. The truth is, I had to write it. I finally realized that what has been termed false memory syndrome (FMS)* was destroying not only my children's very identities and my relationship with them, but millions of other families as well. [FOOTNOTE: * The term false memory syndrome has been widely criticized because it has not yet been officially recognized as a psychiatric term and because the word false is pejorative. I use it for lack of any better term, but I have avoided using the term false memories where possible.]

As a result, this book wouldn't go away, and wouldn't let me write anything else, despite my first editor pleading for another business book to follow my history of Coca-Cola, and despite repeated rejections from the major New York publishing houses. As an investigative journalist, it seemed clear to me that this was an issue that needed investigation, and I needed to pursue it to the best of my ability before re-focusing on other issues. A small publisher in Vermont—Upper Access Books—took on the project and published the first edition of Victims of Memory in February, 1995.

I knew from the outset, however, that the book would be fraught with problems. Given my personal situation, would I be able to represent all sides of the story without appearing grossly prejudiced? Could I approach the subject with an open mind? Could I really understand what those in recovered memory therapy were going through?

Now that I have spoken with so many of those whose lives have been irrevocably altered by recovered memories, I believe that I do understand what these women (and many men) have suffered through. I have come to feel the utmost compassion for all who are involved in this phenomenon.

In interviewing therapists with whom I disagreed, I strove to listen wholeheartedly, to understand what they saw and felt, and I have let them speak for themselves in these pages. Most of them mean well. In all interviews, I represented myself as a journalist interested in exploring the issue of sex abuse, particularly as it related to memories recovered as adults. I did not reveal that I myself had been accused, because that would have tainted the interviews or made them impossible to conduct. My listening and interpretive skills must have been fairly good. Gee, one therapist told me two hours into our interview, you'd make a pretty good therapist yourself. You understand this material better than most of my colleagues.

Similarly, I tried to be extremely sensitive to feelings and stories of incest survivors as I listened to them, even when they described what seemed to me to be well-rehearsed fantasies rather than real memories. Their pain and confusion, their anger and loneliness, their need for love and understanding were all touchingly real. They speak for themselves in these pages.

Here, too, are the disturbing voices of retractors—those who have come to believe that their former accusations were false—with their inevitable rage at former therapists and their guilt and shame over the treatment of their parents.

And, of course, I have listened to agonized parents who have lost their children because of accusations of incest. I have been inspired by their struggles (often at an advanced age) to come to grips with this seemingly inexplicable situation, by their fortitude and courage, and by their continued care and love for their children despite everything.

It is unfortunate that any mention of the phrase sex abuse often polarizes those on both sides of this argument. I hope that this book will serve as a kind of dialogue within its pages. Readers will hear in detail from those on all sides of this volatile issue and, although I express my informed opinion, they are free to make their own judgments. In my concluding chapter, I have made tentative suggestions for how reconciliation of all parties might take place.

One of the ironic tragedies of the recovered-memory movement is its supposed affiliation with feminism. Because most of those recovering memories of abuse are women, those who question the memories are labeled sexists. Yet what is really happening here? These therapists specialize in making women feel helpless, dependent, wounded, incomplete, and fundamentally flawed. Does that sound familiar? Women's lives are being harmed by a movement that feminists should abhor.

One retractor has written poignantly about her own recovered-memory experience, in which she became convinced that she had multiple-personality disorder. It robs women of all power and control over themselves. If I really hated women and wanted to keep them in a completely powerless and childlike state, the best way to do that would be to remove their faith and trust in their own minds and make them dependent. That is precisely what happens in this form of therapy, which frequently manages, quite literally, to turn women into helpless infants. "At most MPD gatherings, accommodations are made for those who feel themselves losing control, this retractor writes. These arrangements are exactly like the nurseries set up in churches in case the infants begin to fuss, with coloring books and crayons. And these are for grown women!" [²]

That brings us to the subject of pronouns, a volatile issue nowadays. Since women constitute the vast majority of those who have recovered repressed memories, I refer to any such generic survivor as female throughout the text (e.g., When a woman first enters therapy, she...) Ellen Bass and Laura Davis directed The Courage to Heal, their controversial book about repressed memories, specifically to women, though they acknowledged that men are also sexually abused. Since Victims of Memory is, among other things, a corrective to that book, I consider it important and intellectually honest to address women directly as well, though many men have certainly suffered through the same experiences.

One more point on this touchy subject. Along with social psychologist Carol Tavris (and most scientifically controlled studies), I believe that men and women have much more in common, as members of the same species, than they display genetic differences.*

[FOOTNOTE: * See Carol Tavris, The Mismeasure of Woman and Cynthia Epstein, Deceptive Distinctions.] [³] The current repressed-memory hunt has breathed new life into one of the most damaging and sexist traditions in our culture—the subtle message to women that they can gain power and attention only through the victim role. That does not mean that they are inherently passive, dependent, or hysterical, but it does mean that the recovered-memory hunt follows in that unfortunate cultural tradition.

Just as I do not want to be branded a sexist, I also do not intend this book to be taken as a broadside assault on all therapists. Many counselors provide needed help and understanding for people in emotional turmoil. I praise those therapists who help clients deal with current life issues, who look to the past (without rewriting it) only in order to understand the present, and who gently nudge their clients toward responsible, mature independence.

I should note, however, my lost admiration for Sigmund Freud and his theories. As an English major at Harvard in the late '60s, I embraced the ego and the id as wonderful metaphors that helped illuminate literature. My senior honors thesis was drenched in Freudian symbolism. Curiously, my work on the Coca-Cola history rang the first alarm bells for me. Freud appears in For God, Country and Coca-Cola as an ambitious young physician who identified cocaine as a wonder drug, introducing it to his friend Fleischl, with fatal consequences.

Now I have come to realize, as you will read in some detail near the end of Chapter 10, that Freud created a magnificent intellectual edifice, a self-contained, self-validating psychological theory, but that it rested on untested hypotheses. Worse, he pressured and manipulated his patients into proving his presumptions.

Perhaps I am too harsh on a fallen hero. After all, we owe Freud for numerous psychological insights, including the realization that human beings are not always rational animals. We sometimes deflect our troubled emotions onto innocent bystanders or ourselves. Through introspection and thoughtful analysis of our past, we can better understand our motivations in the present.

Yet I can't shake my outrage with Freud for any number of inappropriate diagnoses and self-justifications, after he actually made his clients worse rather than better. As readers will see in Chapter 10, Freud sanctioned a preposterous operation on a patient's nose, then blamed her for hysteria when she nearly bled to death as a result. It is, of course, odd that the feminist incest survivor movement should embrace Freud's concept of repression, while other feminists have justifiably criticized the Viennese patriarch for his ludicrous theories about penis envy.

– • –

I hope that this book will continue to reach a wide audience, including scholars already familiar with research on memory and hypnosis. Victims of Memory is, however, aimed primarily at the intelligent general reader. I imagine that this reader might think, just as I once did, that the human brain houses every memory somewhere, just ready to pop out, or that hypnosis is a sure way to aid recall of the past, or that multiple-personality disorder is a common response to trauma. I have attempted to correct such misconceptions and to cover the waterfront, so to speak. In doing so, I am sure to have missed some of the subtleties or important historical antecedents. Each of the theoretical chapters of this book could easily be expanded into a book of its own. As an overview and synthesis of this disturbing social phenomenon, however, I believe this book fills a unique need.

While the core audience of the book initially consisted of those whose families and friends have suffered, I have been gratified to see the readership expand outward among those with more generalized interest in science, psychology, and social history. It has been adopted as a textbook at several universities. The enthusiasm expressed by readers is largely responsible for keeping Victims of Memory available at good bookstores throughout the U.S. and Canada, and for the advent of this second edition.

The first edition of Victims of Memory initially struggled to elbow into shelf space amidst many books espousing the search for repressed memories. Finally, because of favorable reviews and public demand, it has been adopted by most major bookstores throughout the United States and Canada. Nonetheless, The Courage to Heal, by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, is still far more widely available, and it is usually prominently displayed on the top shelf of the psychology/ self-help section, cover facing out, while Victims of Memory hides on a lower shelf. In part, such placement is an alphabetical happenstance. My publisher once suggested, not altogether facetiously, that I change my name to Bendergrast so that the book would be shelved close to Bass.

I do not plan to change my name, but will continue, unabashedly, to urge bookstore managers to place Victims of Memory with the cover out. It is one of the few books available in this section to warn unwary readers about the hazards of recovered-memory therapy. The information is important—it could literally save someone's life, or at least spare someone years of unnecessary suffering and separation from family.

Another source of encouragement is that Victims of Memory has begun to appear on the shelves of both religious bookstores and metaphysical/New Age bookstores.

Unfortunately, all too many books by Christian counselors espouse varieties of recovered-memory therapy, with the ironic and tragic result of destroying families in the name of Christ. Similarly, those who seek out metaphysical or New Age bookstores often do so in a vulnerable frame of mind, desperate for an explanation for their spiritual emptiness. While techniques such as guided imagery or meditative visualization can be powerful and positive, they can also be misused to promote illusory memories.

It is certainly not my intent to contradict anybody's religious or spiritual beliefs. Unfortunately, however, the recovered-memory phenomenon has infiltrated many religious and spiritual communities. I am gratified that the proprietors of bookstores serving those communities have begun to see the need to make available the factual information contained in Victims of Memory, and pray that the trend will continue.

– • –

Why the need for a second edition, only a year after initial publication? A great deal has happened during that brief period. The entire shaky edifice of recovered memory therapy has begun to crumble.

Many of the revisions in this edition are updates of court cases and other events that were discussed in the original volume. As a journalist, I was pleased with the number of reviewers and psychologists who described my book as the most comprehensive and balanced study of an explosively controversial subject. With that kind of encouragement, it was natural to try to keep it up to date. I have also had time to delve even more deeply into the subject, and readers will find new insights and an expanded advice section at the end of the book.

Beyond the specific parade of events, the tenor of the debate over recovered-memory therapy has begun to change in fundamental ways. The courts have begun to put the scientific validity of recovered memory on trial, and have found it wanting. More than 200 lawsuits have been filed by retractors against their former therapists, and that number is certain to swell dramatically in the next few years, as more and more people realize that they were had by this misguided form of therapy. [⁴]

Meanwhile, media coverage of the issue has diminished considerably. Gruesome stories of suddenly-remembered horrors no longer appear regularly in the newspapers and on talk-shows, and Geraldo Rivera has even publicly apologized for his belief in recovered memories and satanic cults.' That's encouraging. But with a few notable exceptions, such as the 1995 Ofra Bikel Frontline documentaries, Divided Memories and The Search for Satan, hardly any of the media that had reported so credulously on recovered memories in the past have come back to report on the damage caused to the lives of millions of people. The conventional wisdom within the media is that recovered memories and false allegations of sexual abuse are yesterday's story, even if families are still being shattered and innocent people remain in jail.

Yet the media continue to regain their interest when new, spectacular allegations arise. In Wenatchee, Washington, a new witchhunt is currently unfolding, in which over 40 people have been accused of taking part in a mythical child sex ring, based primarily on the testimony of two foster children who live in the home of police detective Robert Perez. There is no physical evidence in any of the cases. Detective Perez uses intimidation, wheedling, and outright threats to secure confessions or disclosures. He does not tape his interviews and destroys any notes he takes. Many of the accused are illiterate or retarded and have not received competent legal counsel. The rumors of this moral panic were aided and abetted by a credulous local media, with the sterling exception of TV reporter Tom Grant. [⁶]

Unfortunately, few public figures have expressed willingness to lend their names to the effort to combat the tragedy of recovered-memory therapy. I have written to C. Everett Koop, our former surgeon general, who now heads the Koop Institute at Dartmouth. No answer. I have written to Ralph Nader and his assistant Sidney Wolfe, staunch defenders of consumer rights, begging them to take on this horrendous example of mental health fraud. No response thus far. I wrote to Vice President Al Gore, who graduated from Harvard with me, and he wrote back to say that he appreciated how much work it was to write a book. Thanks a lot, Al.

I sent Victims of Memory to Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, a political leader who has many tremendous accomplishments to her credit, but who has been taken in by the repressed-memory dogma. She wrote a nice note telling me that she was an empowerment feminist, not a victim feminist. That's good, but I still have no idea whether she has taken a hard look at recovered-memory issues. She has announced her intention to retire from Congress in 1996, but I am sure she will continue as an activist, and I hope she will join me in expressing concern over this type of misguided therapy.

I also wrote to Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, co-authors of The Courage to Heal, asking them to read my book and respond to my criticism. Though I credit you with the best of intentions, I wrote, I think your book has caused untold harm in the name of healing. Davis did not respond, but Bass wrote back to thank me for being civil. She intends to read Victims of Memory but has not done so yet. Recently, Bass and I had an hour-long conversation and, though she continues to give speeches espousing the theory of massive memory repression, I hope that we can continue the dialogue.

The willingness of Ellen Bass to read my book is, unfortunately, unusual among those on the other side of this issue. Most would prefer to judge my book without ever having read it. For example, psychiatrist Lenore Ten, author of Unchained Memories, gave a 1995 speech in which she referred to a guy named Mark Pendergrast who had written a book that she clearly had not read. In the same talk, she revealed her attitude toward Divided Memories, the powerful Frontline documentary: I haven't seen it. I have it at home and I won't look at it, I can't look at it, I don't want to look at it. [⁷]

I have great hope that some day, we will look back at this national tragedy as a fascinating aberration in late-20th-century American history, and that Victims of Memory will help to provide answers to the inevitable question: How could this have happened?

Unfortunately, that day is probably still far in the future. Those who believe in recovered-memory therapy have not given up their dogma, rhetoric, or belief system. Rather than facing the overwhelming evidence that a sizeable number of their profession have violated the Hippocratic oath—First, do no harm—the professional associations have reacted to the controversy by looking the other way, while trying decorously to cover their behinds. The beleaguered American Psychological Association, for instance, has stockpiled a war chest of $1.5 million to polish psychologists' tarnished images, rather than cleaning house. One is tempted to ask them, as one brave soul finally confronted Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s: Have you no decency? At long last, have you no sense of decency?

– • –

One regret that I have is that the media attention to my book has centered inordinately on my personal situation. Even favorable reviews often perceived the book as an effort to exonerate myself, to defend myself against unfair allegations. One reviewer, for instance, concluded that Victims of Memory was a genuine labor of love and social justice, an impressive blend of outrage, empathy, and scholarly distance. Yet she also began her review by calling the book an author's effort to assert his innocence. Wrong. I had no need to defend myself. No one knew anything about my family's sad situation, nor would have, if I had not chosen to write this book.

I did hope to reach my children, and I pray daily that they will call or write. But the main reason I wrote the book was to put a stop to the destruction of minds, lives, and families and to explore the fascinating workings of the human mind.

I was a professional journalist long before my children cut off contact, and using a book to try to exonerate myself would be quite unprofessional. Beyond that, it would be an impossible task I don't even know the specifics of the accusations, and even if I did, there would be no way to prove my innocence in a book.

In the first edition, I included a chapter detailing how my youngest daughter first entered therapy in college and retrieved a memory of being molested by a man living in my household when she was nine. Two years later, she apparently identified me, too, as her abuser and told her older sister, who promptly entered therapy herself and cut off contact with me as well. When I called my ex-wife to find out what was going on, she screamed at me, told me that both children were retrieving more and more memories, and hung up.

At the end of the first edition, I included a letter to my children, hoping they might read it and that it would facilitate reconciliation. To protect their privacy, I changed my daughters' first names, calling them Stacey and Christina. They had changed their last names, so nothing in the book would identify them.

My primary motive in telling my own family's story was intellectual honesty. The book is a work of investigative journalism, which needs to be judged on its own merits. I interviewed people in all situations, with a wide range of informed opinions, and tried to represent them all fairly and honestly. I did not begin my research as a dispassionate observer, however, but began looking into this issue in order to understand what had happened to my own family. Readers had a right to know that.

But the fact that I told my personal story in some detail, despite the protection of my daughters' privacy, has inflamed passions among some, and has distracted from the larger societal issues.

When The Sun, a North Carolina literary magazine, ran an excerpt of my personal account, the magazine received numerous letters to the editor concerned with my guilt or innocence, rather than the validity of recovered memory. Despite the love and affection I expressed in the article, one letter-writer accused me of conducting a terrorist attack on my children. The only totally negative critique of Victims of Memory that I have seen appeared in the Village Voice, concentrating solely on my own situation. I was accused of failing to understand that my children see a different reality.

Believe me, I do understand that my children and I see different realities. I would like nothing better than to sit down with them and talk again. I'd like to re-establish the things that we can agree on. I accept that there may always be significant issues on which we will never see eye to eye. But if we can just start talking again, even if we agree to disagree about massive repression of sexual abuse memories, I'll be grateful.

As a result, I have eliminated the personal chapter and the letter from this edition of the book. That shouldn't detract from the value of the book My contribution to the debate on recovered memory is my investigative journalism and scholarship, not my personal story, which, though tragic, is unfortunately not unusual.

I should also comment on my affiliation with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which was founded early in 1992 to provide information for distraught accused parents, mental health professionals, and all those caught up in the repressed-memory phenomenon I am tremendously grateful to the FMS Foundation, and I am a member of the organization. When I discovered its existence late in 1992, it provided a lifeline for me. As another parent told me, It has turned an incomprehensible personal tragedy into a somewhat understandable social phenomenon.

The FMS Foundation did not sponsor this book, however, nor did it have any control over its contents. I cannot vouch for the innocence of every family that has joined the Foundation (though I seriously doubt the accuracy of any cases based on massive repression of abuse memories). I have severe criticism of a disturbing interview granted by a former member of the FMSF scientific advisory board, as readers will find in my concluding chapter. Nonetheless, it is quite clear that the FMS Foundation and its excellent newsletter have provided an invaluable service. It is unfortunate that the Foundation has been extensively demonized and vilified by those who believe firmly in repressed memories, with some critics calling it the Frequent Molesters Society and the like. In the face of such anger and prejudice, it is little wonder that my personal situation has been used against me.

– • –

In every other respect, the response to this book to date has been gratifying. It is probably the most important thing I will ever write. I have heard from people all over the country thanking me, telling me that I had written as if I knew their personal stories. These letters have come from accused parents, retracting children, ex-spouses, siblings, and incest victims who have always remembered their abuse.

In the past few months, I have traveled across America, giving speeches, submitting to media interviews, and talking with psychology students, lawyers, and therapists. Wherever I go, I usually stay in the homes of accused parents who inevitably unburden themselves of their stories. I have watched home videos of their children from happier times, and we have cried together about the incredible, awful transformations that took place when their children started therapy.

On two separate occasions, accused parents who also happened to be Holocaust survivors told me that losing their children was even worse than what they had endured in the concentration camps. I questioned whether they could really mean that, and both vehemently asserted that they did.

The horror stories appear to have no end. Each is familiar yet unique; almost routine now, yet still unbelievable. I have come to realize how heavily involved the so-called Christian therapy community has become in recovered-memory efforts. In the Midwest, Lutherans in particular seem to suffer at the hands of incompetent therapists, but the problem extends to virtually every U.S. denomination—evangelical, Catholic, mainstream Protestant, Jewish, and others. What is scary, one concerned therapist wrote to me recently, is that Christian visualization facilitators are almost unreachable, because they are sure God is behind all the revelations of abuse they produce. Scary indeed.

Another common thread is how this type of therapy destroys marriages. In great pain, many former spouses (mostly men) have come to me after speeches to explain how they completely believed and supported their wives throughout the initial stages of memory therapy. In case after case, the process destroyed first their sex lives, then their marriages.

I have also heard from a great many retractors, whose first-hand reports provide the most compelling and disturbing evidence of the havoc that recovered-memory therapy plays in the lives of those who come to believe that they were raped throughout their childhoods and had repressed all such memories. I really believe, one retractor wrote to me, "that if Victims of Memory had been out there when I was still seeing my therapist, that it would have made a difference