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The Dominion
August 29, 2000
Is this an abuse of the truth?
by David McLoughlin
Research by psychology
professor Elizabeth Loftus has debunked the recovered memory theory that she
says has led to people being falsely accused of sexual abuse. David
McLoughlin asks her why she courts so much controversy.
Beth Loftus seems an unlikely person to arouse the kind of heated passions
that she does. She's softly spoken with a delightful West Coast American
accent, dresses unassumingly, is friendly and chatty and is not inclined to
make outrageous statements.
She does not have horns, yet is regarded as the devil incarnate by many
counsellors and therapists in New
Zealand and overseas who work with the
victims of sexual abuse.
Before she even arrived in New
Zealand, she was under attack. Several
members of the Psychological Society tried to have revoked her invitation to
deliver a keynote speech to the society's conference in Hamilton two days ago.
One of them, John Read, of Auckland
University, resigned
from the society's executive in protest when conference organisers stood
firmly in favour of her speaking.
As conference delegates filed into the Waikato University
lecture theatre, two women handed out 28-page statements denouncing her.
"We're here to present some balance," said one of them, Auckland therapist
Eileen Swan.
Though Professor Loftus has faced such protests for years now, she still
expresses surprise at them.
All she's doing, she says, is publishing research which questions the belief
that people who are sexually abused at a very young age can completely
suppress all memories of that abuse till therapists "recover" it in
adulthood.
The protests began in 1993 with her first paper on the subject, which she
wrote after becoming intrigued at a rash of cases in the United States
of parents facing criminal charges or being sued by their adult children
after therapists "recovered" their memories of sexual abuse from
years before.
Her article questioned whether such memories were genuine or planted as a
result of the therapy.
"It was a balanced article just raising some questions and yet for some
reason, I was labelled as having an extreme position," she says.
"Ever since, people have attributed to me ideas and comments and deeds I
have never thought and never did."
On National radio last month, Dr Read hurled a stinging, 29-minute peroration
at Professor Loftus.
"I'd much rather she stayed in America. She's doing enough
damage over there. New
Zealand is in a crisis over abuse,"
he said.
"We are trying to find some proper solutions to reduce the amount of
murders of children and sexual abuse of children. To have Loftus arrive and
stir up all this nonsense that people don't repress their memories and
counsellors and psychologists are planting these memories is not going to
help us."
The professor gets her right of reply on National Radio this morning, but Dr
Read's linking of her with child killings is the kind of thing she means that
people attribute to her. She says child sexual abuse is appalling, but so are
false claims of abuse.
Her research has looked at whether adults can have clear, detailed but
nonetheless false memories about their childhood implanted in their minds by
the power of suggestion. She has found that about a quarter of adults are
quite suggestible like this.
One study involved getting the subjects' mothers to reveal details about
their childhoods. Those details were put to them along with a fake account of
getting lost in a shopping mall.
A significant minority of people tested came up with detailed accounts of the
event during a number of interviews.
Other studies saw subjects recalling details of upsetting a punch bowl at a
wedding that never happened, and even recalling vicious animal attacks.
"Recently we've even got people to report that they had witnessed
demonic possession by exposing them to suggestive articles and testimonials
of other people," Professor Loftus says.
"So I predict there will soon be a rise in claims of demonic possession
and a rise in people's attempts to get exorcisms because the movie The
Exorcist is being re-released in the States next month.
"When it was first released in 1973, many people started vomiting,
believing they were possessed, exhibiting the symptoms and requesting
exorcisms in massive numbers."
MANY Americans also genuinely believe they have been abducted by aliens, she
says, and through therapy and support groups reveal great details of what
they claim happened. But falsely believing one is possessed or has gone for a
ride in a spaceship is harmless compared to the horrendous damage being done
by therapists specialising in recovered memories of sex abuse, Professor
Loftus says.
"The problem is the therapist who has only one hypothesis. It isn't the
case that every bit of pelvic pain means you were abused, that every case of
depression or low self-esteem means you were abused, yet those therapists are
not open to entertain another hypothesis other than their sex abuse agenda.
"Another problem comes from people who read the many books available on
the subject and decide they have symptoms of being abused.
"They go to a therapist to try to get the memories dredged up and if the
therapist says `sorry I don't do that' or `let's consider some alternative
hypotheses', then some of these patients walk out the door and they can right
away find another one who will."
Her opponents say she should not be speaking about false claims of child
abuse because that causes even more trauma for genuine abuse victims who feel
they might not be believed. Isn't that a valid point?
"For those people who have legitimate claims, for the people who were
abused and maybe didn't talk about it for a long time, and finally now want
to stand up and speak about it, maybe ask that someone be held accountable,
if they have a genuine case you would like them to be believed.
"But the collection of cases I've seen are generally cases that are
extremely suspicious.
"They involve accusations of prolonged massive abuse, they involve
claims of massive repression, highly suggestive psychotherapy which leads a
person from going to having no awareness of having this happen to making detailed
claims of animal sacrifice, baby breeding, baby sacrifice and satanic abuse.
"I think those claims have to be questioned. To uncritically accept
them, embrace them and do the things people are doing to dig them out is
harming lots and lots of people."
There are many people working with genuine victims of child abuse, Professor
Loftus says, and she welcomes that. But the problem of false claims of abuse
also needs to be addressed, and she's making that her mission.
"I think that people need to recognise we're not claiming all cases are
wrong by any means. Just some of them are. If we can identify the ones we
ought to be suspicious about and not prosecuting innocent people, the world
is better off."
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