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The Press
September 1, 2000
Child sex abuse: uncovering the danger of suggestion
by David McLoughlin
A visiting American psychologist questions the belief that therapists can
recover suppressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. She caused quite a
stir even before her arrival, finds David McLoughlin
Professor Beth Loftus seems an unlikely person to arouse the kind of heated
passions that she does. She is softly spoken with a delightful west coast
American accent, dresses unassumingly, and is friendly and chatty, and not
inclined to make outrageous statements.
She does not have horns, yet she 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 attacked. Several members
of the Psychological Society sought revocation of her invitation to deliver a
keynote speech to the society's conference in Hamilton last weekend.
One of them, Dr John Read, of Auckland
University, resigned
from the society's executive in protest when the conference's organisers
stood firmly in favour of Professor Loftus 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 the women, Auckland therapist
Eileen Swan.
Although Professor Loftus has faced such protests for years now, she still
expresses surprise at them.
All she is doing, she says, is publishing research which questions the belief
that people who are sexually abused when very young can completely suppress
all memories of that abuse until therapists "recover" them 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 had "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 then, people have attributed to me ideas, 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 (Professor) 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."
Such linking with child killings is the kind of thing people wrongly
attribute to her, says Professor Loftus. Child sexual abuse is appalling, but
so are false claims of abuse, she says.
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 one-quarter of adults are
quite susceptible to 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 several interviews.
In other studies subjects recalled 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," says Professor Loftus.
"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 they reveal great details of
what they claim happened. However, falsely believing that one is possessed or
has gone for a ride in a spaceship is harmless compared with the horrendous
damage being done by therapists specialising in the recovered memories of
sexual abuse, she 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 sexual-abuse
agenda.
"Another problem comes from people who read the many books available on
the subject, and decide they have symptoms of being abused," she says.
"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 speak about false child-abuse claims because
that causes even more trauma for genuine abuse victims who fear they might
not be believed. Isn't that a valid point?
"For 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 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 this having happened 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, says
Professor Loftus, and she welcomes that.
The problem of false claims of abuse, however, also needs to be addressed,
and she is 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 prosecute innocent people, the world is
better off." --Dominion
Caption: While there may be many
genuine cases of child sexual abuse, false claims also need to be addressed,
says Professor Beth Loftus.
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