Books - Authors L

Peter Ellis Org : Seeking Justice for Peter Ellis
The Christchurch Civic Creche Case

www.peterellis.co.nz

Loftus, Elizabeth; Ketcham, Katherine Witness for the Defense, 1992

Loftus, Elizabeth; Ketcham, Katherine The Myth of Repressed Memory, 1994

Lynn, Stephen; McConkey, Kevin Truth in Memory, 1998

Loftus, Elizabeth F; Ketcham, Katherine
Witness for the Defense, 1992
The accused, the eyewitness and the expert who puts memory on trial

Loftus, Elizabeth; Ketcham, Katherine
The Myth of Repressed Memory, 1994
False memories and allegations of sexual abuse

Reviews

From Booklist, September 15, 1994
As a cognitive psychologist, Loftus has acquired extensive insight into the malleability of memory. For example, her research has shown that false traumatic childhood "memories" can be readily induced in adults, who then enrich the implanted memory with detail and emotion. The results of such studies and a total lack of evidence of memory repression lead Loftus and other eminent psychologists to attribute the wide prevalence of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse and satanic ritual abuse to therapist bias. Coauthor Ketcham and Loftus describe the anguish of the accused and of the families shattered by disastrous combinations of ill-trained, overzealous therapists, suggestibility of vulnerable patients, and group-therapy pressure to exhume and share monstrous memories. They neither dispute the reality of childhood sexual abuse nor the existence of traumatic memories, but they reject the true believers' assertions that "incest is epidemic, repression is rampant" and that "skeptics" are "in denial." Highly recommended. Brenda Grazis Copyright© 1994, American Library Association.

From Kirkus Reviews , July 1, 1994
A research psychologist whose specialty is memory pokes giant holes in claims that survivors of sexual abuse repress their memories of the abuse and can then recover them with the help of therapists. Loftus, who also teamed up with Ketcham to write Witness for the Defense (1991), points out that no scientific evidence exists to validate such claims. Comparing the current rash of sex abuse charges based on ``recovered memory'' to the 17th-century Salem witchcraft trials, she often opens chapters with quotes from The Crucible, Arthur Miller's play on that subject. Loftus describes her own research at the University of Washington, which found that false memories of a mildly traumatic childhood event (becoming lost in a large store, for example) were easily implanted in the minds of adult subjects. According to Loftus, therapists operating under the assumption that ``incest is epidemic, repression is rampant, recovery is possible, and therapy can help,'' implant similarly false memories of more serious traumas through a variety of therapeutic techniques, including suggestive questioning, age regression, and hypnosis. Memories ``recovered'' through these techniques, she asserts, can lead to painful and destructive confrontations that rip apart families and sometimes end in prison sentences for innocent people. Loftus, who has served as an expert witness, recounts her experience testifying in defense of George Franklin, whose adult daughter's recovered memories resulted in his conviction for the murder of one of the daughter's childhood friends. She also details the bizarre case of Paul Ingram (see Lawrence Wright's Remembering Satan, p. 216), whose recovered memories led him to confess to participation in quite unbelievable satanic rituals. Sure to arouse controversy: Proponents of the validity of repressed memories (``True Believers,'' as Loftus calls them) will see this as anathema; others will applaud her reasonable and restrained approach to a touchy subject. (First printing of 30,000; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP.

Synopsis
The nation's leading expert on memory exposes the recent wave of sex abuse charges based on "repressed memories" as a modern-day version of the Salem witch trials. "Astute, scientifically informed, and compassionate towards the movement's casualties."--New York Review of Books.

Synopsis
The nation's leading expert on memory reveals how the current spate of sex abuse charges linked to ""repressed memories"" have little factual basis in scientific research and are often unwitting fabrications based on the ideological agendas of therapists.

Lynn, Stephen; McConkey, Kevin (editors)
Truth in Memory, 1998