Got false memories? I doubt it Part I

So...I had planned to write more about dissociation in a nice, orderly, professional way.

But you know how they say that life is what happens when you're making other plans?

Bingo. So we'll just have to come back to that after you know this. Who likes bedtime

stories? *gasps with delight as hands shoot up*
It's 10:49 and all good proUers should either be in bed or merrily blogging for progress.

But since you are the renegade readers with insomnia, here comes a powerful story.

In 1993 I was a sophomore in college and a senior in high school. (It happens)

My freshman year of college, in 1990, I took introduction to Psychology.

The book was written by a well known psychologist, Carol Tavris, whom I knew nothing

about at the time

She was a decent writer, though, and I was one of those kids who devoured text books,

so we got along fine. I was involved in bringing charges against my abuser at the same

time and found college a necessary distraction that allowed me to remember that life did

indeed go on after terrible abuse.

Had I met Carol Tavris at this point, we probably would have gotten along well.

Now we don't, really.

And when we actually meet, which we will one day, I think, watch out for the fireworks.

You see, she is a member of the false memory syndrome foundation, a small but

politically powerful group of people whose sole purpose is to try to discount the

memories of incest survivors by making it seem that "bad therapy" is responsible for

most (if not all)

cases of recovered memory and spreading this message far and wide.

And I? I am an incest survivor. No if, ands or buts. No apologies. No doubts. No

debates. No cowering. And no bad therapy.

While I have always known this about myself, my memories would be no less valid if

the majority had been recovered in therapy. Books have been written on the neurological

basis for and validity of repressing trauma. One of the best, in my opinion, was written by

Jennifer Freyd, an incest survivor abused by her parents. The same parents who

founded the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

So, yes, that bothers me, given that I believe strongly in the validity of repressed memory

and in the lengths many people will go to hide their guilt, but this isn't what made me feel

compelled to write this blog instead of my planned one.

So what did?

I ran into Carol Tavris and her work again. The article is an old one I had seen before,

but couldn’t discuss in any meaningful way.

However, time has passed, and in the interest of raising awareness and expressing

important concerns, I’m trying to do so.

She titled her article “Beware the Incest Survivor Machine.” The very title suggests that

therapists, activists, authors and others are creating incest survivors. At best, it

thus casts survivors as passive recipients of suggestion. At worst, it suggests that we are

manipulative and making up stories to gain sympathy.

Indeed, Ms. Tavris says that the problem with “the survivor narrative” (another demeaning phrase, in my

opinion) is that "it places responsibility for the common problems in women's lives on a single clear villain, someone safely in the woman's past. The victim doesn't have to do anything except understand the origins of her problems. Her partner doesn't have to change, as long as he is sympathetic to her early trauma. And she gets a love bath from her friends and supporters. Who could resist?"

First, a love bath? Excuse me? Who could resist? Oh, please. People who address their incest histories with friends and family are often accused of making it up, exaggerating or (my personal favorite) making too big a deal about it. If we were that desperate for a love bath, we’d all get kittens and puppies who don’t tell us this kind of stuff and feel compelled to make comments such as this. Friends grow tired, sometimes acting more like survivors of our stories than we are. We learn to be careful whom we tell.
And plus, we are more than survivors. Who wants to be discussing this all the time?

If the responses I got in my early recovery are a “love bath,” I’d hate to see a “hate bath.”

I was supported for awhile, yes, and then denied in various ways. And I was fortunate to

have a family who believed me. Many do not.

Secondly, although Tavris is correct in that many of the problems people say incest creates are

global ones common to most women and thus non-specific to incest, she ignores the fact

that incest is a foundational trauma with global effects on survivors and so common issues

(low self-esteem, depression, perfectionism, shame) are not necessarily unrelated to

incest.

Thirdly, the victim doesn’t have to do anything except understand the origin of her

problems? Sure, nothing except try to heal those problems, often for many years.

And lastly, the assumption that “the survivor narrative” implies that a survivor’s partner

Does not have to change if there are problems is unfair. Incest recovery books are not

focused on gender equality issues or power plays within relationships. They are not

interested in placing incest within a larger social research framework and thus do not feel

the need to discuss things like the need for partners to change where this is not an incest related issue.

Clearly, Tavris is interested in placing it in a larger framework as she discusses in very academic terms in some places.However, putting down the writers of incest recovery books, which she does,

assumes that the fact that they do not do this somehow makes their contributions to incest

recovery invalid.

She implies that people who write books about incest are not experts simply because they are incest survivors, work with incest survivors or have written a book about incest recovery. While I acknowledge that not everyone who has experience with incest is an expert, her list of non-experts seems to include anyone in any circumstance who is not skeptical of incest and is instead actively supporting survivors. If having something supportive to say makes you a non-expert, heaven help the future of incest recovery.

Tavris also states that counselors overstate the prevalence of incest recovery. She does

not seem to realize that these are estimates and that hard scientific data are difficult to

come by.

The online encyclopedia at http://family.jrank.org/pages/850/Incest.html states that “Prevalence rates for incest vary widely due to differences of definition, methods of study, and the population source of the data (Glasser et al. 2001). Commonly, studies report prevalence rates of child abuse in general and do not break the abuse into familial and nonfamilial. In the United States in the 1990s, it was estimated that 100,000 to one million cases of incest occur annually, but only about 10 percent of them are reported ( Johnson 1983). Although some research estimates that less than 2 percent of the general population experiences sexual abuse (Kutchinsky 1992), other studies estimate that incest is experienced by 10 to 20 percent of children in the general population (Briere and Runtz 1989; Finkelhor et al. 1990; Russell 1983). A few other countries have published research in English on the prevalence of incest. In Brazil, for example, prevalence estimates range widely from 0.05 percent to 21 percent (Flores, Mattos, and Salzano 1998).
It is not unusual to find very different prevalence rates of incest for males and females, as in the study conducted by Renvoize (1993) who reported that as many as one-third of all girls and one-fifth of boys have experienced incest. Researchers agree that girls are much more often the victims of incest. Others report that the incidence for males is less than half of that for females because a higher proportion of males are sexually abused by adults outside the home by strangers (Carlstedt, Forsman, and Soderstrom 2001; Finkelhor et al. 1990; Gonsiorek, Bera, and LeTourneau 1994). Male incest victims may also report less frequently because they are socialized not to express feelings of helplessness and vulnerability (Nasjleti 1980).
Estimates of the prevalence of incest have risen steadily since the late 1960s as knowledge of child sexual abuse and incest has increased. There is some controversy, however, over the validity of the reported prevalence of incest. The often painful and shameful aspects of sexual abuse within the family make the collection of data very difficult. It is generally thought by professionals that the underreporting of incest is common due to the secrecy, shame, the tendency to blame the victim, and criminal ramifications surrounding incest. However, false reports by children of nonoffending parents, especially in divorce-custody situations, may account for an increase in reported incidents. There has been criticism that therapists may encourage reports through a process of recovering memories forgotten by the patient. Even considering false reporting and misuse of recovering memories, it is still very likely that the number of incest cases is underreported." (I have not yet verified these sources, or listed them below, as I'm seeking to simply get this off my chest at the moment and having
worked on this post for three days, but I plan to)
Knowing that this is underreported, many authors estimate the statistics, based on available research and (gasp!) clinical experience. As is common in such instances, they qualify statements by beginning them with “As many as. ..” when describing prevalence.
I agree that authors who incorporate research into their self-help and professional books on incest should, in many cases, better support them with references. But even so, we need to remember that this is underreported and not punish authors for trying to provide a more accurate picture with the resources we currently have. But of course, if one doesn’t really believe most reports, no picture will be accurate enough.

On the question of whether incest exists, Ms. Tavris first states the following:

What is wrong with a therapist's belief in the "epidemic" prevalence of incest? Aren't we just quibbling about numbers, when the problem itself is real? Not to researchers such as Nicholas Spanos, who are worrying about the rise in what they call "pseudomemories" that are induced by some therapists and hypnotists -- not only of incest, but also of past lives, multiple personalities and participation in satanic cults.

I am very confused by this statement. Lumping these things together is her attempt to

further discount incest, but each is a separate issue (although the “multiple personalities

she dismisses are correlated with an incest history often.) As if this is not confusing

enough, she then says, “To raise these questions does not mean that all "reawakened"

memories are fraudulent or misguided. It does mean that we should be wary of believing

every case of "me too!" that makes the news, and that we should be asking why these

stories (and the advice books that play off them) are so popular now. We should also ask

where these stories lead, with what consequences for individual well-being and social reform.

I wish Tavris stick to one or the other; my head is spinning.

The reason such stories were “popular” then (in 1993) was not because of some

tremendous conspiracy but because in the 70’s and 80’s, incest was just beginning to

be addressed and in the 1990’s, the silence was broken on so many fronts.

All in all, it was a great time to be an incest survivor in therapy. For those starting or

continuing now it is much more difficult. This is due in large part to beliefs such as

Tavris’s and the skeptical stances therapists are now encouraged to take, even when

criminal prosecution is no longer a possibility according to state law. Too much of

this, and survivors just give up on therapy, feeling patronized, judged and wounded by

neutrality or outright denial.

This is sad. It makes me grieve for my fellow survivors and write incredibly long posts

like this. I know this debate will continue, but felt it really important to say this.

For more information, see:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4D7163DF930A35752C0A...

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/incest/in...

http://www.astraeasweb.net/politics/fmindex.html

http://www.fmsfonline.org/

http://www.bfms.org.uk/

If any of you would like research or recovery based resources, please send me a private message and I will respond as I am able.

Right now I’m going to bed.

More later.

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