# recovered memory therapy **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 25, 2016, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734 "2016-10-25T22:20:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/21 "2016-10-27T12:25:18Z")
Scientific American published an article called [Creating False Memories](https://webfiles.uci.edu/eloftus/Loftus_ScientificAmerican_Good97.pdf) (pdf) in their September 1997 issue. In it the authors discuss a study where they planted benign false childhood memories and a significant number of test subjects remembered the planted memories in later interviews. One example: being lost at the mall at 5, comforted by an elderly woman, and being reunited with family. Another: spilling a punch bowl on the parents of the bride at a wedding. It’s a well written article and worth a read. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/22 "2016-10-27T14:06:59Z")
I should clarify my earlier comments. I’m less skeptical about the existence of psychogenic amnesia than I am about the possibility of recovered memories… If such a thing is possible, I don’t see how it’s feasible to identify the recovered memory as absolutely true, absent corroboration. Trauma is especially tricky in this regard, as there is evidence that when traumatic experience is shared, people take on the memories and experiences of others. That’s why debriefing following catastrophic events has been shown to make PTSD worse. Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/23 "2016-10-27T15:34:11Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > Scientific American published an article called [Creating False Memories](https://webfiles.uci.edu/eloftus/Loftus_ScientificAmerican_Good97.pdf) (pdf) in their September 1997 issue. > > In it the authors discuss a study where they planted benign false childhood memories and a significant number of test subjects remembered the planted memories in later interviews. > > One example: being lost at the mall at 5, comforted by an elderly woman, and being reunited with family. Another: spilling a punch bowl on the parents of the bride at a wedding. > > It’s a well written article and worth a read. It is a good article. I probably read it at the time it appeared. I might point out that its author was eventually hounded out of U. Washington and ended up at U Cal, Irvine. But I was mainly asking whether a clearer consensus had been reached 19 years later. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/24 "2016-10-27T15:38:37Z")
The fact that people have actually been convicted on the sole basis of ‘recovered memories’ is quite terrifying. Reading the [False Memory Syndrome Foundation article](http://www.fmsfonline.org/?ginterest=RecoveredMemoriesInTheCourts) on civil and criminal cases brought on such grounds at the height of the hysteria in the 90s is chilling. (It’s unsurprising that roughly half of all national cases were brought in California, the home of many 20th century witchhunts). One of the worst cases is that of Paul Ingram. > [@](#): > > In a 1989 criminal case, the defendant, Paul Ingram, received a 20-year prison sentence after he pled guilty to the sexual and ritual abuse of two of his daughters. The sisters asserted that years earlier they had been repeatedly raped and that at least 25 human babies, some born to them, had been sacrificed in rituals in the Ingram’s back yard. Police dug up the Ingram’s yard, but failed to locate the burial grounds for the alleged ritual sacrifices. Medical examination of the daughters failed to yield any evidence of sexual activity or of childbearing in either one. Yet Paul Ingram, the father of four children, a deputy sheriff, and a member of a born-again Pentecostal church, agreed that if his daughters said he had done these things, it must be true. Dr. Richard Ofshe, a social psychologist, interviewed Mr. Ingram at length and was able to show how he had been persuaded, by the use of long interrogations using visualization exercises and suggestion, to accept that he must have done the things he couldn’t remember doing. Dr. Ofshe performed an experiment using the same visualization techniques and got Mr. Ingram to confess to an incident that even the accusing daughters agreed had never happened. Mr. Ingram has since tried without success to withdraw his guilty plea and remains in prison. The words of Macaulay on the 19th century British public may with as much truth be adapted to that of modern America, except for ridiculous I’d substitute frightening. > [@](#): > > We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the [del]British[/del] American public in one of its periodical fits of morality. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/25 "2016-10-27T16:11:34Z")
Did we at least learn anything from that? Are there any recent cases of conviction based _solely_ on recovered memories? ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/26 "2016-10-27T19:32:43Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I should clarify my earlier comments. I’m less skeptical about the existence of psychogenic amnesia than I am about the possibility of recovered memories… If such a thing is possible, I don’t see how it’s feasible to identify the recovered memory as absolutely true, absent corroboration. Trauma is especially tricky in this regard, as there is evidence that when traumatic experience is shared, people take on the memories and experiences of others. That’s why debriefing following catastrophic events has been shown to make PTSD worse. > > Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk I would agree with this btw. Recovered memories are bunk. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/27 "2016-10-27T19:38:13Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Did we at least learn anything from that? Are there any recent cases of conviction based _solely_ on recovered memories? I’m not aware of anything _solely_ based on recovered memories. But as noted above, the Sandusky case relied heavily on recovered memories, and at least some of the victims who testified at that trial were testifying solely on the basis of their recovered memories. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734/28 "2016-10-27T20:15:41Z")
I don’t think I’m comfortable with recovered memories being used as evidence in court. Memory is subjective enough as it is. Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recovered-memory-therapy/769734.md?page=1)