From:    Albertus Magnus                        Area: Base of Set
To:      All                                    14 Nov 94 19:01:38
Subject: Repressed Memories                     UpdReq 

D.C. - "Repressed memories" of childhood sexual abuse that are
recovered years later should not all be taken at face value
but should not all be dismissed as fantasies either, an
American Psychological Association panel said Friday.
The panel, in a brief interim report, said, "Most people who
were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what
happened to them. However, it is possible for memories of
abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be
remembered," the panel found. "... It is also possible to
construct convincing pseudo-memories for events that never
occurred."
The American Medical Association found last June that
so-called "recovered memories" are often unreliable and should
not be assumed to be true. "It is not yet known how to
distinguish true memories from imagined events in these
cases," the AMA said, finding the use of such memories
"fraught with problems of potential misapplication."
The American Psychiatric Association, affiliated with the AMA,
adopted a similar stance a year ago.
In releasing its working group's report Friday, the American
Psychological Association board of directors said, "The public
should be wary of two kinds of therapists: those who offer
instant childhood abuse diagnoses, and those who dismiss
claims or reports of sexual abuse without exploration."
Cases of alleged "recovered memories" have made headlines in
the past few years as they led to criminal charges, lawsuits
over abuse, and in some cases, recantings.
In 1991, a jury in Redwood City, CA, convicted a man of the
1969 rape and murder of a childhood friend of his daughter
based largely on the daughter's sudden recollection of the
event as an adult.
Last May, a jury in Napa, CA, ordered two therapists to pay
$500,000 to a former winery executive who accused the
therapists of planting false memories in his adult daughter
that he had raped her as a child. The daughter testified that
he raped her.


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