False memory syndrome

Human memory is inherently faulty. At best, memories are selective: totally true but not the total truth. They also change over time, because of the physical and psychological effects of aging, brain trauma, and numerous social, cultural, and personal factors. Sometimes they undergo repression from consciousness, only to emerge decades later.

And sometimes, people remember things that never happened at all, either spontaneously or after some introspective or therapeutic process. Some of these memories may be harmless, even comforting. But when an event that never happened dominates and distorts an individual’s life, impairing thought, functioning, and relationships, the result may be called False Memory Syndrome (FMS).

This condition is most commonly associated with recovered memories of childhood sexual and other abuses, but it may apply in cases such as men claiming to be traumatized combat veterans when they were never even in the military, people alleging abduction by space aliens, and other situations. However, FMS is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, the definitive compendium of psychiatric orthodoxy that determines, among other things, what conditions may be given full credence in court. And the use of FMS as a legal defense against accusations is highly controversial. Much of the opposition to FMS comes from the feminist, social justice, and allied movements. The literature pro and con is substantial, but also highly partisan and politicized. Much is also highly technical and not readily available to lay readers.

Brief History

The term False Memory Syndrome was coined in 1992 by mathematician Peter J. Freyd, after his daughter, Jennifer, alleged childhood sexual abuse, a claim both he and his wife denied. The parents went on to found the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which does not deny the reality of childhood sexual and other abuses, but fights what it deems to be the phenomenon of false claims and their devastating private effects.

FMS may be recent, but the scientific, medical, and psychotherapeutic controversy over the phenomenon has been going on at least since the nineteenth century.

The modern controversy begins with Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s system, the human mind works at three levels: the conscious, that of which people are aware; the preconscious, that of which people may become aware without effort; and the dynamically repressed unconscious, that which people block out and may not be recovered without therapeutic or other forms of assistance and/or intervention.

To Freud, the dynamically repressed unconscious arose out of the sexuality of early childhood and the subsequent human inability, individual and social, to face the fact of that sexuality. Many of Freud’s patients were middle-class Viennese women who, under analysis, stated that they had been seduced or abused in early childhood by their fathers or other powerful male figures. Male patients, Freud’s own and those of others, might offer similar memories, or portray themselves as seduced by (or seducing) their mothers.

Freud refused to accept the idea that such immoral and criminal behavior was rampant. He concluded that these events had been fantasized to express unattainable and shameful sexual desires, then repressed. However, at the unconscious level, such fantasies had the impact of reality.

Nearly a century later, lay analyst Jeffrey Masson, in his controversial best-seller, The Assault on Truth, claimed that Freud was guilty of extreme intellectual dishonesty and worse by refusing to accept claims of abuse and incest as real. To do so, Masson argued, would have endangered his entire theory. The book is now largely forgotten. But the fundamental controversy—how can a person or a court know if a memory is true or false?—has grown ever more intense and vitriolic.

The controversy exploded in the 1980s and 1990s, decades of economic prosperity and easing international tensions. A multitude of people began claiming long-ago abuse. Sometimes, the accused were family members; occasionally, they were men who had gone on to great success in their fields. While the Left fought to raise consciousness of the reality and extent of sexual crimes, especially against children, the Right responded with books such as The Abuse Excuse and The Culture of Complaint.

False Memory Syndrome Today

Although the publicity has diminished, the FMS issue remains intractable. Both expertise and common sense have converged on an approach that has provided no firm answers but does offer guidelines.

FMS raises hard legal issues. Often, a statute of limitations makes prosecution impossible. When an accusation is still justifiable, it is far from clear that the standards of procedure and proof required to convict in other cases can apply. As a rule, the best support of an accusation comes from other evidence, either physical or corroborating testimony. But since these accusations often deal with events decades old, no such evidence may be expected to exist. Everything then depends on the skill of the opposing attorneys, expert witnesses, jury composition, personal credibility of the accuser and accused, and the proclivities of the presiding judge. And, of course, if no one can prove that the long-ago event happened, it cannot be proven not to have happened.

An equally important set of factors involves the process by which the accuser recovered his or her memories. Psychologists such as Elizabeth Loftus have shown that memories may be altered through manipulation of language. Therapies specifically intended to recover repressed memories (themselves a controversial issue), using techniques such as hypnosis and repetitive leading questions, may abet the creation of false memories. In extreme cases, such as prisons, the use of coercive persuasion may yield similar effects.

One possible legal palliative may be the creation of special courts to handle these cases, with their own standards and procedures.

However, only a small percentage of possible FMS claims ever reach the courts. Most remain private or semipublic affairs. Here, both expertise and common sense suggest that, whatever the truth or falsity of a specific claim, the claimant is very likely in great personal pain over something. Unless a claimant’s goal is clearly malice or blackmail, career advancement, or quest for some sort of moral stature, patience and compassion may be the best way of getting at the truth.

Bibliography

Bjorklund, David F., ed. False-Memory Creation in Children and Adults: Theory, Research, and Implications. Psychology Press, 2000.

Brown University Blog. "The Recovered Memory Debate/’False Memory Theory.’" Recovered Memory Project, 13 Mar. 2015. Accessed 9 Jan. 2025.

Conway, M. A. Recovered Memories and False Memories. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Dershowitz, Alan. The Abuse Excuse: And Other Cop-outs, Sob Stories and Evasions of Responsibility. Back Bay Books, 1995.

"Memory and Reality." False Memory Syndrome Foundation, 2016. Accessed 9 Jan. 2025.

Hughes, Robert. The Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Loftus, Elizabeth, and Katherine Ketcham. The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse. Saint Martin’s Press, 1996.

Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff. The Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory. Ballantine, 2003.

Schacter, Daniel L. The Seven Sins of Memory (How the Mind Forgets and Remembers). Mariner Books, 2002.