Shame on You, New Amsterdam!

On Tuesday, October 18, 2021 the show New Amsterdam on NBC promoted that all recovered memories are false. Once again, survivors recovering from horrific abuse are shamed and invalidated in the most public way. Frankly, I could not believe that the cast made such blanket statements about survivors and that all recovered memories are false.

Let's look at where the controversy started. In 1990, Jennifer Freyd, Ph.D., accused her father, Peter Freyd, of incest. At that time, Dr. Freyd researched memory at the University of Oregon. She is an expert on the subject, which her parents sought to discredit by forming the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF). In addition, Pamela Freyd, Jennifer's mother, sought to further disgrace Jennifer by shaming her in a most public way. The book "Blind to Betrayal" outlines how Pamela wrote an anonymous account of Jennifer's accusation, disparaging her daughter but not changing enough detail to make the account genuinely anonymous, and then sent it to Dr. Freyd's colleagues at the University of Oregon. That was just the start.

The premise of the FMSF is that therapists have an organized campaign to implant false memories of childhood sexual abuse in their patients. The FMSF bases the theory on the "lost in the mall" "study" by Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D. and Jim Coan at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1991, Loftus and her undergraduate student Coan sought to prove that it is possible to implant entirely false memories in people. They had five subjects where they claimed they successfully implanted memories of being lost in a mall. Aside from the ethical issues in conducting such a controversial study on human subjects, why did New Amsterdam embrace such a flawed theory?

Proving the implantation of memories can't be done, and this is why. Traumatic memories are like a multi-colored ribbon going across a razor blade, where the memories are separated and stored. For example, we all saw Jackie Kennedy jump out of her seat in Dallas and retrieve something off the trunk after President Kennedy was shot. It's there, it's real, and Mrs. Kennedy later said she didn't have any memory of doing that.

Any study that would simulate prolonged childhood sexual abuse and the resulting traumatic memories is simply unethical. It's why the lost in the mall theory is so suspect. To date, Loftus and others have not studied how durable the memories from the experiment are. Since we don't have that data, how can anyone unequivocally say that the false memory theory is true and all repressed memories are faulty?

The results of the mall study have been misrepresented in the media, in scholarly journals, and in courtroom testimony to suggest that therapists can implant false memories of sexual abuse in their clients. Although researchers are not responsible for media inaccuracies regarding their research, they are ethically required to correct inaccuracies to the extent possible. I am not aware of any efforts by Loftus and others to correct these inaccuracies, and I welcome any published evidence to the contrary. For more information, see the article "Lost in a Shopping Mall—A Breach of Professional Ethics" by Lynn S. Crook and Martha C. Dean.

So again, the keyword here is durable. Can Loftus and others prove that the lost in the mall theory continued to be a false memory in the subjects? No, they can't.

In her book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," Deborah Lipstadt explained how the Holocaust deniers gained credibility. Simply put, the deniers put together a board of professionals, those with PhDs and other assorted degrees, to make Holocaust denial sound more plausible.

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation did the same thing. Ralph Underwager, MA, was instrumental in helping Peter and Pamela Freyd create the FMSF. You've probably never heard of Underwager, so let me acquaint you with him because he is one of the key players.

By his admission, Underwager said he testified in over 200 cases of child sexual abuse in 35 states, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He also admitted that he always testified for the defense and held that the child was the victim of leading and suggestive questioning in every case. In addition, Underwager co-authored a book that others used in cases where he didn't testify. In May of 1988, the New England Commissioners of Child Welfare Agencies commissioned a study of the accuracy of the writing and testimony of Underwager in child sexual abuse cases because of the 200+ cases¹. Dr. Anna Salter, well-known in the treatment of survivors and perpetrators, conducted the study. For the most part, her study discredited Underwager and his wife Hollida Wakefield. Subsequently, Underwager and Wakefield sued Dr. Salter and lost. That, however, is another story.

In 1991, Underwager and Wakefield gave an interview to Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia, a pro-pedophile publication in the Netherlands. In it, he said, "Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. . . . Paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness, they can say, "I believe this is, in fact, part of God's will." Underwager also said that pedophiles need to stand up for their rights, much like the LGBTQ movement. The problem with that argument is that LGBTQ individuals are consenting adults and know who they are. Children cannot consent to sex because they don't know what sex is. While a child might know they are trans (think Jazz Jennings) or "different" at an early age, they can't know what that means. They are still developing and coming to terms with the world around them. They are innocents.

So, there you go. Remember this when you think the board of the FMSF was anything but legitimate. Yet, all of the board members disputed recovered memories and got the media and a great number of lay people to believe in the theory. For a complete list of the board, see False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

Other memory research confirms the multi-ribbon theory I mentioned earlier. When a person experiences trauma and releases adrenaline, the prefrontal cortex in the brain shuts down. When this area of the brain stops functioning, high reasoning and language structures stop. The amygdala, which stores memories, doesn't record the event as a story. Instead, the amygdala holds the emotional significance of the traumatic event as experienced by our five senses. So traumatic memories are fragments of visual images, smells, sounds, tastes, or touches, any of which can, at a later time, trigger the survivor into remembering the trauma. In many cases, instead of the brain holding the memory, the body retains it. For a great discussion about this, see Why Understanding What Trauma Does to the Brain Helps You Heal.

The TV show M*A*S*H* had an interesting episode where Hawkeye experienced repressed memory. They were hiding on a bus from the North Koreans, and Hawkeye told a woman to keep her chicken quiet. He maintained this story for quite some time until he realized that the woman suffocated her child to keep the rest of them safe. It's an incredibly powerful and sad episode about trauma and the inability to deal with an event. If we can believe that someone can repress a memory in a TV show, why can't we believe survivors of childhood sexual abuse?

Throughout history, survivors have been denied healing, being heard, and resolving the issues that cause post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, and repressed memory. It's so much easier to call survivors liars and to believe the accused child molester. Why is that? Why does society need to dismiss survivors in favor of those accused?

I can point to case after case where survivors repressed memories were proved true, but that's for another article.

So, New Amsterdam, I will do my best to boycott your show and have others do the same. Your stance on repressed memories is reprehensible. And I have to ask, is someone on your staff accused of sexually abusing their child and taking the FMSF theory to heart? Are all of the actors also supporting an accused child molester? If so, how sad for the child and how very duped you are.

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References:

¹ Salter, Anna C & New England Commissioners of Child Welfare Agencies (1991). Accuracy of expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases: a case study of Ralph Underwager and Holida [i.e. Hollida] Wakefield. New England Commissioners of Child Welfare Agencies, [New England]