False Memories in Minors as Alleged Victims of Sexual Abuse

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2006

In this article, the authors argue that a variety of psychological factors stand in the way of providing expert advice to the courts in terms of assessing the credibility of a complainant's account of sexual abuse when there is a significant delay in reporting. These include difficulties in assessing (a) the complainant's account of how he or she claims to have remembered or forgotten the abuse, (b) whether (and how) the claim of abuse originated within a therapeutic setting, and (c) the difficulty of generalizing from empirical evidence. It is argued that all of these issues can be more easily avoided if experts maintain a case-specific focus. In this article, the authors review both the psychological and legal controversies surrounding the false-recovered memory debate, discuss how courts approach the admissibility and use of recovered memory testimony, and conclude that expert witnesses should carefully consider the above points before drawing general conclusions from the literature and applying them to individual cases.

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 2016

Expert witnesses can play a major role in legal cases concerning the reliability of statements. Abuse cases frequently contain only memories of eyewitnesses/victims without the presence of physical evidence. Here, it is of the utmost importance that expert witnesses use scientific evidence for their expert opinion. In this case report, we describe a case in which 20 children reported being sexually abused by the same teachers at their elementary school. We review the investigative steps that were taken by the police and school authorities and how they probably affected memory. In order to provide a sound expert opinion regarding the reliability of these statements, we propose three recommendations. So, to reduce the effect of confirmation bias and to increase objectivity, we argue that expert witness' reports should contain alternative scenarios, need to be checked by another expert, and should focus on the origin and context of the first statement.

Legal and Criminological Psychology, 2008

Recent research on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has shown that there are at least two types of recovered memory experiences: those that are gradually recovered within the context of suggestive therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered, without extensive prompting or explicit attempts to reconstruct the past. By focusing on well-known imperfections of human memory, we were able to find differing origins for these recovered memory experiences, with people recovering memories through suggestive therapy being more prone to forming false memories, and with people reporting spontaneously recovered memories being more prone to forgetting prior incidences of remembering. Moreover, the two types of recovered memory reports are associated with differences in corroborative evidence, suggesting that memories recovered spontaneously, outside of suggestive therapy, are more likely to correspond to genuine abuse events. In this paper, we summarize recent research on recovered memories and we argue that these scientific findings should be applied in the justice system, but also in clinical practice.

Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health

Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne, 1998

This paper briefly examines the debate regarding adult memories of childhood sexual abuse and suggests a reasoned clinical response. The perspective related to "false memories" of abuse, as well as that of advocates of recovered memories, are considered. It is concluded that although there is considerable rhetoric on this topic, there is little definitive information to support one position or the other. A middle ground perspective, that recognizes both the legitimacy of childhood abuse and its negative influences, as well as the possibility of poor clinical practice leading to false reports of abuse, is advocated. Implications of this middle ground perspective for clinical practice, training and research are discussed.

Psychological Science, 2003

Previous research indicates that many adults (nearly 40%) fail to report their own documented child sexual abuse (CSA) when asked about their childhood experiences. These controversial results could reflect lack of consciously accessible recollection, thus bolstering claims that traumatic memories may be repressed. In the present study, 175 individuals with documented CSA histories were interviewed regarding their childhood trauma. Unlike in previous studies, the majority of participants (81%) in our study reported the documented abuse. Older age when the abuse ended, maternal support following disclosure of the abuse, and more severe abuse were associated with an increased likelihood of disclosure. Ethnicity and dissociation also played a role. Failure to report CSA should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that the abuse is inaccessible to memory, although inaccessibility or forgetting cannot be ruled out in a subset of cases.

Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 1994

Issues concerning the phenomenon of delayed recall of childhood trauma have arisen in forensic settings. For example, the courts have had to address the issue of delayed recall because of legislation extending the statute of limitations for bringing lawsuits related to childhood sexual abuse. Many states now allow victims to bring suit for up to three years after their memory returns. This paper describes patterns of recall of childhood sexual abuse as recounted by 30 adult women survivors in a nonforensic setting. Eleven of the women described remembering their childhood sexual abuse after a period of amnesia. Examples are given of the types of circumstances that were associated with the delayed recall of the abuse. Implications for assessment in clinical and forensic settings are discussed.

Journal of Traumatic Stress, 1995

This study provides evidence that some adults who claim to have recovered memories of sexual abuse recall actunl events that occurred in childhood. One hundred twenty-nine women with documented histories of s m l victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked about abuse hktory. Seventeen years following the initial report of the abuse, 80 of the women recalled the victimization. One in 10 women (16% of those who recalled the abuse) reported that at some time in the past they had forgotten about the abuse. Those with a prior period of forgetting-the women with "recovered memories"-were younger at the time of abuse and were less likely to have received support from their mothers than the women who reported that they had always remembered their victimization. The women who had recovered memories and those who had always remembered had the same number of discrepancies when their accounts of the abuse were compared to the reports from the early 1970s. KEY WORDS child sexual abuse; memory; trauma recall. In the past several years there has been much controversy among both professionals and the general public about adults' memories of childhood trauma, especially delayed or recently recovered memories of child sexual abuse. The scientific debate has focused on the reality of repressed memories of childhood trauma (Berliner

Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 1992

Recently there has been increased civil litigation by adults suing parents and others for sexual abuse following the recovering of memories of the abuse through therapy. The memories are recovered with the help of therapists who use concepts such as repression and dissociation to account for the lack of memories and who then use techniques such as hypnosis and survivors' groups. However, the claims of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse recovered in the course of therapy are unlikely to be supported by empirical data.

International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 2003