Whose memories?
In Western Australia a man was recently acquitted after being charged with sexual abuse by his two daughters, who remembered their abuse years later during therapy. His defence rested on a supposed "false memory syndrome".
The term "false memory" is said to have been coined by Dr Ralph Underwager, co-founder and former member of the advisory board of the US organisation, False Memory Syndrome Foundation. This organisation supports parents who claim they have been falsely accused of sexual molestation or ritual abuse.
This foundation flies in the face of important work that has been done by feminists and therapists in recent years in exposing the level of child sexual abuse and ritual abuse. The foundation claims that it is impossible to repress memories of sexual abuse and then remember it years later. It says therapists plant these ideas in their clients' minds, and it attacks self-help support groups such as 12 step recovery programs and self-help incest books.
The existence of this foundation and its creation, the "false memory syndrome" have led to legal decisions such as awarding damages to a man who claimed his daughter's therapist planted memories of incest in her and the dismissal of sexual abuse charges.
The origins of the foundation are revealing. It was founded by Pamela Freyd and Ralph Underwager. In the early 1980s Pamela's husband, Peter, was hospitalised for alcoholism, and his daughter says that throughout most of her childhood he drank heavily. In December 1990 their daughter, Jennifer Freyd, entered therapy to deal with inexplicable anxiety. In June 1991 Pamela allegedly wrote an article "How could this happen? Coping with a false accusation of incest and rape", which was later published by Underwager. In June 1991 Underwager apparently advocated paedophilia in an interview with a Dutch journal. In March 1992, four months before Jennifer regained memories of the abuse by her father, her mother founded the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.
Jennifer is now 35 and a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. She claims her father raped and molested her when she was a child. Her parents claim her memories are false. They clearly have invested a lot of time and energy in protecting themselves against such accusations — before they were even made.
The work of the foundation is eerily similar to previous dismissals of women's life experiences. Throughout much of modern history, women have variously been described as mad, hysterical or deluded for holding opinions considered to be out of character by a sexist society.
The issue of child sexual abuse is a complex one. But dismissing women's memories may be an easier option than believing that fathers, brothers, uncles, next door neighbours, mothers and family friends are capable of committing the worst of crimes against their fellow human beings — and then pushing them under the carpet.
Legal solutions are difficult. Courts always require more than the word of a woman remembering assault to convict. And the nature of child sexual abuse is such that corroborative evidence is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.
Part of the struggle to end sexual abuse involves making public issues which were previously kept "in the family" and not spoken about. The existence of a "false memory syndrome" is only likely to make this process even harder.
By Kath Gelber