False Memory Syndrome Foundation

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) is an organization that advocates on behalf of individuals who claim they have been falsely accused of perpetrating child sexual abuse.cite journal|title=Crisis or Creation: A Systematic Examination of 'False Memory Syndrome' |last=Dallam |first=Stephanie J. |url=http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/dallam/6.html |journal=Journal of Child Sexual Abuse |publisher=Haworth Press |volume=Vol 9; No. 3/4, pp. 9-36 |year=2001] The FSMF was formed in 1992 by Pamela and Peter Freyd after they became aware that their adult daughter Jennifer Freyd, Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, believed that Peter Freyd had sexually abused her when she was a child. Freyd, J. (1996) "Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Child Abuse." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The history of the confrontations between the Freyds and their daughter Jennifer is recounted in the Afterword, pages 197-199.] [ [http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/mindnet/mn154.htm Hart, Anne (1995) "The Great Debate," "MindNet Journal, vol. 1", #54.] ] Ralph Underwager, a defense expert witness in child sexual abuse cases, and his wife Hollida Wakefield, assisted the Freyds in the founding of the FSMF and in gathering an advisory board and a membership consisting mainly of parents who had been accused of child sexual abuse by adult children who, according to the parents, had no memory of abuse before entering some form of therapy. [ [http://fmsfonline.org/advboard.html False Memory Syndrome Foundation official website advisory board page] ]

The FMSF coined the term "false memory syndrome" to describe their belief that some adults who belatedly remember instances of sexual abuse from their childhood may be mistaken about the accuracy of their memory. The term does not have wide scientific use. [cite book | title = American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | date = 2000 | location = Boston | url = http://www.bartleby.com/61/46/F0024650.html | isbn = 0-395-82517-2] From this, the Foundation hypothesized that the so-called false memories may have been the result of "recovered memory therapy", another term coined by the FSMF in the early 1990s.cite book|title=Misinformation Concerning Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Survivors |last= Whitfield |first=Charles L. |coauthors=Joyanna L. Silberg, Paul Jay Fink |pages=p56 |publisher=Haworth Press |year=2001 |isbn= 0789019019]

Background

Writing under the pseudonym "Jane Doe", one year before she established the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Pamela Freyd wrote a first-person account of her daughter's accusations of sexual misconduct against her husband, Peter Freyd, that appeared in a non-peer-reviewed journal published by co-founder of the FMSF, Ralph Underwager, and his wife Hollida Wakefield. [Doe, Jane (1991), [http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume3/j3_3_3.htm "How could this happen? Coping with a false accusation of incest and rape"] , "Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, vol. 3", 154-165.] [http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager2.html "Paidika Interview: Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager", "Paidikia: The Journal of Pædophilia", Winter 1993.] ]

The Freyds' daughter is Jennifer Freyd, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Oregon. She writes,

For the first two years of my work on betrayal trauma theory, I did not discuss my private life in public. ... In my own case I lost the ability to choose privacy. Approximately eight months after I first presented betrayal trauma theory, my parents, in conjunction with Ralph Underwager and others, formed the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF). Before the organization was formed, my mother, Pamela Freyd, had published an article under the name "Jane Doe". The Jane Doe article, when circulated to my professional colleagues and to the media by my mother, made public accusations about my professional and personal life, at the same time that it helped spawn the false memory movement. ... If people who dare to speak about sexual abuse are attacked by those whom they have relied on and trusted, is it any wonder that unawareness and silence are so common?

Jennifer Freyd has received support for her account from significant members of the Freyd family, including Peter Freyd’s mother. Peter Freyd’s brother William has written that he considers the creation of the FMSF as the Peter and Pamela Freyd’s response to the truth, rather than the falseness, of their daughter Jennifer’s claims of abuse:

There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam. . . . The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape" [Quoted in "Memory and Abuse: Remembering and Healing the Effects of Trauma", Charles L. Whitfield, M.D. Health Communications, Inc., 1995. pp. 7–8.]

Peter Freyd is on public record admitting that he himself was sexually abused as a child, and that he may have said and done things to his daughter that were inappropriate. He emphatically denies sexually abusing her. ["One family's tragedy spawns national group", "The Baltimore Sun", 12 Sept 1994]

Controversies

Stephanie Dallam, in a peer-reviewed 2002 article in "Journal of Child Sexual Abuse", concludes that "The 'False Memory Syndrome' is a controversial theoretical construct based entirely on the reports of parents who claim to be falsely accused of incestuous abuse... The current empirical evidence suggests that the existence of such a syndrome must be rejected. False memory advocates have failed to adequately define or document the existence of a specific syndrome, and a review of the relevant literature demonstrates that the construct is based on a series of faulty assumptions, many of which have been disproven. Likewise, there no credible data showing that the vague symptoms they ascribe to this purported syndrome are widespread or constitute a crisis or epidemic."

Charles Whitfield, MD, in his 1995 book "Memory and Abuse", states he had found that all critics of the studies showing support for the validity of delayed memories were members of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advisory board. [Whitfield, Charles (1995) "Memory and Abuse", p. 71.] It has been asserted that although cases of false memories may exist, the term "syndrome" is misleading and that as an advocacy organization, the FMSF is not a reliable independent source of scientific information.Calof, David L. (1993). "A Conversation With Pamela Freyd, Ph.D. Co-Founder And Executive Director, False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Inc., Parts 1 and 2," [http://fmsf.com/v3n3-pfreyd.shtml "Treating Abuse Today, Vol. III", No. 3] .]

Noblitt and Perskin state that the FMSF circulates data that comes from biased and unscientific sources and from the same data derives unfounded conclusions.cite book|title=Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America |last=Noblitt |first= James Randall|coauthors=Pamela Sue Perskin |year=2000 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |pages=p229 |isbn=027596664X]

Critics have also taken issue with the foundation's lack of intake screening for new members; in an interview, Pamela Freyd once acknowledged that people who come to the FMSF for support claiming that they have been falsely accused are assumed by the foundation to be innocent.

Ralph Underwager

In 1991, the FMS Foundation was the subject of a bitter public controversy concerning the personal motivations of its founders and the purpose of the foundation as an organization. The controversy, centered around one member of the advisory board, Ralph Underwager, resulted in the resignation of two founding members of the FMSF Scientific Advisory Board. The controversy involved comments made by Underwager in an interview published in "". In responding to the question "Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individuals?", Underwager stated:

Underwager's statements in that interview have been portrayed as demonstrating he believed pedophilia was acceptable and not necessarily harmful.fact In the controversy that followed this interview, he resigned from the FMS Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. He has stated that the quotations in the "Paidika" article were taken out of context.fact

Notes

External links

* [http://www.fmsfonline.org False Memory Syndrome Foundation]