DW Responds to the NYT
Dissociative Writers Vision
The vision of Dissociative Writers is to provide a safe space where we can support one another in our writing as survivors and people with dissociative disorders, and to use the creativity that helped us survive to tell our stories. We meet weekly in traditional and writing-in-place workshops to share our writing, receive feedback, and experience the support of others with similar experiences.
Dissociative Writers (DW) has been meeting since March 2021 to live out the vision posted above; since its inception, we’ve had more than 200 people pass through our doors and now have fifty active subscribers. We are an international microcosm of the world around us: some of us are on public assistance, some of us are breadwinners, some of us are artists, some of us are musicians, some of us are college professors, some of us are therapists, but all of us have dissociative disorders, all gathering together every week online to share our stories through the medium of writing.
On September 27, 2022, the New York Times published an article entitled The Forgotten Lessons of the Recovered Memory Movement by Ethan Watters, a journalist who specializes in psychiatry and social psychology. To say that this article was devastating to our community is an understatement. The article drew on debunked theories from three decades ago and failed to take into consideration the serious research that has illuminated the impact trauma has on the mind/body, particularly in children, and how the mind/body manages trauma. Well-recognized reasearchers in the field of traumatic memory were never mentioned while questionable “experts” from the past were highlighted. In the wake of what could be perceived as an attack, survivors who’ve spent their lives navigating their own memory self-doubts were picked up in a tornado, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, and placed back on square one. Most importantly, by omission of any reference to the real people who suffer debilitating symptoms of trauma, this article dismissed us and implied we were the victims of therapists, not the perpetrators who abused us.
To see this article published in the New York Times reminded us that all the work we’ve done to destigmatize DID and correct pervasive misinformation may have been for naught. We felt like the article silenced our voice, but we reclaim that voice today. So, as a writing group, we wrote our responses to the article, and some of us decided to post them on this blog so that survivors, the author of the article, and the New York Times can hear our truth and begin to understand the destruction this misinformation has on real peoples’ lives. You will find our DW responses to the article posted below.
I wrote two letters to the editor, neither of which were published. You will find them posted below.
While the vast majority of the 489 comments posted on the New York Times Online were supportive of the premise of Watters’ article, a few took great exception to his claims. You will find the most positive comments posted below.
Finally, by clicking here, you will find a documentary that interviews both a researcher referenced in the article (Elizabeth Loftus) and a current researcher who is one of the leading voices in trauma research (Bessel van der Kolk). We invite you to watch the video and form your own opinion regarding who is more knowledgeable about trauma, DID, and “recovered” memories.
From Lyn (Letters to the Editor, unpublished)
Letter 1:
Ethan Watters, in Forgotten Lessons from the Recovered Memory Movement, had best leave the lessons where they belong – in the dust bin of therapeutic history. A journalist, not a psychotherapist, Watters does a disservice to a large body of research, therapists willing to walk with clients into forbidden territory, and countless traumatized individuals who were literally saved by dissociating the horrors of their experiences.
That Watters is stuck in the past is evident in his use of the word repressed rather than dissociated, the highly documented process by which people temporarily separate their minds from their bodies to lessen the impact of a traumatic experience (e.g., soldiers on the battlefield, women who are raped).
Watters ignores research compiled by Bessel van der Kolk, MD in The Body Keeps the Score (2014) documenting how the body manages trauma; research by Brand, et al in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry (2016) examining myths surrounding dissociative identity disorder; and decades worth of research that confirms the presence of fragmented, body-based memory in traumatized individuals.
Most aggregiously, Watters fails to address the causes of symptomatology or treatments he would propose. Does he wish to pretend chronic early childhood abuse is a fantasy? Or does he think we are just hysterical?
Letter 2:
As someone diagnosed with DID in 1992, I take issue with Ethan Watters' Forgotten Lessons from the Recovered Memory Movement that assumes my therapist planted memory or that I am somehow a part of a cultural phenomenon.
Neither I, nor anyone with DID whom I know, wants to have DID. We don’t want to suffer the bodily and psychic pain we endure. We are lucky if we find a therapist who will walk with us through our healing journeys, mostly because of articles like this that frighten potentially good trauma therapists away.
How does Watters explain our symptomatology? Are we simply hysterical? What would he have us do, commit suicide, as we are frequently suicidal?
Fortunately, after ten years of decompensation, one suicide attempt, 30 days in a psych unit, and ten years with a wonderful therapist, I integrated. I lead a happy, healthy life, and couldn’t care less about Watters’ agenda. BTW, I have an MEd, MDiv, and served in leadership as school principal and church pastor before retiring.
Wake up, world. Abuse happens. Chronic childhood abuse is beyond the pale and it will continue until you stop making excuses.
Responses from Dissociative Writers
(Real People with DID)
On October 3rd, writing-in-place workshop participants discussed the article by Watters which, at that time, had been published for a week. After the discussion, I gave this 10-minute writing prompt to the group. Some of the participants chose to have their writing appear in this blog; samples of their writing are below.
The article, The Forgotten Lessons of the Recovered Memory Movement, was published in the New York Times.
How do you feel knowing a well-respected newspaper published an article that undermines your reality?
From A.C.
In the mid 1990’s I began to have terrifying pictures in my mind. These images were sexual and violent. They involved children. I had no idea where they came from.
I had never watched or read about such things. They were exhausting. I could not do my work properly. It was hard to take care of my children.
At the same time I heard about false memory syndrome. Because of that, I was afraid to tell anyone. I thought that no-one would believe me or that I would be locked away in a psych ward. Eventually, as I had less stress in my life, the images lessoned. I used prayer and music for self-calming. I attended retreats and conferences and looked for counselors. I did not tell anyone for a long time.
Fast forward 10 years. I learned that that I had multiple personalities (now called DID). It was such a relief. It explained many things I struggled with throughout my life. Not once has any counselor or therapist used hypnosis or suggestion to bring forth the former images or dig up memories. We waited for the other personalities to tell us when they were ready.
12 years later, after thousands of hours of therapy/prayer/journaling/suffering and hard, hard work, I am peaceful much of the time. I have joy in my life.
Recently Ethan Watters wrote an article about false memory syndrome for the New York Times. I was shocked to see they would even print this when much of what he purported to be true has been debunked years ago. It was cruel to those of us who have suffered for years as a result of abuse done to us in childhood. Being able to escape the pain and fear by dissociation is a gift which enabled us to survive.
Here is what one of my circle of personalities wrote about the article:
“Hearing about that article really pisses me off!
Do you know how long it took for me to start talking!?? –to trust to know I was safe! –It is still hard!
But we have a counselor who believes us and she believes me. It is such a hard thing to talk about what was done to us.
Recovered memories is not even a description for us anyway. They are not recovered memories!!!!!! I have always known them. I never forget the pain of the rape and torture from when I was a small child. I carried these memories for over 60 years without saying them. And now I say them and I get help.”
Is this misinformed man trying to promote sales of his old book? Why else would he want to harm many people who have already suffered so much? He has falsely added fuel to the fire from those who do not want to believe that children are often treated cruelly. He gives abusers permission to continue in their abusive behavior. Shame on him and on the New York Times.
From Peter B, Survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Saved by DID.
Why are the accused perpetrators of sexual abuse not challenged about the validity of their memories? Why is it that only victims of sexual abuse have their memories questioned?
From the Aces Gayng
I know that we are real. I know this because our system manager came out of nowhere and interrupted me while I tried to recall a memory that is Very Repressed. They interrupted me for my own safety and I had no idea that they existed prior to that. I know that we are real because sometimes I find notes written in slightly different handwriting, left places where I will see them, or on our arms or the mirror. I know that we are real because we did go through a lot of crap. I know it’s crap because any time I tell anybody about it, their reactions are appropriate. I know that memory recall is real too, because I spoke the doll’s name in therapy aloud and had no idea what the name was until I said it.
It is enough of a response that I need to validate myself in the wake of that article. That my own self-doubt and constant questioning is something I have to hold fast and quickly snap off the neck before it spreads. Something that makes us feel like we have to burn the whole boat before anybody comes ashore.
How could we possibly be DID? How could we have formed this, become this, all of us, without overreacting? And isn’t that in a way what he is saying?
Anger. Anger that he questioned any of us. Anger at his condescending tone. Anger that his bullsh-t was published so publically and widely.
What are you trying to hide, Ethan Watters?
From River 47
I read the article and found it seriously one-sided and accusatory. He also dismissed professional and laypeople as if they weren't actual people. What a damaging and amateur display of "journalism".
From D.C.
I wrote responses in my head for days to the “false memory” article. I got lost in reading the comments, most of them in its support.
I went back to thinking that my memories were just a way for my brain to interpret and create a narrative for things I couldn’t understand or didn’t have a context for when I was little. A “kids say the darndest thing” kind of vibe. Then I would waffle and remember:
I got better when I believed what the me’s inside were saying. 25 years of misdiagnosis and every type of therapy led to pain and hopelessness and confusion. 2 years of a DID diagnosis, listening to and believing in the memories, and my head cleared. I’m a functioning adult, without suicide attempts and self-harm and agoraphobia, because as a child I dissociated but now I remember. It was a chaotic week, constantly reminding myself of the healing I experienced over the last couple of years.
When you ask me the question today, almost two weeks later, “how does the article make me feel,” it doesn’t bother me so much. At least not in this moment. No one can question my reality. I already did that.
From River System
Let us start with the acknowledgement of Free Speech. We are grateful for this right, and Mr. Watters has used it to embrace and dig up outdated, malicious accusations to what is a whole generation of survivors and supporters.
We have Dissociative Identity Disorder, a professional psychological condition, which Watters refers to as the incredibly insulting “Multiple Personality Disorder”, an outdated term that gives the wrong idea of how this disorder functions. We are disappointed in The New York Times, a well-respected news source, for giving this person a platform for spouting bullsh-t and hurtful heresy of certain authors and other reliable persons of notoriety.
This type of journalism is irresponsible. Watters isn’t a medical professional, or even someone who presents both sides to a story. He sounds amateur. This article undermines our existence. It’s infuriating to have this guy stirring a broken pot dating thirty-years-back. It makes us feel sad, angry, and even insecure about sharing our authenticity due to fear of uneducated and false criticism and judgement.
We are real. These terrible things happened to us. Our beautiful and resilient brains found a way to cope and survive the atrocities of childhood sexual abuse, ritual abuse, and incest. It seems interesting that Watters wrote this article on the heels of the “Me-Too” movement. Perhaps he is the one who feels male guilt and discomfort with the reality of real-life horror. Our world is a place of both beauty and debauchery.
All in all, our system believes that this opinion piece is not worth the paper it is printed on. As angry as it makes us, he is only one little voice spewing on and on about something he knows nothing about post 1980’s American television.
We reject you and your so-called opinions, Ethan Watters. You mean nothing.
Art Credit: by Frederic Forest
From Gabriell
Ethan Watters’ article in the NYTimes (Sept. 27, 2022) was nothing more than an effort at self-promotion of his decades-old, outdated book. Yet, the harm the article has done to survivors everywhere is incalculable. The NYTimes is just as culpable for publishing such rubbish. Citing long-disproven research on trauma and memory, Watters tries to take us back to a time when victims of childhood sexual abuse were gaslit and dismissed as hysterical confabulators. Those lessons of the recovered memory movement that Watters seeks to highlight have been long-forgotten because they were harmful and because research has proven them to be wrong. Current research substantiates how our brains use dissociation during horrendous and sustained abuse to help us survive. As someone with DID, I refuse to let Watters define my reality or destroy all the work I have done to finally bring to light all that happened to me as a child.
From Sharon
NY Times, how could you?
How could you let someone write such an ill-informed uneducated article that destroys the victims here, we did not ask to be severely abused in numerous ways through out our childhoods and beyond ...
Listen, I get it, you're clueless.
If you took the time to really listen to trauma survivors, you might be a bit more understanding, maybe even compassionate. I ask for a lot.
And really, who would choose to live with Dissociative Identity Disorder?
I've had this diagnosis for over forty years and I have yet to meet another individual sorting through the carnage of years of trauma, say they liked having DID. No, not so much, kind of makes life in the present very challenging, grueling recovery to heal those open wounds. No one likes it, we learn to live with it, eventually, and then we thrive...however, not everyone makes it through the process, sadly, I've seen this a number of times. Suicide. It was just "too much".
But here I go, getting riled up over this —
I'm assuming that perhaps that is exactly what you are looking for,
a reaction,
the stronger the better, you, your paper.
I guess I'm naive, I just thought some progress had been made the last forty years, really, for mental illness across the board ... and then I'm directed to your article, and I just wonder.
Was I a bad seed? A bad naughty little girl?
He whispered to me that I was "crazy,"
no one would believe me.
Written words have such power to build or to destroy, your words hurt a lot of people and did nothing to foster awareness. You could have made a difference, a positive difference.
Kind of a bummer all around.
What will it take for the world to accept that abuse happens, it's real?
Comments from the New York Times
While the vast majority of the 489 comments posted on the New York Times Online were supportive of the premise of Watters’ article, a few took great exception to his claims. The best comments (from my perspective) are below.
From Laura Brown, Seattle
This is the memory science version of being an election denier, and in no way reflects the state of the science of memory, particularly memory for trauma, in 2022. The author is simply rehashing old misinformation from his popular press book, with bows to former board members of the highly destructive false memory syndrome (not a real thing) foundation. Shame on the NY TImes for publishing this. I am Past-President of the Division of Trauma Psychology of the American Psychological Association, and can say with utter certainty that my colleagues and I reject the falsehoods in this opinion piece. There is, nor ever has been, such a thing as "recovered memory therapy." There is little to no evidence that therapists induced massive numbers of "false memories." This article harms the most vulnerable people in our culture, those sexually abused in childhood, for whom clear recollection of those events was undermined by the suggestions made by the criminals who sexually assaulted them as children - their parents, other family members, clergy, coaches. I had the honor of interviewing a number of the victims of Larry Nassar's mass sexual assaults, some of whose memories for those well-documented violations were not clear. This article harms them, and people like them. The reason Nassar's victim were finally believed is that so many of them had the courage to come forward. Perpatrators are criminals who witness-tamper. This helps them.
From Jane, Chicago
What would make the NYTimes provide the space for this author, opining on a topic from past grievances, and demonstrating no current awarenss of the state of the science in the field at current. The brain research has exploded. This author is "stuck in the past" and writing about something without research of the present. Suggesting that patients remember all their trauma is profoundly uneducated. No one should have an article accepted on a topic where there is no longer debate. Have this author, and certainly the NYTimes editor, learn the neuroscience, or better yet, treat a victim of a horrific sex crime. Past circumstances of "repressed memory" therapists coaching patients to recall untrue events, has nothing to do with the neuroscience in existence for dissocation, and not knowing bad events that happened before. Dissociation occurs differently at different developmental stages, under different conditions. The details become known through science and clinical practice, that isn't speculation, (i.e., video of the trauma exists, etc.). More science will demonstrate more about the mental mechanisms, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc., involved. This is bad journalism, disturbingly tabloid and unscientific. The science is the science. A man's opinion is not. Why is the NYTimes trafficking in this story? For reader reaction, clicks, and likes. This is the bad sign of the NYTimes, not the bad sign for the science of psychotherapy and neuroscience of the mind/body.
From Hank, California
It’s worth noting that Elizabeth Loftus, whom the author cites as his principal touchstone of scientific integrity on these issues, has made a career as a professional defense witness, for those who can afford her, in criminal cases, including the trials of Harvey Weinstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, among others, where she posits that all memory is fundamentally unreliable, in order to attack the credibility of accusers who never repressed their memories, nor recovered them in therapy.
From Suzanne, Colorado
The author's beliefs in cultural contagion around certain ideas and the view that mental health professionals can get caught up in this contagion seem reasonable but avoids key questions. When trauma occurs, how does the mind protect the self? When the mind does not have language to describe what has happened and the emotions around the trauma, what does the mind do? Note also that trauma may come from sexual abuse as the author seems to focus upon, but also many other causes - death of a young child's parent due to accident or illness, for example, or in today's world, mass shootings. I am bothered that the author seems to ignore the reality that trauma occurs and people have valid responses, interpretations, and memories. Certainly lessons learned must be broader and extend into recognizing the types of trauma that occurs (and the frequency), the ways in which the mind responds, and the ways in which people who have experienced trauma can heal. While it is fair for an opinion writer to only delve into one aspect of an issue, to cast such a narrow perspective as the lessons learned seems disingenuous and the emphasis on sexual abuse and satanism seems sensationalist.
From Antionette van Heugten, Texas
I fully understand your point, but how can you not mention the work of Bessel van der Kolk, (The Body Keeps the Score)? Childhood sexual abuse, trauma, the suffering of Vietnam vets never recognized - I suggest you read this as its omission is directly relevant to your discussion. I have experienced EMDR, a modality that addresses childhood and adult trauma, and it has changed my life. In case you think I am uneducated or following some kind of cult (which you mention often in your article), I am an attorney, a bestselling author, and not prone to beguilement by pop psychology. I would greatly appreciate your comments on what I feel is a significant omission on this topic.
From Virginia, Brooklyn, NY
I kept waiting for something like, "Of course, many children ARE sexually abused, and often they dissociate and thus can't fully remember what happened to them until much later." I worked with kids who've suffered from childhood abuse, and this is, sadly, true. If the abuse happened at a preverbal age, it's especially hard to place it in a coherent narrative. Childhood abuse survivors have disordered eating, cut, fight, and otherwise "act out." To leave this larger trauma context out of any piece concerning childhood sexual abuse is irresponsible and incredibly cruel to survivors and people who care about them. It's already hard enough to acknowledge and tell the truth.
From Trauma Therapist, Chicago Suburbs
I am a Clinical Psychologist who specializes in treatment people with childhood trauma. A number of my clients also have dissociative disorders and most have had flashbacks where they have vivid memories of disturbing incidents, some of them occurring decades after the incidents occurred. There is a vast scientific literature that explains how how the brain processes trauma memories and how it is different than the rest of our memories. This person's opinion simplifies the issues and completely overlooks the vast contemporary research that is present. We do not want to believe what people to do their children. It makes the word seem a much darker place. But those children grow up to adults who end up to my office. And there is no need for me to implant anything. To lean on the comforting idea that all is social contagion is to comfort the privileged at the cost of people who suffer every day because of what has been done to them as children. That is not to dismiss social contagion as a variable. That is a different discussion. I agree that social media can make people vulnerable to diagnosing themselves with all kinds of things. However, in the therapist's office, it's clearer what self-diagnoses are created out of a need to feel special and/or a part of something larger and what is someone finding with relief that they are not alone in the darkness, most shameless aspects of their lives
From Jennifer Hoult, J.D., New York City
Sadly, the NYT didn't fact-check this piece. The author ignores the science that shows how memories can be inaccessible, science for which Eric Kandel won a Nobel Prize. While there were therapists using inappropriate techniques, there are also many people, soldiers, survivors of natural disasters, and victims of interpersonal violence, including child sexual abuse, who experience traumatic amnesia and later recover memories for which they find corroboration. Some of these individuals, people who spontaneously remembered previously dissociated memories without any of the untoward techniques the author describes, have proven their claims in court. https://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/ The fact is both things are true: A small number of highly suggestible people reported, then recanted, memories of abuse while under the care of therapists engaged in questionable methods. And a larger number of people spontaneously recovered memories for which they found corroboration. This latter group was never hypnotized, given drugs, or subjected to suggestive questioning or unfounded diagnoses of child abuse. NYT readers deserve more accurate reportage.
From Miriam Osofsky, Hanover
I have been a devoted clinical psychologist for three decades, and I am shocked by the distortions in this article -- and they are distortions that do as much harm as false accusations of abuse. Decades ago, rigorous experimentation documented the existence of the unconscious (my grad school professor Joseph Masling contributed to this literature). There is no question that sexual, physical and emotional abuse afflict far too many of us, and that, to survive, our brain tries to keep psychic pain out of awareness. There are responsible, ethical ways to help patients follow the trail of their feeling flashbacks to their source, in a way that promotes healing. The author's falsehoods and overgeneralization are disrespectful of women, psychotherapists, trauma survivors, and trans people. People generally become psychotherapists with loving intentions-- most of us are underpaid, foregoing financial rewards in order to do work that is meaningful and makes a difference. "Healing"is a word the author uses derisively, but psychotherapists are, by and large healers in the best sense of the word, and ought to be thanked for that. To truly understand trauma and how it's healed, I recommend Janina Fisher's book Trauma and the Fragmented Self, and I also recommend learning more about Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems.
From PT, USA
I sense the author is sort of throwing out the baby with the bath water here. Yes, it seems very clear that the recovered memory movement went way overboard as he describes. But… for some people, it seems very plausible that early experiences of abuse and trauma are in fact repressed. And for some people it can be highly therapeutic to uncover and explore these experiences. Furthermore, past traumas may be uncovered and experienced at a future time in symbolic, non literal ways. I think dreams are a good example of this. Finally the lack of evidence he describes runs both ways: what evidence does the author have that any of the abuse memories did NOT actually occur? I’m not saying there were a bunch of secret satanic cults — just that we should maintain a bit of humility in the face of missing evidence in both directions.
From Beth S., East Coast
I can’t even read this whole article . It does a major disservice to those of us who remembered sexual abuse once we were young adults. No one planted thoughts, ideas or fantasy of bizarre abuse in the family. It arose on its own. And believe me I wish it were fantasy. If anything , Elizabeth Loftus fractured our family because rather than being supportive of me, they read her book and discounted things I couldn’t possibly have made up or have implanted by a therapist. People have a hard time believing parents use and abuse their children. Even upper middle class people. DID is real to people who were terribly mistreated as young children. It (DID) does not look like Sybil or The Three Faces of Eve. It’s designed to protect not draw attention. I listened to my 6 year old grandchild recount the time our cat died when he was 4 years old. The details were uneven but the story was solid. Looking for memory to make a smooth story doesn’t happen quickly. Too traumatic. But others will discount it wrongfully so. Instead the mind gives small details like puzzle pieces and gradually the picture fills i . This is a dismissive and disrespectful article.
From PWP, Ph.D., Manhattan, NY
One can acknowledge and learn from the excesses of the recovered memory movement of the 80's and 90's without implying that psychological trauma and the dissociative disorders aren't real (they are). It is unfortunate (and more than a bit insulting to those who suffer from these conditions) that the author couldn't see his way clear to affirm both realities at the same time.
From LM, New Jersey
This article is a bit unfair to the fractured nature of many traumatic memories, and the excellent work of researchers such as Bessel van der Kolk. Loftus's work cannot ethically recreate traumatic memories, so is limited and not entirely applicable. We know much more about how the brain and body store overwhelming experiences, particularly those in which someone feels their life is threatened, which defines an experience as traumatic. Judith Herman's classic book is another good resource that engages the topic outside the hysteria cited in this article.
From Patricia, Pasadena
See the thing is, I recovered the memory of my father's domestic violence. One night he broke my mom's ribs and jaw, lacerating her liver and puncturing one lung. That memory I had blocked out for decades. But the hospital still kept the records. Proof. I wish I'd recovered that memory sooner.
From Arthur, Cleveland
I have practiced general pediatrics for over 3 decades. This essay raises the valid concern that understanding of the challenges of the suffering common across humanity is complex. As with any attempt to get a complex situation right, the risk is always present that approaches will either fail to detect a real problem, or conclude a problem is there when none is present. This essay focuses on the latter error, calling a problem present when none is present. There is nothing wrong with avoiding practices that make this mistake. But when it comes to child sexual abuse, the overwhelming error that causes lifelong suffering across millions of lives, is missing the harm done, leading to subjecting so many children to ongoing abuse, and failing to help those who have been so harmed to recover. The data do not come from social media, fads, or trends. They come from rather hard-nosed sources like the US Dept of Justice's FBI. A sustained observation that about 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 7-9 boys will be sexually abused prior to adulthood continues to be the rate of reality here. As a pediatrician, I remain far more interested in finding out which of these millions of our children are being sexually assaulted and stopping these attacks, and who has suffered this and needs help recovering, The concerns of this essay have validity for many, but cannot end this concern. [and, authors cite about .1% as incidence of MPD, that is 320k people, more than the 40k cited as excessive]
From Who Knew?, New York
I recovered memories of sexual abuse without any assistance except for friends and a therapist listening, not suggesting. It did not blossom into anything huge, but two events, two people (initially conflated into one). I had a walnut-sized piece of amnesia with a lot of arrows pointing at it, plus some pages I had written years before and left with someone else because I knew they were important and felt that I would destroy them to aid and abet my amnesia. She sent them to me on this later request and it all began to fall into place. I trust these memories. Satan was not involved.
From Zinkler, Chapel Hill, NC
I have worked in this area for over 40 years. The reality of child sexual abuse and the mainstream view of it as being exaggerated by therapists promoting the report of untrue events has been extremely damaging to many victims of abuse. That children and adults who report sexual abuse are being manipulated by therapists (who would be violating their standards of practice) is the Big Lie of the story. Half all of reported rapes occur to children. There are only about 50K cases of child sexual abuse that are substantiated annually and we know that child sexual abuse, particularly when perpetrated by a family member, is underreported. We like to believe in the idea that these are false recollection of abuse memories because it makes us feel safer and less obligated to do something to protect children. The NYTimes editorial staff should be ashamed to print such biased bollux.
From Johnny Cee, TN
Clearly according to the author: TikToc is a valid source of data. The abuses of the Catholic Church are imagined. Epstein & & his ilk are an aberration. 1 in 4 women have in fact not been abused in their lifetimes. The writer has an agenda with a motivation that is strongly suspect.
From Pam, NJ
I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and a person living with PTSD and dissociative amnesia disorder (aka recovered memories). It is frustrating and harmful to people like me when "experts" suggest our condition does not exist. There's a big difference between digging for recovered memories in every person versus recognizing the symptoms of PTSD and helping that person in recovery. The existence of dissociative amnesia is widely accepted enough to be in the latest edition of DSM 5. Differences in the brains of people with dissociative amnesia compared to those without also support the existence of the disorder. And, memory loss of a traumatic event is also listed as a symptom of PTSD in DSM 5. Childhood sexual abuse greatly increases an individual's risk for suicide, addiction, all types of illness, and early death. Denial is a challenge for survivors. We question ourselves because what happened is so awful, we don't want to believe it. Often, when we summon the courage to disclose, we are not believed by family members. At the age of 50, I began to recover memories in the form of nightmares and flashbacks of being sexually abused as a child by my father. Only after that did I learn that my father had attempted to assault other girls. The similarities in our experiences dashed any hope I had to chalk up my memories to general craziness rather than the truth.
From Yvonne, Rhode Island
This author conflates all sorts of therapeutic techniques and human experiences of abuse. Loftus is hardly an "expert"... while memory may indeed be more flexible than many of us would like, I hardly get the sense that this author accepts that any abuse occurs, that anyone does repress it, that flashbacks from abuse occur, that any people do have fragmented personalities. Perhaps the author doesn't believe in PTSD from war either, who knows ... the author seems to feel they have a direct line to the truth of human memory in spite of all the scientific community's disagreements on these things and the changes in theory over the years. "The Courage to Heal" provided, and I'm sure still provides, a ton of help to abuse survivors, but the author has no compassion that I can see, and would apparently discard the entire work based upon the author's disbelief of parts ... (I'm possibly reading into this author's tone, but what else do we have to go on here than the words written?) I hope no abuse survivors ever have this author in a position of any power over them.
From noplanetb, Dusseldorf, Germany
I'm really shocked by the falsehoods propagated in this article. Although the repressed memory movement was displayed in cable TV and some self-help books at the time in an exaggerated, incorrect, and divisive fashion, memories of trauma are the cornerstone of helping practically anyone with trauma sequelae, like PTSD, complex PTSD, dissociative disorders and the like. To quote Elana Newman, Research Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University, “When you’re talking about trauma treatment, you’re often talking about asking someone to revisit and think about the event that they’re spending all their time avoiding. (...) All treatments for trauma can be hard to understand...” Maybe you'd like to explain to all the military veterans, the raped women, the abused children how their memories are wrong and imagined? Women, children and poor people have been told for centuries that the violence and abuse they suffered is "all in their head" and didn't really happen the way they remembered. Since remembering is so painful, most memories patients remember are very trustworthy — why would anyone want to subject themselves to this extremely painful process just to lie? It's clear that Mr. Watters doesn't know a lot about trauma psychotherapy, and if he does, he chooses to discard it, for his own personal reasons.
From Trauma Therapist, Chicago Suburbs
“False Memories; The Deception that Silenced Millions” by Lynn Crook is a worthwhile read. She successfully sued her father civilly for childhood sexual abuse. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus defended her parents. Lynn Crook does an excellent job of describing the problems in Dr. Loftus’ research. She also documents how Loftus’ False Memory Foundation had an extensive political campaign that involved making sure all media outlets broadcast the idea that childhood sexual abuse allegations were unreliable in general, not just when initially dissociated. Is this really an idea we want to support in 2022?
From magicisnotreal, earth
I suggest you all go read the Ezra Klein interview with Bessel van der Kolk. Forgetting trauma and remembering it much later is common and normal. Especially when you are a child! No one "recovers repressed memories". They forget or dissociate the event, then they remember it later. That's it. There is nothing special magical or weird as is implied and intended by calling it "recovering repressed memories".
K Bruce, WPB, FL
I could tell the author of this article was male by the tone. Blaming shoddy professional standards on women “healers” and their “hysteria”
From Mike, Tucson
My youngest daughter went through a significant behavior change in kindergarten which we could never explain. Not only we, but her teachers noticed it too. She became withdrawn and very anxious. Many years later, she recovered a memory in therapy about kindergarten that was devastating: she had been sexual abused by a teacher. We would probably have dismissed this "memory" had it not coincided with her behavioral change. We believe the memory is true.
From Rox, NM
The author does in this review what he accuses others of doing: selectively presenting opinions to prove his (biased) point. Read the exhaustively researched and documented “The Body Keeps the Score” and you will have a much better understanding of how humans who have experienced trauma deal with it psychologically, emotionally, and physiologically. All this article does is protect the millions of abusers who continue to harm children with acts many decent people already find too hard to believe — and yet they are real. Note the cases of children needing abortions due to rape as one example.
From Fred L., Nevada
Yes, the repressed memory movement was debunked when Freud came back to life and revealed that children actually want to have sex with their parents. I wouldn't have any therapy clients (35-43 per week) if their parents had not been neglectful or abusive. Children falsely accusing their parents is, in my 23 years of direct individual therapy, rare. Generally, it's the opposite: My clients would much prefer to remember a good or "golden" childhood that never happened. In fact, solid theory (such as Fairbairn's 'return to the bad object') shows that these adult-children will cling to a bad parent longingly and destructively more than a loved child will cling to a healthy, giving parent.
From Irina, backstage
Certainly the ‘recovered memory’ era took Things too far in that direction. But clearly This author has zero experience with anyone Who actually does have Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is a very real and confounding Syndrome; I have spent my entire adult life In partnership with a person who has DID. Most of the people he knows would never Suspect that. But he is fragmented (yes as A result of emotional and sexual abuse). The Only analogy I can think of is the old push Button style car radios. We can be doing Whatever and suddenly it’s like someone Pushed a radio button in his brain and he Becomes someone else. Without knowing It. It’s terribly disconcerting for me, and rather Terrifying as I never know quite what I’m dealing with or when (or even if) his ‘usual’ Persona will return. This author does a great disservice by so Casually dismissing a real phenomena which Affects a significant number of lives.
From S.I.R., Ontario
As someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder, this article is very upsetting to me. I understand the point the author is making about digging up repressed memories and hypnosis. That isn't responsible. Nor is it the way an ethically informed trauma therapist would operate. The author completely dismisses any form of repressed memories and ignores current understanding of the role the brain and memory actually plays during trauma. It is extremely invalidating and harmful to see this being offered as a professional opinion where they can simply ignore an actual condition that is proven to exist. Writing about memory digging and hypnosis is a topic that should be completely separated from Dissociative Disorders and actual repressed memories. One plants and influences memories and identity, the other is based in truth. Trauma therapy does not engage in digging up memories. It does not actively engage in bringing memories to light via any of the methods that were mentioned in this article. D.I.D. does exist. Repressed memories are a thing. And this author should be ashamed.
noplanetb, Dusseldorf, Germany
This article is speculative and misinformed at best, with an author who is neither psychologist nor psychiatrist nor someone with any first-hand experience as a therapist listening to what trauma victims tell them. I'd like to quote Judith Herman's "Trauma and Recovery": "To study psychological trauma means bearing witness to horrible events. (...) It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. (...) In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens.(...) After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail."
Magic Busdriver, USA
I'm afraid there is no "therapy industrial complex" to justify such an overstatement of harm. Therapists and their clients are individual people who live in a shared society, and they make free decisions to work together. The mind and body exist in a dynamic interaction in which meaning and interpretation have influence, and so the understanding changes along with that society over time, just like language or any other cultural product. In the end our mental health crisis has been induced primarily by economic distress, but lambasting mental health professionals is much easier than appearing like a lefty.
From Reif, Oregon
Why do we use the word "hysteria" like 5 different times in an article about mental health, all with different meanings? Come on guys, let's at least be somewhat aware of its history.
From Andy, Santa Rosa
The reality is that a vast majority of the repressed memory cases involve Catholic clergy molestation/rape claims, involving adults who were attacked as children. The big push to discredit these claims, based on questions over repressed memory, were tied to the opening up of statutes of limitations to file a claim or to seek legal remedy for alleged acts that occurred while victims were children. The clergy molestation/rape claims have long been proven and efforts by the Catholic Church and the attorneys to discredit victims, have largely failed. This opinion piece is nonsense.
From Janet R., Cannington, Ontario, Canada
There is such a thing as repressed memory. The author missed that point completely. As did he miss telling the reality of numerous child sexual abuse survivors. One misguided movement does not discount real people who have been abused.
From Elizabeth Manning, Montana
A bit righteous, no? You've clearly not experienced childhood sexual abuse.
DW Meeting October 10
DW meets once a month to set direction and policy. Some of the initiatives DW has guided in the past have been speaking at conferences, producing an anthology, sustaining DW longterm through a subscription basis, and moving to the Groupeasy platform. All subscribers are invited to attend. Our core team is Sharon (admin), Gabby (scribe), and Debby (treasurer). Your voice is important too; we want to hear your thoughts and ideas. When you attend regularly, you may become a core team member too!
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