Memory is contentious, that much is clear. Those who have experienced trauma often have patchy memories: dissociation is common, as is freezing and becoming immobile.
But the idea that someone can simply forget then remember an instance of abuse, having previously remembered nothing, is not one supported by professionals, and has not been a common claim for decades.
Yet false memory syndrome has been used to discredit survivors time and again in recent years. Lawyers for Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein have all called in experts on false memory to give expert testimony at their trials.
Now the memory of the woman who accused Attorney-General Christian Porter has been brought into question. Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt suggested she may have been delusional.
“Is it possible that this mentally ill woman was acting under a delusion?” he said. “Some people claiming to be victims do lie. Some are delusional.’’
Crikey, too, has come under fire over an article last Friday which examined the statement of Porter’s alleged victim, who we will call Jane Doe, through the lens of repressed memory (see other articles on this subject in this issue).
A brief history
Professor of psychiatry at the University of Melbourne Louise Newman tells Crikey false memories emerged as a theory when sexual abuse first became recognised as a major social issue across the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Mandatory reporting laws were also introduced in many countries, leading to more and more people coming forward with stories.
“There were some social workers who believed that their job was to encourage people to remember,” Newman said. This led to some high-profile examples of people claiming to be involved in elaborate satanic rituals.
During this time, psychology Professor Elizabeth Loftus conducted a landmark study. Researchers tried to implant memories of being lost in a shopping centre in 24 participants, asking them to add colour and detail to the memory.
Just six participants “fully or partially” believed the false memory, leading proponents of the study to claim false memories can be implanted in a quarter of people.
This study has been criticised. We don’t know if the false memory would have lasted long term or what constitutes a “full” or “partial” memory. It also didn’t measure participants’ belief in a memory — just how vivid the picture in their head was.
When a variant of the experiment was conducted, this time trying to get people to recall a rectal enema — something physically invasive, similar to sexual assault — just four participants “remembered” the enema.
But the notion of false memories was born. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation was founded in 1992 by husband and wife team Pam and Peter Freyd (who were also step-siblings) after their daughter accused her father of molesting her across her childhood. Freyd was himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and suffered from alcoholism.
The foundation helped men who had been accused of abuse, often by people who claimed to have recovered their memories. Two of its board members had previously been interviewed for a Dutch pro-paedophila magazine. The foundation folded in 2019.
There have been examples of people who bought into the idea of repressed memories but later realised their memory wasn’t true.
Newman says repressed memories are largely discredited: “There’s no such thing as recovered memory therapy.”
Recognising rape for what it is
The idea someone can completely forget a dangerous encounter is contentious. Importantly, survivors don’t forget a memory but struggle to acknowledge it for what was.
One meta-analysis of unwanted sexual experiences obtained through force, the threat of force, or incapacitation of the victim found that 60% of women did not acknowledge their sexual encounter as rape.
Many survivors also do not immediately use the terms “rape” or “sexual assault” to describe their experiences.
This is exactly what the woman who accused Porter of rape said happened. Porter has strenuously denied the allegations.
“I had a better understanding of these memories, and only really understood them once my Sydney-based psychologist [referred her to literature around repressed memories],” she wrote. She does not say she “re-remembered” the memories, only that she better understood them.
Importantly she also wrote Porter’s name and referenced the assault in scattered diary entries, which she said were from 1989. One friend who was romantically involved with the woman and who asked to remain anonymous told Crikey she referenced an assault from 1988 onwards, though didn’t disclose who it was until 1989. A counsellor Jane Doe saw also said she discussed the assault from 2013.
Newman stresses it’s different for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, who may remember details differently as their brains are still developing during the time of the abuse.
“Memories are not laid down in children’s brains in the same way as they are in adult brains,” she said.
But for adults, it’s a different story. They might deliberately try to avoid the memory as a coping mechanism, but completely forgetting then re-remembering isn’t likely, she says.
NSW psychiatrist Dr Karen Williams specialises in complex trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. She says people fabricating an entire traumatic event simply doesn’t happen.
“That is not something that you would see in somebody who has been traumatised,” she said.
While getting small details wrong was common, Williams said, misremembering the perpetrator or their actions wasn’t.
William says Jane Doe’s history of mental illness was being used against her, instead of being interpreted as a symptom of trauma.
“Instead of that being a sign that she was obviously suffering from some sort of traumatic response, it’s being interpreted as a sign that she’s mentally ill and therefore not able to provide a proper history,” she said.
Is recovering memory still a form of therapy?
Techniques to recover allegedly repressed memories can include hypnotic regression, guided imagery, and dream interpretation.
Newman says no one reputable in Australia is working with repressed memories.
“That would be considered fringe,” she said. “It’s not supported by the evidence, and it’s not supported by the major international professional bodies for working with post-traumatic stress and abuse.”
She stresses there are clear registration requirements for psychologists and psychiatrists with standards of practice and a code of conduct, and it is important people looking for a mental health professional check their registration.
Both Jane Doe’s Sydney-based psychologist and Adelaide-based psychiatrist are registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and do not have any reprimands lodged against them.
“Validating people’s experiences is important,” Newman said. “That’s not the same as telling them what their experiences are.”
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.
There’s been several replies and rebuttals to David Hardaker’s piece on Friday. I’d like to thank the writers for them; I’d always thought that repressed memory retrieval had been completely discredited. I may have to do my own research.
And even if the worst case scenario of 25% of memories being ‘implanted’ is true, I don’t know if I want an attorney-general who is by probability three quarters likely to be a rapist.
I. read that the woman wrote about her experiences in her diary around the time it happened and also mentioned it to friend(s). So it is not a memory recovered later.
Dr Newman’s is highly regarded in those circles providing a service of counselling or therapy for those affected by sexual assault. It’s extraordinary how these people spouting forth on the media who have had no training, knowledge in the treatment of sexual assault and PTSD. It is clear that they are more about politics than about truth. It was unfortunate that David Hardaker also wrote on a subject he has no authority on. To discredit the work of the most renowned specialist on understanding and treating trauma, Bessel Van Der Kolk, was extraordinary.
Sky News commentator Andrew Bolt’s suggestion suggests he may have been delusional.
Some people claiming to be journalists do lie. Some are delusional.
Andrew Bolt is a man with little education but has lying lips and a treacherous tongue ready to stand as an apologist for all kinds of evil. Somehow a lot of people appear to be mesmerised and conned by his commentary.
“lying lips and a treacherous tongue”! So true. Andrew Bolt is exhibit (A) as evidence for fully funded education.
The victim-blaming from the redneck media is gaining pace, now it
s the victim was a delusional line, the counselor states she was not, its the Murdoch media in full flight protecting their own and damn the victims, it`s now a matter of who people believe, on the one hand, a politician, and politics is really the art of lying, or a woman who had mental issues, the big question is were those issues the result of severe trauma she suffered or not and who do you believe, I know who I believe.Amber, thank you for this article. I appreciate your contribution, but I still want to see the science and not just the political arguments and isolated expert quotes flapping loose.
Crikey now has three articles on false memory linked to this story: one skeptical, one furious and yours contextual — and not a single link to a scientific paper in any of them.
Meanwhile, all of us experience false memories some of the time, including memories we’re very attached to; most readers may have little experience of what happens in trauma, but I can attest that over time, I find it very hard to remember specific details associated with the tragic road-death of my late wife: I find myself substituting other details instead. So that’s the kind of readership you’re trying to reach.
There is far more to this story than a question of possibly false memory, but unless it can be put to rest with a solid, peer-reviewed clinical study, the question expand to fit whatever column inches are provided it, and it risks becoming the story.
So I’m asking you what I’ve already asked Leslie, and shall ask David too. Please find the science, read the science and quote the science. If it’s worth you writing about in the first place, it’s surely worth the extra research.
Memory most fallible is the bane of legal proceedings – not just forgetting the real but embellishment of the imagined.
I very much don’t want to speculate on how memory might or might not affect these allegations, Agni. All I can envision from doing so is cruelty and disrespect to too many other abuse survivors who are already hurt and angry: and given the stats, very likely people we already work with and live with and know and love.
But David’s question would also be in the minds of readers of both sexes, and if his article was not accurately researched then that can and should be remedied.
Amber’s point about gaslighting plaintiffs was worthwhile in its own right (and dismally unsurprising), but her research didn’t actually refute David’s concerns.
More research needed here.
Observe, too, how those journalists raising “”false memory” to protect Porter and Pell are protected from scrutiny, when they should at the least be providing a very public apology plus a solemn undertaking not to continue the practice.