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         MindNet Journal - Vol. 1, No. 56b * [Part 2 of 2 parts]
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         V E R I C O M M / MindNet         "Quid veritas est?"
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    The views and opinions expressed below are not necessarily the
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    Editor: Mike Coyle

    Assistant Editor: Rick Lawler

    Research: Darrell Bross

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    [Continued from part 1]

       Furthermore, Grof[24] provides another case about a repressed
    memory that was independently verified. During treatment a
    patient named Eva remembered that when she was nine, she and her
    younger brother asked their father what men and women did in sex.
    He proceeded to demonstrate by having intercourse with his wife
    in front of the children. Grof was exceedingly skeptical about
    this repressed memory until Eva's brother became his patient two
    years later and independently remembered precisely the same
    event.
       Finally, the FMSF claim that there are no repressed memories
    is totally demolished by the work of the renowned brain surgeon
    Wilder Penfield. He discovered that when he touched a particular
    area of the brain with an electrode, his patient would remember
    in vivid detail some totally forgotten event or scene; if he
    touched a nearby point, a different memory would emerge, again to
    the amazement of the patient.
       Two cases are reconsidered that supposedly prove the existence
    of false and implanted memories. But do they?

       17. The FMSF and recent articles in the media have produced a
    few cases that they claim demonstrate that memories can be
    implanted and that recovered memories can be false. However some
    of these cases can be understood in ways that lead to entirely
    different conclusions. Here are two cases the FMSF say would
    confirm their claims:

    One case presented in The New Yorker[25] deals with Paul Ingram,
    who confessed to having sexually abused his two daughters with
    two other men. His sons and his wife, in addition to both
    daughters, remembered a lot of other sexual abuse in the family.
    A prosecution expert, Richard Ofshe (an FMSF Advisory Board
    member), in order to prove that false memories can be implanted,
    lied to Ingram, told him that his son and daughter had also
    accused him of forcing them to have sex while he watched. Later
    Ingram made a detailed confession of this made-up incident. This
    convinced Ofshe that Ingram's memory of the incident was false
    and had been implanted. Because of this, he concluded that
    Ingram's other confessions were also false, even though they were
    generally corroborated by his daughters, his sons and his wife.
    Ofshe did not consider that the "lie" he implanted might have
    been the truth. In fact it would have been typical behavior for a
    man as sexually obsessed as Ingram.

    The article assumes that Ingram was not sexually obsessed and
    that nothing really happened, that the story of repeated incest
    was the result of the entire family's "brainwashing" and "trance
    states." However, when one son, who lived far away and knew
    nothing about the prosecution of his father, was first
    interviewed by detectives, he told them right away about once
    discovering his father and the same two other accused men
    engaging in weird sex with his tied-up mother. The brainwashing
    and trance theory advanced by Ofshe and the author (Lawrence
    Wright) is contorted, far less convincing, and covers fewer of
    the facts than the simple explanation that Ingram and his family
    essentially told the truth--at least about the sexual activities
    of the family and the other accused men. Their stories were all
    about sexual obsession in the family and differed only in various
    details.

    A woman whose story was told in a recent series of articles in
    the San Francisco Examiner (May 1993)[26] remembered having a
    hole drilled in her skull during her childhood abuse, a memory
    that could not be confirmed by X-ray. What the general public
    does not know is that abusers often deceive children into
    believing they have been seriously injured by telling them they
    are going to injure them and then hurting them a little.[*] When
    she was a child, the woman in the Examiner article probably had a
    drill-like object pressed into her skull until it hurt badly, so
    that she genuinely believed that her abusers did drill a hole in
    her head. Thus to abusers, for their own self-serving reasons,
    sometimes implant false memories in children.

       Abusers often go through fantastic charades like this so that
    if the child tells the story, it seems unbelievable (as was true
    in this case) and the abuser can escape conviction.

    Why some people repudiate memories of sexual abuse.

       18. The FMSF cites a number of cases in which people recover
    memories of childhood sexual abuse and later disavow them. The
    FMSF claims that this means the memories were false. The FMSF
    does not understand that most incest survivors during the early
    part of recovery have strong doubts about their memories. Their
    almost universal reaction is "I can't believe it, I must be
    making it all up."When survivors do repudiate their memories (and
    some do), they almost always do so to escape the intense pain,
    not only of the memories, but of alienation from their
    families.[**]

    IV. Accusations against abusers and the FMSF response to them.

    Why people sue their abusers.

       19. The fact that children sue their abusers can indicate that
    their memories are true. For what motivates some children to sue
    are strong feelings of hatred, hatred generated because of what
    was done to them and because their lives were ruined. Such strong
    feelings cannot be generated by false memories implanted by a
    therapist. Their feelings are generated by what really happened.
    (Others sue in an effort to validate their memories and to regain
    their confidence by standing up to their abusers.)

    Concern for accused families and for abused children.

       20. Families accused of harboring a molester are invariably
    portrayed by the FMSF as terribly grieved by their child's
    accusations, concerned about the child's welfare and anxious to
    have the child back in the family fold. The FMSF _assumes_ that
    the accusation is false and that therefore the child has lost a
    "loving" family. The FMSF does not understand how much false
    concern some members of a family can generate to cover up the
    presence of an abuser in their midst. The family and the FMSF
    would rather protect the alleged abuser than open up to the pain
    that the child may have suffered in the family. Most people
    prefer to believe they had happy childhoods and blank out he pain
    they actually experienced.

    Note: We do not argue that there are no cases of fabricated or
    mistaken memories of incest, just that they are few.[27]We have
    the greatest sympathy for the few individuals who are falsely
    accused of sexual abuse. But we know of so many cases in which
    the accusation is just (even though the accuser denies it and
    appears to be above reproach) that we believe that most of the
    2,345 to 4,650 families appealing to the FMSF do harbor an
    abuser.

    V. Evidence of sexual attitudes leading to, and resulting from
    abuse.

    Sexual obsession.

       When children are sexually abused, they become aroused
    because sexual organs are made for pleasure and because the
    children absorb the sexual excitement of their perpetrators,
    pleasure that shields them from the pain of what is happening.
    When they grow up, and the pain of their abuse begins to
    surface, many of them compulsively seek sexual pleasure instead
    of experiencing the pain.
       People like to believe that women like Madonna were born
    sexually obsessed, but as incest survivors understand, no child
    is born sexually obsessed; they are _taught_ to be. In the movie
    "Henry and June" we saw the sexual obsession of the writer Anais
    Nin. Now that we know about her childhood,[28] we can see the
    origin of her obsession. When she was a child, her father
    photographed her nude, beat her and seduced her. It was this
    abuse and her fusion with her father's sexual feelings when she
    was a child that drove her to become sexually obsessed when she
    was an adult.

    Evidence of sexual obsession in society.

       21. Nin's sexual obsession is not unique; nor is its origin
    in her abuse when she was a child. The rampant sexual obsession
    in our society also has much of its origins in the widespread
    sexual abuse of children.

    + Studies show that the multi-billion dollar pornography business
    is largely produced by and consumed by people who were sexually
    abused as children.

    + Moreover, many studies reveal that the vast majority of
    prostitutes were abused as children.

    + And finally, still other studies reveal that the enormous
    number of rapists in this country were also sexually abused as
    children.

    Evidence of sexually abusive feelings towards children.

       22. The FMSF wants us to believe that children are rarely
    abused, but there is a well-known phenomenon in our culture that
    indicates there is a lot of sexually abusive feelings in our
    society toward children. That phenomenon is the brisk business in
    "kiddie porn."Illegal magazines, films and videos show small
    children being forced to engage in sexual activities with each
    other and with adults. Recently "kiddie porn" has been widely
    circulated through computer "bulletin boards."This material not
    only shows the existence of sexually abusive feelings towards
    children, but also encourages the abuse of children.

       23. We recently learned of the abuse of children in the Branch
    Davidian religious cult in Waco, Texas. The leader, David
    Korresh, talked often to the cult's children about sex, had sex
    with many young children and beat them cruelly. (He denied this
    of course, like most abusers do, but the children themselves and
    many adults reported the abuse.) Similar abuse has been reported
    in some of the 2,000 other cults in this country. Since these
    cults operate in great secrecy, the extent of the abuse is
    unknown, but it is virtually certain that children in many other
    cults are also being abused.

       24. Thousands of small children disappear every year and are
    never seen again, except on flyers that ask "Have you seen me?".
    It is likely that many of these children are kidnapped by
    pedophiles or cults who sexually abuse and often kill them. Many
    FMSF followers try to deny this by proclaiming that almost all
    missing/abducted children are eventually recovered. But the fact
    is that of 1,487 children reported to the National Center for
    Missing and Exploited Children who were abducted by non-family
    members, only 362 (less than one if four) were recovered alive
    (187 turned up dead).[29] And these figures of abducted children
    are only the small percentage that are reported to the Center; a
    1990 Department of Justice report says that in 1988 alone there
    were 4,600 non-family abductions reported to police; if the ratio
    of one in four is recovered, this means that about 3,450 of just
    _these_ reported children disappeared in 1988. Since there is no
    central place where missing children must be reported, it is safe
    to assume that all these figures understate the facts.

    VI. Evidence that there are many "highly respectable" abusers.

    Sexual abuse of children by the clergy and scoutmasters.

       25. The FMSF would like us to believe that respectable people
    do not abuse children.[30]But recent cases demonstrate that some
    of the most highly respected people, for example, members of the
    clergy and scoutmasters, have been among those who are known to
    have abused children.

    Comment.

       26. Although many pedophiles have been convicted, many,
    probably thousands, remain in the employ of the churches and the
    Boy Scouts, which, like the FMSF, want to go on believing that
    the sexual abuse of children is not such a serious problem, an
    attitude that aids and abets child molesters.
       The efforts of the FMSF will likely result in ruining the
    lives of thousands of children. The pseudo-scientific
    pronouncements of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation are
    likely to convince hundreds of judges to acquit or parole
    thousands of child molesters, who in turn will go on to destroy
    the lives of tens of thousands of children. For example, Driver
    destroyed the life of Nessler's son, who became dysfunctional
    after the rape (and who threw up when he saw Driver in court).
    In their sympathy for accused abusers, the FMSF are willing to
    disregard the suffering of millions of children and to be
    indirectly responsible for the sexual abuse of thousands more
    children.
       Incest survivors are bringing new knowledge into the world,
    knowledge about the abuse that children suffer in families and
    knowledge about how to recover from that abuse. By accepting
    this new knowledge mankind can be freed from much of its
    suffering.
       But, like all major shifts in human consciousness, the
    insights of incest survivors arouse resistance. Just as the
    Church forced Galileo to recant the new knowledge he discovered
    about the solar system, so do the forces of ignorance and
    reaction want incest survivors to recant the new knowledge they
    have discovered. These reactionary forces refuse to face that
    an enormous amount of abuse goes on in many families. They want
    to pretend that the TV stereotype of the happy family is real.
    Protecting a false image of parents means more to them than the
    fact that children are being damaged. Whenever the son or
    daughter of a celebrity reveals the unpleasant facts about his
    or her family, the public attacks the son or daughter and
    refuses to believe that what they revealed is true. This has
    happened again and again, for example, when the son of Bing
    Crosby told the truth about him and when Patti Davis told the
    truth about the Reagan household.
       Incest survivors have looked deeply at the dark side of
    family life; they know that parents often destroy their
    children's self-esteem by abusing them in many ways (not just
    sexually). They see how this abuse sets up a chain reaction
    that ruins the lives of generation after generation.
       Followers of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, like most
    people, resist the new knowledge about family life because they
    are afraid of facing their own hidden pain. They desperately keep
    on waving the tattered banner of "family values."Their path of
    denial belongs to the past. The path of incest survivors, the
    path of all those who courageously face the truth, is the path of
    the future. It is the only way to achieve lasting family values.
       Have courage. The truth of incest survivors, like Galileo's
    truth, will finally prevail because it _is_ the truth.

    Notes:

    [1] (c) Copyright 1993 by John Backus, Sc.D., and Barbara
    Stannard, Ph.D. This article may be reproduced in its entirety or
    in part for no-profit distribution provided this copyright
    notice is reproduced with it. Written permission is required for
    all other uses of this article; please contact the authors at
    (415) 731-8155.

    [2] An FMSF flyer says 2,345 families have called complaining
    about their children remembering sexual abuse (more recent data
    indicates the number of families is now 4,650).

    [3] Pamela is the Executive Director of FMSF. Together Peter and
    Pamela effectively _are_ the FMSF. See page 6 for their
    daughter's sensational story about their family.

    [4] A caller to the FMSF 800 number on May 3, 1992 was connected
    to Dr. Underwager in his Minnesota office. He was described as
    the Director of FMSF (Pamela Freyd was the Executive Director).
    It is rumored that Underwager may no longer be on the FMSF board,
    but the undated flyer we received from FMSF in February 1993
    lists him as an Advisory Board Member.

    [5] "Pedophelia" or "paedophilia" is defined by Merriam-Webster's
    Collegiate Dictionary as "sexual perversion in which children are
    the preferred sexual object."

    [6] In this article we use the popular term "incest survivor" as
    shorthand for the longer phrase "adult sexually abused as a
    child."

    [7] But recent revelations by the daughter of the founders of the
    FMSF show that her parents founded the FMSF because they wanted
    to discredit their daughter remembering that her father sexually
    abused her. See page 6 for a discussion of the Freyd family.

    [8] One man had a serious cough for three months until he
    remembered that his mother tried to drown him. No medical
    treatment helped, but the cough disappeared quickly after
    recovering the memory.

    [9] See "Psychiatric Misadventures," by Paul R. McHugh, The
    American Scholar, Volume 61, Number 4, 1992, an article
    distributed by the FMSF; see also "The False Memory Syndrome
    Phenomenon," an FMSF booklet, pg. 6.

    [10] An FMSF "expert," psychiatrist Harold Lief, reveals the
    following opinions in Addiction & Recovery (May/June 1993): if a
    memory occurs after reading The Courage To Heal, or if it
    concerns abuse by a woman, or deviant abuse, or very early abuse,
    then, in Dr. Lief's opinion, it is less likely to be true. (One
    must suppose that if someone remembered deviant early abuse by
    his mother, and had read Courage, then Lief would be certain it
    was false.)Lief also compares going into the details of childhood
    traumas to "exorcism for demonic possession."These illogical
    opinions seem more a result of denial than of reason.

    [11] _Denying_the_Holocaust_ by Deborah Lipset (Free Press,
    1993).

    [12] _Come_Here_ by Richard Berendzen (Villard, 1993).

    [13] See page 11 for further discussion of why this happens.

    [14] Pamela Freyd is the Executive Director of the FMSF; she and
    her husband are the driving forces behind it. In a very real
    sense they _are_ the FMSF. The evidence strongly suggests that
    the FMSF grew out of the Freyds' effort to discredit their
    daughter Jennifer. That is why it is important to give some
    details of their story from the daughter's viewpoint. Their
    daughter has never sued her father. She did not make her side of
    the story public until after her parents sent their account to
    her colleagues. See "Memories of a Disputed Past," The Sunday
    Oregonian, August 8, 1993. See also the paper "Theoretical and
    Personal Perspectives on the Delayed Memory Debate" presented by
    Jennifer J. Freyd at The Center for Mental Health at Foote
    Hospital's Continuing Education Conference: Controversies around
    recovered memories of incest and ritualistic abuse. August 7,
    1993. Ann Arbor, Michigan.

    [15] The history of childhood sexual abuse is characteristic of
    many child abusers, including the emotional denial of their own
    abuse. It is little wonder that this exceedingly sexualized
    man--who has not dealt with the anguish of his own disastrous
    childhood--has no sympathy for his daughter's pain. Many abused
    children grow up pleased with their sexual obsession; they often
    believe that they were always "sexually precocious" because they
    are unable to face that they were trained to be that way. They
    usually prefer to regard their sexual training as "love." Their
    sexual obsession is important to them because it often represents
    one of the few seemingly "alive" and pleasurable aspects of their
    lives.

    [16] An odd example of their "love": Peter Freyd wrote Jennifer
    "[I think of] the whole project [the FMSF!] as being primarily a
    way of communicating with our daughters."

    [17] Peter Freyd's older brother says of Peter and Pamela that
    "both are convinced they have the only correct view, any
    disagreement is seen as being misinformed or deranged."

    [18] FMSF Newsletter, December 5, 1992, pg. 1.

    [19] _Babies_Remember_Birth_ by David Chamberlain, Tarcher 1988.
    Dr. Chamberlain gives references to many scientific articles
    documenting that unborn and newborn children acquire and remember
    a lot of information from their environment.

    [20] _Realms_of_the_Human_Unconcious_ by Stanislov Grof (Souvenir
    Press, 1975) pps. 161-2. A patient accurately remembered the
    sounds of a village fair his mother visited just before his
    birth. His mother, who had not told her son about it, told Grof
    about her excursion when he questioned her later.

    [21] "On Meditation and the Western Mind" in
    _Noetic_Sciences_Collection, _1980-1990_, pg. 119.

    [22] Here we do not make technical distinctions between
    "repressed," and other, temporarily inaccessible memories such as
    those resulting from dissociation or post-traumatic stress
    disorder. We use "repress" in the dictionary sense of "to exclude
    from consciousness."

    [23] FMSF Newsletter, December 5, 1992, pg. 1.

    [24] _Realms_of_the_Human_Unconscious_ by Stanislav Grof, Souvenir
    Press, 1975, pps 66-8.

    [25] May 24, 1993.

    [26] This series is yet another example of biased reporting:One
    of the authors, Stephanie Salter, was the lover of a man accused
    by his daughter of molesting her.

    [27] These usually occur in bitter divorce and custody cases.

    [28] _The_Erotic_Life_of_Anais_Nin_ by Noel Riley Fitch. Little,
    Brown, 1993.

    [29] Brochure of the National Center for Missing and Exploited
    Children. These figures cover eight years of the Center's
    operation. The Center operates under Congressional mandate and
    works in cooperation with the Department of Justice.

    [30] For example, their brochure says that the median income of
    their supporting families is $60,000, that 60% are college
    graduates and 25% have advanced degrees. One must assume that
    this is supposed to indicate that these families are
    "respectable" and therefore could not have abused their children.

    [31] May 6, 1993.

    [32] June 14, 1993.

    [33] Driver was also divorced in 1980 on the grounds that he had
    molested his wife's 5-year-old son. A single child molester like
    Driver or Father Porter, if not in prison, often destroys the
    lives of literally hundreds of children.

    Comments? Please call the authors at (415) 731-8155.
    October 30, 1993

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