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Kirkus Review | Detriot Free Press
Copyright 1997 Plain Dealer Publishing Co. The Plain Dealer July 13, 1997 Sunday, FINAL / ALL A COMPELLING LOOK AT REPRESSED MEMORY By JOE DIRCK The intellectual battle may not be over yet, but the repressed- memory forces are in full retreat. Scientific skepticism of the supposed phenomenon has never been higher, courts are belatedly taking long, critical looks at "recovered" memories of alleged childhood abuse, and the public at large has moved beyond unquestioning acceptance of such claims. The return to rationality comes after a decade of hysteria, in which innocent people were sued and even jailed for crimes up to and including murder, based solely upon memories their adult children acquired during therapy. Thousands more families have been torn apart by similar allegations. The situation, writes author Moira Johnston, was not unlike that which swept Salem, Mass., in the 17th century, when innocents were put to death solely on the word of hysterical young girls who branded them witches. Such ephemeral "proof" was eventually given the derogatory term "spectral evidence," the title of Johnston's compelling new book, her fourth, about a case that proved a turning point in the recovered-memory debate. Gary Ramona was a $500,000-a-year winery executive with a beautiful wife and three daughters, and a dream home rising on a hill in the Napa Valley. It all turned to dust in 1989 when his oldest daughter, Holly, sought treatment for a weight problem the year after she graduated from high school. Her therapist, Marche Isabella, whose only medical training was as a vocational nurse, was a believer in the dubious assertion that 80 percent of people with eating disorders were sexually abused. Under sodium amytal, and with Isabella's encouragement, Holly "recovered" progressively bizarre memories of being abused by her father - memories that eventually even included the family dog. Like the Salem witches, Gary found himself automatically convicted in many eyes. His wife, Stephanie, unquestioningly believed her daughter and left him, spreading the tale all over the valley. The Mondavi winery placed Gary on a leave of absence and ultimately fired him. Finally, he was sued by his own daughter. But unlike many caught in the repressed-memory nightmare, Gary fought back, suing Isabella, the supervising psychiatrist and the hospital that treated Holly. Even getting the case into court was a victory. No third-party malpractice suit against a therapist had ever gone that far. It cost nearly every cent he had, not to mention any shred of dignity and privacy he once enjoyed, but with the nation's leading psychiatric experts testifying to the ease with which false memories can be implanted in the mind, and with no evidence in her pediatric past corroborating the abuse (Holly's hymen was still intact despite her claims of having been repeatedly penetrated between the ages of 6 and 14) the jury in 1994 found the memories false and Holly's therapists guilty of malpractice. Johnston's reporting on the case is restrained and sensitive. She interviewed more than 100 people, including long sessions with both Stephanie and Gary. Several of the jurors act as a Greek chorus, commenting on their reactions at different stages of the trial. As welcome as the verdict was, it was no happy ending for Gary Ramona. His ex-wife believes he's guilty. His two younger daughters also remain loyal to their sister's memories, and refuse to have anything to do with their father until he "confesses." Holly is a grown woman now. Convinced as ever of her father's incest, she is looking for a court to hear her suit against him. On the plus side, Holly has shed the teenage weight that so troubled her and is now working. She's a therapist. Counseling abuse victims. Moira Johnston sees parallels between the Salem witch hunts and the accusations made by people who claim to have unearthed long-buried memories.; BOX: SPECTRAL EVIDENCE; The Ramona Case: Incest, Memory and Truth on Trial in the Napa Valley. By Moira Johnston. Houghton Mifflin, 433 pp., $25. |
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