Pam Freyd's Original Letter: July 16, 1997 Marshall Loeb, Editor Columbia Journalism Review 101 Journalism Building 2950 Broadway Columbia University New York, NY 10027 FAX 212-854-8580 Dear Mr. Loeb: A Response to: "U-Turn on Memory Lane" by Mike Stanton, Columbia Journalism Review, July / August, 1997. It was disappointing to see Columbia Journalism Review fan the flames rather than help resolve the very painful controversy about recovered memories in "U-Turn on Memory Lane" (July/August 1997). Author Mike Stanton wrote that he spent a year studying recovered memories, but he chose never to visit the FMS Foundation offices in Philadelphia in preparation for his article. Balanced reporting would suggest that he be willing to spend a similar amount of the time with FMSF staff, professionals, families and retractors as he did with individuals and professionals who hold to belief in recovered memories. If he had done so, he might have more accurately reported on the FMSF and the issues. If he had relied on original sources (e.g. personal correspondence), he might have been more accurate in what he wrote about the personal situation of the Freyd family. I would have made that correspondence available for him to examine in my office if he had asked. Unfortunately, Mike Stanton did not take these minimum steps-steps that one would expect for an investigative report to be published in the Columbia Journalism Review. But Stanton went well beyond a simple ignorance of available material. He repeatedly misreported the record. Let me examine three examples. Stanton wrote: "Pamela Freyd, who is the foundation's executive director, wrote in its first monthly newsletter, "We had to find ways to get people to hear our story." From the beginning, she encouraged accused parents to tell their stories to reporters and to appear on talk shows, to put a human face on this "serious health crisis" and satisfy the media's "craving for human drama." The first phrase does appear in the first FMSF Newsletter, March 1992. The only appearance of the second phrase, "serious health crises," that I can find comes from a private newsletter I sent in February 1992 to the families then in the process of establishing the foundation. "Our work is to inform the mental health community, the legal profession, the media and the public that a serious health crisis exists. We need to educate people so that they have the understanding to help our children and us find ways to reconcile the issues that are destroying families. We want to do this quickly, firmly, kindly and with dignity." The third phrase, "craving for human drama," appears only in the July 1992 FMSF Newsletter. It was there used in just the opposite way from that described by Stanton. "It is more difficult to help producers as we try to match our goal of informing the public about the nature of memory while providing dignity and anonymity for people who have had their lives torn apart with the media's craving for human drama. We do our best." In the second example, Stanton wrote: "Within six months of the foundation's creation, so many positive stories had appeared that Pamela Freyd wrote in her newsletter: "The biggest change has come in the press. One year ago there was literally nothing written about FMSF (indeed, it did not even have a name). There are now many well-documented professional and popular articles about FMSF." Stanton has seriously changed the meaning of what I wrote by twice inserting the single letter "F". In the October 1992 FMSF Newsletter I had written: "The biggest change has come in the press. One year ago there was literally nothing written about FMS (indeed, it did not even have a name). There are now many well-documented professional and popular articles about FMS." Stanton thus made it appear that I was writing about the renown of the Foundation. What we had accomplished -- and what I was pleased to report -- was dissemination of information about human memory. In the third example Stanton wrote that Daniel L. Schacter says: "there is no conclusive scientific evidence that false memories of sexual abuse can be created." Stanton deleted three words from the middle of what Schacter wrote and gave no hint of the surrounding context (emphasis added): "I believe that three major conclusions are warranted concerning the likelihood of therapeutic implantation of false memories of sexual trauma. First, there is no conclusive scientific evidence FROM CONTROLLED RESEARCH that false memories of sexual abuse can be created -- nor will such evidence ever exist, because of ethical considerations. Second, there is likewise no definitive scientific evidence showing that therapy per se or specific suggestive techniques are alone responsible for the creation of inaccurate memories. Third, several separate strands, when considered together, support the conclusion that some therapists have helped to create illusory recollections of sexual abuse: the experimentally documented malleability of memory in response to suggestive influences; evidence that hypnosis can produce compelling but inaccurate pseudomemories; failures to document satanic ritual abuse; recovery of memories for seemingly impossible events (past lives and alien abductions); growing numbers of therapy patients who have retracted their memories; the constructive nature of memory for emotional events; and the risky memory-retrieval techniques advocated by some proponents of recovered therapy....." Stanton and Columbia Journalism Review misstate the nature and purpose of the FMS Foundation. Stanton wrote that it was "formed as a support group for accused parents." It was not formed as a support group. (Nor was it formed to "satisfy the media's 'craving for human drama,'" as stated in the outrageous caption beneath your shadowed photograph of Peter and Pamela Freyd.) From its articles of incorporation one can find that the organization was formed by professionals and families to educate the public and professionals about the nature and prevalence of FMS, to promote and sponsor competent scientific medical research in FMS, and to help secondary victims (those falsely accused) to establish reliable methods to discriminate between true and false claims. To think that members of the National Academy of Science, chairs of departments, and researchers of world stature would support an organization whose purpose was to "satisfy the media's craving for human drama" is, frankly, absurd. There are other misstatements of fact in the article. For example, Mike Stanton wrote, "It wasn't Jennifer Freyd, but her parents, who made her allegations public." If he had taken the minimum steps of corroboration, he would have learned that he was mistaken on that important point. And while he is correct when he states that Jennifer now denies that her memories surfaced "through hypnosis or other therapeutic practices the FMSF attacks," he might have written differently if he had actually read Jennifer's descriptions of her therapy written in 1991. Stanton does not provide any documentation for his statement that the Frontline documentary "Divided Memories" was skewed. He wrote: "The program spent most of its time skewering fringe therapists who helped patients recover memories- with Frontline cameras rolling- of satanic abuse, past lives, and, in one case, being stuck in a fallopian tube. The documentary ignited an angry firestorm among therapists, medical experts, and groups representing women and survivors of sexual abuse." While producer Ofra Bikel found nothing to admire in the recovered memory movement, she hardly allowed FMSF voices to drown out those of the true believers. If "Divided Memories" damned the movement, it did so by allowing that movement's representatives to display their illogic in their own words. Below is a tabulation of those who appeared as experts and therapists on "Divided Memories," ranked by the number of words. The three starred people are the only participants affiliated with the FMSF, two members of the FMSF Scientific Advisory Board and the Executive Director. Which of the unstarred professionals does Stanton view as the "fringe therapists?" 20 Lenore Terr 58 Marilyn van Derbur 74 Christine Courtois 112 Charles Whitfield 122 Timmenn Cermak 144 Gerda Schulman *153 Elizabeth Loftus 163 Wendy Kaminer *164 Paul McHugh 176 Sally Goldfarb 193 Bessel Van Der Kolk 209 Jennifer Freyd 227 David Spiegel 227 John Bradshaw 227 Linda McDonald 244 James McGaugh 257 David Calof 275 Jan Haaken *313 Pamela Freyd 345 Pat Neuhausel 356 Carol Tavris 363 Pat Mansmann 376 Michael Yapko 390 Marche Isabella 423 Salvador Minuchin 433 Laura Brown 466 Ellen Bass 472 Robert Jarmon 504 Judith Herman 515 Jeffrey Masson 537 Paul Simpson 588 Douglas Sawin 745 Sara Lee Blum   Stanton does not hesitate to skewer some of his professional colleagues who differ with him. He wrote: "reporters relied increasingly on FMSF experts and propaganda." He goes on to discuss articles in Time, The New York Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune and the San Francisco Examiner. He even implies that Newsweek pulled a story because of "a well-organized action" by FMSF. Not only am I unaware of any such "action," it is difficult to believe that Newsweek would succumb to such pressure if it did exist. Stanton distorts the position of the FMSF when he writes: "many reporters don't realize that the FMSF's impressive array of scientific advisers represents just one part of the broad spectrum of psychological thought." and "the FMSF builds much of its case against recovered memory by attacking a generally discredited Freudian concept of repression that proponents of recovered memory don't buy, either. In so doing, the foundation ignores the fifty-year-old literature on traumatic, or psychogenic, amnesia, which is an accepted diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association." What Stanton neglects to mention is that the position taken by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation represents mainstream professional thinking. Psychogenic amnesia is a well-known phenomenon that doesn't yield the kind of pristine, belated memory recall alleged by some therapists; nor does the mere existence of psychogenic amnesia allay the well-founded suspicion that memories acquired in therapy can be be false. The DSM-IV of the American Psychiatric Association specifically states that "there is currently no method for establishing with certainty the accuracy of such retrieved memories in the absence of corroborative evidence." p 481. It also states that "there are no tests or set of procedures that invariable distinguish dissociative amnesia from malingering..." p 480 While Stanton gives the FMSF enormous credit for influencing the media, a more accurate report would surely have given credit to the major professional organizations that have issued statements about recovered memories. Here is a listing of some of those statements: * American Psychiatric Association (1993) Board of Trustees "Statement on Memories of Sexual Abuse." * American Medical Association (1994) "Memories of Abuse." Report of the Council on Scientific Affairs C.S.A. Report 5-A-94 * Australian Psychological Society Limited (1994) "Guidelines Relating to the Reporting of Recovered Memories" * American Psychological Association (1995) "Questions and Answers about Memories of Childhood Abuse." * British Psychological Society (1995) "Recovered Memories: The report of the Working Party of the British Psychological Society." * Canadian Psychiatric Association (1996) "Adult Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse" Position Statement. For Stanton not to have directed his fellow journalists to these documents raises an interesting question. If he were to view these statements as supporting his contention that FMSF holds other than a mainstream clinical position, he certainly owed it to his colleagues to give them this evidence. In fact, these documents endorse the FMSF position that recovered memories must be treated with utmost caution. (The FMSF has never said that all recovered memories are wrong.) Must we conclude that in his year of investigation he never encountered these statements? Each of the professional organizations mentioned above has attempted to come to terms with the dangers posed by the misplaced zeal of therapists who bring tragedy to innocent individuals and families. Unfortunately, the smears perpetrated by Mike Stanton, combined with your own slanted pull quotes, can only help prolong the malpractice. Is this the standard of journalism you wish to commend to your readers? Yours very truly, Pamela Freyd, Ph.D. Executive Director False Memory Syndrome Foundation
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