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     MindNet Journal - Vol. 1, No. 56
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A REPLY TO THE FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME FOUNDATION

By John Backus and Barbara Stannard

Oct. 1993

----------------------------------------------------------------

(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.

Introduction

   Recently newspapers, magazine articles and TV have been
publicizing the work of an organization called the "False Memory 
Syndrome Foundation" (FMSF), which makes the following claims: 
that many memories of incest recovered by adults are "false 
memories" implanted or suggested by therapists, that getting 
these memories is just a current fad, and that the "false 
memory syndrome," to quote the FMSF, destroys "the psychological 
well-being not only of the primary victim but--through false
accusations of incest and sexual abuse--other members of the
primary victim's family."
   Here are some answers to the FMSF's claims:

I. A few basic observations.

The False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

   1. Much of the energy and money supporting the False Memory
Syndrome Foundation comes from people who maintain they have been
falsely accused of molesting children.[2] The FMSF founders are
Peter Freyd and his wife Pamela, whose daughter has accused Peter
of molesting her as a child.[3] A member of the FMSF Advisory
Board who appears to have been an active partner in forming the
FMSF is the psychologist Dr. Ralph Underwager.[4]  Dr. Underwager
is on record as a defender of pedophelia:[5] he was interviewed
in _Paidika_, "The Journal of Paedophilia" (Winter 1993) as
follows. Question: Is choosing paedophilia for you a responsible
choice for the individual? Answer by Underwager: "Certainly it is
responsible." (p3). When asked how pedophiles might seek
decriminalization, Underwager replies: "...Paedophiles need to...
make the claim that paedophilia is an acceptable expression of
God's will for love and unity among human beings" (p12).
Underwager's wife, Hollida Wakefield, another FMSF board member
who took part in this interview, favors "...a longitudinal study
of, let's say, a hundred twelve-year-old boys in relationships
with loving paedophiles." (p12).
   Much of the rest of FMSF support comes from old-line
psychiatrists who still agree with a now discredited theory of
Freud, the "drive theory," according to which children
instinctively want sex with their parents and therefore make up
fantasies about it actually happening. Because of that false
theory, for over half a century therapists believed their
patients were making up fantasies of abuse and were therefore
unable to help them. The FMSF is basically attempting to revive
the belief that memories of sexual abuse are "fantasies."

Science and the FMSF.

   2. The FMSF wants us to believe that their claims about false
memories of incest are based on scientific research into the
mechanisms of memory. The evidence they use to build their case
actually represents just a few common sense facts about memory:
for example, that our memories are often mistaken about details
(we get sequences of events wrong, dates, colors, what age we
were, etc.). Persons remembering an accident often do get the
color of the car, or the number of people involved, wrong but
they are never wrong about the important facts: that there was an
accident or that someone was hurt.
   The FMSF also wants us to believe that memories can be 
implanted, and experiments have shown that suggestible people can 
be tricked into falsely believing, let us say, that they got lost 
in a shopping mall when they were children. But these implanted
memories deal with non-traumatic events that might normally have
happened.
   From these simple experiments the FMSF falsely concludes: (a)
that a person's memories are likely to be wrong about crucial
events that had a serious impact on their lives and (b) that
someone can falsely suggest that a major traumatic event happened
to a person, who will then docilely produce detailed memories
about it.
   There is no solid evidence that incest survivors[6] are 
mistaken about the major events they remember or that they have 
generated their memories of abuse at the mere suggestion of a 
therapist. While there may be a few cases to support the FMSF's 
view, cases that involve unscrupulous therapists or unprincipled 
or simple-minded clients, the preponderance of evidence (some of
which is given below) supports the fact that childhood sexual
abuse is common, that people often suppress the memory of it and
then recover its essential details as adults.
   
   3. The very name "False Memory Syndrome" is a 
pseudo-scientific sham, for "syndrome," defined by Webster's New 
World Dictionary as "a number of symptoms occurring together and 
characterizing a specific disease" suggests that "false memories" 
are symptoms of a newly discovered "disease."  But how can such a 
disease have a scientific basis when the truth or falsity of 
memories can rarely be proved?
   The literature of the FMSF pretends to be unbiased[7] and 
based on science, but the low-level scientific work they cite 
cannot support the theory that many memories about sexual abuse 
are false. For how can the situation faced by incest victims be
reproduced in the laboratory? How does one scientifically
determine whether accuser or accused is telling the truth? A real
scientist is someone who searches for the truth, not someone who
decides in advance what is true and then tries to convince others
by whatever means he can find. If Science had been in the hands
of groups like the FMSF, it would have got nowhere.

Catching the "false memory syndrome."

   4. The FMSF implies that you can catch the "false memory
syndrome" by the merest suggestion of a therapist or by reading a
book, and that once you've caught this "disease" you're likely to
make up false memories about childhood sexual abuse. The FMSF
offers no explanation of why people would make up memories so
painful that they themselves do not want to believe them. The
FMSF also does not ask why, if the memories are false, people get
better by remembering them. People are cured only by remembering
the truth.
   Furthermore, the FMSF does not consider that a fair number of
people always remembered their incest. (What they may not have
dealt with are the feelings--the rage, the grief--associated with
it.) The memories of those who have always remembered and those
who recovered their memories are in every way comparable.
   Moreover, if you ask: "Who has the stronger motive for making
things up, the person who remembers being abused or the person
who is accused of the abuse?" the answer is clear.
   Incest memories are not a fad, not implanted, not a witch 
hunt.

   5. History shows that memories of incest are not just a 
current fad, as some claim. The fact is that sexual and other 
kinds of abuse have been going on throughout history. "The 
history of childhood," said Lloyd de Mause in _The History Of
Childhood_ (1974), "is a nightmare from which we have only 
recently begun to awaken." De Mause's carefully researched book 
shows that sexual abuse, while tragically widespread today, was 
even more common in the past.

   6. Most incest survivors get at least some memories before 
they see a therapist or even read about incest, therefore their
memories could not have been "implanted." Furthermore, brains
may be capable of lies and fantasies, but can bodies lie? Almost
everyone who has endured serious abuse has "body memories" in
which a recurring physical pain or sensation insists on reminding
them of some early abuse, a pain that continues until they
re-experience the abuse, whereupon it disappears.[8] A false
memory could not have this effect.

   7. Incest survivors' accusations of their abusers are compared
by the FMSF to the Salem Witch Trials.[9] There are two crucial
differences which they ignore. First, a girl who accused someone
of being a witch got instant power and praise, whereas a person
who accuses a relative of past sexual abuse gets disbelief,
anger, anguish, and often separation from the family. Second,
sexual abuse is a proven fact, but it is clearly impossible to
prove that someone is a witch.

Evidence for the validity of incest memories.

   8. There are probably a few thousand incest survivor self-help
groups around the world. Anyone who attended their meetings would
be struck by the intense pain, grief and anger that people suffer
when they remember what happened to them as children. These
feelings and memories become even more authentic when one sees
the beneficial changes that come about from remembering. When the
pain and grief are first felt people become dejected and often
dysfunctional, but gradually the pain subsides and one sees the
same people having more energy, self-confidence and
self-responsibility than they ever had and become capable of
better relationships. People also finally understand the origin
of their addictions (like drinking) and begin to cope with their
other psychological difficulties, difficulties they did not
understand before or thought were innate. It becomes utterly
clear that their intense emotions, their new self-knowledge and
the remarkable changes in their lives could not possibly be the
result of made-up fictions or implanted memories.

II. About denial and the motives of abusers.

The origins of denial.

   9. Most people have repressed a lot of emotional pain they
suffered when they were children. If they were to believe that
incest survivors' memories are true, they would be at risk of
remembering their own lesser pain (for example, the pain of
having been rejected). The greater the repressed pain, the more
numb people become to the pain of others so as to avoid feeling
their own hidden wounds. Denial of childhood pain is so common
that even many therapists have not sufficiently dealt with their
own pain, which means that they are not open to the truth of
their clients' memories and therefore cannot help them. Such a
therapist, of course, cannot be a reliable judge of "false
memories".[10] Denial of childhood pain is the chief force
behind the strong backlash against the incest survivor movement.

   10. Society in general has a tendency to deny the existence 
of horrendous acts of evil. The followers of FMSF, in denying 
the reality of incest survivors' memories, are not unlike the 
growing number of people who deny or minimize the reality of the
Holocaust, people like neo-Nazi David Duke, the president of
Croatia, and the Republican columnist Pat Buchanan, who assert,
for example, that only a few hundred thousand died in Nazi
concentration camps.[11]

Sexual abuse: the consequences of denial, the agony of recovery.

   11. Consequences of denial: Dr. Richard Berendzen, the former
president of American University, had always known that his
mother had sexually abused him as a child. He thought he had
"handled" it. But in his fifties, not knowing why he was
compelled to do it, he began making obscene phone calls to women
he knew were mothers. Dr. Berendzen had always overworked, but
when his obsession hit him, he began working 120 hours a
week.[12]
   Denial of the emotional pain of sexual abuse results in many
other kinds of life-defeating behaviors. For example, many
sexually abused children grow up to be as sexually obsessed as
their abusers.[13] Some become prostitutes or in other ways are
easily sexually exploited. A minority become abusers themselves.
Because their self-esteem is so damaged, many adults who were
sexually abused in childhood cannot properly assert themselves
and use their talents. In order to run from the intense hidden
pain that lurks just below the surface, a great number of sexual
abuse victims become alcoholics, drug addicts, or workaholics.
The pain is so unbearable for many that they kill themselves.
Some suffer from dangerous bouts of rage, some from chronic
depression. Although a few have successful careers, they remain
numb and emotionally dead in large areas of their lives.
   The agony of recovery: For those who face the pain of their
childhood sexual abuse, recovery often means years of working
through intense fear, grief and anger as they uncover their
memories and relive what happened to them. The process is so
difficult that some can barely function for a long time. One of
the worst pains suffered by survivors who remember their abuse is
exclusion by their family, who deny the truth of their memories.
   
The psychology of abusers: why they do it and why they cannot
admit it.

   12. At present, few people in our society understand that the
very abuse of children is a form of denial. Child abusers (who
are themselves victims of child abuse) usually do not remember
what happened to them. They repress the original abuse by means
of a psychological escape called fusion. When a child is
molested, the trauma is often so unbearable that instead of
remaining the helpless, hurt victim, the child merges with the
abuser and experiences his/her sexual thrills and delight in
power. Child abusers continue to handle the pain of the original
abuse in the same way. Whenever the pain begins to surface (and
it always does), abusers pass on the pain to another child,
turning the child into the victim they once were and themselves
into the powerful abuser. (It is important to note that only a
small percentage of people who were molested become child
abusers; most victims handle their pain in other ways.)
   Instead of understanding the psychology of abusers, society
prefers to believe that abusers are examples of "original sin" or
"bad seeds." Society is therefore unable to deal with the causes
of abuse and is unable to prevent its continuation. (Child
molesters are let out of prison after short sentences because it
is not understood that they are unable to stop molesting children
unless they remember their own abuse and experience the pain of
it.)

   13. The FMSF does not understand why most abusers are 
compelled to deny what they did (beyond wanting to escape prison 
and not wanting to face the shame of what they did). If an abuser 
were simply to confess what he did, ant bald, plain facts would 
remind him of the pain of his original abuse, whereas when he is
molesting a child, he is identified with his abuser and feels
only sexual arousal and power.

III. Rebuttal of the FMSF's claims.

The case of the family of Peter and Pamela Freyd, the founders
of the FMSF.

   14. The FMSF presents itself as objective but it was founded 
by Peter Freyd and his wife Pamela when Peter was accused by 
their daughter of sexually molesting her.[14] The daughter 
Jennifer is a distinguished psychology professor who did not 
recover memories of outright incest until 1990 when her mother 
and father planned a visit. Jennifer became anxious. She did not 
know why and consulted a therapist. On the second visit the 
therapist asked her if she had been sexually abused as a child. 
She said no, but them memories began to come up. She had always 
remembered that her alcoholic father constantly talked about sex 
when she was a child, sat in his robe with his genitals exposed, 
and when she was nine or ten suggested she read Lolita. Even 
when she was married her father continued his sexual behavior 
toward her; he once threw a condom at her, and when she gave 
him a modeling toy, he made a replica of his genitals which he 
displayed in his living room. In 1990 she remembered he sexually 
fondled her when she was three or four and raped her when she 
was sixteen. When Jennifer tried to validate her memories with 
her sister, her sister asked "Is that why you had all those 
locks on your bedroom door?"
   Jennifer Freyd recalls that her father used to discuss his 
own sexual abuse, which occurred when he was eleven years old. 
He did not call it abuse however; instead he believed he was 
sexually precocious. He referred to himself as a "kept boy" and 
said he later became a "male prostitute."[15]  (He later decided 
to become heterosexual.)
   Jennifer Freyd also provides convincing evidence that her 
parents were untruthful in their efforts to damage her reputation 
with her colleagues: Her mother wrote an anonymous article by 
"Jane Doe" giving her version of the family story. She sent it to
Jennifer's colleagues and made it clear it was about Jennifer by
identifying herself as Jane Doe. It states that Jennifer was
denied tenure at a previous university because she had not
published enough. The fact is that Jennifer moved to the
University of Oregon as a tenured Associate Professor when her
previous university declined to match the tenure offer from
Oregon. Her mother sent the Jane Doe article to Jennifer's Oregon
colleagues during the year she was up for promotion to Professor.
Her father later admitted to her that "...fictional elements were
deliberately inserted...". Jennifer cites several other instances
of her parents' untruthfulness in using the FMSF to harass her.
   The Freyds' claim that Jennifer's memories were "implanted" 
seems ludicrous in light of Jennifer's story. How could the mere
question "were you sexually abused as a child?" have implanted
Jennifer's memories of what happened? She is very clear that even
when she wanted her therapist to help her have more memories, the
therapist was unable to do so.
   In spite of the dysfunctional family history, in spite of 
their untruthful efforts to damage their daughter's career and
reputation, and in spite of the fact that both their daughters
and Peter's older brother do not want to have anything to do with
them, Pamela and Peter Freyd nevertheless insist that theirs is a
loving family torn apart by inaccurate memories and false
allegations.[16]
   Pamela Freyd must have seen the many locks on Jennifer's 
bedroom door, she must have known about her husband's sexual 
abuse as a child, his claim of sexual precocity and his 
predilection for sexual talk with Jennifer and acting out in her 
presence. If she were truly a loving mother how could she then 
dismiss her daughter's memories so totally? Pamela Freyd's 
attitude about her family is _denial_,[17] which is why the FMSF 
insists that families of accused abusers are "loving families" 
who have lost a "loved" daughter through "inaccurate memories 
and false accusations."
   Pamela and Peter Freyd are clearly struggling, by every means
they can find, to impugn their daughter's very convincing
evidence that her father molested her as a child. And it appears
that they have created the FMSF as a means of doing so.

Very early memories are possible.

   15. The FMSF claims there is general agreement that "most
people cannot remember anything that happened" before about two
years of age.[18] However, there is a great amount of evidence
that most people remember a lot, even events before their birth,
when they are in various altered states of consciousness, such as
those induced by hypnosis, mediation, drugs such as LSD, or
certain breathing exercises. Memories occurring in this way show
that most of us have early memories and that we can retrieve
them. For example, the psychologist David Chamberlain studies 10
mother-child pairs in which the adult child consciously knew
nothing about the details of its birth; yet under hypnosis _all_
the children recalled many of those details. In the least
accurate case the child remembered seventeen details, such as:
instruments used, head or feet first, people present, etc.;
thirteen of these were confirmed independently by the mother,
four were incorrect. Another adult child remembered 24 birth
details with no contradiction with the mother's account. Two
daughters gave accurate descriptions of their mothers' hairstyles
when they were born.[19]
   The psychiatrist Stanislov Grof provides an example of an
independently verified pre-birth memory elicited under LSD when
it was legal.[20]  A respected Buddhist meditation teacher, Jack
Kornfield, reports that students who practice serious meditation
often have experiences like this: "...suddenly I was one year
old. I was back there with my spoon, banging on the table."[21]
The FMSF's assertion that very early memories are virtually
non-existent is another example of its ignorance and its bias:
the FMSF seeks only to verify its beliefs; it ignores the volumes
of evidence that contradict its position.
 
Repressed memories are real.
 
   16. The FMSF also implies that there is no such thing as
repressed memories.[22] They cite Freud[23] (without references)
claiming that he felt "impulse and desire are repressed--not
memories." But they ignore all the data about Vietnam vets, who
often repressed memories of traumatic battles, memories they had
to remember in order to get well. Many Holocaust survivors also
repressed memories of atrocities, which only surfaced later.
 
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