From Colin A. Ross, 1995: The writer is the brother of the man who co-founded the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. He is writing to WGBH about a program called 'Divided Memories', which you may have seen, that was supposed to be an investigation of memory. This letter also went to Congress and to the press, so it's a public letter. It's just unfortunate that the press, as far as I know, didn't pick it up. 'Gentlemen: Peter Freyd is my brother. Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law. Jennifer and Gwendolyn [their daughters] are my nieces. There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters. Peter said (on your show, 'Divided Memories') that his humor was ribald. Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation is a fraud designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape. There is no such thing as a False Memory Syndrome. It is not, by any normal standard, a Foundation. Neither Pam nor Peter have any significant mental health expertise. That the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has been able to excite so much media attention has been a great surprise to those of us who would like to admire and respect the objectivity and motives of people in the media. Neither Peter's mother (who was also mine), nor his daughters, nor I have wanted anything to do with Peter and Pam for periods of time ranging up to more than two decades. We do not understand why you would 'buy' such an obviously flawed story. But buy it you did, based on the severely biased presentation you made of the memory issue that Peter and Pam created to deny their own difficult reality. For the most part you presented very credible parents and frequently quite incredibly bizarre and exotic alleged victims and therapists. Balance and objectivity would call for the presentation of more credible alleged victims and more bizarre parents, While you did present some highly regarded therapists as commentators, most of the therapists you presented as providers of therapy were clearly not in the mainstream. While this selection of examples may make for much more interesting television, it certainly does not make for more objectivity and fairness. I would advance the idea that 'Divided Memories' hurt victims, helped abusers and confused the public. I wonder why you thought these results would be in the public interest that Public broadcasting is funded to support.

~ William Freyd

William Freyd Abuser Bias Biased Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Childhood Sexual Abuse Deception Denial Documentary False Memories False Memory False Memory Syndrome False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Frontline Incest Lies Media Media Manipulation Memory Wars Pedophile Perpetrator Peter Freyd Reality Sexual Abuse Society Denial Truth Tv Documentary

It was after a Frontline television documentary screened in the US in 1995 that the Freyds' public profile as aggrieved parents provoked another rupture within the Freyd family, when William Freyd made public his own discomfort.'Peter Freyd is my brother, Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law,' he explained. Peter and Pamela had grown up together as step-siblings. 'There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters,' he wrote. He challenged Peter Freyd's claims that he had been misunderstood, that he merely had a 'ribald' sense of humour. 'Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst.' He added that, in his view, 'The False memory Syndrome Foundation is designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape.' He felt that there is no such thing as a false memory syndrome.' Criticising the media for its uncritical embrace of the Freyds' campaign, he cautioned:That the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has been able to excite so much media attention has been a great surprise to those of us who would like to admire and respect the objectivity and motive of people in the media. Neither Peter's mother nor his daughters, nor I have wanted anything to do with Peter and Pam for periods of time ranging up to two decades. We do not understand why you would 'buy' into such an obviously flawed story. But buy it you did, based on the severely biased presentation of the memory issue that Peter and Pam created to deny their own difficult reality. p14-14 Stolen Voices: An Exposure of the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony

~ Judith Jones Beatrix Campbell

Judith Jones Beatrix Campbell Abuse Enabler Bias Biased Child Abuse Child Rape Child Sexual Abuse Denial Deny Enabling Abuse Fabrication False Memory False Memory Syndrome Foundation Flawed Fmsf Freyd Incest Influence Jennifer Freyd Lies Media Objective Paedophile Pamela Freyd Pedophile Peter Freyd Protecting Pedophiles Psychology Reality Sadistic Sex Abuse Siblings Story Surprise Truth Underwager

We propose that use of the term “false memory” to describe errors in memory for details directly contributes to removing the social context of abuse from research on memory for trauma. As the term “false memories” has increasingly been used to describe errors in details, the scientific weight of the term has increased. In turn, we see that the term “false memories” is treated as a construct supported by scientific fact, whereas other terms associated with questions about the veracity of abuse memories have been treated as suspect. For example, “recovered memories” often appears in quotations, whereas “false memories” does not (Campbell, 2003).The quotation marks suggest that one term is questioned, whereas the other is accepted as fact. Accepting “false memories” of abuse as fact reflects the subtle assimilation of the term into the cognitive literature, where the term is used increasingly to describe intrusions of semantically related words into lists of related words. The term, rooted in the controversy over the accuracy of abuse memories recalled during psychotherapy (Schacter, 1999), implies generalization of errors in details to memory for abuse—experienced largely by women and children (Campbell, 2003).from: What's in a Name for Memory Errors? Implications and Ethical Issues Arising From the Use of the Term “False Memory” for Errors in Memory for Details, Journal: Ethics & Behavior

~ Jennifer J. Freyd

Jennifer J. Freyd Bias Child Abuse Child Rape Child Sexual Abuse Denial Denial Of Abuse False Memories False Memory False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Media Media Lies Media Manipulation Memory Misinformation Rape Recovered Memories Repressed Memories Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Society Denial Trauma

The people who support and defend those accused of child sexual abuse indiscriminately, those who join organizations dedicated to defending people who are accused of child sexual abuse with no screening whatsoever to keep out those who are guilty as charged are likewise not necessarily people engaged in an objective search for the truth. Some of them can and do use deceit, trickery, misstated research, harassment, intimidation, and charges of laundering federal money to silence their opponents.Those of us who are the recipients of bogus lawsuits and frivolous ethics charges and phony phone calls and pickets outside our offices must know more than the research to survive such tactics. We must know something about endurance and about the importance of refusing to be intimidated.Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998

~ Anna C. Salter

Anna C. Salter Abusers Bullying Child Abusers Child Sexual Abuse Deception Defense Witness Dirty Tricks Ethics False Accusations False Allegations False Memories False Memory Syndrome Foundation False Pretences Fmsf Harrasment Intimidation Lies Manipulation Misuse Of Authority Misuse Of Power Pedophile Protectors Pedophiles Research Silenced Silencing Truth

Dr. Lois Jolyon West was cleared at Top Secret for his work on MKULTRA. West's numerous connections to the mind control network illustrate how the network is maintained, not through any central conspiracy, but by an interlocking network of academic relationships, grants, conferences, and military appointments. Some doctors in the network were not funded directly by the CIA or military, but their work was of direct relevance to mind control, non-lethal weapons development, creation of controlled dissociation and the building of Manchurian Candidates.

~ Colin A. Ross

Colin A. Ross Abusive Child Abuse Cia Denial Dissociative Identity Disorder Ethics False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Government Abuse Lies Military Abuse Misinformation Mkultra Multiple Personality Disorder Ritual Abuse

In court the next morning I sat at a table in the judge’s chambers. On the other side of the table, close enough for me to reach across and touch him, sat Ted Bundy. He’s adorable, I thought, surprised at my first impression, because I’d pictured him in my mind as brooding, dark, intense disdain (p. 83).(Loftus testified as a defense expert for Ted Bundy in 1976, Bundy was found guilty of aggravated kidnapping)

~ Elizabeth F. Loftus

Elizabeth F. Loftus Convicted Court Case Defense Expert Expert Witness False Accusations False Impressions False Memory False Memory Syndrome Foundation Falsely Accused Fmsf Judge Law Legal Murder Rape Serial Killers Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Ted Bundy

The thought had occurred to me as I was flying to Salt Lake City earlier that day that Ted Bundy might offer to let me stay in his apartment” (p. 74).(Loftus testified as a defense expert for Ted Bundy in 1976)

~ Elizabeth F. Loftus

Elizabeth F. Loftus Defense Expert Expert Witness False Accusations False Memory False Memory Syndrome Foundation Falsely Accused Fmsf Law Legal Murder Rape Serial Killers Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Ted Bundy

Two other highly vocal FMSF Advisory Board members are Dr Elizabeth Loftus and Professor Richard Ofshe. Loftus is a respected academic psychologist whose much quoted laboratory experiment of successfully implanting a fictitious childhood memory of being lost in a shopping mall is frequently used to defend the false memory syndrome argument. In the experiment, older family members persuaded younger ones of the (supposedly) never real event. However, Loftus herself says that being lost, which almost everyone has experienced, is in no way similar to being abused. Jennifer Freyd comments on the shopping mall experiment in Betrayal Trauma (1996): “If this demonstration proves to hold up under replication it suggests both that therapists can induce false memories and, even more directly, that older family members play a powerful role in defining reality for dependent younger family members. (p. 104). Elizabeth Loftus herself was sexually abused as a child by a male babysitter and admits to blacking the perpetrator out of her memory, although she never forgot the incident. In her autobiography, Witness for the Defence, she talks of experiencing flashbacks of this abusive incident on occasion in court in 1985 (Loftus &Ketcham, 1991, p.149)In her teens, having been told by an uncle that she had found her mother's drowned body, she then started to visualize the scene. Her brother later told her that she had not found the body. Dr Loftus's successful academic career has run parallel to her even more high profile career as an expert witness in court, for the defence of those accused of rape, murder, and child abuse. She is described in her own book as the expert who puts memory on trial, sometimes with frightening implications.She used her theories on the unreliability of memory to cast doubt, in 1975, on the testimony of the only eyewitness left alive who could identify Ted Bundy, the all American boy who was one of America's worst serial rapists and killers (Loftus & Ketcham, 1991, pp. 61-91). Not withstanding Dr Loftus's arguments, the judge kept Bundy in prison. Bundy was eventually tried, convicted and executed.

~ Valerie Sinason

Valerie Sinason Abuse Deniers Convicted Court Case Defense Expert Elizabeth F Loftus Elizabeth Loftus Expert Witness False Accusations False Impressions False Memory False Memory Syndrome Foundation Falsely Accused Fmsf Judge Law Legal Loftus Murder Rape Richard Ofshe Serial Killers Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Societal Denial Ted Bundy

Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33TAT: No. I don't know anymore than you know they're not. But, I'm talking about boundaries and privacy here. As a therapist working with survivors, I have been harassed by people who claim to be affiliated with the false memory movement. Parents and other family members have called or written me insisting on talking with me about my patients' cases, despite my clearly indicating I can't because of professional confidentiality. I have had other parents and family members investigate me -- look into my professional background -- hoping to find something to discredit me to the patients I was seeing at the time because they disputed their memories. This isn't the kind of sober, scientific discourse you all claim you want.

~ David L. Calof

David L. Calof Abuse Abuse Deniers Ad Hominem Anti Science Boundaries Boundary Violations Confidentiality False Memories False Memory False Memory Syndrome False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Harassment Interview Intimidation Intrusive Pamela Freyd Parental Abuse Pedophilia Privacy Problems Private Investigator Pseudo Science Pseudoscience Pseudoscientific Psychological Abuse Psychotherapist Repressed Memory Scam Society Denial Survivors Of Abuse Violation Leading To Disruption

The above is stereotypical FMS rhetoric. It employs a formulaic medley of factual distortions, exaggerations, emotionally charged language and ideological codewords, pseudo-scientific assertions, indignant protestations of bigotry and persecution, mockering of religious belief, and the usual tiresome “witch hunt” metaphors to convince the reader that there can be no debating the merits of the case. No matter what the circumstances of the case, the syntax is always the same, and the plot line as predictable as a 1920's silent movie. Everyone accused of abuse is somehow the victim of overzealous religious fanatics, who make unwarranted, irrational, and self-serving charges, which are incredibly accepted uncritically by virtually all social service and criminal justice professionals assign to the case, who are responsible for brainwashing the alleged perpetrator or witnesses to the crime. This mysterious process of mass hysteria is then amplified in the media, which feeds back upon itself, which finally causes a total travesty of justice which the FMS people in the white hats are duty-bound to redress. By reading FMS literature one could easily draw the conclusion that the entire American justice system is no better than that of the rural south in the days of lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan. The Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century are always the touchstone for comparison.

~ Pamela Perskin Noblitt

Pamela Perskin Noblitt Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Counter Attack False Memory Syndrome Fmsf Mass Hysteria Misinformation Overzealous Ritual Abuse Ritual Abuse Myth Salem Witch Trials Satanic Panic Satanic Ritual Abuse Witch Hunt

Treating Abuse Today (Tat), 3(4), pp. 26-33Freyd: I see what you're saying but people in psychology don't have a uniform agreement on this issue of the depth of -- I guess the term that was used at the conference was -- robust repression.TAT: Well, Pamela, there's a whole lot of evidence that people dissociate traumatic things. What's interesting to me is how the concept of dissociation is side-stepped in favor of repression. I don't think it's as much about repression as it is about traumatic amnesia and dissociation. That has been documented in a variety of trauma survivors. Army psychiatrists in the Second World War, for instance, documented that following battles, many soldiers had amnesia for the battles. Often, the memories wouldn't break through until much later when they were in psychotherapy.Freyd: But I think I mentioned Dr. Loren Pankratz. He is a psychologist who was studying veterans for post-traumatic stress in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Portland. They found some people who were admitted to Veteran's hospitals for postrraumatic stress in Vietnam who didn't serve in Vietnam. They found at least one patient who was being treated who wasn't even a veteran. Without external validation, we just can't know --TAT: -- Well, we have external validation in some of our cases.Freyd: In this field you're going to find people who have all levels of belief, understanding, experience with the area of repression. As I said before it's not an area in which there's any kind of uniform agreement in the field. The full notion of repression has a meaning within a psychoanalytic framework and it's got a meaning to people in everyday use and everyday language. What there is evidence for is that any kind of memory is reconstructed and reinterpreted. It has not been shown to be anything else. Memories are reconstructed and reinterpreted from fragments. Some memories are true and some memories are confabulated and some are downright false.TAT: It is certainly possible for in offender to dissociate a memory. It's possible that some of the people who call you could have done or witnessed some of the things they've been accused of -- maybe in an alcoholic black-out or in a dissociative state -- and truly not remember. I think that's very possible.Freyd: I would say that virtually anything is possible. But when the stories include murdering babies and breeding babies and some of the rather bizarre things that come up, it's mighty puzzling.TAT: I've treated adults with dissociative disorders who were both victimized and victimizers. I've seen previously repressed memories of my clients' earlier sexual offenses coming back to them in therapy. You guys seem to be saying, be skeptical if the person claims to have forgotten previously, especially if it is about something horrible. Should we be equally skeptical if someone says I'm remembering that I perpetrated and I didn't remember before. It's been repressed for years and now it's surfacing because of therapy. I ask you, should we have the same degree of skepticism for this type of delayed-memory that you have for the other kind?Freyd: Does that happen?TAT: Oh, yes. A lot.

~ David L. Calof

David L. Calof Abuse Abuse Deniers Abusers Amnesia Anti Science Child Rape Confabulation Denial Of Abuse Denial Of Child Abuse Denial Of Incest Dissociate Dissociated Amnesia Dissociated State Dissociation Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Disorders False Memories False Memory False Memory Syndrome False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Forgotten Memories Incest Interview Pamela Freyd Pedophilia Perpetrator Perpetrators Post Traumatic Stress Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Pseudo Science Pseudoscience Pseudoscientific Psychotherapy Ptsd Rape Recovered Memories Repressed Repressed Memories Repressed Memory Repression Scam Sexual Abuse Sexual Assault Sexual Offense Society Denial Soldiers Survivors Traumatic Amnesia Traumatic Memories Veterans Victim Perpetrators Victims World War 2 World War Ii World War Two

Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33Freyd: The term multiple personality itself assumes that there is single personality and there is evidence that no one ever displays a single personality.TAT: The issue here is the extent of dissociation and amnesia and the extent to which these fragmentary aspects of personality can take executive control and control function. Sure, you and I have different parts to our mind, there's no doubt about that, but I don't lose time to mine they can't come out in the middle of a lecture and start acting 7 years old. I'm very much in the camp that says that we all are multi-minds, but the difference between you and me and a multiple is pretty tangible.Freyd: Those are clearly interesting questions, but that area and the clinical aspects of dissociation and multiple personalities is beyond anything the Foundation is actively...TAT: That's a real problem. Let me tell you why that's a problem. Many of the people that have been alleged to have false memory syndrome have diagnosed dissociative disorders. It seems to me the fact that you don't talk about dissociative disorders is a little dishonest, since many people whose lives have been impacted by this movement are MPD or have a dissociative disorder. To say, Well, we ONLY know about repression but not about dissociation or multiple personalities seems irresponsible.Freyd: Be that as it may, some of the scientific issues with memory are clear. So if we can just stick with some things for a moment; one is that memories are reconstructed and reinterpreted no matter how long ago or recent.TAT: You weigh the recollected testimony of an alleged perpetrator more than the alleged victim's. You're saying, basically, if the parents deny it, that's another notch for disbelief.Freyd: If it's denied, certainly one would want to check things. It would have to be one of many factors that are weighed -- and that's the problem with these issues -- they are not black and white, they're very complicated issues.

~ David L. Calof

David L. Calof Abuse Abuse Denial Abuse Deniers Abusers Abusive Parents Denial Of Child Abuse Denial Of Incest Dishonest Dishonesty Dissociative Disorders Dissociative Identity Disorder False Memories False Memory False Memory Campaign False Memory Myth False Memory Syndrome False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Interview Lie Of Omission Mpd Multiple Personalities Multiple Personality Multiple Personality Disorder Pamela Freyd Parental Abuse Pedophilia Perpetrator Perpetrators Pseudo Science Pseudoscience Pseudoscientific Repressed Memories Repressed Memory Repression Scam Society Denial Unscientific

The major goal of the Cold War mind control programs was to create dissociative symptoms and disorders, including full multiple personality disorder. The Manchurian Candidate is fact, not fiction, and was created by the CIA in the 1950’s under BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE mind control programs. Experiments with LSD, sensory deprivation,electro-convulsive treatment, brain electrode implants and hypnosis were designed to create amnesia, depersonalization, changes in identity and altered states of consciousness. (p. iii)“Denial of the reality of multiple personality by these doctors [See page 114 for names] in the mind control network, who are also on the FMSF [False Memory Syndrome Foundation] Scientific and Professional Advisory Board, could be disinformation. The disinformation could be amplified by attacks on specialists in multiple personality as CIA conspiracy lunatics” (P.10)“If clinical multiple personality is buried and forgotten, then the Manchurian Candidate Programs will be safe from public scrutiny. (p.141)

~ Colin A. Ross

Colin A. Ross Abuse Amnesia Artichoke Bluebird Cia Cold War Conspiracy Conspiracy Of Silence Cover Up Covernment Conspiracy Disinformation Dissociation Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Identity Disorder Ect False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Government Abuse Human Experimentation Hypnosis Lsd Malpractice Manchurian Candidate Mind Control Misinformation Multiple Personality Multiple Personality Disorder Psychiatrists Psychological Abuse Ritual Abuse Sensory Deprivation

Both incest and the Holocaust have been subject to furious denial by perpetrators and other individuals and by highly organised groups such as the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and the Committee for Historical Review. Incest and the Holocaust are vulnerable to this kind of concerted denial because of their unfathomability, the unjustifiability, and the threat they pose to the politics of patriarchy and anti-Semitism respectively. Over and over, survivors of the Holocaust attest that they were warned of what was happening in Poland but could not believe it at the time, could not believe it later as it was happening to them, and still to this day cannot believe what they, at the same time, know to have occurred. For Holocaust deniers this is a felicitous twist, for their arguments denying the Holocaust and therefore the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state capitalize on the discrepancies of faded memory. In the case of incest, although post-traumatic stress disorder, amnesia, and dissociation represent some of the mind's strategies for comprehending the incomprehensible, incest deniers have taken advantage of inconsistencies to discredit survivor testimony.

~ Janet Walker

Janet Walker Abuse Enablers Abusers Amnesia Anti Semitism Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Committee For Historical Review Denial Discredited Disinformation Dissociation False Memories False Memory Syndrome Foundation Fmsf Holocaust Incest Israel Jewish Pedophilia Perpetrators Politics Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Ptsd Regious Hatred Society Denial Survivors Witnesses