What Makes Recovered-Memory Testimony Compelling to Jurors?

Little is known about how jurors arrive at verdicts in cases involving recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Study 1 investigated mock jurors' reactions to the recovered-memory testimony of an alleged victim when a therapist intervened with hypnosis, suggestion, or symptom management. When a therapist used hypnosis, jurors viewed the victim's recovered-memory testimony as particularly accurate and credible, and favored the victim in their verdicts. In Study 2, mock jurors were presented with a therapist who was sued for allegedly influencing a client's recall of false memories of abuse. In this case, however, jurors viewed therapists who used hypnosis or suggestion as more likely to have created false memories, more responsible for having caused harm, and less competent, and tended not to favor these therapists in their verdicts. We discuss these seemingly contradictory findings in terms of how culturally formed expectancies about hypnosis produce different causal explanations depending on the focus of a trial.     

Effects of prior knowledge and expert statement on belief in recovered memories: an international perspective

We tested the hypothesis that beliefs in the purported attributes of recovered memories of child sexual abuse (CSA) are associated with knowledge of the "recovered/false memory debate", and that such beliefs will be related to assessments of the credibility of statements made by participants in a vignette about CSA. Participants from five countries (the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Israel) responded to a questionnaire regarding beliefs about recovered memory as well as self-reported exposure to and knowledge of the debate. In addition, they assessed the credibility of statements made by a daughter (reporting recovery of memories of sexual abuse by her father), her father (denying the allegation and accusing the daughter's therapist of implanting in her false "memories" of abuse), and two experts (each supporting one of the two protagonists). We found that prior knowledge of the debate across countries was linked to beliefs in specific attributes of recovered memories and to a subset of the credibility assessments of statements made by the protagonists and their experts. For individuals, however, credibility assessments were unrelated to knowledge of the debate, but they were related to beliefs about memory recovery. Finally, credibility of the protagonists' statements was differentially associated with those made by the daughter's and the father's experts. The results suggest that whereas familiarity with the debate does not affect the credibility of the statements made by the complainant and the accused, expert testimony does, as has been found in prior research. The psycholegal implications of this conclusion are discussed.     

Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse: An Analysis of Coping Mechanisms Used for Stressful Childhood Memories and Current Stressors

Coping mechanisms used to deal with stressful childhood memories and current stressors were assessed for 196 women in each of 4 groups: no abuse history, sexual abuse history, physical abuse history, and both sexual and physical abuse history. Current psychological adjustment was also examined. Discriminant function analyses revealed a variety of significant differences between the groups in use of strategies for coping with memories of abuse or another childhood stressor. There was no relationship between childhood history of abuse and the manner in which women coped with a current stressor. Women with an abuse history reported significantly poorer adult adjustment than did nonabused women, and different coping strategies were predictive of adjustment for abused and nonabused women.     

Recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: Current findings and their legal implications

Recent research on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has shown that there are at least two types of recovered memory experiences: those that are gradually recovered within the context of suggestive therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered, without extensive prompting or explicit attempts to reconstruct the past. By focusing on well‐known imperfections of human memory, we were able to find differing origins for these recovered memory experiences, with people recovering memories through suggestive therapy being more prone to forming false memories, and with people reporting spontaneously recovered memories being more prone to forgetting prior incidences of remembering. Moreover, the two types of recovered memory reports are associated with differences in corroborative evidence, suggesting that memories recovered spontaneously, outside of suggestive therapy, are more likely to correspond to genuine abuse events. In this paper, we summarize recent research on recovered memories and we argue that these scientific findings should be applied in the justice system, but also in clinical practice.     

A father marries his daughters: a case of incestuous polygamy

Polygamy is a risk factor for incest. This case report of incest and polygamy portrays the dynamics that dominated this family's identity. The father indoctrinated and groomed his biological daughter and stepdaughter for sexual gratification in a cult-like atmosphere, and secretly married both of them. He justified his acts to the family members under the guise of religion, but he later denied allegations of polygamy and sexual contact with his daughters when confronted by the authorities. Ultimately, his parental rights were terminated in family court. The authors interviewed the primary victim and reviewed extensive evidence, including videotapes of the victims talking with detectives and also privately amongst each other. Videotape dialogue excerpts capture how these young girls individually coped with the sexual abuse and responded to becoming child wives in a polygamous family. Criminal charges ultimately were not pursued because the key witness refused to testify against her biological father.     

Sexual Trauma and Psychological Injuries: What Experts Need to Know

This article was written to introduce readers to the bodies of work that inform experts who conduct evaluations of plaintiffs or offer generic testimony in cases involving claims of psychological injuries in the aftermath of sexual trauma, including childhood sexual abuse, adult sexual assault, and sexual harassment. In addition to summarizing the research literatures on those three areas of maltreatment, it reviews what mental health experts should know about our laws, about professional standards for evaluations, and about other relevant areas of research, such as assessment of posttraumatic stress symptoms, disclosures by young children, “normal” childhood sexual behaviors, “repressed” or “recovered” memories, memory and trauma, memory distortions, and resilience.     

Personality Disorders in a Sample of Parents Accused of Physical Abuse or Neglect

The objective of this study was to provide a psychological profile of parents who have been formally accused of child maltreatment. A clinical group of 16 parents accused of physical abuse and 22 parents accused of neglect were compared with 18 parents from a control group. The MCMI-III was administered individually for each parent. Both groups of maltreatment showed significant differences on different scales of the MCMI-III. No difference was seen between the parents of both groups of child maltreatment. Many parents of both child maltreatment groups reported at least one form of abuse during their childhood, suggesting that a childhood marked by abuse or neglect on the part of a parent could result in personality disorders and that these disorders may have something to do with the intergenerational transmission of abuse.     

Face to Face with Child Abuse: Towards an Ethics of Listening

This paper is concerned with faces. It is concerned with the face of a sexually abused seven years old child -- with my face -- and with the marginalisation and violation of children’s own subjective experiences of abuse by the law. Drawing upon my own subjective experience of sexual abuse as a young child, silenced for twenty-five years, I interpret my own sexual abuse as a profound experience of ‘homelessness’. To be homeless is to lack a primal place in the world, to be in a permanent state of disorientation, to be displaced. To be homeless is not necessarily to be emotionally insecure, but to be voiceless. Accordingly, the subject of sexual abuse is an emotionally dislocated subject and I interpret my own abuse in terms of an enduring experience of the violation of place. In other words, I would argue that the physical act of sexual abuse is less important than the site or place of abuse. The significance of sexual abuse is that it reveals the homelessness of our own sojourn and the poverty of our own subjectivity. Given this interpretation, I find the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child problematic and I attempt to think child sexual abuse in ethical terms. Following Emmanuel Levinas, I present sexual abuse in terms of the ethical significance of the face-to-face relationship and I argue that rights-based advocacy must listen to what children say. It must think through what listening to that voice entails in ethical terms. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Recounting Graphic Sexual Abuse Memories in Therapy: The Impact on Women's Healing

This retrospective study investigates the impact on women's functioning of recounting during their therapy the graphic details of sexual abuse they had experienced in childhood. Fifty-nine participants residing in Southern Ontario were divided into two groups: those who spent more time (N=19) versus less time (N=40) in therapy recounting graphic abuse details. Results revealed that the group who had spent more time recounting abuse memories: (a) had mean functioning scores that were significantly lower before and during therapy, but that did not significantly differ after therapy; (b) recovered more memories of abuse during therapy, and (c) were more likely to have participated in hypnosis, and to report having been encouraged to remember details of abuse. Participants rated as most therapeutic those approaches that assisted them to increase their understanding of the abuse. Strategies related to acceptance, understanding, and making meaning were most important in promoting healing.     

THE INEQUITY AND INAPPROPRIATENESS OF APPLYING STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS TO CIVIL ACTIONS ARISING FROM CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE

This research examines the long-term consequences of childhood sexual abuse, the unique circumstances surrounding such abuse, and how these circumstances lead to victims being unable to expeditiously initiate civil action against their abusers. The unfairness and the inappropriateness of applying traditional time limitation principals to plaintiff victims of childhood sexual abuse are then discussed. Finally, a more equitable test to be applied to cases involving actions by adult victims of childhood sexual abuse against their abusers is proposed.     

Degrees of Memory of Childhood Sexual Abuse Among Women Survivors in Therapy

Past and current memory for childhood sexual abuse reported by a clinical sample of 160 women survivors was assessed utilizing a structured clinical interview. Response alternatives for memory were ordered along a continuum. To minimize treatment effects, participants were interviewed as early in therapy as possible. Fairly complete recollection both in the past and currently was reported by 26.3% of the sample, 36.9% apparently lost and subsequently recovered sexual abuse memories, and 36.9% endorsed intermediate degrees of memory. Only 2.5% indicated a decrease in degree of recollection over time. Age at onset was the only abuse characteristic found to differentiate participants with fairly complete memory from the rest of the sample. Findings are interpreted as illustrating that conclusions about memory for abuse are highly dependent on the way inquiries are conceptualized and worded.     

Japanese Sexual Offenders: A Descriptive Study

Young adult male offenders in Japanese correctional institutions were questioned confidentially about their history of sexual abuse. The self‐reported information showed that when the sexual abuse went undetected, the relationships between abuser and victim were closer, and more victims were reported to be under the influence of substances. At the same time, the nature of the sexual abuse was even more serious among self‐reported‐only (undetected) offenders in terms of direct sexual acts. In terms of unhealthy sexual preference and childhood sexual victimization, sexual abusers reported higher level of problems comparing to nonsexual abusers. Self‐reported‐only sexual abusers identified even more problems than officially identified sexual offenders. The results suggest that when we focus only on the characteristics shown by officially identified sexual offenders, we may overlook important risk and need factors that should be addressed in psychotherapy for preventing future reoffending.     

From Traumatic Memory to Traumatized Remembering: Beyond the Memory Wars, Part 1: Agreement

From the mid-1980s onwards, US courts have seen a dramatic increase in personal injury and criminal cases alleging harm caused by sexual abuse whose memories were ??recovered?? after decades of forgetting. These recovered memory claims were countered by the defense that they were false memories. Three types of personal injury cases have been the center of media attention: (1) adult daughters suing their fathers for alleged childhood incest; (2) families and patients suing psychotherapists for allegedly suggesting false incest memories; and (3) adults suing the Catholic Church alleging sexual abuse by priests. Legal outcomes have been inconsistent in part because scientific controversy has called the reliability of recovered memories into question. This article is the first in a three-part series that provides a forensic framework for understanding the current state of the recovered memory/false memory debate. It briefly describes the reasoning behind inconsistent legal decisions, identifying the minimum scientific issues that must achieve consensus to meet the needs of the legal system. It proposes epistemological criteria for determining whether a consensus has been achieved. It then identifies recovered memory issues about which there is now a consensus. The second article identifies recovered memory issues that lack consensus. The third article argues that the scientific controversy reflected confusion about different memory types. It proposes a phenomenological schema to integrate them and reduce legal confusion. It concludes that there is sufficient consensus about some recovered memory issues to meet minimal legal needs, while more research is needed for others.     

Memories of childhood sexual abuse: narrative analyses of types, experiences, and processes of remembering

The study explored types of memory for childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in a clinical sample of 30 women and identified factors that led some women (n = 24) to report recovered memories. Questionnaires produced three types of memory: always (n = 6), recovered (n = 14), both (n = 10); however, analysis of narrative data also revealed the use of language that could not be categorized into discrete types. Recovered memories were linked to three categories of experience (cumulative reactions, atypical reactions, and atypical experiences). Subcategories identified specific contexts associated with those experiences. Findings suggest that further research is needed on the phenomenology of memory experiences using language derived from CSA survivors and a better understanding of the long-term process of interpretations of key experiences that result in reports of recovered memories.     

Parental Sociopathy as a Predictor of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Research on childhood sexual abuse has often examined, in isolation of one another, such highly correlated risk factors as parental substance abuse, domestic violence, and pathological family functioning. Investigating comorbid antecedents separately does not allow accurate specification of the predictors of abuse. Moreover, sexual trauma research has tended to neglect parental sociopathy as a risk factor. Given the limitations of past research, the present study examined the relationships among parental sociopathy, parental substance use, marital violence, poor family functioning, and childhood sexual abuse. We administered a battery of questionnaires to a nonclinical sample of 130 college women and replicated previous findings by showing that parental substance use predicted sexual abuse when examined in isolation. However, when parental sociopathy and the other risk factors were included in a regression model, parental sociopathy was the only significant predictor. Mother's and father's sociopathy predicted sexual abuse independently and when combined.     

Sexual abuse by psychotherapists: the call for a uniform criminal statute.

Recent surveys show an alarming rate of sexual exploitation of patients by psychotherapists. As such conduct often falls outside the scope of rape, which allows a defense of consent, the psychotherapist is not prosecuted. Although all sexual contact between therapist and patient is prohibited by codes of professional ethics, the licensing boards that enforce these codes do not possess adequate power to deter this behavior. Further, professional review boards have absolutely no authority over unlicensed therapists who sexually abuse their patients. As a result, licensed therapists who have been censured in one state may practice as unlicensed therapists in another state and continue to sexually abuse patients. The only effective deterrent would be a uniform statute, adopted in all states, criminalizing this specific abuse of the unique therapist-patient relationship. Such a statute should include unlicensed therapists as potential offenders and consent to sexual contact should not be a defense. The statute also should provide for enhanced efforts to inform and protect victims. This Note first examines six of the nine criminal statutes that currently exist in order to show the full range of provisions presently in force to deter this conduct. This Note then proposes model provisions for a uniform statute.     

Using Rule 11 Sanctions to Punish Accusers Who Make False Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse in Custody and Divorce Cases

False claims of child sexual abuse negatively affect the accused parent and the child. Such false claims can be used to sway custody determinations and cause frivolous applications to the court. This Note proposes that courts impose sanctions, comparable to those set forth in Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, on litigants who make false claims of child sexual abuse.     

Exploring the Relationship Between Childhood Sexual Abuse and Adult Sexual Perpetration

Empirical findings indicate that many adult sexual offenders experienced sexual abuse during childhood. It has been suggested that characteristics of offenders' sexual perpetrating behaviors may resemble their own victimization experiences, although there has been minimal empirical investigation in this area. The purpose of the present study was to provide preliminary data on the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and characteristics of sexual offending behavior. A sample of adult male sexual offenders with histories of sexual abuse completed the Sexual Victimization Survey as well as a measure on their sexual offenses. Such characteristics as the nature of sexual activities, duration and frequency of experiences, and age and relationship of participants were examined. Results showed trends in the hypothesized direction and revealed a variety of similarities between childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual perpetration. Findings of this exploratory study suggest the importance of addressing the nature of victimization in the treatment of sexually abused boys and offenders with histories of sexual abuse.     

Expert psychiatric evidence in sexual misconduct cases before state medical boards.

The growing problem of physician sexual misconduct has captured the attention not only of the medical and legal communities, but of the public as well. State medical boards, administrative agencies with generous rules of evidence and varying levels of expertise, face the difficult task of responding to patients' allegations of physician sexual abuse. This Article, based in large part on the author's survey of current state medical board practice, reveals an increasing reliance on expert psychiatric testimony to explain the behavior of complainants and accused physicians. Drawing analogies from the use of psychiatric evidence in child sexual abuse cases, the author examines the factors that boards must consider in determining the admissibility of expert testimony in physician sexual misconduct cases, and calls upon states to establish clear evidentiary rules to govern the use of such testimony in administrative hearings.     

Relational outcomes of childhood sexual trauma in female survivors: a longitudinal study

This longitudinal study examines the effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) on the intimate and marital relationships of adult survivors from a sample composed primarily of African American women. In addition, the authors explore the protective role of maternal support. Interview data are collected on 136 women with documented histories of CSA who indicate the quality and nature of their current marital relationships and other interpersonal connections. Results suggest that CSA survivors with poor maternal attachment are more likely to enter into marital or cohabiting relationships. However, more severe sexual trauma in childhood correlates with greater marital dissatisfaction. Good maternal attachment during childhood has a negative main effect on adult interpersonal problems and a buffering effect on the relationship between abuse and marital dissatisfaction. These data can help guide future research on the adult relational outcomes of female CSA survivors, especially among minority populations.