Kluft,
R.P. (1997). The argument for the reality of delayed recall of trauma.
In P.S. Appelbaum, L.A. Uyehara, & M.R. Elin (Eds). Trauma and Memory:
Clinical and Legal Controversies. (pp. 25-57). Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
The general premise of the chapter is to define
and clarify the debate over the reemergence of formerly unavailable memories
for traumatic events.
Case Studies
The author held a practice in a small
town with a stable population that allowed for the observation of 210 DID
clients over 18 years. The extreme length of contact with an unchanging
area allowed the author to come by information that confirmed memories
recovered by some of his clients during therapy.
First Case Study
A woman in the care of the author was having
difficulty in her relationships with men. During hypnosis the client revealed
that a former counselor had seduced her. A decade after this woman ended
therapy her former counselor entered into therapy with the author. During
a session the former counselor confirmed that he had seduced the author’s
former client.
Third Case Study
While in therapy, a veteran of the Vietnam
War recovered memories of killing several armed enemy soldiers during the
war. The client fervently disbelieved the accuracy of these memories. At
a commemoration of Vietnam Veterans, a wartime buddy of the client spoke
of the very same memories that had been denied as being real. Military
records confirm the recovered memories.
Forth Case Study
A female DID client of the author underwent
hypnosis to explore the lives of her alters. She believed that she had
never been taken advantage of by a therapist, but fourteen months into
therapy a personality emerged that claimed to have been exploited sexually.
The woman informed the former psychiatrist about this alter’s claims. The
psychiatrist contacted the author and asked to be treated confessing his
exploitation of the female client in hopes of gaining patient confidentiality
with the author.
Fifth Case Study
A female client recovered memories of her adopted
schizophrenic mother sexually abusing her. To confirm these recovered memories
the client looked for evidence in family belongings and in the process
uncovered photographs with detailed descriptions of the events that she
had recovered written on the backs of the photographs.
Research: Pilot Study
Participants:
Thirty-four DID patients (32 female, 2 male) in
treatment with the author for a 30 day period participated in this pilot
study. 19 participants reported abuse that was confirmed by another source.
Kluft reported that the longer a client was in his care the more likely
it was that the alleged abuse was confirmed by other sources. Also, an
abusive parent’s death made it more likely that other family members would
confirm accusations of abuse.
Criterion for Confirmations
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Sibling confirmations were only counted when all
the siblings confirmed the allegations or considered it plausible. The
author did not consider allegations siblings made that they had been abused
themselves as confirmation that the participants had been abused.
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Admissions that one parent was abusive made by their
partners were accepted and in such cases the abuser admitted to the abuse.
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Admissions made by abusive family members on their
deathbeds were accepted and were most frequently made by male members of
the Roman Catholic Church.
Many participants made allegations that could
neither be confirmed nor negated by the available data. Allegations made
by participants were often times not very plausible. Thirteen patients
reported instances of satanic rituals. Alien abduction, past lives, (being
stuck in a fallopian tube) or other such events were not reported.
Criterion for Disconfirming
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An alleged abuser arguing that the offense never
took place, another person arguing the memory is not credible or the client
recanting their memory of abuse were not consider valid evidence for dismissing
recovered memories.
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The author argues that clients that recover memories
of abuse will often experience strong interpersonal pressures to recant
their statements against the alleged abuser, and therefore, the author
does not accept these reversals as valid.
Disconfirmations
Three of the reported cases of abuse were disconfirmed.
In these cases, evidence had to be put forth to prove that the abuse had
not taken place.
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The first discredited allegation involved a female
participant claiming to have been brutally raped. Upon inspection of the
wounds a forensic psychologist determined they had been self-inflected.
While receiving treatment an alter from the time the participant had been
in a satanic cult reemerged and admitted to inflecting the wounds.
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A second allegation that proved to be false involved
a participant that had been admitted to another facility after an attempted
suicide. During the stay at the other facility the participant received
treatments that were not censored for possibly leading material. The participant
returned to the care of the author with recovered memories of ritual abuse
that took place in California. School records proved that the participant
had been in Pennsylvania during the alleged time of the abuse. It turned
out that the memories reported by the participant were very similar to
those of a woman who had been in the participant’s therapy group at the
other facility.
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The third instance of false recovered memories involved
a client who claimed to have been raped by her father during a family get
together. However, none of the family members supported her claims and
a specialized forensic unit could not support any of the victim’s claims.
An individual producing a false memory should
not discredit other claims made by that individual. Of the above mentioned
false memories, the second and third participants both had confirmed instances
of abuse.
Ten of the 19 participants reporting cases of
abuse had always been fully cognizant of the abuses they had sustained
and later these abuses were confirmed. 13 of the 19 participants received
evidence of further abuses that they had sustained but were not able to
recall before therapy. The author points out that in all but two of the
cases of recovered memories of abuse hypnosis was used in making the discovery.
The author argues that hypnosis should not be discredited.
Kluft suggests that the positions taken by the
polarized factions of this debate do not allow for the gray area that contains
the answers to questions raised by his and others’ research.
Memories recovered in therapy did not receive
validation that corresponded precisely to their nature, but this may be
because victims and witnesses of such traumatic experiences focus on the
central details. Still, low detailed confirmations do validate that some
kind of abuse took place. Kluft suggests that vague recovered memories
were just as likely to be validated as more detailed recovered memories.
Pope and Hudson propose two Criterion for demonstrating
the repression of traumatic memories
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First an investigator must exhibit cases where it
can be established that the traumatic events actually took place
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One must establish that the individual actually developed
amnesia for the events
Two items that if satisfied should rule out
a recovered memory
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Amnesia that may be alleged to achieve secondary
gain for the patient
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Forgetting that is due to normal forgetfulness
Hypnosis
Three possible procedures for using hypnosis
when exploring possible forgotten traumatic events
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The client is asked leading questions such as "are
you being hit?" This technique could easily lead a client to confabulate
-
More open ended questions that do not have such suggestive
content "What do you observe?"
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A situation in which a client is already aware of
past traumata and may be expecting to find repressed memories of traumatic
experiences. The author warns that in this situation the client is very
susceptible to constructing memories of a traumatic event from available
material experienced in the hypnosis session. Kluft strongly discourages
the use of hypnosis in association with patients that expect to discover
traumatic memories or are involved in forensic procedures.
The author claims to not have used any of the
"questionable practices" of hypnosis that are often sited in the polarized
literature on repressed memories.
Dissociation’s involvement in the Repressed Memory
Debate
-
Dissociation is viewed as a way to avoid unwanted
memories and to regain control over one’s mind during times of physical
trauma. Dissociation stores information in isolated groups. Aided by hypnosis
or other suggestion procedures it should be possible to interact with dissociated
memories in their isolated state without the memories becoming clouded
by other experiences.
-
Repression originates with Freud and the understanding
that disturbing or unacceptable information or memories are forced to a
subconscious level. Repressed memories are not held completely separate
from other memories and therefore can become clouded by personal desires,
wishes and memories.
-
Dissociated memories accessed for the first time
by hypnotic suggestion are the most reliable form of recovered memories.
Reflections on Current Literature
Lost in the mall scenario(Loftus&Pickrell,
1995)
-
Kluft feels that Loftus’ study undermines the importance
of honesty and legitimizes the use of deception. Kluft also criticizes
Loftus’ design as measuring the role of social influence more so than memory
distortion. Also, the author argues that Loftus has selected a topic that
could be easily mistaken by children because most children have a preexisting
schema for getting lost.
-
Kluft offers an alternate explanation for the lost
in the mall scenario in which the social pressures of a family drive a
sexually abused child to forget the abuse (sexual abuse accommodation syndrome).
Retractors are individuals who at one point in time claimed to have been
abused but have since retracted their statements. Retractors often experience
the same familial social pressure that is observed in the lost in the mall
scenario.
-
Most of the participants in the Loftus experiment
did not accept the false memory of having been lost in the shopping mall.
This is held as support that even under extreme pressure most people do
not accept false information.
At this point in the chapter Kluft starts to
really thrash experimental psychology claiming that much like a tragic
Greek character such as Odysseus or Oedipus experimental theorist suffer
the tragic flaw of hubris. The hubris of experimentation is manifested
through the disregard of information that does not support ones own paradigm
and the overstatement of a theorist’s own theory.
Conclusion
Instances of accurately recovered memories have
been illustrated in this chapter and that is enough to discredit the polarized
view that repressed memories do not exist. Forgotten memories tend to exert
themselves from an unconscious location causing physical symptoms. Also
the illustration that false memories can be reported in therapy discredits
the opposite view that all recovered memories are credible. Kluft repeatedly
mentions that he feels this line of thinking suggests that at least two
memory systems exist, declarative and implicit.
In the end, Kluft thrashes theorists for the lack
of ecological validity in their research, knowledge of trauma victims and
credit they give to specialists who work with this population.