Talk:Recovered-memory therapy

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List of things that have been referred to as RMT?
I'm trying to put together a list of all the therapies, interview techniques, practices, etc. that researchers & clinicians have called "recovered-memory therapy" and I'm pretty sure it's not gonna fit in those parentheses in the lede lol. Would a section listing them all potentially be useful? Would anyone object? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donna's Cyborg (talk • contribs) 05:15, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Recent edit-warring
if you believe that the article is biased, please discuss your proposed changes here. Please do not restore content without reaching consensus here first. Let's try to talk this out and resolve it civilly. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:25, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * OK, this is the evidence there is now: There is no school of psychotherapy with the name recovered memory therapy. The term was created by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, made up of people accused of sexual abuse. Ralph Undewager, a member of the FMSF and one of the first to use the terms false memory syndrome and recovered memory therapy, spoke out in favor of child abuse in an interview for the Dutch pro-child abuse magazine Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia.
 * Critics of RMT argue that traumatic memories cannot be buried in the subconscious and thereby affect current behavior, and that these memories cannot be recovered through the use of RMT techniques.
 * Supporters of the existence of an epidemic of syndrome of false memories of sexual abuse created by psychotherapists point out that the repression and subsequent recovery of memories of sexual abuse does not exist. However, the DSM-5 and ICD-11 do not use the term repression but rather dissociative amnesia.
 * More than 70 studies with different populations of people who experienced different traumas, including soldiers traumatized by combat during World War I and II and adults with histories of childhood sexual abuse substantiated in their medical or social services records, support the existence of dissociative amnesia and the recovery of real memories of abuse and trauma.       StefanoProScience (talk) 20:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for engaging here! It will take me some time to go through everything. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There is also neurobiological evidence for dissociative amnesia and recovered memories of real trauma, see Anderson, M. C., Ochsner, K. N., Kuhl, B., Cooper, J., Robertson, E., Gabrieli, S. W., et al. (2004). Neural systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories. Science, 303, 5655, 232–235.
 * Anderson, M. C. y Huddlestone, E. (2012). Towards a cognitive and neurobiological model of motivated forgetting. En: R. Belli (Ed.), True and false recovered memories. Toward a reconciliation of the debate (pp. 53-120). Springer.
 * Also see:
 * Paul, M. (18 de agosto de 2015). How traumatic memories hide in the brain, and how to retrieve them. Northwestern Now. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/08/traumatic-memories-hide-retrieve-them
 * Lightfoot, L. (19 de diciembre de 1993). Child abuse expert says paedophilia part of ‘God’s will’. The Sunday Times. Republicado en Spot Light On Abuse. https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/child-abuse-expert-says-paedophilia-part-of-gods-will-19-12-93/
 * Radulovic, J. (2017). Using new approaches in neurobiology to rethink stress-induced amnesia. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, 4, 1, 49–58.
 * Wakefield, H. y Underwager, R. (1993). Interview with Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager. Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia, 3, 1, 2-12. Republicado en: No Status Quo. http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager2.html
 * Wakefield, H. y Underwager, R. (1994). Return of the furies: An investigation into recovered memory therapy. Open Court. StefanoProScience (talk) 20:40, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I'll take a look at the sources. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay. A few points. First, the claims about the founders of FMSF would need far stronger support by reliable sources to make them on Wikipedia, see WP:BLPCRIME. Second, they are completely irrelevant to this article. Also, support for the position that dissociative amnesia is real belongs in that article, not this one. This article is about discredited forms of therapy. Next, you should read WP:MEDRS. Several of the sources you listed may not conform to Wikipedia's criteria for sources on medical topics. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 04:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Sources older than 2000 are old for updates, if a better source mentions them then sometimes they can follow along, this also prevents editor synthesis. Sources like the North Western here are pop science news.  Contrary to with systematic reviews, this is rarely usable.  Some obvious issues: it reports about a tentative hypothesis with animal models that cannot be translated directly to humans and about which no quality information is provided.  Possible future therapeutic implications may exist, but what is presented is again hypothetical.  It rests on uncertain premises: that current distress somehow results from hidden information; that the "recovery" (if it is not a fabricated memory), would somehow provide relief, despite the fact that approaches with a certain level of effectiveness work with neurology and chemistry and cognitive work that include memory dynamics, i.e. recurring traumatic memories, not impalpable hypothetic ones (how do lost memories keep haunting the person?).  It also doesn't say much about what treatment may help, one may even be misled into thinking that making the patient suffer would be a good approach, in hope to recover some traumatic memories.  Basically, it's a type of public relations message that some research is in progress, also using non-equivalent analogies to simplify.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 08:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I'll take a look at the sources. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay. A few points. First, the claims about the founders of FMSF would need far stronger support by reliable sources to make them on Wikipedia, see WP:BLPCRIME. Second, they are completely irrelevant to this article. Also, support for the position that dissociative amnesia is real belongs in that article, not this one. This article is about discredited forms of therapy. Next, you should read WP:MEDRS. Several of the sources you listed may not conform to Wikipedia's criteria for sources on medical topics. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 04:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Sources older than 2000 are old for updates, if a better source mentions them then sometimes they can follow along, this also prevents editor synthesis. Sources like the North Western here are pop science news.  Contrary to with systematic reviews, this is rarely usable.  Some obvious issues: it reports about a tentative hypothesis with animal models that cannot be translated directly to humans and about which no quality information is provided.  Possible future therapeutic implications may exist, but what is presented is again hypothetical.  It rests on uncertain premises: that current distress somehow results from hidden information; that the "recovery" (if it is not a fabricated memory), would somehow provide relief, despite the fact that approaches with a certain level of effectiveness work with neurology and chemistry and cognitive work that include memory dynamics, i.e. recurring traumatic memories, not impalpable hypothetic ones (how do lost memories keep haunting the person?).  It also doesn't say much about what treatment may help, one may even be misled into thinking that making the patient suffer would be a good approach, in hope to recover some traumatic memories.  Basically, it's a type of public relations message that some research is in progress, also using non-equivalent analogies to simplify.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 08:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Parts of the article unrelated to the actual subject - thoughts?
Hi RMT talk page!

In my wandering, I came across this page and noticed it is quite messy, specifically the Research category. I noticed that a large part of this section refers to the concept of recovered memory, not recovered-memory therapy. RMT is a scientifically discredited therapy which has a demonstrated record of causing harm, and I believe conflating it with spontaneous recovery of memory (which is still debated) is quite dangerous.

Everything in strikeout I propose either deleting or moving to the recovered memory page as it has nothing to do with the actual MODALITY of RMT and more to do with the concept of if memories can be repressed and then spontaneously remembered. Again, '''RMT is discredited. Repression/spontaneous recovery is debated.''' So, here are my proposed changes to the research category of this article. The first part I think would be better suited, again, for the recovered memory page. The part about retraction and false memory I think might be better for the false memory page. Proposed additions in bold. I have many citations for the bolded additions, but just want to see if anybody thinks I'm out of here before I go searching my PDFs and link em' all here:

"A range of studies have concluded that at least 10% of physical and sexual abuse victims forget the abuse. The rate of delayed recall of many forms of traumatic experiences (including natural disasters, kidnapping, torture and more) averages among studies at approximately 15%, with the highest rates resulting from child sexual abuse, military combat, and witnessing a family member murdered. The rate of recall of previously forgotten traumatic events was shown by Elliot and Briere (1996)[citation needed] to be unaffected by whether or not the victim had a history of being in psychotherapy. Linda Meyer Williams, who interviewed 129 adult women who were treated for verified sexual abuse at a hospital as children between the ages of 12 months to 10 years, found that among women with confirmed histories of sexual abuse, approximately 38% did not recall the reported incident on file at the hospital 17 years later, especially when it was perpetrated by someone familiar to them. This study is routinely cited as evidence of repression[who?], however 88% of women interviewed said they had been molested, despite not reporting the specific incident on file—a figure which suggests the opposite of the repression theory. Additionally, this study was conducted using general interviews and relied on the women interviewed to bring up the specific incident that had led them to be hospitalized as children unprompted, meaning if a participant did not bring up the specific incident on file as part of the general interview, this was reported as indicative of repression of the memory. Since the interviewees included victims who were infants at the time, it is unlikely that these specific participants would remember the event. Hopper cites several studies of corroborated abuse in which some abuse victims will have intervals of complete or partial amnesia for their abuse.

A 1996 interview survey of 711 women reported that forgetting and later remembering childhood sexual abuse is not uncommon; more than a quarter of the respondents who reported abuse also reported forgetting the abuse for some period of time and then recalling it on their own. Of those who reported abuse, less than 2% reported that the recall of the abuse was assisted by a therapist or other professional.

A review article on potentially harmful therapies listed RMT as a treatment that will probably produce harm in some who receive it. Richard Ofshe, a member of the advisory board to the FMSF, describes the practice of 'recovering' memories as fraudulent and dangerous.

Studies by Elizabeth Loftus and others have concluded that it is possible to produce false memories of childhood incidents. The experiments involved manipulating subjects into believing that they had some fictitious experience in childhood, such as being lost in a shopping mall at age 6. This involved using a suggestive technique called 'familial informant false narrative procedure,' in which the experimenter claims the validity of the false event is supported by a family member of the subject. The study has been used to support the theory that false memories of traumatic sexual abuse can be implanted in a patient by therapists. Critics of these studies argue that the techniques do not resemble any approved or mainstream treatment modality, and there are criticisms that the implanted events used are not emotionally comparable to sexual abuse. Critics contend that Loftus's conclusions overreach the evidence. Loftus has rebutted these criticisms.

Some patients later retract memories they had previously recovered through RMT. While false or contrived memories are possible reasons for such retractions, other explanations suggested for the retraction of allegations of abuse made by children and adults include guilt, a feeling of obligation to protect their family and a reaction to familial stress rather than a genuine belief that their memories are false. The number of retractions is reported to be small compared to the actual number of child sexual abuse allegations made based on recovered memories.

A study at the Dissociative Disorders and Trauma Program of the McLean Hospital concluded that recovered memories are mostly unconnected to psychotherapeutic treatment and that memories are often corroborated by independent evidence, often appearing while home or with family and friends, with suggestion being generally denied as a factor in recovering memories. Very few participants were in therapy during their first memory recovery and a majority of participants in this study found strong corroboration of their recovered memories.

A 2018 US study is the largest study known that surveys the general public about memory recovery in therapy. The study was presented to participants aged 50 years or older as a 'Life Experience' survey and found that 8% of the 2,326 adults had reported seeing therapists, mostly starting in the 1990s, that discussed the possibility of repressed memories of abuse. 4% of adults had reported recovering memories of abuse in therapy for which they had no previous memory. Recovered memories of abuse were associated with most therapy types."If anybody has any objections to me removing this content, please let me know and we can brainstorm a solution for this page! As detailed above, the subjects are quite a mess and need clarification in line with WP:GEVAL and WP:PSCI.  Left handed lion   21:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Lefthandedlion you won't get an argument from me, these all look like good changes. The problems with FRINGE topics like this are that they tend to have everything thrown at it in order to cover up that there is nothing there but pseudoscience. It's really quite simple, it doesn't work. Sgerbic (talk) 22:23, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Once you get these changes made, let's have another look at what is left, maybe more trimming needs to be done. Possibly the Recovered memory page as well. I'm adding these pages to my watchlist. Sgerbic (talk) 22:26, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

This was my impression as well -- that most of this content was inserted here in an attempt to bloat the article to create the appearance of legitimacy, even though it is beyond the scope of this article. Appreciate your thoughts. I will make my proposed changes and start on citations and further cleanup.  Lefthandedlion  22:33, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Alrighty, added my citations and pressed my big red delete button. Starting to look at this section now:

"The term false-memory syndrome was coined between 1992 and 1993 by psychologists and sociologists associated with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation,[8][9] an organization which advocated on behalf of individuals who claim to have been falsely accused of perpetrating child sexual abuse.[10] These researchers argue that RMT can result in patients recalling instances of sexual abuse from their childhood which had not actually occurred.[8] While not a therapeutic technique in and of itself, practitioners of RMT generally utilize methods (such as hypnosis, age regression, guided visualization, and/or the use of substances such as sodium amytal) that are known to support the creation of false memories.[11][12][13] A 1994 survey of 1000 therapists by Michael D. Yapko found that 19% of the therapists knew of a case in which a client's memory had been suggested by therapy but was in fact false.[14] An inquiry by the Australian government into the practice found little support for or use of memory recovery therapies among health professionals, and warned that professionals had to be trained to avoid the creation of false memories.[15] A 2018 survey found that although 5% of a U.S. public sample reported recovering memories of abuse during therapy (abuse they reported having no previous memory of), none of them used the terminology 'recovered memory therapy'—instead those recovering memories reported using a variety of other therapy types (e.g., attachment therapy, Emotional Freedom Techniques, etc.).[16]"

The part in strikethrough I suggest removing as this is redundant. RMT is practised and arguing the semantics of RMT (ie, "There is no modality called RMT!") is a popular argument by charlatans who use these methods on clients. The part in italics, I am unsure about, but I lean towards it being removed as well since it is tangentially related to the article which recovers the modality of RMT, not the historical origin of the term "false memory syndrome". I propose moving that to false memory syndrome, if it is not already there.  Lefthandedlion  23:07, 9 March 2024 (UTC)