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From Bob & Carole

^{School of Social Ecology appoints Elizabeth Loftus as Distinguished Professor}

Elizabeth Loftus, a forensic memory expert ranked among the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century, has joined the UC Irvine faculty as a Distinguished Professor in the School of Social Ecology.

The Distinguished Professor title is the highest campus-level distinction and is reserved for senior faculty members who have achieved the highest levels of scholarship over the course of their careers.

Loftus comes to UCI from the University of Washington in Seattle where she has spent 29 years. Considered a pioneer in false memory research, Loftus has helped to prove that in some cases, people believe they experienced events that never occurred. Her research also showed that eyewitness accounts, notably those given in court, often are inaccurate.

"We are extremely proud to have Elizabeth Loftus join our faculty," said C. Ronald Huff, dean of the School of Social Ecology. "A world-class scholar who has been widely recruited and received many honors, she will add tremendously to our growing expertise in the areas of psychology and law."

At UCI, Loftus says she is looking forward to establishing new collaborative projects with the faculty in the departments of psychology and social behavior; and criminology, law and society, where she will hold a joint appointment.

"I'm excited to come to Irvine and join the outstanding group of scholars working at the intersection of psychology and law - some of the most distinguished psychologists in the world," said Loftus. "I also was very flattered to be offered a distinguished professor title. A colleague recently sent me an email with 'welcome to paradise' as the subject - that's how it feels to be here."

Loftus has served as an expert witness or consultant in some of the nation's most high-profile trials, including the McMartin Pre-School molestation case, the "Hillside Strangler" case, the Michael Jackson case and the trials of Oliver North, the Menendez brothers and the police officers involved in the Rodney King beating.

In April, the Review of General Psychology ranked Loftus 58th among the top 100 psychologists of the 20th century. The list begins with luminaries B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget and Sigmund Freud. Loftus is the highest-ranked woman on the list.

Irvine, Calif., September 27, 2002

by Steve Perlstein

      The recovered memory controversy of the early 1990s was revisited by panelists at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association and declared dead.
      But, the panelists said, psychiatry must still focus on helping those trying to heal in the aftermath of such accusations--many of which turned out to be false.
      "It was a pig in the python of life," said Dr. Paul R. McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University; Baltimore. "It came along and it was gone.
      While it was here, though, the recovered memory issue spent plenty of time on the front page and on the minds of psychiatrists and their patients everywhere.
      Among the panelists at the session was Pamela Freyd, president of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, a group made up of family members accused of abuse based on recovered memories.
      Accusations of sexual abuse years after the alleged fact by an adult child placed a crushing emotional burden on the families involved, said Dr. Harold I. Lief, professor emeritus of psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
      "The shock is just enormous, and the re actions are tremendous confusion and anger," Dr. Lief said.
      The majority of accusers in recovered memory cases were women, and the
average age was 33 years, Dr. Lief said.
      Based on his research, Dr. Lief put accusers into three categories: refusers, returners, and retractors.
      Refusers continue to avoid contact with their families (about 56% of cases).
      Returners reestablish relations with their families without a specific admission that they made false claims (about 36% of cases).
      Retractors admit their accusations were false and attempt reconciliation with their families (about 8% of cases).
      Returners come back in an average of 6 years, but it can take as long as 23 years, Dr. Lief said. About 80% of returners, however, never discuss the allegations with their families after their return.
      The mean time for retractors was 4.9 years and as long as 14 years, he said.
      Because accusers have been through such "torture" in therapy, they are unlikely to turn to mental health professionals when they decide to deal with the realizations that their accusations might have been false, according to Dr. Lief.
      "They go through a different kind of PTSD, what I call post-therapy stress disorder," he said. "That's an issue that has to be dealt
with."
      Dr. McHugh raised the question of just how the phenomenon of recovered memory happened.
      "This was not done out of malice," he said. "No one was out trying to hurt patients," Dr. McHugh added.
      The therapists who were working with patients who wound up making these accusations relied on strong convictions on behalf of the patients, which is good, Dr. McHugh said.
      Where these therapists went wrong, he continued, was in underestimating their responsibility to the standards of truth.
      A conscious and deliberate thought process can avert the false memory phenomena recovery.

Dr. McHugh suggested a list of do's and don'ts:

* Do observe the genesis of the recovered memory, consider the content of the statements, seek confirmation in some way, and attend to accompanying syndromes.
* Don't propose devices by introducing psychiatric jargon, provide suggestive workbooks, prescribe group attendance, or encourage memory recovery with hypnosis.

Clinical Psychiatry News 08/01/2002

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