O  A  R  M  H  P

May 2002

Happy May everyone!

I hope your flowers are blooming. Our dear Paul McHugh just keeps on going. The Clergy scandal has us all on edge. I thought Pam did a good job in her message. Unfortunately, most people cannot tell the difference between real and imagined abuse. You do not forget real abuse. So of course, there are many people trying to grab their share of the money who got their memories from a therapist.

Carole

President's Bioethics Council

* Paul McHugh, M.D. ...........Psychiatry

President Bush named 17 leading scientists, doctors, ethicists, social scientists, lawyers, and theologians to serve on the President's Council on Bioethics. The Council will consider a range of bioethical matters connected with specific biomedical and technological activities, such as embryo and stem cell research, assisted reproduction, cloning, uses of knowledge and techniques derived from human genetics or the neurosciences, and end-of-life issues. The Council may also study broader ethical and social issues, such as the protection of human subjects in research and the appropriate uses of biomedical technologies.

Council members have been chosen not only for their specialized knowledge, but also for their thoughtfulness and their devotion to serious ethical inquiry.

Paul McHugh, M.D. Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Psychiatrist-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. McHugh, a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, is currently Co-Chairman, Ethics Committee of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He also serves on the board of The American Scholar. His writings include Genes, Brain, and Behavior (1990) and essays on assisted suicide and the misuse of psychiatry.

 Accusations of abuse by clergy

Dear Friends of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

There has been an explosion of articles about clergy abuse since the Geoghan scandal broke in Boston. The cases are unrelated to FMSF cases. However, a number of FMSF members have contacted me with their concerns about the uncritical references to recovered and repressed memories. For example on March 18, the New York Times printed the following: "What it has been for Mr. Serrano is more than two decades of healing that included, first, coming to grips with his abuse, and progressing to counseling sessions, sorting through repressed memories that sometimes bubbled up as flashbacks and, now, speaking out."nJones, R.L. "Former Altar Boy Describes Years of Abuse, Then Years of Silence." New York Times, March 18, 2002n But it is important to note that on March 19 the same paper also printed the following: "Alan cannot easily forget what has happened to him because traumatic memories are processed and encoded in the brain in a way different from routine memories. They just don't fade with time. This explains, for example, why you can constantly misplace your keys but never forget that you were raped." Richard A. Friedman, M.D. "This Time 'Forgetting' Is Healthy" New York Times, March 19, 2002 A reading of the first article describes a person who said he was abused from 1974 to 1981 (ages 9 to 16). In 1985 Serrano reported the abuse to the church officials. So it is not at all clear what the writer had in mind when he used the term "repressed." In many of the articles is appears to have been used to mean the deliberate avoidance of thinking about something unpleasant. The concern in the March 18^th article, as in most of the articles about the abuse in the Catholic church, was that the church did not properly handle the reported abuse.

I think the words of the FMSF Advisory Board are important to keep in mind: “Because exactly what is meant by the terms of 'repression' and 'dissociation' is far from clear, their use has become idiosyncratic, metaphoric, and arbitrary." Scientific Advisory Board of the FMS Foundation Statement on Recovered Memories, 1998. It seems to me that the greatest immediate need is to educate reporters about repressed and recovered memory issues. We seem to have a new generation of reporters who have not been immersed in the recovered/repressed memory issues. Because these cases involve clergy abuse, the reporters often are those who cover religion instead of science or the law. Presumably these cases will be around for a while and there will be more articles. Getting information to reporters should help to ensure that future stories contain more accurate information about memory.

It will be helpful if you contact the reporters who have written the articles and send them information such as the "Recovered Memories: Are They Reliable" pamphlet (an e-mail version is appended below). It will be helpful if you send them articles that you think are insightful and if you direct them to our website (www.FMSFonline.org).

The Foundation will continue to contact reporters as we become aware of the need. We can do a better job if you help. If there is a reporter to whom you would like us to send information, please forward us a copy of the article and also a way to contact the reporter. We will do our part from the office to support your local efforts.

Sincerely,

RECOVERED MEMORIES

Are They Reliable?

Read What the Experts Have to Say. . .

Distinguishing True from False Memories:

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