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Can Recovered Memories Be Trusted?

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There is an open debate in therapeutic circles today, one that has members lined up on both sides, with those undecided waiting for the jury to come in. The topic of debate? Whether memories recovered in therapy can be trusted as valid. There are many sides to this argument, but one jury, at least, has delivered its verdict: a resounding "yes!". The decision of Judge Edward F. Harrington, in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, (www.jimhopper.com/memory-decision/) ruled that the recovered memories of a survivor of childhood sexual abuse were valid testimony in the court.

There is other evidence that recovered memories can be valid, and accurate. Dr. Jim Hopper, a practicing psychologist, in his article Child Abuse Memories: Empirical Evidence, Psychological Constructs & Scientific Progress discusses the fact that in some cases, there is empirical data (verifiable data) that directly corrobates recovered memories that occur in adulthood. He also discusses the fact that amnesia and delayed memory recovery for childhood sexual abuse is NOT rare; and that we often try to categorize this forgetting with psychological terms: amnesia, repression, or dissociation.

A study by D.M. Elliot in 1997 (Traumatic Events: Prevalence and delayed recall in the General Population) and published in the Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychiatry (, 65, 811-820. ) demonstrated that in a study base of 505 individuals, 72 % reported some form of childhood trauma. Of those 72 %, one third (32%) reported delayed memory retrieval. The more severe the trauma (such as witnessing the murder or suicide of a family member, sexual abuse, or being a combat veteran), the more likely that recall of the events would be delayed (ie there would be a period of no recall of the event at some point in the person's life). Interestingly enough, the main triggers for recall of the event later in life was NOT therapy, but a media event, such as a television show or movie, or an event in the person's life that resembled the original trauma. In fact, both therapy and sexual intercourse were the LEAST likely to stimulate memory retrieval according to the study. 1

Judith Hermann, a Harvard psychiatrist and author of Trauma and Recovery, also believes in the validity of recovered memory based on her research. In a study of 53 women engaged in outpatient therapy who recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, 75 % were able to obtain outside corroborating data from other sources that the memories were true. Hermann also describes the fact that adult recall of traumatic events can vary from continuous recall, to a mixture of recall interspersed with periods of amnesia, to more extensive amnesia for events. The amnesi appears to be overcome by environmental triggers that recall the event. She also notes that many survivors also had corroborating evidence which they offered during the interviews.

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