A Recap of Some Meetings in Kansas City

These meetings occurred on the April 1 weekend and dealt with controversies surrounding recovered memory therapy.

This was a weekend of unusual sharing, both good and bad. Interaction involved people at a two-day conference at the Kansas University Medical Center (KUMC), and at a meeting of supporters of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) in Kansas City on the following day.

This reporter will try to capture the essence of the experience as viewed from his perspective. Exchanges which occured over this time involved an amalgam of experiences, some of which are interpretive and some are part of the presentations to assembled groups. Considerable information was exchanged off-line, both at the site of the meetings and at separate gatherings. The net experience is chronicled in a manner couched in terms of the observer’s biased interpretations.

As background for some of the local Kansas City issues in regard to the conference, some history is in order. About six years ago, there were reports in Kansas City media of an adult daughter of a sitting Kansas City judge, charging her father with incest when she was a child. This appears to be a case of "so-called" recovered memory. The judge‘s wife divorced him, and later married a wealthy benefactor (hereafter called W.B.) in the Kansas City area. This new couple have come to be on close terms with Marilyn Van Derbur (Atler), a former Miss America, who also claims to have delayed memories of child sexual abuse. The judge is a friend of the speaker of the house in Missouri. File this away for further reference.

A prepared packet of conference information contained papers from some of the presenters which tended to bear on the content of their presentation, as well as other related materials. Additional handouts became available in the lobby during the conference. Not all of the content of presentations or handouts were germane to the conference theme. Some have referred to this conference as a "battle of titans" among the major players in the recovered memory controversy.

A biased report of the conference presentations follows:

Introductory remarks included reference to some of the key conference organizers, who received criticism for the controversial content of the conference, as well as reference to numerous benefactors.

The three presentations on Friday morning seemed an appropriate introduction, covering many of the sociopolitical concerns of recovered memory therapy (RMT), and contemporary viewpoints on likely influences of childhood experience on adult life. Brief and interpretive comments on each:
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1. Dyer—To be effective, the therapist must know the client well and herself well.

2. Garbarino—Child abuse is a cultural and phenomenological construct. According to Bernard Strauss, striking children has a pathological influence.

3. Seligman—Childhood trauma does not directly cause adult pathology. Catharsis seems to have no benefit on adult problems. The wounded child concept makes us a prisoner of the past. It raises self-esteem at a great cost. Therapies that work elevate the sense of resposnsibility of the patient. Developing a sense of victimhood creates a dep-endence on the therapist.

4. Kluft—A therapist should believe in the client, but not necessarily believe every utterance of, the client. Each utterance should be regarded with compassion and respect. He proffered a lot of smooth comments about his view of the world.

5. McHugh—Had a historical review of related therapies and of views of some players. In Karl Jaspers’ 1912 book General Psychopathology (5^th Ed., pg 76), "... patient has reasons to believe in recovered memory." He defined false memory as a socially constructed artifact within the context of: personality, mental distress, and cultural "idioms", and which tends to view a life story as an "explanation" or a justification. He presented considerable data. The most instructive material in orienting his audience to the central issue of the conference was his four-celled slide, which depicted four groups of people. Those groups are: those with and without a history of child sexual abuse (CSA), and those with and without memories of CSA. A number of the attendees hadn’t discerned until this time that the conference was about the controversy surrounding the development of memories of CSA that may or may not have any historical reality. He emphasized the need for clinicians to give serious consideration to examining, preferably by seeking corroboration, whether it is likely that a patient who comes to have memories of abuse is likely to have been acually abused or not. Some researchers have described that such corroboration has been found in 50% or more of some studied populations, yet few clinicians make efforts to do so. His last slide was on Penrose’s description of five stages of "crazes", with a comment that he believes we are now in the third, or saturation stage.

6. Alpert—Few that I talked with were able to discern what she presented, for a variety of reasons, some of which dealt with her style of reading rapidly from her paper. She played out the complete litany of a true believer in recovered memory therapy (RMT), and cited no data nor basis for her views, which generally were presented as factual.

7. Loftus—Her presentation material had been developed continually for many years. Her slides were easy to follow. She covered much of the public conception of memory, and of key media sources that provided misinformation. She described much of her research, which included the critical element of creating false or distorted memories. She drew some negative audience reaction for a "baited" debate with Briere during the Q & A session.

8. Briere—His style was disarming, he continually made efforts to "connect" with a receptive audience. He referred to an upcoming book with key title words Psychological Assessments of the Post Traumatic State, which he seemed to imply was sanctioned by the American Psychological Association. He may have been the first to comment on the division of outlook between scientist and clinician, which was soon recognized as a key issue of the conference.

9. Holmes—His introductory comments about his motivation and his lenghty history of tracking the literature in regard to repressed memory was of an intellectual quest for objectivity. His presentation as well as his responses to questions seemed to bear out this stated view. He commented on repression vs. suppression (or denial of reviewing an existing memory). He claimed that dissociation is a synonym for repression, but gave little rationale for this. Some accounts of soldiers having had especially trying experiences (sometimes including physical head trauma) as having episodes of brief amnesia, but generally the problem has been to successfully forget that which they prefer to forget. He said that by today’s standards of evidence, these amnesic states are largely anecdotal. He referred to case studies by Herman and Schatzow and by Briere and Conte as having invalid conclusions.

10. Williams—Has had big contracts from National Center for Health and National Institute of Mental Health. She presented her three-year-old data, which clarified some issues on the composition of some segments of the studied populations. While much of what she did in this study was well structured, there have been numerous criticisms, both of the lack of follow-up regarding patients’ lack of response to recollections of the known abuse, and of her conclusions.

11. Van der Kolk—He is the darling of true believers of RMT, as he has access to cutting-edge laboratory resources, and his reports have an air of authenticity as well as an air of seamlessly fitting into the world of scientific inquiry. His presentation was slick in the sense of having attractive slides, many of which depicted the structure of the brain, as well as PET-scan images of brain activity. His work appeared to be exclusively on that of implicit or procedural memory, which is known to have little connection with declarative memory. Implicit memory issues were not of particular relevance to this meeting. Many of his comments, delivered as grandiose statements of some new-found meaning of thought processes, were nearly always hypotheses. Perhaps part of this was a ploy for obtaining more contracts to validate his hypotheses. Having an accent probably goes a long way in this business. He received a standing ovation by two audience members (W.B. and Marilyn Van Derbur) who were in a roped-off section in front of the presenter’s podium. I was out of the hall for some of the latter part of his paper. I had occasion to talk briefly with Howard Fishman at this time. He asked my views of van der Kolk’s paper, and mentioned that he and van der Kolk had been colleagues at Harvard. I replied that I am familiar with some of his journal articles, that I think he is involved in intellectual chicanery, and that he has some fun toys in his laboratory. I had no reason to feel uncomfortable with Fishman’s respose back to me on my opinion.

12. Ganaway—This gentleman is heavily steeped in analytical work. His work on dissociation seems to be somewhat innocuous and intellectually stimulating. Who knows what to make of it in regard to the controversies of RMT?

13. Harvey—What a piece of work. Her career and her association with Judith Herman have such a strong flavor of clinical bias toward believing the paranormal that any critical reviewer may have difficulty assigning any credulity to the majority of her presentation. How she could be so oblivious to rational thought and to the scientific method is overwhelming.

14. Pope—Again, what a piece of work. Here was a loose cannon who claimed to be an ethicist. He did a "hatchet" job on some of the distinguished presenters and other players. He did point out many areas of shortcomings of therapists which probably needed to be aired. For example, a survey of some 900 practicing psychologists:

(Note that much of what follows is subject to distortions of presenter and recorder, and that he did not permit his presentation to be electronically recorded.)

73% had at least one patient with recovered memories of abuse

21% decided that the memory was false

50% found corroborating data

12% had a filed formal civil or criminal complaint

In California, some complaints against therapists have been shredded, and staff told not to reveal information on these clients

In California, it took seven years for a state licensure board to confirm that a physician was guilty of nine counts of second degree murder of children, and that this doctor still has his license.

From a large population of therapists, one third of males and two thirds of females claim that at one time, they were subjected to abuse.

He favors informed consent, which even includes instruction on how to file a complaint against the provider. He referred to the Nuremberg war trials, and posed some questions about people following orders to decapitate or to sterilize selected people thought to be useless to the Reich. This reference appeared to have relevance to the contemporary issues of therapists who have done great harm which probably occurred as a result of their being improperly led to do it.

During the Q & A session, he referred to the lack of peer pressure to root out problems in therapist practice. He cited data on studies of therapists who molested their non-adult patients, and made comment on how, even with knowledge of this kind of practice, many contemporaries are willing to socialize with these perverted "friends."

He referred to the good income available to therapists, and to their arrogance and lack of concern for their patients’ lives.

As the final presenter, his role should have been to put an intellectual capstone on the conference material. Within the construct of what one may view as being key material of the conference, perhaps he did. The panel moderator did an outstanding job of handling the Q & A session on a balanced and professional level.

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A wide collection of issues surfaced off-line which were of personal interest, sometimes in unexpected ways. I had my first meeting with Pamela and Peter Freyd, Elizabeth Loftus, and Jan Larson. I renewed an acquaintance of some 30 years with Hollida Wakefield. At two times during the conference, Pamela was curious how I happened to know Wakefield on the one hand, and Larson on the other. I had the pleasure of meeting other FMS parents, including couples from Lincoln NE, and from Fort Collins, CO.

The experience of being among predominantly true believers in RMT at the conference was interesting. It was informally reported that about 90 of the attendees were selected by, and subsidized by, W.B.

I have never seen such a collection of gullible, ignorant, arrogant, acrimonious, and self-serving people as were represented by quite a large segment of the clinicians who were there. I have never witnessed such a display of pseudo-scientific garbage masquerading as something meaningful at a technical conference. I became aware of the great danger involved with misinformation that can be involved with a continuing education conference.

My first contact of the weekend with persons having interest in FMS issues occurred when I had dinner at a Denny’s in Lenexa. Of two couples at a nearby table, one couple was recognized as having been at a hearing on March 13, 1995 in Jefferson City, MO on a proposed bill which would provide a measure of consumer protection in mental health practice. I didn’t approach them until the start of the conference the next morning. I told them of having seen them at Denny’s and at Jefferson City. I found that they were the Nelson’s from the Kansas City area. I went to eat with Nelsons and with others on the following two nights as well.

While discussing issues with Wakefield, a particularly interesting item surfaced. She reported that she now has a client family concerned with a daughter that has made accusations of CSA, and did so while under treatment by the same therapist that my wife and I saw with one of our non-accusing daughters a year ago. She did not divulge the identity of this family.

I began to hear comments that W.B. was making vicious criticisms of some of the key players who favored the scientific view. A fairly complete story of this was recapped during the Sunday meeting. There was a cocktail party on the first evening of the conference. Along with comments made in the lobby at the conference, it appears that W.B.is filled with a lot of misdirected hate and misinformation.

One report has it that he referred to Loftus and to Holmes as "slime", even before their presentations. To that, Loftus asked, then why were we invited to be presenters? His response apparently was that they brought media interest.

Others that were attacked included Peter Freyd, Howard Fishman, and John Bell. At the Sunday meeting, Peter read from the screen of his lap top computer, a narrative of various exchanges between himself and W.B. He felt very confident that his recollections of W.B.’s statements were accurate, but that his own were in some cases "improved." Peter apparently has unique abilities to fend off some of these attacks on a logical basis, and also the ability to write down much of the interchange quite accurately. He cited about 13 personal attack comments which were directed at him. One of the comments was that Freyd’s are making lots of money with FMSF activities. Peter responded that they have been the largest financial contributors to the FMSF. When asked for proof of this, he asked if the audit records were available for review. Peter replied that they were, for anyone appearing at their Philadelphia office with such an inquiry.

It was not clear to me if Peter intends to make any part of his narrative public. He is a regular contributor to "witch hunt", an E-mail service.

Bell gave an extemporaneous review of his interchange with W.B. It seems that W.B. incorrectly believed that Bell had introduced the Missouri bill H.R. 669 on consumer protection in mental health practice. Bell corrected him on some of the facts of introduction of the bill.

Fishman did not comment on his treatment by W.B . However, he read from a scathing letter he was preparing to send to Ken Pope (the final presenter at the conference) in Los Angeles.

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I attended a planning/luncheon session on Saturday noon with some key players in the Missouri scene that are trying to assess what steps might be taken (imposed or chosen) to address issues of responsibility in mental health practice.

The outcome of the luncheon/planning meeting called by Dr. Mary Catherine Dettling, was to have a meeting of 20 or so of the key professional players in May, and either at Columbia or Jefferson City. This meeting would formalize the existence of this committee, and presumably would outline their mission and goals, as well as oversee planning and action groups so designated by this committee.

One member at the luncheon that is closely interested in issues of therapy practice in Missouri is Carl Willis, a psychology professor at the University of Missouri/Columbia, and chairman of the Missouri State Committee of Psychologists.

During part of the discussion at this meeting, I mentioned my familiarity with the outlook of one of our daughter’s therapists, which was in line with much of the Bass/Davis, Bradshaw, Miller literature seen in her office. Further, that I recently learned that another therapist in that community had begun treatment of the residue of a family torn by delayed accusations of CSA by a daughter that was under treatment by this same therapist. In this case, this therapist probably did not help to initiate the false beliefs, but reinforced them. Further, that if any present in the room are practicing clinicians, they should not assume that they have never done hypnosis, as there are many cues, some very subtle, of thoughts present in the conscious mind of the therapist that have a tendency to become existant in the subconscious mind of the patient while in the therapy setting.

I was there as a parent from the Springfield "area" who has been falsely accused. I said that all four of our grown daughters believe that I am a perpetrator of one daughter. Further, that although all four daughters have on occasion counseled with the above-mentioned therapist, in general, individual daughters have been in therapy or group therapy in five different counties in three states. The other person present who represented an accused parent was Karen Johnson of St. Louis.

As we moved from the cafeteria luncheon room back to the conference hall, one of the MO professional leads asked Bell how he could support H.B. 669, the act outlining consumer protection in mental health practice. Bell said that he supports the concept of informed consent, that it probably won’t pass in it’s current form, and that the legislature will pass something. Further, that what they pass may as well contain language they could all live with, and it should be forged with cooperative effort.

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The Sunday meeting was held in a meeting room of a hospital in Kansas City, MO. I got reacquainted with Pat and John Wild, the Kansas-side organizers of the KC meetings. John lets Pat represent their interests in FMS issues. Also, John Bell ensured that I met Nancy White, chairman of the Missouri State Committee of Professional Counselors. The meeting was opened by Jan Larson.

This meeting highlighted a presentation by Pamela Freyd, Executive Director of the FMSF. Key points are included in the edited summary below:

The national organizations AMA, APA (psychiatric and psychological), and BPS are listening to the FMSF foundation. Letters from proponents of the FMSF view are effective. There have been many recent articles on recovered memory therapy (RMT), most of them good, in journals and elsewhere. One particularly bad article appeared in the Family Therapy Networker, a journal of the National Association of Social Workers.

She commented on the upcoming "Divided Memories" series to be on PBS on the first two Tuesdays of April. She showed postcards prepared by PBS which gave advanced billing of the 4-hour series produced by Ofra Bikel, who did the earlier show on the Little Rascals day care center of Edenton, N.C. Pamela understood that the first half would focus mainly on the process of recovered memory therapy (RMT), while the second half would focus on family concerns.

She asked of those present whether some of their accusing children had made recent overtures to rebuild familiy ties. A few raised their hands. She gave an outline of her observations on how such reconciliation have played out in different families and under different circumstances. She mentioned the difficulty for the family as well as the accuser to lay themselves open to added vulnerabilities during this process.

Steps which seemed to be common in the retraction process include:

A break from the original therapy. Often the re-thinking process may take a year or two. 2. Something they or a friend see or read in the media creates a wedge in this thinking.

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Regarding presenters at the conference:

Alpert emphasized Hermeneutic thinking. Pamela suggested that once they (true believers in RMT) entertain constructivist thinking, they are essentially announcing defeat of their own position about RMT. Briere—a key point in his presentation was a statement that science won’t give us answers.

There appeared to be agreement among supporters of FMSF that what brought us to the conference deals with the outcomes of a practice (RMT) that is helping no one.

Many of the clinician/RMT supporters have a closed group that studies trauma.

van der Kolk speculated on implicit memories.

Ganaway has unique insight into ananlysis.

Harvey is a political polemic.

Pope pathologized the circumstances of players’ roles in ways that were anti-intellectual.

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Pamela said that there didn’t seem to be any reason to have a similar conference in the future, where players were subject to vitriolic attacks, and where clinician presenters bring nothing to the table regarding the realities of RMT.

Karen Johnson read from brief notes of her highlights of the conference. She recommended that parents continue to write letters, and that she always has a list of topics and of recipients that she feels should receive such letters.

Peter Freyd described what he called the "therapist ploy", which tends to look for meaning in key utterances. Too often, such meaning is a construct by the therapist which may be totally wrong. When using the ploy, the constructed meaning may be used to redirect the utterer in a divisive way.

He then made comments on interchanges with W.B., and read from his prepared text from a laptop computer.

Pamela offered the opinion that there probably would be no more conferences on the academic debate of RMT. Williams and van der Kolk were the only ones on the RMT side that presented data.

Legislative efforts are giving RMT proponents a scare.

Pamela suggested that families could write to the grandparents’ section of the AARP Bulletin in regard to grandparents’ rights and the abuse of the elderly by outcomes of RMT.

Pamela described her ofice role as dedicating the majority of her efforts in being in touch with media. She said that was not how she would like to spend her efforts, but that it made sense. Regarding inquires about media or journalistsic presentations, she said that a caller could leave a message on her voice mail recorder, and that a letter response would be prepared promptly.

She suggested that the state consumer fraud units may be good places to contact with complaints.

She outlined a form of escalation which has been common, in which the practitioners have placed patients in mental hospitals, and have expanded the patient beliefs to levels of claiming satanic ritual abuse, which is often accompanied by self-mutilation.

One woman in the audience described that she recently attended a seminar presented by a Dr. Zola Morgan on U/Cal., San Diego. She said that he spent a lot of time going over much of the information which is favored by the FMSF.

Some in the audience commented that W.B. apparently feels that truth can be "bought."

Howard Fishman read from a draft of his letter to Ken Pope, and made remarks about ad hominum attacks which occurred during the weekend.

Regarding new activities by FMSF, Pamela mentioned that some profit was made on the Baltimore meeting, and this will help in two identified areas: The FMSF and Johns-Hopkins are planning to put on continuing education conferences around the country. Also, the FMSF is planning to send literature to every judge in the United States. FMSF is also trying to relieve pressure felt by defendant parents. They want to prevent the non-guilty from being found guilty.

Pamela mentioned that some efforts are being made by ACOA?, Marilyn Van Derbur, and Ellen Bass to garnish wages and annuities of those in the private sector found guilty of sexual abuse.

Pamela mentioned that it is important for grass-roots groups to have two kinds of meetings, one composed of impacted family members, where all manner of comment may be made about their plight, and another type, attended by legislators, lawyers, mental health professionals, and retractors.

Pamela made comments updating the cases of three families that have been incarcerated on the basis of testimony of abuse memories.

Paul Ingram had been incarcerated in Delaware, where a limited number of prisoners know why he is there. Apparently, the only way for Paul to be relieved is for the governor of Washington to take some action. Elsewhere, it had been reported that this governor had received over 1,000 letters in support of Ingram.

Ray and Shirley Souza continue under house arrest, with devices attached to them which report their whereabouts repeatedly. Judge Dolan helped to find Ray guilty, and did not look for the cage which was allegedly in their basement. It was reported that there was a hearing on March 15 involving some 200 supporters.

William Kunstler has made an appeal, using arguments that the two were treated as one at the trial, and that neither recovered memory therapy testimony, nor testimony that their daughters had a good childhood were allowed.

The Fells Acres case in 1984 also involved Judge Dolan who was then the prosecutor and now is the attorney general of Masssachusetts. He was formerly a professor at MIT. The Wall Street Journal did a two-page article on the case, and the Boston Globe a big one-page spread.

The above three cases are described in the April 1995 FMSF Newsletter.

In regard to the role of insurance companies in sustaining the growth of unproven and dangerous mental health practices, she commented that it is not likely that insurance companies would withhold payment for treatments sanctioned by psychiatric dictum, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Insurance carriers will likely raise rates to whatever level is necessary to cover their exposure.

One couple from the audience disclosed their story, which included them being incarcerated for 8 ½ months. Also, they were warned that they must not have contact with the accusing daughter for three years. They lost nearly all financial resources, and are each now working for the Salvation Army, the husband having lost his job.