PSYCHOTHERAPY
THE FUTURE?
by
A BFMS Member and Retired Counsellor
November 2009
The Dispute
“There seems to be so much bad therapy about I really think
an enantiodromia is taking place.”
(Carol Jeffrey, Psychotherapist)
This surprising judgment was proffered some 15 years ago by an experienced
psychotherapist of considerable standing. The strange word ‘enantiodromia’ was used
by C. G. Jung, one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy, and in a dictionary of
Jungian terminology is defined as follows:
‘Running contrariwise’, a psychological ‘law’ first outlined by Heraclitus and
meaning that sooner or later everything turns into its opposite.
and,
… not a formula but a reality, not only of personal psychic development but of
collective life as well.1
What we do know for certain is that the greatest dispute in psychology today has been
taking place since the early 1990s. Sometimes referred to as the ‘memory wars’, more
particularly the debate about Freud’s legacy, the dispute is about how victims
remember trauma. It has been said,
This is not an ordinary academic controversy. It has spilled out of the clinics
and psychology laboratories, capturing headlines, provoking legislative
change, and determining outcomes in criminal trials and civil suits.2
But a few years ago a new development emerged and it is a remarkable one. After
extensive research over the last 12 or so years, it is widely agreed by the scientific and
academic community (as opposed to the community of practising psychotherapists)
that there is no evidence to support the theory that memories of trauma can be
repressed. The issue of ‘repressed memories’ and their ‘recovery’ has been at the
centre of the dispute. But a leading researcher, reviewing all the evidence, has stated,
‘The notion that the mind protects itself by repressing or dissociating memories of
trauma, rendering them inaccessible to awareness, is a piece of psychiatric folklore
devoid of convincing empirical support.’3
Some of the conclusions of this research, which has largely been conducted in the
USA, can be found in the important document Guidelines on Memory and the Law4,
published in July 2008 to considerable publicity by the British Psychological Society.
The document is intended for all those involved in legal work. Of the Guidelines
contained in it we read,
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Because they are based on widely agreed and acknowledged scientific
findings they provide a far more rigorously informed understanding of human
memory than that available from commonly held beliefs.’5
Then under Key Points about memory are the statements, ‘People can remember
events that they have not in reality experienced. This does not necessarily entail
deliberate deception’. And again, ‘Memories are mental constructions that bring
together different types of knowledge in an act of remembering. As a consequence,
memory is prone to error and is easily influenced by the recall environment.’6
False Memory Syndrome
Thousands of parents in this country insist they have been falsely accused by their
children of sexually abusing them and that their children are suffering from false
memories. The accusations have arisen when an adult child has been undergoing
therapy.
In the context of this dispute the phenomenon of ‘false memory’ is not as simple as it
sounds. The British False Memory Society (BFMS), to whom many accused parents
turn for help, has published a leaflet stating,
However grotesque and unreal the believed-in events, the emotional dynamics
of recovered memory are powerful forces which can give people a sense of
meaning in life. The belief in the abuse acts as a channel for pent-up emotional
energy and the cathartic force may result in people feeling more alive and thus
convinced in the authenticity of the claims.7
This is a very important statement and it need hardly be said that its implications spell
a real danger for the practitioner. False Memory, or False Memory Syndrome, is more
than a matter of having inaccurate memories: it can be about a person’s whole
identity. The Brandon Report (1998), written by the working party set up by the
Royal College of Psychiatrists, quoted a definition of False Memory Syndrome as
follows.
… a condition in which a person’s identity and interpersonal relationships are
centred around a memory of a traumatic experience which is objectively false
but in which the person strongly believes. The memory often rules the
individual’s entire personality and lifestyle, and disrupts all sorts of other
adaptive behaviours. The memory tends to take on a life of its own,
encapsulated and resistant to correction. The individual avoids confrontation
with any evidence that might challenge the memory and may be effectively
distracted from coping with the real problems of living.8
The Damage - Hidden From Scrutiny
A preposterously inconsistent aspect of this dispute is the fact that the psychotherapy
organisations have not given time to the hearing of the testimony of accused parents.
At the centre of the controversy are two parties: the accuser and the accused. For
weeks, months, possibly years the person making the accusations is listened to by the
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therapist or counsellor. But the accused person has no such opportunity to speak
freely. Whether it might be within a complaints procedure, or some other process, the
psychotherapy organisations have failed to develop a means of examining parental
arguments.
But when there is a need to ascertain what actions and events have taken place within
a family parents are the very people who can hardly be ignored! How is it that, in a
democratic country, whether parents are honest or dishonest, they are deprived of an
opportunity – an appropriate forum or setting – where, without further damage to their
family, they can have a voice?
What happens in reality is that, once accused, parents are overrun by a series of
acutely stressful and painful circumstances, not only within the family, but outside it
as well, often involving the social services and the police. In such circumstances
parents cannot even be described as fighting their corner on the back foot. Often near
breakdown, quite simply they do not even have the opportunity of being in the ring.
Neither has it been possible for parents to make third party complaints.
For therapists, what this singular and inequitable situation amounts to is that they are
not directly confronted with the damage claimed by the accused. Although such a
situation leaves professionals comparatively unscathed, it is not entirely the blessing it
may appear. It has denied them a source of potentially very significant knowledge.
For one thing alarm bells regarding recovered memory therapy would have rung far
more urgently for the regulatory organisations some 15 or more years ago. This would
have given them the opportunity of questioning the knowledge on which their theories
are based.
Early Warnings
Early on in the dispute, in 1995 and 1996, two books9 were published in the UK
which attempted to warn us not to repeat what had happened in the United States.
There the harm to thousands of families had been described as a national tragedy. In
one of these books, Making Monsters, False Memories, Psychotherapy, & Sexual
Hysteria, the authors wrote,
We intend to show that the evidence is now overwhelming that something has
gone tragically wrong in certain therapy settings. If those who are concerned
with the victimisation of women ignore this evidence, they run the risk of
sacrificing the well-being and happiness of thousands of women and their
families for the sake of the politically expedient assumption that recovered
memory therapy cannot create false memories of abuse.10
What in fact happened after the media coverage of the subject in the mid 1990’s, and
the appearance of these two books, originally published in the USA, was that the
regulatory organisations (RCP, BPS, UKCP, BAC)11 issued documents on Recovered
Memories containing guidelines outlining the ethical and legal responsibilities of
psychotherapists and counsellors. Yet after the publication of these documents,
parents claiming to be falsely accused, and looking for help, still continued in
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considerable numbers to contact the British False Memory Society. And, it needs to
be noted, continue to do so to this day.
As we have seen, the regulatory organisations have avoided taking responsibility for
the deep injury, and chaos, some of their members have caused. Richard McNally,
Professor of Psychology at Harvard, has called this damage ‘the worst catastrophe to
befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era.’12 In time, the filtering down to
the public at large of the knowledge of these tragic events will further diminish the
credibility of the profession.
And today even, the present confused situation is unfair to the thousands of capable,
conscientious therapists and counsellors who are oblivious to the scale of the failure
of regulation that has already taken place.
The mention of false memory in the press can raise a storm of anger and indignation.
For example, it angers all those who have ‘recovered’ memories of abuse and have
based the success of their therapy on this. Further, those who have been sexually
abused, and remember it only too well without recovering ‘memories’, sense by
omission an attempt to play down the gravity of child sexual abuse and its prevalence.
This is in no way intended. And of course it is true that, because of the phenomenon
of false memory, victims of sexual abuse may now not be listened to. This is an
alarming and real possibility. The point is well made by Richard Webster in his book
Why Freud Was Wrong. He discusses with great clarity the background to the theory
of repressed memories, describing the disastrous failure to recognise – in the 60’s and
70’s for example – that child sexual abuse did take place.
… the recovered memory movement itself poses a threat to the victims of
genuine sexual abuse, who may now once again find themselves disbelieved.
It also threatens the many thousands of psychotherapists and counsellors who
treat their patients with genuine sensitivity and understanding. For the great
danger posed by any form of misguided therapy is that it may bring the entire
profession of psychotherapy into disrepute …13
Openness to New Evidence-based Knowledge
It is essential that we have an appreciation that our understanding of the functioning
of the human psyche is still work in progress. Psychotherapy came into being in the
last century. It has been of inestimable value to countless individuals. But writing in
1961 a psychoanalyst of international repute said,
The enormous implications of the discovery of the unconscious have hardly
been accepted or understood in general. Its relevance to philosophy, theology,
ethics, art, science – in short, for an understanding of the activities mid
manifestations of the human mind is so revolutionary that only the very first
steps in the evaluation of the unconscious seem to have been taken.14
That the unconscious can act like a video recording of the past and, under special
circumstances, memories of trauma can be recovered that had supposedly disappeared
from consciousness, an extremely attractive idea. It has become a widespread cultural
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belief. In the early 1990’s many high-ranking therapists promoted the theory and
lectured on it. And today some still adhere to it. The idea appeared, and still does, in
novels and films where there is nothing to stop its proliferation.
These cultural beliefs, and the impossibility of litigation against therapists in the UK,
are considerable contributory factors to the continuation of the break-up of families in
this country. While the cultural belief of memory repression of early trauma
flourishes, a proper examination by the regulatory organisations of the evidence
challenging the belief is still lacking.
There are now several books published reviewing the findings of the research of the
last ten years. In a recent publication, Remembering Our Childhood, How Memory
Betrays Us (2009), Karl Sabbagh writes,
… richness of detail turns out to he more characteristic of false memories than
true ones; and people can experience intense emotional reactions when
‘recalling’ traumatic events which never happened.15
Sabbagh goes on to quote Richard McNally, who elaborates on the tendency by
therapists to underestimate the effects and power of the human imagination.
The Vulnerability of Consciousness
We know there can be circumstances in life which can lead us to feel psychologically
vulnerable. And a tendency towards instability, whatever its causes, often
characterises the person seeking the help of a therapist or counsellor. At the same time
part of the training of the professional will involve an understanding, and a working
through of their own problems and weaknesses.
In his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung describes a period in his
own life when he experienced what was little less than a breakdown. Described in the
book – perhaps euphemistically – as ‘Confrontation with the Unconscious’, Jung
relates how he experienced many strange fantasies and was fearful of losing his
footing in reality. Of this time he wrote, ‘It would be no exaggeration to call it a state
of disorientation.’16 And, referring to Nietzsche, ‘[He] had lost the ground under his
feet because he possessed nothing more than the inner world of his thoughts – which
incidentally possessed him more than he it.’17
Jung goes on to describe during his own crisis that he needed a point of support in
‘this world’, and that his family and his professional work were that to him. And he
adds referring to his experience of the unconscious, ‘It was most essential to me to
have a normal life in the real world as a counterpoise to that strange inner world.’18
If these eminent figures were at risk of succumbing to ‘exaggeration and irreality’
how much more should lesser mortals be on their guard.
Inevitably there are risks in psychotherapeutic treatment. But when a client loses
his/her footing in reality it is absolutely vital that the practitioner is in a position to
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know that this is happening. Indeed so important is this knowledge it constitutes the
very essence of what professionalism is about.
We know that patients/clients can develop unrealistically positive impressions of their
therapist. For troubled clients in considerable need, therapists with their knowledge of
psychology can become special personalities, almost saviour figures. These
projections on to the therapist are often referred to as the positive transference.
Several schools of psychotherapy and psychodynamic counselling understand the
transference to be part of the healing process, particularly when the projections are
slowly withdrawn. It is obvious, however, that the positive transference is open to
serious abuse, giving the therapist a great deal of power. In fact it requires very
considerable skill and humility on the part of the therapist to handle the transference
correctly. The dangers of the abuse of the transference were clearly seen by Sir John
Foster (The Foster Report),19 which led in time to the formation of the United
Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.
But in so far as the therapist becomes a substitute parent figure, and may receive
positive projections, the real parents of the patient will receive negative projections.
And the danger is that these negative feelings may well act as the seedbed for
fantasies and confabulations which may have no basis in outer reality.
Conclusion
The new findings of the research into human memory that have recently emerged
have profound implications for the practice of psychotherapy and counselling.
Awkward and unpalatable to many, they are not going to go away.
How can we be confident in therapeutic Codes of Practice when they do not make
sure that therapists are in a position to recognise grotesque delusions for what they are
and, worse still, allow these delusions to be mistaken for the first signs of recovery?
Such a state of affairs must spell a severe warning to the general public. It shows that
occasions arise in psychotherapy and counselling when, with the best of intentions,
professionals may make entirely wrong, and deeply hurtful, assessments of their
clients.
There is a disparagement of ‘third parties’ in psychotherapy. A feeling of depreciation
hangs around the way the term is used. A ‘third party’ complaint (assuming that the
organisation of the therapist takes them – usually they do not) will nearly always be
ineffectual in practice because the client, who is happy with his or her treatment, will
feel that this is being undermined, and will not give permission for the clinical notes
to be made available. In addition the matter of confidentiality, if the harm is
sufficiently serious, can be used to protect the therapist rather than its proper use – to
benefit the patient. The question of the hearing of serious complaints, and the failure
to do so over many years, means that there is now a huge pool of grief and injustice
which is hidden from public view.
We need truthfulness from the regulatory bodies. It is an avoidance of the issue to say
some memories are false and some are true and it is not possible to tell the difference.
Practitioners will say that their aim is to ‘hold the uncertainty’ about memories, but on
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many occasions this can hardly be seen as a realistic procedure. By not investigating
the evidence for false memories, and the phenomenon of the change of identity that
takes place, the therapy organisations show a most unfortunate lack of respect for
science in favour of a belief system. It is an attitude fraught with perils for the future.
The following is a statement, an Amicus Curiae brief 20, recently signed by almost
100 distinguished scientists in America. It is based on the massive research literature
demonstrating the ease with which false beliefs may develop.
‘Repressed-recovered memories’, ‘dissociative amnesia’ and related concepts
are best described as pernicious psychiatric folklore devoid of convincing
scientific evidence. Such theories are quite incapable of reliably assisting the
legal process. In our collective opinion, these unsupported, controversial
notions have caused incalculable harm to the fields of psychology and
psychiatry, damaged tens of thousands of families, severely harmed the
credibility of mental health professionals and misled the legislature, civil,
criminal, and family legal systems into many miscarriages of justice.
What has happened in the context of this dispute is that those who have been falsely
accused are the ones who would like to have been – and could have been – the best
whistle blowers. But in their plight and exceptional circumstances they are a hidden,
frightened people, shunning the media and forced into silence. Others have attempted
to blow the whistle for them: their success has only been partial. And, as we read in
the book Manufacturing Victims (1999)21. Tana Dineen’s review of the mental health
profession:
The most likely response to a blast from the whistle is a hail of stones from
those who, did they but know it, stand to gain the most from the truth.
*****
Notes
1. Andrew Samuels, Bani Shorter, and Fred Plaut. A Critical Dictionary of Jungian
Analysis, Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1986, page 53
2. Richard J. McNally, Remembering Trauma, The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press. 2003, page 1
3. As above, page 275
4. Guidelines on Memory and the Law – Recommendations from the Scientific Study
of Human Memory, A Report from the Research Board of The British Psychological
Society, June 2008
5. As above. Executive Summary, page 1
6. As above, page 2
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7. What is False Memory? Frequently Asked Questions, BFMS, page 3, reprinted
2009
8. S. Brandon. J. Boakes, D. Glaser and R. Green, Recovered Memories of Childhood
Sexual Abuse – Implications for clinical practice, British Journal of Psychiatry. 1998.
page 297
9. Mark Pendergrast, Victims of Memory – Incest Accusations and Shattered Lives,
Harper Collins, London, 1996. And, Richard Ofshe and Ethan Waters, Making
Monsters – False Memories, Psychotherapy, & Sexual Hysteria, Andre Deutsch,
London 1995. Both books had introductions for the English editions.
10. Ofshe and Waters, page 13
11. Royal College of Psychiatrists, Reported recovered memories of child sexual
abuse – Recommendations for good practice and implications for training, continuing
professional development and research, Psychiatric Bulletin, 1997, 21, 663-665
The British Psychological Society, Recovered Memories, The Report of the Working
Party of the British Psychological Society, January 1995
United Kingdom Council for
Psychotherapist, 8, Spring 1997
Psychotherapy,
Recovered
Memories,
The
British Association for Counselling, False Memory Syndrome, A Statement, 1997.
Surprisingly this document, in a very comprehensive Bibliography, fails to give the
names of the English publishers of the two books that had already appeared in this
country, Victims of Memory and Making Monsters. The books are listed giving the
names of the American publishers. The former book, Victims of Memory, received
considerable publicity and press coverage here at the time of publication. (British
Association of Counselling – now called British Association for Counselling and
Psychotherapy.)
12. Quoted by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson in Mistakes Were Made (but not by
me), Pinter & Martin, London 2008, page 124. This book contains two chapters on the
unscientific nature of recovered memory therapy: ch.3, Memory, the Self-justifying
Historian and, ch 4, Good Intentions, Bad Science: the Closed Loop Clinical
Judgment.
13. Richard Webster, Why Freud Was Wrong – Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis,
Harper Collins, 1995, page 526
14. Gerhard Adler, The Living Symbol, Bollingen Foundation, New York, 1961, page
44, n.19. Gerhard Adler was one of the editors of Jung’s Collected Works.
15. Karl Sabbagh, Remembering Our Childhood – How Memory Betrays Us, Oxford
University Press, 2009, page 75
The first two books to review the recent research on memory are Richard J McNally,
Remembering Trauma (see note 2 above) and C. J. Brainerd and V. F. Reyna, The
Science of False Memory, Oxford University Press, 2005
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16. C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé.
Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston, Collins, first published in
Fontana Library, 1967, page 214
17. As above, page 214
18. As above, page 214
19. Enquiry into the Practice and Effects of Scientology, HMSO, Dec., 1971
20. Brief of Amicus Curiae of the International Committee of Social, Psychiatric,
Psychological, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Neurological Scientists
submitted in MA v Shanley, FMS Foundation Newsletter, Autumn 2009, Vol 18, No
4. www.fmsfonline.org
21. Tana Dineen, Manufacturing Victims – What the Psychology Industry is Doing to
People, Constable, 1999, page XII
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