v3n4-pfreyd-2
TREATING ABUSE TODAY INTERVIEW: A CONVERSATION WITH PAMELA FREYD, PH.D. - PART II
Co-Founder And Executive Director, False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Inc.
By David L. Calof
Originally published in Treating Abuse Today, 3(4), pp. 26-33
Copyright © David L. Calof. Used by permission.
APA-style citation for this article
In our first installment, David L. Calof and Pamela Freyd discussed the generation of the FMSF, Inc., charges that it has fostered an adversarial climate, the basis by which FMSF, Inc., considers itself to be a scientific effort and the controversial use of the term syndrome." In this conclusion, they continue their discussion of the current issues regarding delayed-memories of childhood sexual abuse. They further explore the distinguishing signs and symptoms of "false memory syndrome," discuss dissociation, multiple personality disorder and PTSD symptomology in patients with alleged "false memory syndrome." They finish with a dialogue over harassment of therapists by patient families and family intrusiveness and insinuation into the therapy relationship.
TAT: Since we last spoke, you had your first scientific conference.
Freyd: Yes. As I had hoped, I was able to spend some time with Dr. Paul McHugh. Dr. McHugh addressed some of your questions having to do with the issue of diagnosis in his presentation. Id like to tell you some of what he said in his remarks and in a private conversation between him and me.
TAT: Alright.
Freyd: He said a careful diagnostic procedure is critical in cases when incest accusations arise in the context of the recovery of memory since these accusations may eventually involve criminal charges. The first step is to find our the nature of the accusation in as much detail as possible. Then he brings in the marital pair and examines each spouse separately. In the process he asks intimate details of their sexual congress. He then compares their responses and notes the level of agreement. His third step is to obtain the names of any physicians and hospitals to which the accuser may have been admitted during the time of the alleged accusations. He calls them and inquires about the nature of any illnesses and asks if there was any evidence of any other sorts of injury. Then he obtains school reports and reviews them for any unexplained absences. In the process, he inquires as to whether the accuser's therapist or the accuser has also asked for information from these sources. Then, if there has been no report of injury and no unusual absences--and if there is congruence in the parents' stories, he recommends a polygraph examination.
Using all this information he then makes a judgment as to the probability of the truth or falsity of the accusations. At this point he will try to see the other therapist and share information that might prove helpful to all parries involved. He said, "We naturally expect cooperation in these types of cases since it is what we usually have in all other types of cases. When such cooperation is not forthcoming, the issue of good faith efforts from the others is raised."
TAT: Help me understand in what setting this doctrine is to be applied. I'm not quite sure I'm understanding correctly. Is this in a clinical setting?
Freyd: Yes. This is a clinical setting. These are the procedures that he follows in working with people who have been accused.
TAT: So this happens when the case moves into the forensic arena?
Freyd: This happens when anybody comes in who says they've been accused and asks what can they do.
TAT: Now I'm getting it.
Freyd: You were also looking for some operational criteria for false memory syndrome: what a clinician could look for or test for, and so on. I spoke with several of our scientific advisory board members and I have some information for you that isn't really in writing at this point but I think it's a direction you want us to go in. So if I can read some of these notes . . .
TAT: Please do.
Freyd: One would look for false memory syndrome:
1. If a patient reports having been sexually abused by a parent, relative or someone in very early childhood, but then claims that she or he had complete amnesia about it for a decade or more;
2. If the patient attributes his or her current reason for being in therapy to delayed-memories. And this is where one would want to look for evidence suggesting that the abuse did not occur as demonstrated by a list of things, including firm, confident denials by the alleged perpetrators;
3. If there is denial by the entire family;
4. In the absence of evidence of familial disturbances or psychiatric illnesses. For example, if there's no evidence that the perpetrator had alcohol dependency or bipolar disorder or tendencies to pedophilia;
5. If some of the accusations are preposterous or impossible or they contain impossible or implausible elements such as a person being made pregnant prior to menarche, being forced to engage in sex with animals, or participating in the ritual killing of animals, and;
6. In the absence of evidence of distress surrounding the putative abuse. That is, despite alleged abuse going from age two to 27 or from three to 16, the child displayed normal social and academic functioning and that there was no evidence of any kind of psychopathology.
Are these the kind of things you were asking for?
TAT: Yeah, it's a little bit more specific. I take issue with several, but at least it gives us more of a sense of what you all mean when you say "false memory syndrome."
Freyd: Right. Well, you know I think that things are moving in that direction since that seems to be what people are requesting. Nobody's denying that people are abused and there's no one denying that someone who was abused a decade ago or two decades ago probably would not have talked about it to anybody. I think I mentioned to you that somebody who works in this office had that very experience of having been abused when she was a young teenager-not extremely abused, but made very uncomfortable by an uncle who was older-and she dealt with it for about three days at the time and then it got pushed to the back of her mind and she completely forgot about it until she was in therapy.
TAT: There you go. That's how dissociation works!
Freyd: That's how it worked. And after this came up and she had discussed and dealt with it in therapy, she could again put it to one side and go on with her life. Certainly confronting her uncle and doing all these other things was not a part of what she had to do. Interestingly, though, at the same time, she his a daughter who went into therapy and came up with memories of having been abused by her parents. This daughter ran away and is cutoff from the family-hasn't spoken to anyone for three years. And there has never been any meeting between the therapist and the whole family to try to find out what was involved.
TAT: If we take the first example -- that of her own abuse -- and follow the criteria you gave, we would have a very strong disbelief in the truth of what she told.
Freyd: I see what you're saying but people in psychology don't have a uniform agreement on this issue of the depth of -- I guess the term that was used at the conference was -- "robust repression."
TAT: Well, Pamela, there's a whole lot of evidence that people dissociate traumatic things. What's interesting to me is how the concept of "dissociation" is side-stepped in favor of "repression." I don't think it's as much about repression as it is about traumatic amnesia and dissociation. That has been documented in a variety of trauma survivors. Army psychiatrists in the Second World War, for instance, documented that following battles, many soldiers had amnesia for the battles. Often, the memories wouldn't break through until much later when they were in psychotherapy.
Freyd: But I think I mentioned Dr. Loren Pankratz. He is a psychologist who was studying veterans for post-traumatic stress in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Portland. They found some people who were admitted to Veteran's hospitals for postrraumatic stress in Vietnam who didn't serve in Vietnam. They found at least one patient who was being treated who wasn't even a veteran. Without external validation, we just can't know --
TAT: -- Well, we have external validation in some of our cases.
Freyd: In this field you're going to find people who have all levels of belief, understanding, experience with the area of repression. As I said before it's not an area in which there's any kind of uniform agreement in the field. The full notion of repression has a meaning within a psychoanalytic framework and it's got a meaning to people in everyday use and everyday language. What there is evidence for is that any kind of memory is reconstructed and reinterpreted. It has not been shown to be anything else. Memories are reconstructed and reinterpreted from fragments. Some memories are true and some memories are confabulated and some are downright false.
TAT: It is certainly possible for in offender to dissociate a memory. It's possible that some of the people who call you could have done or witnessed some of the things they've been accused of -- maybe in an alcoholic black-out or in a dissociative state -- and truly not remember. I think that's very possible.
Freyd: I would say that virtually anything is possible. But when the stories include murdering babies and breeding babies and some of the rather bizarre things that come up, it's mighty puzzling.
TAT: I've treated adults with dissociative disorders who were both victimized and victimizers. I've seen previously repressed memories of my clients' earlier sexual offenses coming back to them in therapy. You guys seem to be saying, be skeptical if the person claims to have forgotten previously, especially if it is about something horrible. Should we be equally skeptical if someone says "I'm remembering that I perpetrated and I didn't remember before. It's been repressed for years and now it's surfacing because of therapy." I ask you, should we have the same degree of skepticism for this type of delayed-memory that you have for the other kind?
Freyd: Does that happen?
TAT: Oh, yes. A lot.
Freyd: In those cases, what do you do?
TAT: You treat it like you treat any kind of memory or at least the potential of a memory. You just listen to it, you ask them what it means to them and you listen --
Freyd: -- Do you report them to the authorities?
TAT: If it's reportable. Often times, it's not. But yes, if it's reportable, we do. If you know that it's ongoing, for example. I mean if it's from 30 years ago, or there's an anonymous victim, there's not much the authorities can do. But yes, if warranted, we absolutely do report it. My hope is the client will report it.
But my question is still, should we be skeptical about this kind of delayed-memory report? I mean, would Elizabeth Loftus, for example, say, "Because there's no such thing as long-term repressed memory, they must be making it up?"
Freyd: I think people should be skeptical about all things that pertain to the accuracy of memory. Because whether memories are thought to be repressed, forgotten or whatever, remembered events are reconstructed and re-created.
TAT: That's scary stuff to me, Pamela, because you're opening up the possibility of a criminal defense for criminals. They will say, "Well yes, I did say I did all that horrible stuff, but you know, now I think it's just false memory syndrome. I didn't really do all that."
Freyd: I think the paper by John Myers on syndromes ["Expert Testimony Describing Psychological Services," Pacific Law Journal Volume 24] covers some of that fairly well.
TAT: I see. Let's look at a different area. What about these patients' other symptomatology beyond their memories? Why doesn't your criteria include, for example, "If the person doesn't manifest PTSD or significant dissociative symptomatology, a delayed- memory of sadistic abuse is less likely to be true, but if they do manifest these, it is more likely to be true?"
Freyd: Some of these are issues that are most properly brought up with clinicians, but Paul McHugh's point is that in the cases that he's aware of, posttraumatic stress comes after the revelation of the memories, not before.
TAT: I don' know where he gets that data but when we take histories on these people [with delayed-memories] WC may find years and years of nightmares, sleep disturbance, flashbacks and --
Freyd: -- But nightmares, sleep disturbances, urinary infections and so on can have many different causes.
TAT: Well, no one --
Freyd: -- The extreme example is an advertising piece I have from a Southern California hospital. On the front it reads, "We can help you find your memories and begin healing" and up at the top they include a wide list of symptoms which -- if anybody stops to look at it -- covers virtually everything there could be.
TAT: But, Pamela, I want you to see what we're doing here, because we're doing it again. We're talking again about bad therapy practices though you claim your syndrome is about certainpatients. Now, if you were from the Foundation for the Prevention of Bad Therapy, we probably wouldn't be having a dispute. But you aren't from the Foundation for the Prevention of Bad Therapy. You are from a Foundation that tells us there are certain clients we shouldn't believe because they are especially prone to distortions of memory. We're mixing apples and oranges again. A hospital placing an irresponsible ad has nothing to do with the patient I'm going to see at 4:00 o'clock today.
Freyd: So then I guess we're saying the same thing. I told you in the beginning that we would probably agree on more things than we don't. What is problematic for us is that these lists of symptoms are so widely used.
TAT: I'm not sure that I agree with that completely. When we look at the whole symptom picture in some of these patients -- which often includes signs and symptoms of PTSD and major dissociative disorder such as demonstrable switching, development of spontaneous amnesias, flashbacks, triggering, major sleep disturbances -- no one from your movement has been able provide in alternative explanation for these symptom clusters other than traumatic stress.
Freyd: Again, I'm not a clinician, but it strikes me that there is quite a gap within the professional community on issues of dissociation. Some members of the community say that it's iatrogenic. Not that it don't exist, but that when you have a diagnosis that up until 1970 there are only 200 cases of -- and some of those questionable -- and during the 1980's alone there were 20,000 such cases ...
TAT: How many cases of alcoholism were "on the books' prior to the 70's? Just because something has had a mushrooming recognition, doesn't mean it's not true. How many rapes were "on the books" prior to the 1970's? How much incest?
Freyd: But the things you mention manifest themselves outside the therapy situation, but it seems to be the case that a dissociative disorder - - some- thing like multiple personality -- only comes to light within therapy, whereas alcoholism comes to light, you know --
TAT: That's not true, Pamela. That's not true. That is just not true. It may be just that you don't have the clinical experience, but people behave as multiples long before we ever diagnose them.
Freyd: But a lay person can recognize somebody who's an alcoholic.
TAT: And they can recognize multiples. Many partners of women who were eventually diagnosed, created and improved under an MPD diagnosis finally told the therapist, "Oh, that's what all that meant. Now I understand it. Sometimes she looked at me like she didn't know me. I thought she was kidding with me. Now I get it." They've seen it, they just didn't have a label for it before it was diagnosed.
Freyd: The term "multiple personality" itself assumes that there is "single personality" and there is evidence that no one ever displays a single personality.
TAT: The issue here is the extent of dissociation and amnesia and the extent to which these fragmentary aspects of personality can take executive control and control function. Sure, you and I have different parts to our mind, there's no doubt about that, but I don't lose time to mine they can't come out in the middle of a lecture and start acting 7 years old. I'm very much in the camp that says that we all are multi-minds, but the difference between you and me and a multiple is pretty tangible.
Freyd: Those are clearly interesting questions, but that area and the clinical aspects of dissociation and multiple personalities is beyond anything the Foundation is actively...
TAT: That's a real problem. Let me tell you why that's a problem. Many of the people that have been alleged to have "false memory syndrome" have diagnosed dissociative disorders. It seems to me the fact that you don't talk about dissociative disorders is a little dishonest, since many people whose lives have been impacted by this movement are MPD or have a dissociative disorder. To say, "Well, we ONLY know about repression but not about dissociation or multiple personalities" seems irresponsible.
Freyd: Be that as it may, some of the scientific issues with memory are clear. So if we can just stick with some things for a moment; one is that memories are reconstructed and reinterpreted no matter how long ago or recent.
TAT: You weigh the recollected testimony of an alleged perpetrator more than the alleged victim's. You're saying, basically, if the parents deny it, that's another notch for disbelief.
Freyd: If it's denied, certainly one would want to check things. It would have to be one of many factors that are weighed -- and that's the problem with these issues -- they are not black and white, they're very complicated issues.
TAT: I just want to be sure that I understand something you said earlier. You told me that at some point the Foundation would be willing to have an independent investigation of the so-called FMS families.
Freyd: Yes, that's true. While not 100 percent, pretty close to all the people who call are virtually begging to have an investigation done of their case. just this morning, I spoke to a woman who was distraught because she had filed a complaint with one of the state agendas and gotten back the same kind of letter that virtually everybody has gotten back who has filed a complaint: "... Sorry, but you're not the patient, so there's nothing we can do."
TAT: This is a person who claims to be falsely accused?
Freyd: That's right.
TAT: And what are they writing to the licensing board?
Freyd: That they have a complaint and they would like to have an investigation of their particular situation.
TAT: And that "situation" is that their daughter or son is seeing a therapist who they believe is giving them bad therapy?
Freyd: That has resulted in a terrible accusation and destroyed the family.
TAT: I know of a case where a therapist was treating an adult patient who was working through memories of childhood abuse. The patient had been estranged from his family for a long time at that point. He had not made any accusations, legally or otherwise, and wanted merely to be left alone. H.S. family found out he was in therapy, though, and a close relative went to the state licensing board alleging that the patient was being unduly influenced by his therapist claiming the therapist was using hypnosis to make the patient remember bizarre, but untrue memories of abuse and the patient was dangerously decompensating as a result. A state investigator demanded to speak with the therapist, threatening his certification if he did not share his records. What's worse is that they refused to interview the patient for many months even though he repeatedly asked to be interviewed. The patient's position was, "Look, leave me alone. I'm an adult in my 40's, doing therapy that's helping me, and it's none of my family's business and it's none of your business. I'm being well served and the content of my discussion with my therapist is nobody's business but my own." Despite this, the investigators refused to take his statement for many months while they reviewed the therapist's reluctant statements to the investigator. The therapist refused to hand over his notes on principle, though the action cost him thousands of dollars in legal fees. The patient hadn't even made public charges of abuse! I think this is an absolutely outrageous incident. What do you think about it?
Freyd: I think that these are unbelievably complicated issues that need to be resolved by people discussing them.
TAT: What I'm asking, Pamela, is what would you tell that family member? Would you tell them that what they're doing makes sense, or you would tell them that the adult's therapy is none of their business as none of it had been made public?
Freyd: Had the family member been able to meet with the therapist?
TAT: No, the man was estranged from his family. He wanted nothing to do with his family. He was gravely concerned that the family even knew who his therapist was.
Freyd: I don't know. What do you think about it?
TAT: I think it's none of the family members' business.
Freyd: But what if accusations had been made?
TAT: But they haven'ts been in this particular case. The therapist is bound to confidentiality and can't talk to the family. What would you tell the family member to do? Would you tell them to back off?
Freyd: I wouldn't tell them to do anything. I would encourage people to try to have some kind of meeting if possible, simply because the world isn't one-sided.
TAT: But shouldn't it be an adult's prerogative either to be estranged or in a relationship with his or her family?
Freyd: It's an adult's prerogative to join a cult, but it's also a parent's prerogative, if they feel that their child is in a cult, to try to get information when they feel that something isn't healthy or good. I think you're just going to have situations where people see things differently. People don't stop being parents just because their children are grown up.
TAT: What about the issues of boundaries and confidentiality and the right to privacy?
Freyd: I would think that the son's therapist in that case would try to find a colleague to work with the family member to understand these issues.
TAT: I think that would break confidentiality.
Freyd: How would it break confidentiality if these people were referred to someone else in the same clinical setting who could inform them about the nature of the therapy and the issues involved?
TAT: If a parent calls me and says, "I understand you're seeing my adult daughter, Susie," I can't even acknowledge if it's true, much less discuss any clinical situation with them or refer them to someone who could. As I understand it, I am bound to that kind of conduct as a clinician. But clinicians are being harassed by people who refuse to acknowledge our legal position and who think they ought to be included in others' therapy because they have issues with how it's conducted.
What if your son or daughter calls you and says "Listen, mother, you're in therapy that I disagree with. Your therapist is telling you that you were a good mom, but I don't think you were, so I want to come to your therapy."
Freyd: I would welcome it. But you know, I may not be typical.
TAT: I don't think you are in that regard.
Freyd: I see family structures as -- I guess I just come from a background where family structures -- maybe I'm old and old people like families.
TAT: I'm talking about cases where adult children for whatever reason have decided to be estranged from their families and their families become intrusive in their therapy. That's the context I'm talking about. As a clinician, I believe in family reconciliation if it is appropriate and possible, but it isn't always. I have seen people who feared for life and limb from their families and, frankly, felt terribly unsafe having anything at all to do with them.
Freyd: Instead of guessing about what's going on, the first thing I would encourage people, as reasonable rational human beings, to do is to seek out the data that we just don't get from our guesstimates. David, what we're saying is, "Please investigate these cases. Please, won't somebody investigate these cases?"
TAT: But, who? And how can we know the data, when you've kept your membership secret? How can we even know what these cases are about?
Freyd: All you have to do is have someone who will investigate the cases.
TAT: And how would that happen?
Freyd: Are you going to make an offer? Will you sit down with parents and children? --
TAT: -- I will put this out in our --
Freyd: -- would you do that? Is this an offer?
TAT: Now, again, would I what?
Freyd: Would you take it upon your self to serve as a kind of mediator in these cases -- to talk with the parents and children?
TAT: I would not want to insert myself in any case in which an adult wanted to be estranged from his or her family -- that's their choice -- no more than I would want to insert myself in a case where the parents want to be estranged from their adult children. That's their choice as well.
Freyd: Yeah, but there's more than just being estranged. We're talking here of accusations --
TAT: -- We're not just talking about --
Freyd: -- of horrible things that are criminal.
TAT: We're NOT just talking about cases where there are legal proceedings. Were also talking about clients who say to their families, "I don't want to talk with you, just leave me alone and keep your distance." That's a reasonable position to take.
Freyd: It's very unilateral. How would you feel if parents disowned their children? Suppose you had a client who came to you and said, "I'm lost, I feel terrible. My parents have disowned me, they said I did something but I didn't do it."
TAT: Then my task with that person would be to help them learn to live with it -- to live with the reality.
Freyd: Basically then your position is that the family should learn to live with it.
TAT: No.
Freyd: Bottom line.
TAT: No.
Freyd: Bottom line.
TAT: No, I'm not saying that.
Freyd: Then what would your bottom line be?
TAT: I had a case where the woman said to her family, "I only want to talk with you again if you will talk about my memories." The only response back she ever got from her parents was, "We don't have any idea of what you're talking about, so there's nothing to talk about. You're being led away from the Lord by your therapist and we refuse to talk about anything except that." What's to talk about there, Pamela? What can you do there?
Freyd: I'm hearing you say you know these people are guilty.
TAT: No. I don't know anymore than you know they're not. But, I'm talking about boundaries and privacy here. As a therapist working with survivors, I have been harassed by people who claim to be affiliated with the false memory movement. Parents and other family members have called or written me insisting on talking with me about my patients' cases, despite my clearly indicating I can't because of professional confidentiality. I have had other parents and family members investigate me -- look into my professional background -- hoping to find something to discredit me to the patients I was seeing at the time because they disputed their memories. This isn't the kind of sober, scientific discourse you all claim you want.
Freyd: I don't know anything about those particular situations. Harassment is not the proper way to deal with these issues.
TAT: What do you tell your membership to do?
Freyd: If they can, they ought to be able to know who the therapist is, what their qualifications are, that they're licensed. These things are public knowledge. You can call an office and ask to have a resume sent. That's one way you can determine who the therapist is, if the therapist refuses or doesn't want to meet with you.
TAT: What do you say to those members who continue to call therapists or even picket their offices in an attempt to get them to talk, when the therapists cannot legally do so? What would you say to those people?
Freyd: I'd say we have a very difficult situation in our society if there is a segment of the population who are accused and there is no forum in which all sides can be represented. Several therapists have suggested the development of "safe houses" -- places where both sides could meet to begin to resolve the problems.
TAT: I appreciate that. But I don't think you have answered the question. I wanted you to address the people in this country who, for lack of a better term, are harassing therapists by continuing to call, write and threaten them when they refuse to discuss their clients' cases because they cannot do so legally. Will you say something to them that will get them to stop? They will listen to you --
Freyd: -- You mean in my newsletter?
TAT: I mean here in this interview.
Freyd: Harassing people will only turn into more alienation. The way we have to proceed is to work to provide forums where there can be dialogue. I have to say that one of the greatest sources of frustration of the people who contact the Foundation -- and a common characteristic of these stories -- is the fact that there has been no opportunity for any kind of dialogue.
TAT: You have to recognize the primacy of the therapeutic relationship and the need for privacy.
Freyd: I have to recognize the primacy of the therapeutic relationship, but I am also aware that the code of ethics of psychologists says that people will not do harm when they are in the process.
TAT: You're talking a little away from the issue. The issue is that I know of therapists across the country who are treating adults in therapy -- not in the forensic arena -- whose parents continue to call, picket, and harass them in the name of "false memory syndrome." Do you want to say anything about that? Do you want to address that? Do you want to indicate that that's NOT what you stand for?
Freyd: We don't support picketing.
TAT: So if I was being picketed or had someone calling me insisting that I break confidentiality, could I say I spoke to an official of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation who said this is not a tactic they endorse?
Freyd: That's correct.
TAT: I want to move back to an area that I'm not real comfortable asking you about, but I'm going to, because I think it's germane to this discussion. When we began our discussion [see "A Conversation with Pamela Freyd, Ph.D., Part 1", Treating Abuse Today, 3(3), P. 25-39] we spoke a bit about how your interest in this issue intersected your own family situation. You have admitted writing about it in your widely disseminated "Jane Doe" article. I think wave been able to cover legitimate ground in our discussion without talking about that, but I am going to return to it briefly because there lingers an important issue there. I want to know how you react to people who say that the Foundation is basically an outgrowth of an unresolved family matter in your own family and that some of the initial members of your Scientific Advisory Board have had dual professional relationships with you and your family, and are not simply scientifically attached to the Foundation and its founders.
Freyd: People can say whatever they want to say. The fact of the matter is, day after day, people are calling to say that something very wrong has taken place. They're telling us that somebody they know and love very much, has acquired memories in some kind of situation, that they're sure are false, but that there has been no way to even try to resolve the issues -- now, it's 3,600 families.
TAT: That's kind of side-stepping the question. My question --
Freyd: -- People can say whatever they want. But you know --
TAT: -- But, isn't it true that some of the people on your scientific advisory have a professional reputation that is to some extent now dependent upon some findings in your own family?
Freyd: Oh, I don't think so. A professional reputation dependent upon findings in my family?
TAT: In the sense that they may have been consulted professionally first about a matter in your own family. Is that not true?
Freyd: What difference does that make?
TAT: It would bring into question their objectivity. It would also bring into question the possibility of this being a folie à deux --
Freyd: -- If you want to question the professionals on our advisory board, you may talk with them.
TAT: Let me go a little bit further with this. I'm not trying to be a muckraker here. What I'm trying to get to is, how do you respond to a claim that says it's going to be hard for you to be objective about this because of your --
Freyd: -- Who's objective? Are the therapists? Are therapists objective? Our advisory board I would hope is objective.
TAT: That's where I have to come back at you. There are reports that there's been dual relationships here that may cloud some members' objectivity --
Freyd: -- If you would like to tear apart our advisory board on those grounds I think they're big people and they can take it, if that's what you would like to do.
TAT: That's not where I'm coming from. Where I'm coming from is this: because you're embroiled in issues in your own family that parallel the kind of issues we are discussing, and because there are suggestions that some of your scientific advisory board members were professionally involved with those family matters, there's a natural question of how objective or credible the involved parties can be.
Freyd: If you are questioning the objectivity of the members of our advisory board, then question the objectivity of the members of our advisory board. I suggested you talk with some of them. Go ahead, talk with them --
TAT: -- I'm not going to ask them to divulge a confidentiality. If I did that I would be doing the same thing I told you guys not to do. I more want you to look inside and tell me whether or not there's a possibility here that some of this is colored by your own experience. That's all I'm really saying.
Freyd: I can't speak for any board members.
TAT: I'm talking about you.
Freyd: I can' speak for any other person --
TAT: -- Of course you can't, I'm talking about you.
Freyd: I would not deny that my interest and my perspective has been colored by personal involvement.
TAT: Alright.
Freyd: I wouldn't deny that of course it has. That's why I've been up front about my personal involvement and, frankly, I would be more than happy to have a complete and full investigation of every step and procedure from beginning to now. I'm asking for that. Would you do it? People are not talking to each other. Let me ask you, where do we begin?
TAT: That leads me actually to my last question. You told me earlier that basically you hoped someday you could close up shop.
Freyd: Absolutely.
TAT: What will be the evidence required for you to make the decision to do that?
Freyd: When people stop calling the Foundation and when we are told that the issues that have divided families have been satisfactorily resolved.
TAT: That's going to take a long time, don't you think.?
Freyd: Oh, I hope not. We are getting a trickle of people who are beginning to communicate with their families.
TAT: I don't think we five in a world where anytime in the near future people who in fact are guilty -- who are trying to get out of responsibility -- are going to suddenly embrace their responsibilities, do you?
Freyd: When people can sit down and talk, there will be no reason for the Foundation. One characteristic that people relate when they call is the fact that they have been unable to meet with the people making the accusations or with the therapist involved to discuss the issues.
TAT: Would you be concerned if you knew that the activities of the Foundation had made it less safe for true survivors to come forward?
Freyd: Yes. I'm very concerned. We want your help in doing what needs to be done to bring calmness and a degree of fairness to the issues we're dealing with.
TAT: That's why we've been talking. Thank you very much for your time.
Freyd: You're welcome. Thank you for this opportunity to dialogue. There's a lot of misinformation, so I'm really glad we had this chance to talk.
David L. Calof is highly regarded internationally as a clinician, consultant and frequent presenter on marriage and family therapy, and the treatment of abuse, post-traumatic stress, and the dissociative disorders. He is the author of numerous professional publications and is founder and editor emeritus of the professional journal Treating Abuse Today. His latest book is The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation From a Leading Hypnotherapist(Bantam, 1998). You may reach David at Tele: 206-306-9026, Facsimile: 206-306-9631, email:76430.2614@compuserve.com.
Following is the APA-style citation for this article, which may be copied and pasted into your document.
Calof, David L. (1993). "A Conversation With Pamela Freyd, Ph.D. Co-Founder And Executive Director, False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Inc., Part II," in Treating Abuse Today, Vol. III, No. 4. Retrieved April 08, 2009 from the World Wide Web: http://fmsf.com/v3n4-pfreyd-2.html