"THE ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work.  Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims." -From Trauma and Recovery, by Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. 

Dissociative Amnesia and Recovered Memories Disosociative Amnesia (often miscalled repressed memories)  is a common protective mechanism  when faced with the unbearable-with terror, helplessness, torture, horror, abuse, trauma, with that which would break the mind if held in consciousness.

The phenomena of what are called "repressed" memories ( more accurately called dissociative amnesia) is something that has been observed, well established, and recognized among segments of any population that  has experienced severed trauma, regardless of cultural, religious,  or racial make-up,   from Vietnam War Veterans, to survivors of Torture, Holocaust Survivors, to those who have endured Childhood or Adult Sexual/Physical/  or Emotional  Abuse.

Parts or all  of a trauma can be  forgotten. Even as it is happening many survivors of child abuse "go someplace else", dissociate, it is an automatic response that enables survival itself.

The organization called "The False Memory Syndrome Foundation" is composed mainly of accused child abusers and molesters, and their supporters, including a few scientific advisors. Since at the heart of abuse is the need to re-enact what was done to oneself, most if not all abusers are in a state of denial about their OWN original traumas, and about the devestation of the traumas they have or are inflicting on others.

"Ceci, Bronfrenbrenner, Eckman, and Shepard were among 17 researchers who coauthored a statement objecting to the term false memory syndrome as 'a non-psychological term originated by a private foundation whose stated purpose is to support accused parents.' They urged, 'For the sake of intellectual honesty, let's leave the term 'false memory syndrome' to the popular press'" -Kenneth Pope

My own view is that offenders are people who were traumatized themselves, and are acting out their inner pain, and are in need of intensive long term treatement. So long as there is even the possibility of continuing in denial, most if not all will stay there, and may be abusing others in the present.

The safety and well being of both adult survivors and of children who are now being abused is jeapordized by the efforts of the FMSF. This group is NOT about trying to find those few cases in which someone is wrongly accused. Of course, if anyone is wrongly accused that is a terrible thing, and should be adressed and dealt with appropriately. But the FMSF is about denying the entire reality of dissociative amnesia, delayed recall, and recovered memories. It is about protecting accused parents from their now-adult children's disclosures of the abuse they endured, and it is also about attempts to interfere with the privacy of the client-therpiast relationship.

If ALL adults who have experienced dissociative amnesia and then later recalled their abuse are disbelieved, if helping professionals and the public accept the lie that there are no such things as Recovered Traumatic Memories, current abusers will KNOW that when their victims, children now, later recall what was done to THEM, they will not be believed either. The very safety of children in the PRESENT and FUTURE are at stake.

1*Peter and Pamala Freyd are the founders of the FMSF. They had two daughters, Jennifer and Gwendolyn. As an adult, Jennifer  recovered memories of  her father sexually abusing her as a child. Their younger daughter (Gwendolyn) had long ago chosen to distance herself from her parents.  While Peter and Pamala are husband and wife, they are also step siblings, who  lived in the same house as such for a short time.  After watching a PBS Frontline documentary in 1995, which was biased heavily in favor of the FMS, William, Peter's brother,  wrote this letter to Frontline:

"Peter Freyd is my brother. Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law. Jennifer and Gwendolyn are my nieces.There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters. Peter said (on your show "Divided Memories") that his humor was ribald. Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst.

We do not understand why you would "buy" such an obviously flawed story. But buy it you did, based on the severely biased presentation you made of the memory issue that Peter and Pam created to deny their own diificult reality...

I would advance the idea that "Divided Memories" hurt victims, helped abusers, and confused the public. I wonder why you thought these results would be in the public interest that Public Broadcasting is funded to support."

After hearing of Jennifer Freyd's story, 2 professional FMS advisory board members resigned.

1*Two FMSF advisory board members (no longer part of the board ) were quoted in an interview as advocating pedophilia as a potentially healthy lifestyle, in fact, the person who seems to have come up with the phrase "False Memory Syndrome", Ralph Underwager, Ph.D,made this horrifying set of comments in he Netherlands publication, Paidika:The Journal of Paedophioia:

In answer to the quetion :"Is choosing pedophilia for you a responsible choice for the individual", he replied,"Certainly it is responsible....Pedophiles can boldly and courageiously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love. I am also a theologian and as a theologian I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of the flesh, between people. A pedopile can say:'This closeness is possible for me within the choices that I've made."

Once the nature of his comments in this article was known by the public, he resigned from the board, without the foundation giving specific reasons for this resignation.

"When victims now risk speaking the truth of their experience to any of their families, they not only run the risk of being invalidated and denied by their abusers and co-abusers, but some of these perpetrators will also receive support for their denial from the FMSF and other enablers with similar views. These enablers are subtle and sophisticated........ When the first few survivors of sexual abuse by Father James Porter told of their memories, Porter denied having sexually abused any of them. And he had numerous enablers and co-abusers who supported his denial, including many authority figures in the Catholic Church. Over time, 130 of his victims had spoken up, and in 1993 he admitted to having abused at least 28 innocent children. We could even say that Porter and abusers like him, who are dissociated from their own pain or who deny their behavior, are the ones with the real 'false memory syndrome.''
-Charles Whitfield, M.D., in Memory and Abuse