Recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: Current findings and their legal implications

Legal and Criminological Psychology

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 165-176

  Geraerts, Elke ^a,b   Raymaekers, Linsey ^b   Merckelbach, Harald ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS   (United Kingdom)

^b MAASTRICHT UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE; CLINICAL PRACTICE; COGNITION; CRIMINAL JUSTICE; EPISODIC MEMORY; FALSE MEMORY; FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; LEGAL EVIDENCE; LIFE STRESS; MEMORY CONSOLIDATION; PERSONAL EXPERIENCE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PSYCHOTHERAPY; RECALL; RISK ASSESSMENT;

EID: 50849090628     PISSN: 13553259     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1348/135532508X298559     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Alison, L., Kebbell, M., & Lewis, P. (2006). Considerations for experts in assessing the credibility of recovered memories of child sexual abuse. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 12, 419-441.
2. Anderson, M. C., & Green, C. (2001). Suppressing unwanted thoughts by executive control. Nature, 410, 366-369.
3. Andrews, B., Brewin, C. R., Ochera, J., Morton, J., Bekerian, D. A., Davies, G. M., et al. (1999). Characteristics, context and consequences of memory recovery among adults in therapy. British Journal of Psychiatry, 175, 141-146.
4. Belli, R. G., Winkielman, P., Read, J. D., Schwarz, N., & Lynn, S. J. (1998). Recalling more childhood events leads to judgments of poorer memory: Implications for the recovered/false memory debate. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 5, 318-323.
5. Brandon, S., Boakes, J., Glaser, D., & Green, R. (1998). Recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: Implications for clinical practice. British Journal of Psychiatry, 172, 296-307.
6. Brewin, C. R. (2007). Autobiographical memory for trauma: Update on four controversies. Memory, 15, 227-248.
7. Clancy, S. A. (2005). Abducted: How people come to believe they were kidnapped by aliens. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
8. Clancy, S. A., Schacter, D. L., McNally, R. J., & Pitman, R. K. (2000). False recognition in women reporting recovered memories of sexual abuse. Psychological Science, 11, 26-31.
9. Coleman, B. L., Stevens, M. J., & Reeder, G. D. (2001). What makes recovered-memory testimony compelling to jurors? Law and Human Behavior, 25, 317-338.
10. Connolly, D. A., & Read, D. J. (2007). Canadian criminal court reports of historic child sexual abuse: Factors associated with delayed prosecution and reported repression. In Y. Orbach, A. Cederborg, M. Pipe, & M. Lamb (Eds.), Child sexual abuse: Disclosure, delay, and denial (pp. 195-217). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
11. Cunnien, A. J. (1997). Psychiatric and medical syndromes associated with deception. In R. Rogers (Ed.), Clinical assessment of malingering and deception (pp. 23-46). New York: Guilford.
12. Deese, J. (1959). On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 58, 17-22.
13. Feignon, E. A., & de Rivera, J. (1998). 'Recovered-memory' therapy: Profession at a turning point. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 39, 338-344.
14. Freyd, J. J., & Gleaves, D. F. (1996). 'Remembering' words not presented in lists: Relevance to the current recovered/false memory controversy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 22, 811-813.
15. Geraerts, E., Arnold, M. M., Lindsay, D. S., Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., & Hauer, B. (2006a). Forgetting of prior remembering in persons reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Psychological Science, 17, 1002-1008.
16. Geraerts, E., & Jelicic, M. (2008). New insights in trauma and memory: Editorial of special issue. Memory, 16, 1-2.
17. Geraerts, E., Jelicic, M., & Merckelbach, H. (2006b). Symptom overreporting and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 621-630.
18. Geraerts, E., Lindsay, D. S., Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., Raymaekers, L., Arnold, M. M., et al. (2008a). Cognitive mechanisms underlying recovered memory experiences of childhood sexual abuse. Manuscript submitted for publication.
19. Geraerts, E., & McNally, R.J. (2008). Assessment of recovered and false memories. In R. Rogers (Ed.), Clinical assessment of malingering and deception (3rd ed., pp. 274-284). New York: Guilford.
20. Geraerts, E., McNally, R. J., Jelicic, M., Merckelbach, H., & Raymaekers, L. (2008b). Linking thought suppression and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Memory, 16, 22-28.
21. Geraerts, E., Schooler, J. W., Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., Hauer, B. J. A., & Ambadar, Z. (2007b). The reality of recovered memories: Corroborating continuous and discontinuous memories of childhood sexual abuse. Psychological Science, 18, 564-567.
22. Geraerts, E., Smeets, E., Jelicic, M., van Heerden, J., & Merckelbach, H. (2005). Fantasy proneness, but not self-reported trauma is related to DRM performance of women reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 602-612.
23. Ghetti, S., Edelstein, R. S., Goodman, G. S., Cordon, I. M., Quas, J. A., Weede Alexander, K., et al. (2006). What can subjective forgetting tell us about memory for childhood trauma? Memory and Cognition, 34, 1011-1025.
24. Haber, L., & Haber, R. N. (1998). Criteria for judging the admissibility of eyewitness testimony of long past events. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 4, 1135-1159.
25. Howe, M. L., & Courage, M. L. (1993). On resolving the enigma of infantile amnesia. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 305-326.
26. Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S., & Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Source monitoring. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 3-28.
27. Joslyn, S., Loftus, E. F., McNoughton, A., & Powers, J. (2001). Memory for memory. Memory and Cognition, 29, 789-797.
28. Lilienfeld, S. O. (2007). Psychological treatments that cause harm. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 53-70.
29. Lindsay, D. S., & Read, J. D. (2001). The recovered memories controversy: Where do we go from here? In G. M. Davies & T. Dalgleish (Eds.), Recovered memories: Seeking the middle ground (pp. 71-93). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
30. Loftus, E. F. (2005). Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learning and Memory, 12, 361-366.
31. London, K., Bruck, M., Wright, D. B., & Ceci, S. J. (2008). Review of contemporary literature on how children report sexual abuse to others: Findings, methodological issues, and implications for forensic interviewers. Memory, 16, 29-47.
32. Lynn, S. J., Lock, T., Loftus, E. F., Krackow, E., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2003). The remembrance of things past: Problematic memory recovery techniques in psychotherapy. In S. O. Lilienfeld, S. J. Lynn, & J. M. Lohr (Eds.), Science and pseudoscience in clinical psychology (pp. 205-239). New York: Guilford.
33. Merckelbach, H., Smeets, T., Geraerts, E., Jelicic, M., Bouwen, A., & Smeets, E. (2006). I haven't thought about this for years! Dating recent recalls of vivid memories. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 33-42.
34. Nachson, I., Read, D.J., Seelau, S. M., Goodyear-Smith, F., Lobb, B., Davies, G., et al. (2007). Effects of prior knowledge and expert statement on belief in recovered memories: An international perspective. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 30, 224-236.
35. Parks, T.E (1999). On one aspect of the evidence for recovered memories. American Journal of Psychology, 112, 365-370.
36. Peters, M. J. V., Horselenberg, R., Jelicic, M., & Merckelbach, H. (2007). The false fame illusion in people with memories about a previous life. Consciousness and Cognition, 16, 162-169.
37. Read, J. D., & Lindsay, D. S. (2000). 'Amnesia' for summer camps and high school graduation: Memory work increases reports of prior periods of remembering less. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 13, 129-147.
38. Roediger, H. L., III & McDermott, K. B. (1995). Creating false memories: Remembering words not presented in lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 803-814.
39. Schacter, D. L. (1995). Memory wars. Scientific American, 272, 135-139.
40. Schooler, J. W., Bendiksen, M. A., & Ambadar, Z. (1997). Taking the middle line: Can we accommodate both fabricated and recovered memories of sexual abuse? In M. Conway (Ed.), False and recovered memories (pp. 251-292). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
41. Scott, S. (2001). politics and experience of ritual abuse: Beyond disbelief. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
42. Shobe, K. K., & Schooler, J. W. (2001). Discovering fact and fiction: Case-based analyses of authentic and fabricated memories of abuse. In G. M. Davies, & T. Dalgleish (Eds.), Recovered memories: Seeking the middle ground (pp. 95-151). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
43. Wilkomirski, B. (1996). Fragments. Memories of a Childhood, 1939-1948. New York: Schocken Books, Translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway.