Ken,
I must say that I am truly disturbed by your first post in this topic. In your warning to Healer to "be careful of what may be the therapist's agenda (i.e., proving that you were abused.)," you cited three items that deeply trouble me: The McMartin Day Care case, "false memory syndrome," and the research of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus.
In telling Healer he could "google the McMartin Day Care case and other "false memory syndrome" cases," you characterize McMartin Day Care as an example of "false memory syndrome," by using the word "other." That case initially came about around a child named Matthew Johnson, who was two-years-old at the time. The therapists' inappropriate coaxing of the children in that case resulted in false accusations at the time, not false memories . The McMartin Day Care case is proof of the extreme suggestability of young children, not an example of proven "false memories" being implanted in an adult, such as Healer. It has no relevance to Healer's situation. It is, however, the Holy Grail example for abuse deniers, and that you cite it is a bad sign.
You used the term "false memory syndrome" with an easy assumed credibility in your sentence I quoted above. It is amazingly irresponsible for you to use that term on a site for survivors of CSA, without mentioning that this "syndrome" is widely considered to be an invention of an organized pro-perpatrator, pro-incest lobby, formalized in the "False Memory Syndrome Foundation." This "syndrome" is not generally recognized, and in fact, is derided by the psychological and scientific community outside of that advocacy organization. It is not included in the DSM. It is a made-up term supported by shoddy, contrived research.
Lastly, you cited Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, and specifically her research on implanting "false memories" in test subjects. I'm guessing that you are referring to her 'Lost in a Shopping Mall" study, in which Dr. Loftus, with the knowing aid of parents, convinced subjects that they had been lost in a mall when they were young, when they actually hadn't been, by mixing this "false" memory in with actual events from the subject's childhood. This study treated the everyday experience of being in a mall as equatible to sexual abuse, ridiculous as that sounds. As any mental health professional in a VA hospital will tell you, and, by the way, a mountain of research will tell you, traumatic memories are processed differently by the brain, than are non-traumatic memories.
This study that you wrongly described as "basically good research" has been discredited by the larger academic and mental health community. "Ethics and Behavior," a peer-review journal, characterized the study as a "breach of professional ethics," saying "we must conclude that Loftus and Pickrell's mall study does not support in any manner the notion that false autobiographical memories of abuse in childhood can be implanted by therapists." If you want a detailed review of this bogus study you can read this article:
https://www.inpsyte.ca/mallstdy.html
Dr. Loftus herself is the leading denier of repressed memories as ever being valid. Although she is always careful to allow for the slight possibility of the existence of repressed memories, based on combat veterans and other non-sexual abuse examples, her agenda is pretty easy to discern from the title of her book, "The Myth of Repressed Memory." That is the actual title of a book she wrote. Dr. Loftus has testified as an expert witness in more than 150 criminal cases, every time for the defense. She even titled her autobiography "Witness for the Defense." Dr. Loftus is a defender of perpetrators, and has dedicated her life to hammering away at the credibility of CSA survivors. That you would cite her here is as unimaginable to me as a moderator and board member of the Shoah Foundation website citing Mel Gibson and his father about the historical accuracy of the holocaust. If you want to read a detailed examination of the logic and methodology flaws in Dr. Loftus's research, as well as more about her pro-perpetrator agenda, you can find one here:
https://www.patiencepress.com/samples/4thIssue.html
Healer, if your father did sexually abuse you when you were a child, then he did plenty at the time to cause you to doubt yourself, then and now. If your therapist doesn't think it's crucial to recall a specific event, then he or she sounds like a very low-risk candidate for Ken's warning that he or she may have an "agenda" of "proving you were abused." Listen to yourself. Trust yourself. It is a brutal process, and unfortunately not a linear one. In my experience, no one has ever suggested a memory to me. But a lot of people have warned me that a therapist might. Be very wary of these people.
Jim
