Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1997, page 42
(1996) reviewed 25 studies, the only studies available at the time, and discovered that
every one of them found dissociative amnesia. Since that article was written, five more
studies have appeared, and they, too, reach the same conclusion as to the reality of
dissociative amnesia (Brown et al., 1997). Thus, after a careful search of the scientific
literature directly on point, 30 studies document dissociative amnesia none find against it.
Whitfield (1997) has recently raised the number to 36 studies, and Henderson (1997) has
reported on study 37.
While objections may always be raised concerning the methodology of any particular study,
these 36 studies reflect a variety of methodological procedures, not just one common
experimental design. The first round of studies were surveys using clinical samples of
persons in therapy (Albach, Moorman, &Bermond, in press Briere &Conte, 1993
Cameron, 1994 Draijer, 1990 Ensink, 1992 Herman &Schatzow, 1987 Kluft, 1997
Loftus, Polonsky, &Fullilove, 1994 Roe &Schwartz, 1996 Pomerantz, 1996) or using
therapists (Feldman-Summers &Pope, 1994 Fish &Scott, 1996 Polusny &Follette, 1996
Westerhof, Woertman, &van der Hart, in press). False memory advocates criticized this
method on the grounds that it involved people who were in psychotherapy.
A second round of studies sought to correct for this point by asking survey questions of
people entering psychotherapy (Gold, Hughes, &Hohnecker, 1994). False memory
advocates criticized this method on the grounds that there was still sample selection and
experimenter bias because of the psychotherapy setting.
A third round of experiments answered this objection by surveying nonclinical targeted
and/or random samples --people not in or entering therapy (Golding, 1995). College
student populations in the United States (Bernet, Deutscher, Ingram, &Litrownik, 1993
Elliott &Fox, 1994 Golding, Sanchez, &Sego, 1996 Melchert, 1996) and Canada (Belicki,
Correy, Boucock, Cuddy, &Dunlop, 1994) provided the resource for some of these survey
studies, while others used random samples of people who responded to advertisements in
newspapers (Hovdestad &Kristiansen, 1996 Kristiansen, Felton, Hovdestad, &Allard,
1995 Van der Kolk &Fisler, 1995), to toll-free telephone numbers (Roesler &Wind, 1994),
to random telephone numbers (Elliott &Briere, 1995), or to mailed questionnaires sent to
targeted persons who claimed to be victims of Father Porter, a priest who confessed and
was convicted of sexually molesting dozens of boys and girls decades earlier (Grassian &
Holtzen, 1996), or to targeted people claiming ritual abuse (Goodman, Qin, Bottoms, &
Shaver, 1995). Once again, however, false memory advocates complained that these types
of studies failed to document the existence of the alleged childhood sexual abuse.
To correct for this objection, a fourth round of studies was conducted, this time involving
prospective designs which started with hospital records of actual abuse and involved
tracking down the victims decades later (Burgess, Hartman, &Baker, 1995 Widom &
Morris, in press L. M. Williams, 1994). Once again, however, the false memory critics
rejected this method because it failed to add a follow-up “clarification” interview as
described by Femina, Yeager, and Lewis (1990). Scheflin and Brown (1996) have pointed
out, however, that the use of such a “clarification” interview is unduly suggestive because it
signals to the subject the answer the questioner wants to receive.
Taken as a whole, and especially considering the variety of designs, and the different
methods within each design, these studies constitute a formidable body of research work
demonstrating that proponents of repression have met their burden of proof.
Opponents of repression, who have failed to cite a single study in the world memory
literature supporting their view, as a final attempt to save their belief that repressed
memory does not exist, have argued that the scientific studies demonstrate only
“forgetting,” not “repression.” This approach was adopted by a recent Maryland court to
deny the existence of repression on the grounds that it is indistinguishable from forgetting.

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1997, page 43
As we shall see, however, that court‟s reasoning is both incomplete and fallacious. In Doe v.
Maskell (1996), plaintiffs claimed repressed memories and requested application of the
delayed discovery rule that would permit bringing a cause of action after the statute of
limitations period expired (Spiegel &Scheflin, 1994). In denying plaintiffs‟ request, the
court found that the crucial question was whether there was a difference between
repressing and forgetting. Mere forgetting would be insufficient to toll the application of the
statute of limitations. But the plaintiffs in this case claimed that they had not “forgotten,”
but rather they had “repressed” the memories and “recovered” them much later in time.
The heart of the court‟s analysis is contained in this excerpt, reprinted at length because of
the importance of the arguments raised:
To aid in an understanding of plaintiffs argument, we have extracted two implicit
assumptions: 1. That there is a qualitative and quantitative difference between
“repression” and mere “forgetting ” and 2. that this difference is of a sufficient
quality to compel us to find that plaintiff is excused by operation of the discovery
rule and had no reason to have known about the existence of her cause of
action....
We begin by attempting to understand what repression is. Even defining the term
is not easy it originated with Sigmund Freud who used the term differently and
sometimes contradictorily throughout his career. David S. Holmes, The Evidence
for Repression: An Examination of Sixty Years of Research, in Repression and
Disassociation: Implications for Personality, Theory, Psychopathology and Health,
85, 85B86 (J. Singer, ed., 1990) [hereinafter “The Evidence for Repression”].
Holmes chooses to adopt a definition of repression based on the manner in which
the term is conventionally used: “It is my belief that in its general use the concept
of repression has three elements: (1) repression is the selective forgetting of
materials that cause the individual pain (2) repression is not under voluntary
control and (3) repressed material is not lost but instead stored in the unconscious
and can be returned to consciousness if the anxiety that is associated with the
memory is removed. The assertion that repression is not under voluntary control
differentiates repression from suppression and denial, with which it is sometimes
confused....” The Evidence for Repression at 86.
The plaintiffs have provided us with several studies purporting to validate the
diagnosis of repression. [The court here cites the four studies discussed by Pope
and Hudson. It does not cite or discuss any of the other 26 studies.]
The Defendants have also offered significant scientific information tending to
discredit the concept of repression and its application in this setting. These
arguments against repression take several forms.
First, the adversaries of repression stress that there is no empirical, scientific evidence
to support the claims that repression exists. The studies purporting to validate
repression theory are justly criticized as unscientific, unrepresentative, and biased. See,
for example, Harrison G. Pope, Jr. &James I. Hudson, “Can memories of childhood
sexual abuse be repressed?” 25 Psychol. Med. 121 (1995) The Evidence for Repression
at 96-99. The reason for the failure of repression enthusiasts to obtain empirical
evidence may be the nature of the process itself. As Dr. Jason Brandt of the Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine testified: “There are clear cases of people who
claim that they don‟t remember things that happened in their past for whom no
neurologic cause can be found. They don‟t have brain damage. They have nothing
organically wrong that can account for [the claimed memory loss]. The question
whether they remember or not, whether they truly have the mental state of a memory
or not is impossible to determine.” “We know what they are reporting, we don‟t know