Betrayal Trauma and Memory

The Link between

“repression” and “recovery” of memories and life threatening betrayal

Background - Sexual Abuse• Historically, reported statistics varied

– Kinsey (1953)• 1 in 4 women reported childhood sexual abuse

– Weinberg (1955)• 1 to 2 cases of incest per year, per each million U.S. citizens

– Finkelhor (1975)• 19% females and 9% males

– Henderson (1975)• 1.1 to 1.9 per million people

– Timnick (1985)• 27% females, 16% males

– Russel (1986) • 16% of females were were sexually abused prior to 18 years old

– Pope and Hudson (1995)• 10% of women and 5% of men endured serious childhood abuse. (14 million

adults in the US)

Background – Lost and Recovered Memory

• Disparity between clinical practitioners and laboratory/cognitive scientists regarding memory.– Clinicians reporting loss and then recovery of

traumatic memories• Pierre Janet (1889), Breuer and Freud (1893), • WW I - Meyers (1915), Southard (1919)• WW II – Sargant and Slater (1941)• Vietnam War – van der Kolk, 1987

Background – Lost and Recovered Memory

• False Memory Syndrome– 1980’s Day-Care Abuse “Hysteria”

• Kern County, McMartin, Wee Care…• ReligiousTolerance.org

– Lawrence Wright – The New Yorker, 1993• “Remembering Satan”

– Ingram case (Olympia)» Confession followed by recantation by accused perpetrator» Presented as modern day Salem Witch Trial

– Wright inferred that he had documented 1000’s of cases of cases of false accusations.

– In Ethics on Trial: Trash and Flash Threaten to Corrupt the American Media,Judith Herman noted that when confronted, Wright answered that he had only documented “one” case.

• The Facade of Scientific Documentation – Many cognitive scientists also rejected concept of delayed recall or

accuracy of retrieved memories. They had not experienced it in laboratory conditions.

• Link to Elizabeth Loftus article, 1995

Background – Lost and Recovered Memory

– In 1990’s Cognitive Scientists start to take Recovered Memory seriously

• Freyd, in 1996, published “Betrayal Trauma”– Airline near-collision story– Clarified/standardized terminology and techniques– Utilized and expanded latest knowledge related to memory– Eliminated diminutive terminology when referring to victims

• Mechanic, Resnick and Griffen in 1998 studied memory in 92 rape victims

– Within 2 weeks following rape 37% of the subjects experienced significant amnesia

– At 3 months only 16% of the completing subjects had significant amnesia

– Conclusions:» Following rape there is a high incidence of recovered memory» Amnesia and recovered memory occur more often in response to

victimization by known perpetrators» Dissociation, but not ordinary memory processes like forgetting

seems to play a primary role in the encoding, storage and retrieval of traumatic memories

Substantiated Case Informationof Recovered Memories

• Brown University Site - Case information and Scholarly Research

Betrayal Trauma

• Jennifer Freyd, PhD, University of Oregon– University of Oregon - Link

Betrayal Tauma• Addresses both How and Why we forget traumatic

experiences.– How

• Narrative memory bypassed• When recalled, majority of subjects report that they initially

experienced their memories as sensations and affects

– Why (Think, “survival!”)• Normal trauma (remembered)

– Important to remember the event, so as not to repeat it

• Betrayal Trauma (not remembered)– Two dimensional model

» Terror and threats to life – bodily harm» Betrayal and threats to social survival

– Childhood sexual abuse is more likely to be forgotten if it is perpetrated by a parent or trusted caregiver in order for the victim to preserve the attachment.

Freyd's Two-Dimensional Model for Traumatic Events

Understanding Mechanisms - How

• Traditional model of memory– Conceptualized as a “thing”– Looks at memory as coherent, single, system– Encoding, storing, retrieval

• A more recent view of memory– A component of a multitude of other systems– Brain is multifaceted

• For each type of learning there is associated memory• PET scans – provide evidence that information stored in memory is

linked to related mental mechanisms• “Object Knowledge”, “Multiple modules processing events in

parallel”

• Roe and Schwartz (1996) – 60% of their abused inpatients reported their first recovered

memory of abuse as somatosensory flashback.

Freyd - Mental Processing Clusters

Abuse fromparent

Conversation in next room

Insect onskin

Tactileperception /

memory

Social eventcomprehension

/ memory

Learning parenting

skills

CheaterDetector(negative

affect)

External events Mental processing clusters

Selective Attention

• J. Ridley Stroop (1935) – impact of intrusive information and automatic processing in attempts at selective attention.

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Selective Attention

• J. Ridley Stroop (1935) – impact of intrusive information and automatic processing in attempts at selective attention.

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5

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888

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Besel A. van der Kolkeffects of emotional arousal

on declarative memory

PrefrontalCortex

(integrationand

Planning)

Hippocampus(cognitive maps)

Amygdala(significance)

Thalamus(sensory input)

Sensory Organs

Freyd - Mental Processing Clusters(with informational blockages)

Abuse fromparent

Conversation in next room

Insect onskin

Tactileperception /

memory

Social eventcomprehension

/ memory

Learning parenting

skills

CheaterDetector(negative

affect)

External events Mental processing clusters

X

X

X

In Summary

• Freyd– Abuse and interpersonal victimization is a

staggering problem• Some people forget the abuse• Forgetting is more likely when the perpetrator was

a care giver• Memory accuracy is separate from memory

persistence• People have unscientific and biased ideas about

these issues

In Summary

• Freyd– What needs to change?

• We need to stop confusing the persistence of a memory with its accuracy because there is no compelling evidence that a memory is more or less accurate if it is continuous compared with recovered

• There is evidence that memories are more likely to be forgotten if the perpetrator is a care giver