part 3 of 4
 
        We also know that people are susceptible to suggestions. The
        daughter in the Humberger case had rectal pains. The therapist
        suggested they might be body memories of previous abuse, and sure
        enough, shortly after, under the therapists leading hand, the
        daughter rememberd being anally raped. When the father was accused
        of these particular events he threatened to shoot himself and the
        therapist. Shortly thereafter, the daughter recovered a new memory,
        this time the father had put the gun to her vagina.
 
        It is very clear that some accusations are false. A recent study
        used the polygraph or lie detector(and we know they aren't perfect)
        but the results should be cause for thought. This particular study
        looked at the polygraph results of the persons who were charged
        with child sexual abuse. One group were charged on the basis of
        continous memories, that is, these were victims who simply never
        forgot the abuse. 78% of thes accused persons who took the test
        voluntarily scored exceptive, only 22% scored truthful. Others
        charged on the basis of memories recovered by adults who have not
        remembered being abused until adults scored with 6% percent of them
        as exceptive and 94% of them scored as truthful in their
        repsonses. EVEN THOUGH POLYGRAPH RESULTS ARE NOT PERFECT, A RATIO
        OF 78% AND 6% IS BIG ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU STOP AND THINK.
 
        A smart set of conclusions include:
 
        1: some of the memories and the accusations based on them are
           false.
 
        2. It's fairly easy to get people to beleive this especially with a
           hundred of so sessions to work with. The problem is more 
ronounced
           when you are dealing with children.
 
        3. There is no sure way to tell with the story itself, if the
           allegation is true. The conclusion is that there is always a
           reasonable doubt, in fact, a doubt big enough to drive a Mack 
ruck
           through, if the only basis for an accusation is a recovered 
emory.
 
        Science is catching up, and the nonsense is going to die, but it's
        still going on. There's a recent Ontario case; in 1992 a farmer was
        accused of raping a 13 year old girl 24 years in the past. The
        woman had been in therapy for about 5 years, had the recovered
        memories of the rape as well as memories of also being abused by
        almost all of her male relatives. She had become involved in
        organisations to stop child abuse, she apppeared on television,
        sher wrote articles, she accosted the farmer and his wife at the
        fair, and told the wife that her husband was a rapist. She wrote a
        letter to the wife expressing fears that her children were being
        abused. Her parents wrote to the 4-H club and insisted that this
        "rapist farmer" be removed as vice-president. She asked the police
        to investigate a rumor that he'd been fired from his job for making
        sexual advances: The police investigated and he hadn't, but that
        didn't stop her. When the trial came up she repeated this false
        accusation knowing to was investigated and found to be false, and
        he was convicted. The judge was likely swayed by the passion with
        which she told her story. But her passion included remembering her
        terror at passing his workplace on her way to school. The p[roblem
        is that: he didn't work where she thought he did. She also vividly
        remembered his large hands on her body, but she missed the fact
        that one of his large hands was missing a very large finger and had
        another finger that was bent at a right angle. She also remembered
        passionately that he had freckles on his penis, his doctor denied
        it. He was not forced to go through the indignity of suffering the
        trauma of a line up at the trial. But sanity prevailed at the court
        of appeal which quashed the conviction and sent the case back for
        retrial, and at the retrial, as you might expect, the therapeutic
        records were no longer available, so the case was tossed out.
 
        THESE ARE JUST A FEW EXAMPLE AND THERE ARE VERY MANY MORE, BUT WE
        HAVE TO GET RID OF THE MYTH THAT ALL ACCUSATIONS ARE TRUE. YOU
        OFTEN HEAR PEOPLE SAY, "WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE UP SOMETHING LIKE
        THAT"?  UNFORTUNATELY THERE ARE MANY ANSWERS AND SOME AREN'T VERY
        PRETTY. THE ANSWERS INCLUDE: GREED, CRUMMY THERAPY, HONEST BUT
        MISGUIDED ZEAL, AND THE RAW DESIRE FOR POLITICAL POWER.
 
continued........
 
 
... There are no free women until there are free men.....
--- DB 1.58/004910
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