FMS - False Memory Syndrome Foundation

The problem:

Increasingly throughout the country, grown children undergoing therapeutic programs have come to believe that they suffer from "repressed memories" of incest and sexual abuse. While some reports of incest and sexual abuse are surely true, these decade-delayed memories are too often the result of False Memory Syndrome caused by a disastrous "therapeutic" program. False Memory Syndrome has a devastating effect on the victim and typically produces a continuing dependency on the very program that creates the syndrome. False Memory Syndrome proceeds to destroy the psychological well-being not only of the primary victim but through false accusations of incest and sexual abuse other members of the primary victim's family.

It is the purpose of the Foundation:

To seek the reasons for the spread of False Memory Syndrome;
To work for the prevention of new cases of False Memory Syndrome; and
To aid the victims of False Memory Syndrome, and to bring their families into reconciliation.

The Foundation will pursue these ends by collaborating with the professions in the following ways:

By publicizing the nature and prevalence of False Memory Syndrome, the conditions and practices causing and sustaining it, and the steps that affected individuals can take to bring truth and well-being back into their lives;
By promoting and sponsoring competent scientific and medical research in False Memory Syndrome, and disseminating the results to the professions; and
By helping the secondary victims (those falsely accused) to establish reliable methods to discriminate between true and false claims of incest and abuse charges, and the psychological and other reasons they are made, including the intentional or unwitting suggestion of therapists and therapeutic programs.

The Foundation will seek to develop and support programs to:

Provide and disseminate accurate information on False Memory Syndrome to the general public;
Provide information on legal rights, and access to legal counsel, to alleviate or remedy damage done by such accusations resulting from False Memory Syndrome; and
Sponsor and conduct scientific and medical research on the existence and causes of False Memory Syndrome.

It is important to assure that our mental health practices are so good that they both encourage true victims of child abuse to come forth and discourage false accusations.
Pamela Freyd, Ph.D.


PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY BOARD, September 98

This is a list in short form of the Board members; see also the FMSF Scientific and Advisory Board: Member Profiles.

Aaron T. Beck, M.D., D.M.S.
 University Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry
 University of Pennsylvania
 Philadelphia, PA

Terence W. Campbell, Ph.D.
 Clinical and Forensic Psychologist
 Sterling Heights, MI

Rosalind Cartwright, Ph.D.
 Director of the Sleep Disorder Clinic
 Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center
 Chicago, IL

Jean Chapman,  Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 University of Wisconsin
 Madison, WI

Loren Chapman,  Ph.D.
 Professor Emeritus of Psychology
 University of Wisconsin
 Madison, WI

Fredrick Crews, Ph.D.
 Professor Emeritus of English
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA

Robyn M. Dawes, Ph.D.
 University Professor of Social and Decision Sciences
 Carnegie Mellon University
 Pittsburgh, PA

David F. Dinges, Ph.D.
 The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital
 Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry
 University of Pennsylvania
 Philadelphia, PA

Henry C. Ellis, Ph.D.
 Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology
 University of New Mexico
 Albuquerque, NM

Fred H. Frankel, MBChB, DPM
 Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry 
 Harvard University Medical School
 Boston, MA

George K. Ganaway, M.D.
 Director, Ridgeview Center for Dissociative Disorders
 Clinical Assistant Prof of Psychiatry
 Emory University
 Atlanta, GA

Martin Gardner
 Author
 Hendersonville, NC

Rochel Gelman, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 Rutgers University
 New Brunswick, NJ

Henry Gleitman, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 University of Pennsylvania
 Philadelphia, PA

Lila Gleitman, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 University of Pennsylvania
 Philadelphia, PA

Richard Green, M.D., J.D.
 Professor of Psychiatry
 Charing Cross Hospital
 London, UK

David A. Halperin, M.D.
 Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
 Mount Sinai School of Medicine
 New York, NY

Ernest Hilgard, Ph.D.
 Professor Emeritus of Psychology
 Stanford University
 Palo Alto, CA

John Hochman, M.D.
 Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
 University of California Medical School
 Los Angeles, CA

David S. Holmes, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 University of Kansas
 Lawrence, KS

Philip S. Holzman, Ph.D.
 Rabb Professor of Psychology
 Professor of Psychiatry
 Harvard University
 Cambridge, MA 

Robert A. Karlin, Ph.D.
 Associate Professor of Psychology
 Rutgers University
 New Brunswick, NJ

Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 Adjunct Professor of Law
 University of Washington
 Seattle, WA

Susan L. McElroy, M.D.
 Co-director Biological Psychiatry Program
 University of Cincinnati
 Cincinnati, OH

Paul McHugh, M.D.
 Phipps Professor of Psychiatry
 Johns Hopkins University
 Baltimore, MD

Harold Merskey, D.M.
 Professor of Psychiatry
 University of Western Ontario
 London, Ontario, CANADA

Spencer Harris Morfit
 Author
 Westford, MA

Ulric Neisser, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 Cornell University
 Ithaca, NY

Richard Ofshe, Ph.D.
 Professor of Sociology
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA

Emily Carota Orne, B.A.
 Research Psychologist
 University of Pennsylvania
 Philadelphia, PA

Loren Pankratz, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology
 Oregon Health Sciences University
 Portland, OR

Campbell Perry, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 Concordia University
 Montreal, Quebec, CANADA

Michael A. Persinger, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 Laurentian University
 Sudbury, Ontario, CANADA

August T. Piper Jr., M.D.
 Psychiatrist
 Seattle, WA

Harrison Pope, Jr., M.D.
 Associate Professor of Psychiatry
 Harvard Medical School
 Boston, MA

James Randi
 Author and Magician
 Plantation, FL

Henry L. Roediger, III, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 Washington University
 St. Louis, MO

Carolyn Saari, Ph.D.
 Professor of Social Work
 Loyola University
 Chicago, IL

Theodore Sarbin, Ph.D.
 Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Criminology
 University of California
 Santa Cruz, CA

Thomas A. Sebeok, Ph.D.
 Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Semiotics
 Indiana University
 Bloomington, IN

Margaret Singer, Ph.D.
 Adjunct Professor Emeritus of Psychology
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA

Ralph Slovenko, J.D., Ph.D.
 Professor of Law and Psychiatry
 Wayne State University Law School
 Detroit, MI

Donald Spence, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychiatry
 Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center
 Piscataway, NJ

Jeffrey Victor, Ph.D.
 Professor of Sociology
 Jamestown Community College
 Jamestown, NY

Hollida Wakefield, M.A.
 Psychologist
 Institute of Psychological Therapies
 Northfield, MN

Charles A. Weaver, III, Ph.D.
 Professor of Psychology
 Baylor University
 Waco, TX


1955 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103-5766
  215-940-1040
  FAX: 215-940-1042
  800-568-8882

Executive Director: Pamela Freyd, Ph.D.


The Foundation is a 501(c)(3) institution funded by individual memberships and contributions. All contributions are tax exempt.

When the memory is distorted, or confabulated, the result can be what has been called the False Memory Syndrome: a condition in which a person's identity and interpersonal relationships are centered around a memory of traumatic experience which is objectively false but in which the person strongly believes. Note that the syndrome is not characterized by false memories as such. We all have memories that are inaccurate. Rather, the syndrome may be diagnosed when the memory is so deeply ingrained that it orients the individual's entire personality and lifestyle, in turn disrupting all sorts of other adaptive behaviors. The analogy to personality disorder is intentional. False memory syndrome is especially destructive because the person assiduously avoids confrontation with any evidence that might challenge the memory. Thus it takes on a life of its own, encapsulated, and resistant to correction. The person may become so focused on the memory that he or she may be effectively distracted from coping with the real problems in his or her life.
-- John F. Kihlstrom, Ph.D.


While our awareness of childhood sexual abuse has increased enormously in the last decade and the horrors of its consequences should never be minimized, there is another side to this situation, namely that of the consequences of false allegations where whole families are split apart and terrible pain inflicted on everyone concerned. This side of the story needs to be told, for a therapist may, with the best intentions in the world, contribute to enormous family suffering.
-- Harold Lief, M.D.