Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria

by Richard Ofshe, Ethan Watters

In the last decade, reports of incest have exploded into the national consciousness. Magazines, talk shows, and mass market paperbacks have taken on the subject as many Americans, primarily women, have come forward with graphic memories of childhood abuse. Making Monsters examines the methods of therapists who treat patients for depression by working to draw out memories or, with the use of hypnosis, to encourage fantasies of childhood abuse the patients are told they have repressed. Since this therapy may leave the patient more depressed and alienated than before, questions are appropriately raised here about the ethics and efficacy of such treatment.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science

360 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

Reviews

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book amongst several boxes of tomes given to me by a brilliant social constructionist therapist cleaning out her shelves. While fascinating as an accounting of things gone way awry thirty years ago, this gravitas of this book comes from its perennial relevance. If I was teaching counseling ethics, I would make chapters of this book required reading. Through case studies of counseling that fails its clients in a dramatic way, Making Monsters illuminates that traps that are easy to fall into on a smaller scale. The practice of facilitating human change can feel futile at times, and that makes the security of clinical fundamentalism appealing. Wouldn't it be nice to have the answer walking into the therapeutic encounter, with such faith in that conceptualization that you could assuage any self-doubt by leaning back into its justification? Reading this book not as the tale of a few fringe snake oil salesmen, but rather as a a cautionary tale about something that could happen to any clinician, I found new avenues for self-awareness and a deeper sense of what to watch out for when trying to maintain an ethical practice.

Similarly, if we don't consider the construction of MPD in session, as discussed in this book, to be exclusive only to MPD, interesting questions arise about the construction of diagnosis in general. Overall, I found this book to be valuable, thought-provoking, and relevant as a starting point for considering how therapy can go wrong and setting safeguards around those possibilities.

[Bookish · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very poor and heavily biased. It goes for many gender stereotypes and Ofshe's work has been heavily criticized by academics across the world. His only interest in false memories is in fact about attempt to defend pedophiles by saying the abuse "never happened". His work has been heavily promoted by the old False Memory Syndrome Foundation, which now doesn't exist and has suffered many credibility issues after publicly supporting people who later confessed.
His book is poor throughout, and I don't plan to read any more of his writing.

[Cynde Moya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable, clear, carefully reasoned, backed up with plenty of evidence. The authors take to task the industries creating then prosecuting instances of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, recovered memories of childhood satanic sexual abuse, and save special ire for multiple personality disorder, which they assert is completely, 100% iatrogenic. It seems that enthusiastic therapists are suggesting or even implanting these memories in vulnerable people, who keep getting worse rather than better with the therapy. Sick, bizarre, and completely normal. Patients get into hospitals or outpatient therapy, where they learn how to better display their multiple personalities or better "remember" the satanic cults that abused them. These patients the author describes do not come into therapy with real memories; in fact, according to the recovered memory profession, real memories of abuse are a sign that the person is not conducive to this kind of therapy. It's a bizarre and twisted logic that has caused huge harm to people and their accused families.

[Braden Canfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked up this book on a whim. Found it fascinating. Ofshe uncovers some astounding abuses of the now debunked practice of "recovering" "repressed" memories of childhood abuse (not to be confused with real and unrepressed memories of childhood abuse). The stories he tells of unethical, unproven practices inadvertently conjuring false memories in highly suggestible people are sobering.

[Ellis Amdur · Rating 4 out of 5]

A voice of sanity in the face of a terrible wrong turn in psychotherapy – an indictment of so-called “recovered memory therapy,” as well as its accompanying fantasies – Satanic and other alleged cult abuse (including that of space aliens) and the often therapist-elicited plague of so-called multiple personality disorder. Please note that I am not saying that repression of some experience does not happen – just that there has been a horrible flood of inept therapy which has been very damaging both to genuine victims of abuse, and to others who were not victims or perpetrators.

[John Longeway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written, informative, and disturbing account of how the fad of "recovered memory" traumatized and destroyed the lives of patients, families, and communities while lacking any hint of validity.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A SOCIOLOGIST AND A WRITER LOOK AT "RECOVERED MEMORY" THERAPY

Richard Jay Ofshe is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American sociologist and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at UC Berkeley, and a member of the advisory board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation; Ethan Watters is a freelance writer. They have also written 'Therapy's Delusions: The Myth of the Unconscious and the Exploitation of Today's Walking Worried.'

They wrote in the Preface to this 1994 book, "We have written this book as a bitter debate has raged over the practices of recovered memory therapy and the treatment of multiple personality disorder... Our goal is to prove beyond doubt that devastating mistakes are being made within certain therapy settings..." (Pg. ix)

They added in the Introduction, "We believe there is now sufficient evidence... to show that a significant cadre of poorly-trained, overzealous, or ideologically driven psychotherapists have pursued a series of pseudoscientific notions that have ultimately damaged the patients that have come to them for help... the epidemic of repressed memories 'discovered' daily in therapy settings prove not that our society is exploding with the most vicious sort of child molesters and satanists, but rather than psychotherapists... can unintentionally spark and then build false beliefs in a patient's mind." (Pg. 5-6)

They assert, "While a therapist, conscious of the problems of memory retrieval, may be able to maintain the core veracity of a client's recall over the course of therapy, recovered memory retrieval... does not concern itself with this problem... Within the recovered memory world, the longer and more intense the process is, the better. Recovered memory therapists pursue hidden memories for years... unaware that their process destroys the fragile treasure they claim to seek." (Pg. 62-63)

They suggest, "That the pain of therapy is real should not be accepted, however, as an argument that the memories uncovered are accurate. One's emotional reaction to a mental image memory need not correlate with the truth of that image but rather only to whether one BELIEVES that visualized event to be true." (Pg. 109) They add, "The primary mistake of the recovered memory therapists is not their investment in the satanic-cult belief, but the use of methods that coerce patients into reclassifying imagined events... as memory." (Pg. 187)

They state, "Examining the history of MPD [Multiple Personality Disorder], we find myriad clues suggesting that this supposed disorder is ... influenced by cultural cues... it was not until the popular book Sybil... and the subsequent movie [Sybil], that child abuse was offered as the cause of its symptoms... It was only after Sybil that therapists, often using hypnosis, began finding alter personalities and supposedly 'repressed' abuse histories to match." (Pg. 221)

They observe in conclusion, "While many in the mental health field have identified recovered memory therapy as an inexcusable mistake that is causing enormous harm, there is, unfortunately, no regulatory body that can stop its practice. Some look to ... the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association... Unfortunately, these organizations function less as regulatory bodies insuring the safety of the patients than they do as guilds protecting and promoting their membership... It is probably unrealistic to believe that any committee called by these organizations will be unable to take a strong stand on an issue... which so divides its membership." (Pg. 299-300) They add, "One dimension ... that has not been discussed in this book is its economic impact... hundreds of millions of scarce health-care dollars are being wasted... more than half... of the money funding recovered memory therapy comes from either insurance company or government sources." (Pg. 302)

This is an excellent book, that will be of great interest to anyone studying this highly controversial issue.

[Frrobins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every thirty years or so, the field of psychology loses its mind. The recovered memory and Satanic panic scandal is one of many scandals that have plagued the field. Given that we are currently in another scandal with pediatric gender modifications, reading about past scandals proves very illuminating in terms of finding patterns, and this was very much the case with Making Monsters, a book written during the recovered memory and Satanic panic that was skeptical of recovered memories.

You see how bad ideas create the false illusion of consensus over and over by having the same sources refer to each other over and over again (happened with recovered memories, happened with Nazi denialism, is currently happening with pediatric gender modifications). You have groups of professionals who cannot tolerate dissent and have a Messiah complex who feel as though they are saving the world with their work (a humble therapist meanwhile knows good and well the limits of what they can accomplish), you see people who question the current paradigm have their reputations slandered and their careers threatened, you see therapists colluding with clients and enabling them to get worse as they try to help them escape from themselves rather than accept reality.

One pattern I am seeing is that when a dangerous fad takes over the field, it feels as if people who keep their heads on straight have to rediscover these patterns while fighting the newest devastating ideology. I know I did not learn much if anything about culture bound syndromes or warning signs that the field has become swept in a dangerous fad in graduate school. I think part of the reason is because once the craze dies down the people who supported it are embarrassed and want to forget they supported it while the people who fought against it have had their reputations maligned and are exhausted and also eager to move on. But this has to change. When done well therapy can be a positive force in one individual's life, but when done harmfully the ripple effects are devastating. This time we must not forget.

[Spencer Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very very distressing.

[Eduardo Lira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Waos, esto explica mucho .-.

[Eduardo Lira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Releído, sigue siendo igual de perturbador xd.