Lawrence Patihis

The prevalence of memories of abuse that are recovered during the course of therapy is important to estimate due to the risk of memory distortions during that process of memory construction and rec...

The prevalence of recovered memories of previously unknown abuse is important because of the risk of memory construction. Asking therapists about such prevalence comes with inherent biases, a problem bypassed by asking a representative sample of therapy clients directly. This study examined client-reported prevalence in a representative U.K. sample of 1,507 adults. Of the total sample, 40% reported receiving therapy. Among these, 4.9% reported that a therapist discussed repressed memories of abuse (12% of those who received therapy), with half indicating that the therapist raised it first (2.5% of total sample). Recovered memories of abuse during the course of therapy of previously unknown abuse were reported by 3.6% of the total sample (8.9% of therapy goers). Recovered memories were most associated with primal therapy, internal family systems, and psychodynamic therapy. Higher rates of memory recovery in therapy occurred when therapy started in the 1980s and recent decades (2006–2024: 8–12%). Qualitative comments provided context to the skepticism in some and belief in repressed memories in others. The findings suggest that recovered memory practices continue to likely affect millions in the UK—resembling U.S. patterns, with implications for disseminating the possibility of memory construction to the public, and in the training of therapists.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is commonly used to investigate the neural bases of aging and psychological disorders. However, the BOLD signal captured by fMRI is affected by many factors that are non-neural in origin. We tested how vascular health risks, which often go unmeasured in neuroimaging studies, and aging interact to modify the shape and/or timing of the HRF, which then affect the differences in patterns of brain activity in a task-evoked memory encoding paradigm. Adult participants (aged 20–74) answered questions about their health and underwent two fMRI tasks: viewing a flashing checkerboard and a memory encoding task. Aging and vascular risk had the largest impacts on the maximum peak value of the HRF. Using a subject-specific HRF resulted in a dampening of brain activity in task-positive and task-negative regions. Across three vascular risk factors, using a subject-specific HRF resulted in more consistent brain regions that reached significance and larger effect sizes compared with the canonical HRF. These findings serve as a cautious tail when interpreting task-evoked fMRI activity, especially in populations experiencing alterations to brain vasculature including many older adults and people with neurocognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Purpose: The British False Memory Society (BFMS) is a registered charity founded in 1993 following an epidemic of false‐memory type allegations by adult accusers who claimed to have remembered childhood sexual abuse for which they previously had no cognitive recollection. Many of these accusers had entered counselling after typically suffering from anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. Many came out of therapy with what appeared to be false memories, and the accused sometimes contacted the BFMS for advice. Since its inception, the BFMS has kept a record of all calls to its telephone helpline. Methods: In this article, we document several caseload details by year from 1993 onwards. Results: In the peak year of 1994, 268 cases were taken up by the BFMS. During recent years in the last 10 years the number of cases taken on by the BFMS oscillated around about 40 each year. The 2010s had just 3% of the total cases leading to a guilty verdict (1990s = 8%; 2000s = 17%). We found the 2000 decade to be the most likely for those accused to be imprisoned, and the most recent years the least. Conclusions: We conclude that although the numbers have lessened since the 1994 peak, there are still today a number of individuals being affected by allegations stemming from recovered memories.

Whether it is possible to reappraise parents using non-suggestive questions, and whether this has an impact on emotions and memories, is of great interest in both life and psychotherapy. Past research has shown reappraisals of past situations is associated with changes in memories of emotions. In previous work we showed memories of love could be affected by reappraisals, but did not analyze that dataset on other memories of emotion. The current paper investigates the effect of reappraisals toward participants’ mothers on the emotions: happiness, interest, sadness, and anger (and on memories of those emotions in childhood). Results show that emotions appeared to be significantly changed by reappraisals. In Experiment 1 ( N = 301; M _age = 36), we found memories of emotion were affected, especially memory of happiness in childhood, but to a lesser degree compared to current emotions. This offered some confirmation of the cognitive appraisal view of memories of emotions. Experiment 2 ( N = 202; M _age = 36) with pretest and posttest measures showed some similar patterns, but with slightly muted effects. Therapists and clients should be aware that non-suggestive prompts might lead to reappraisals of parents, with knock on effects on emotions and memories. Whether this should be part of informed consent in therapy is open to debate.

Previous research found memories of emotions are malleable, and that extended to autobiographically important memories of emotions. It was unclear whether this would generalize to memories of emotions towards former date partners. In this experiment, we examine whether memories of emotion towards a first date partner can be biased with changing cognitive appraisals. Participants were 201 UK residents of average age 37. After randomly assigning participants to different writing prompt conditions to nudge their current appraisals of their first-date-partner, we found subsequent recall of emotion was biased accordingly. Those reappraising their partner in a downward direction remembered more negative emotion, including distress, compared to comparison conditions. Reappraising downwards biased memories of how unsafe they felt on their first date, and of feeling forced to do something. A few years after #MeToo, that these biases might be important to take into account when people reappraise past dating experiences.

Ross argued that false memory researchers misunderstand the concepts of repression and dissociation, as well as the writings of Freud. In this commentary, we show that Ross is wrong. He oversimplifies and misrepresents the literature on repressed and false memory. We rebut Ross by showing the fallacies underlying his arguments. For example, we adduce evidence showing that the notions of dissociation or repression are unnecessary to explain how people may forget and then remember childhood sexual abuse, stressing that abuse survivors may reinterpret childhood events later in life. Also, Ross overlooks previous critiques concerning dissociation. Finally, we will demonstrate that Ross misrepresents work by Freud and Loftus in the area of repressed and false memory. His article confuses, not clarifies, an already heated debate on the existence of repressed memory.

This special issue honours James Ost’s (1973–2019) contributions to our understanding of false and distorted remembering. In our editorial, we introduce some of James’ distinctive research themes including the experiences of people who retract “recovered” memories, social (e.g., co-witness and interviewer influence) and personality influences on false remembering, the nature of false remembering itself (e.g., different types of false memories; false memories vs. false beliefs), public understanding of (false) memory, and a historical link to the work of Frederic Bartlett. We illustrate these themes through a number of key publications. The unifying thread behind James’ work is his core interest in false/distorted remembering in real-life (typically high-stake) situations, in line with his engagement with the British False Memory Society and his role as an expert witness in court trials. The articles included in this special issue elaborate on the research themes to which James devoted his career and his curiosity.