“Recovered memories are not accurate. They cannot be trusted.”

Whether memories are accurate and whether they have been continuous are independent considerations. .Arguments which insist that discontinuous (recovered) memories are always inaccurate conflate the qualities of accuracy and continuity. A detailed description of the distinctions between these two dimensions of memory can be found on Dr. Jennifer Freyd’s website, under ‘Recovered Memory: Context and Controversy’ and ‘Two Common conceptual tangles about recovered memories.’ 

Our case archive documents cases of corroborated recovered memory in which external supportive evidence corroborates the accuracy of individuals’ recovered memories. 

While all of the cases in our archive support the fact that discontinuous memories can be accurate, these are two exceptional examples of accurate recovered memories:

1. The case of “Claudia”: After experiencing flashbacks of sexual abuse, Claudia told her group therapy members that from the time she was 4 years old to her brother’s enlistment in the Army three years later, he had regularly handcuffed her, burned her with cigarettes, and forced her to submit to a variety of sexual acts. Claudia’s brother had died in combat in Vietnam more than 15 years before her horrifying memories surfaced. Yet Claudia’s parents had left his room and his belongings untouched since then. When Claudia searched the room, she found a large pornography collection, handcuffs, and a diary in which her brother had extensively planned and recorded what he called sexual ‘experiments’ with his sister. [4]

2. The case of R v. Thomas Bowman: The Daughter of Thomas Bowman recovered memories during therapy of the night of her mother's death more than 20 years after her mother, Mary, passed away. She remembered watching her father strangle her mother. In response, Mary’s body was exhumed, and an autopsy revealed evidence of strangling and death by asphyxiation. At trial, Bowman was convicted of murder. [5]

This website also documents research studies which discuss the accuracy of recovered memories. 

In Linda Meyer Williams’ study of 129 women who had previous hospital records regarding documented cases of abuse, Williams found that only 80 remembered the abuse 16 years later, and 16% of those 80 had a period of time where they were unable to remember the abuse.

Excerpt: “Regarding the accuracy of the accounts, this study suggests that while the women’s reports of some details have changed (N.B., this may be a problem in the original account, not the adult memory) the women’s stories were in large part true to the basic elements of the original incident… [Furthermore,] the woman’s level of uncertainty about recovered memories was not associated with more discrepancies in her account. While these findings cannot be used to assert the validity of all recovered memories of child abuse, this study does suggest that recovered memories of child sexual abuse reported by adults can be quite consistent with contemporaneous documentation of the abuse and should not be summarily dismissed by therapists, lawyers, family members, judges, or the women themselves” (pp.669-670). [6]