Literature Reviews on Recovered Memories

Recovered Memories. (Sivers, Schooler, & Freyd, 2002). Full Text.
Excerpt: “We begin by briefly summarizing the proposed social situation in which the current debate arose. Then, we present a sample of published research that has attempted to document the forgetting and recovery of memories for childhood sexual abuse. This is followed by a discussion of possible mechanisms for recovered memories, including ones proposed to be specific to traumatic events and others that are more standard mechanisms for remembering and forgetting. Finally, we discuss issues of accuracy in recovered memories.” (p.170).

Recovered memory and the Daubert criteria: Recovered memory as professionally tested, peer reviewed, and accepted in the relevant scientific community. (Dalenberg, 2006).
Excerpt: Research during the past two decades has firmly established the reliability of the phenomenon of recovered memory. This review first highlights the strongest evidence for the phenomenon itself and discusses the survey, experimental, and biological evidence for the varying mechanisms that may underlie the phenomenon.

Recovered Memories: The Current Weight of the Evidence in Science and in the Courts
(Brown, Scheflin, & Whitfield, 1999).
Impact: In a 126 page review of 68 data-based studies specifically on amnesia and recovery of memories for childhood sexual abuse, Brown concludes that “consistent with previous critical reviews, is that the weight of the scientific evidence strongly favors the position that substantial forgetting of childhood sexual abuse and its later recovery is a commonly observed phenomenon in a sizable minority of people.”

False and Recovered Memories in the Laboratory and Clinic: A Review of Experimental and Clinical Evidence. (Gleaves & Spiegel, 2004) Full Text.
Excerpt: It is also inaccurate to paint this debate (as has been done both in the popular and scientific media) as being the academics against the clinicians with only the clinical data supporting the recovered memory position and the experimental data supporting the false memory position. Research from numerous bodies of experimental research supports the reality of memory blocking and recovery.

Repressed memory or dissociative amnesia: What the science says. (Scheflin & Brown, 1995). Excerpts on Jim Hopper’s Website.
Impact: A review of 25 studies on amnesia for childhood sexual abuse concluded that the recovered memories meet the test of science. Secondly, amnesia for childhood sexual abuse is a robust finding across studies using very different samples and methods of assessment. Studies addressing the accuracy of memories show that recovered memories are no more or no less accurate than continuous memories for abuse.