IN THE NEWS
Repressed Memories
One afternoon in 1969, 8-year-old
Susan Nason disappeared on herway to visit a neighbor in FosterCity, California. Two months later,her body was found in a nearby
reservoir. The coroner concludedthat Susan had died from a frac-tured skull. An investigation fol-lowed, but with little evidence to goon, police never found the killer.
Twenty years later, Eileen Franklin-
Lipsker, a childhood friend of thevictim ’s, sat with her daughter in
her Los Angeles home. Suddenly
Franklin-Lipsker recalled images ofSusan ’s death. She could see a man
sexually assaulting the girl and thensmashing her head with a rock.Franklin-Lipsker also knew the iden-tity of the man in her memories —it
was her own father, GeorgeFranklin.
Based on little more than his
daughter ’s testimony, in 1990
George Franklin was tried andconvicted for Susan Nason ’s mur-
der. Jurors who listened toFranklin-Lipsker ’s testimony were
convinced she could not haveknown the details she provided un-less she had been at the scene of thecrime. But why had the memoriestaken 20 years to surface? Theprosecution argued that the natureof the memories was so traumaticFranklin-Lipsker had repressedthem into an unconscious part ofher mind. It was noticing the phys-ical similarity between her daughterand Susan that triggered the long-repressed images and allowed themto enter consciousness. SuperiorCourt Judge Thomas Smith calledGeorge Franklin “wicked and de-
praved ”and sentenced him to life in
prison. Franklin thus became the
first person to be convicted on thebasis of “repressed ”memories.
The Franklin verdict provides
an egregious example of how psy-
chological principles can be mis-used. In this case, a handful ofpsychotherapists tore apart thou-
sands of families by misapplying the
psychoanalytic notion of repression(Brody, 2000). Over a period ofseveral years in the 1990s, a huge
number of adults going throughpsychotherapy suddenly “recalled”
childhood memories of being vic-timized by parents, often sexually.In virtually every case, the client hadnot been aware of any such experi-ence until the therapist suggestedthe event. In response to the nearepidemic of repressed memorycases, many personality psycholo-gists and memory researchers raisedquestions about the accuracy of theclients ’claims. Researchers demon-
strated that people often have greatconfidence in the accuracy of re-pressed memories that could notpossibly have been true.
The fall of the repressed mem-
ory epidemic came quickly. Parentsand family members falsely accusedof abuse formed the False MemorySyndrome Foundation. Within thefirst year, the organization grew toinclude more than 3,000 families.Hundreds of clients came to see thattheir memories of abuse were in factfictional creations and retractedtheir stories (de Rivera, 1997). Butthe issue has not gone away.Psychologists and the courts con-
tinue to grapple with questionssurrounding repressed memories(Geraerts et al., 2009; McNally &Geraerts, 2009). New accusations
of abuse based on suddenly re-membered images are brought tothe legal system every year (Wyatt,2005). Although psychologists havedemonstrated that people often be-
lieve memories that are false, they
cannot rule out the possibility thatsome cases of repressed memoriesmight be based on fact.
In the meantime, prosecutors
have revisited old cases that may
have been unfairly decided on thebasis of repressed memories. A manin Kentucky had his convictionthrown out after he had alreadyserved 5 years in prison (Dunbar,2006). A man in Pennsylvania wasgranted a new trial after 12 years inprison (Conti, 2005). A federaljudge in Nebraska voided a $1.75million judgment against a clergy-man accused of sexual abuse(Zezima & Carey, 2009). Aftermore than 5 years in prison, GeorgeFranklin also was granted a newtrial. His attorneys argued that thejury in the first case should havebeen allowed to see newspaper andtelevision reports of Susan ’s death.
Those reports contained details ofthe crime that could have been thebasis of Franklin-Lipsker ’s memo-
ries. Prosecutors responded to thenew information by dropping thecharges. After serving several yearsfor murder, George Franklin wasreleased from prison.50 CHAPTER 3 The Psychoanalyt ic Approach