Investigating the Memory Reports of Retractors Regarding Abuse

Abstract

Background: Legal cases and research have shown that due to suggestive therapeutic interventions, people can start to remember abuse that they never experienced. Some of these people eventually retract their claims of abuse. This study examined the memory reports of self-defined retractors of abuse and the prevalence of nonbelieved memories. Method: In this study, a retrospective survey method was used to investigate 56 individuals who had retracted their claims of abuse. We examined details, plausibility, beliefs, and recollections of the abuse before and after retraction, as well as the reasons for withdrawing their belief and the outcomes of both recovered and retracted memories. Results: Twenty-four participants took significantly longer to retract the memories than to initially recover them. The belief in the occurrence of the abusive event and personal plausibility scores were significantly lower after the retraction, whereas the recollection scores were similar before and after the retraction. The main reason for withdrawing the belief in the abuse-related memory was the emergence of external evidence putting doubt on the retractors’ claims. After the withdrawal of the memories, some retractors (n = 17, 70.83%, 95% CI [52.6%, 0.89%]) believed that they gained more benefits (e.g., giving them a new chance to re-build their lives and to establish new relationships with others). Conclusion: While the reliability of retractors’ reports is unclear, these findings support related work on retractor memory reports and highlight the presence of nonbelieved memories within retractors’ memory reports.