Legal and Criminological Psychology最新文献

Unfortunately, the picture drawn by Patihis and Felsead regarding the unconditional belief in repressed memories on the part of clinicians, academics and legal authorities in the U.S. and in Europe looks familiar, as it resembles the one in Israel. In the first trial in Israel that involved alleged recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse a clinician expert testified on behalf of the prosecution, arguing that the plaintiff's memories, which have allegedly been repressed for many years and finally recovered, constituted a valid description of the sexual abuses that she had undergone during childhood. Once this testimony was accepted by the court, it has been considered precedence in all subsequent cases, despite the fact that the judges have been aware of the fact that the “recovered memory hypothesis” lacks scientific validation. Presumably, that is because lay people, as well as professional judges (in Israel there is no jury system), tend to believe the plaintiff's emotion-laden narratives of sexual abuses, rather than the defendant's straightforward denial of the criminal accusations (cf. Nachson et al., 2007).

It is important to point out, as Patihis and Felstead do, that outright acceptance of allegations of childhood sexual abuse on the basis of recovered memories – which the authors convincingly demonstrate its continuing prevalence in the U.K. – might lead to miscarriages of justice by wrongfully convicting innocent defendants. This likelihood transforms the issue at hand from an academic debate into a social and legal problem.

An interesting case in point is the legislation regarding corroboration in cases of rape, which was mandatory in the U.K. until its removal in 1994. The purpose of the removal sounds good, as it was supposed to help the victims of sexual abuse. However, in cases of alleged recovery of memories of sexual abuse, the removal might be harmful, because it might facilitate uncorroborated acceptance of an invalid theory and practice. According to the authors, the theory is invalid because in principle it does not exclude any behavioral responses (thus violating an imperative condition for scientific theory), and the practice is invalid because the false memories are often constructed during therapy (thus raising the suspicion that they are implanted by the therapist).

I share with the Patihis and Felstead (Nachson, 2025), the distinction between the legal and the factual truths. As they point out, the former, which is based on legally admissible evidence, might not correspond with the latter. Some or many of the convicted defendants might therefore be actually innocent.

The debate regarding recovered memory has been called “a war”, yet the authors consider it as “just a metaphor of a fierce debate”, since “unlike a real war, in this case the probable harm is being done in psychotherapies that tell clients that they may have hidden trauma, and then engage in digging

Nachson (2025) provides a clear and logical review of the scientific literature about the repressed memory controversy, concluding that there is no credible scientific evidence which supports the concept of traumatic repression: “the theory cannot be empirically validated, and it therefore has no scientific value” (p. 5). We endorse this position. As Larry Weiskrantz asserted: “repression is a theory, not a fact” (Weiskrantz, 2007, p. 81).

Nachson adopts a novel approach in attempting to accommodate a middle ground regarding multiple, alternative truths—scientific, legal, and therapeutic—with reference to three cases heard by the Israeli Supreme Court. The Israeli Supreme Court has on the one hand accepted the problematic nature of recovered memories. Yet, on the other hand, it has demonstrated that it will allow recovered memory testimony into evidence, with the caveat that additional corroborative evidence also be present before someone is convicted. This doublethink is concerning because the admission of repressed memory testimony could contaminate a case, and the standard for what constitutes “corroborating evidence” could be low (e.g., it could include testimony contaminated by the repressed memory recovery). There is a real danger that miscarriages of justice can occur (see Felstead & Patihis, 2025).

The multiple truths approach outlined by Nachson is concerningly postmodern, though it seems he is advocating at times that the factual truth determines cases. Our position is that there is only one singular objective truth (“factual truth” as phrased by Nachson). This has been the approach of an extraordinarily successful scientific enterprise over a few hundred years. The objective truth is the most important element for all involved. We do not agree that the factual truth can take a back seat to wellbeing in therapy (“therapeutic truth”). We do not agree that judges can change the course of justice by sidestepping the objective truth either (“judicial truth”). If we agree that the concept of repressed memory is unsound, then there is no place in any criminal court for “therapeutic truths.”

The telling example of Thomas Quick—Sweden's most notorious serial killer who confessed to 39 murders—pinpoints the inherent dangers of accepting “therapeutic truths.” Quick's psychotherapist, the charismatic Margit Norwell, dogmatically assumed that her clients who entered therapy had been abused in childhood. She subsequently helped Quick to recover repressed memories of murder, memories that turned out to be false. Thomas Quick was subsequently wrongfully convicted of eight murders. The last of these convictions was thankfully overturned in 2013, following the largest forensic investigation in Sweden since the second world war (Josefsson, 2015).

In conclusion, Nachson valuably informs us of the Israeli openness to repressed memory testimony, and quite rightly suggest that

Dissociative amnesia or psychogenic amnesia are established diseases in psychiatry, but their existence and aetiology are sometimes questioned by researchers working primarily in experimental fields of psychology. The validity of the diagnoses is defended by (a) pointing to the for centuries existing tradition of the disease conditions, (b) their likely aetiology in the context of (repeated) situations of learned helplessness, stress, and trauma, and (c) and a downregulation of emotional reactivity. Dissociative amnesia is defined as a memory blockade, usually induced by an adverse environment for which appropriate coping strategies are lacking. The influence of a lack of psychic wellbeing on the brain is worked out by pointing to results from structural and functional brain imaging and by using the examples of Takotsubo-cardiomyopathy and transient global amnesia. Concomitant psychiatric disease conditions and specific personality traits of patients with dissociative amnesia are discussed. It is concluded that dissociative amnesia is a valid concept with distinct neural correlates that withstands the criticisms of a few experimental psychologists.