Parents and other relatives accused of sexual abuse on the basis of recovered memories: a New Zealand family survey.
OBJECTIVE
To survey New Zealand families where an alleged perpetrator and/or other family member denies an accusation involving the childhood molestation of one family member by another, based on a memory recovered in adulthood. As the validity of such memories is crucial, our aim was to develop a profile of such families and to compare it with New Zealand epidemiological data.


METHODS
Information was collected by questionnaire regarding family demographics, characteristics of the accuser, family life, events surrounding and leading up to the accusations, consequences of the accusations and details of the accuser's current life situation. The 73 subjects included fathers, mothers, siblings and other relatives of the accusing adults.


RESULTS
Most accusers were highly educated white women, frequently first born or older children from relatively large families, statistically different proportions from those expected. Many accusations involved events of low base-rate probability including satanic ritual abuse. Proportions differed from those of another New Zealand prevalence survey of 1019 18-year-olds in almost every way.


CONCLUSIONS
The data suggest that it is unlikely that many, if not most, of the memories of child sexual abuse recovered in adulthood are a true reflection of history. Memories recovered during therapy should be treated with respect as part of the patient's narrative truth, but not assumed to be factually accurate without corroborative evidence.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Science, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, University of Auckland.
F A
FA
Goodyear-Smith
T M
TM
Laidlaw
R G
RG
Large
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003625:Data Collection; D008192:Deception; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009520:New Zealand / Q000453:epidemiology; D010290:Parents; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires