A look back at the disastrous fad known as memory recovery therapy proves that many reasons therapists believe their techniques to be helpful simply don't guarantee safety or effectiveness:

• "My patients say the therapy is helping them." Patients generally seek therapy because they are in emotional distress. They have a powerful wish to believe that there is a way out of their pain, that they are on the right track, and that the investment of time, emotional energy, and money they are making in therapy was wise and effective. Therefore, they are biased to believe that they are improving and that the therapy they are in--whatever it may be--is helping them. Patients undergoing so-called memory recovery therapy often reported at the time that it was helping them, only to realize later that they had been getting worse. Read their stories on this web site. Just because patients say that therapy is helping doesn't prove that it really is.
• "I believe my patients are improving." No one wishes to believe that their work is useless (or worse, counterproductive) or that they are taking money for services that provide no benefit. Psychotherapists are no different. No one can truly objectively evaluate themselves or their work; people are biased to see themselves and their work more positively than others do. Psychotherapists administering memory recovery therapy believed at the time that their patients were improving, but they were wrong. Subsequent research has shown that memory recovery therapy increases the rate of suicidal ideation, hospitalization, self-mutilation, and divorce. A therapist's belief that patients are improving doesn't prove that they actually are.
• "There is proof that my patients have improved over time." Improvement with the passage of time does not prove that therapy caused the improvement. Patients awaiting therapy on waiting lists improve with time too. Only a study with test subjects and control subjects enables a valid comparison of two groups to prove safety and effectiveness.
• "Leading experts use the same techniques I do." At the height of the memory recovery fad, its advocates were widely admired and often considered by many to be on the cutting edge of progress. Just because a therapist is famous and successful doesn't prove that the techniques he or she uses and advocates are actually helpful, or even that they are harmless.
• "I'm highly trained and have an advanced degree." Having an advanced degree provides no guarantee that a therapist's techniques are helpful rather than harmful. Read about all the harm done by memory recovery therapists who had Ph.D.s or M.D.s. Flawed or harmful techniques are dangerous in anyone's hands, no matter how many years they spent in school and training.
• "I participate in continuing education and keep up to date with the latest developments." Memory recovery therapy itself was promoted and spread through continuing education classes. Just because you learn a technique at an accredited continuing education class doesn't prove that the technique is safe or effective.
• "Licensed professionals would never harm their patients; it's the unlicensed therapists who are doing all the damage." This is another myth. Most leading promoters and practitioners of memory recovery therapy were licensed doctors and psychologists.
• "Licensing boards protect the public from irresponsible therapists and dangerous techniques." Licensing boards rarely take action against their members. When they do, it is only after many years of damage have been done to countless clients.
• "I don't use dangerous techniques like memory recovery therapy." Even if you don't use certain techniques like memory recovery therapy that have been publicly discredited because of their well-publicized disastrous effects, how do you know for certain that the techniques you use are safer or more effective? If your therapies of choice haven't been tested for safety and effectiveness, you simply don't know whether they are safe or effective.

How did scientifically groundless beliefs gain such wide acceptance for so long? The problem is that the mental health industry has abandoned the scientific method and its requirements for independently verifiable proof. Instead, the political consensus of committees determines what is "believed to be true" and what is considered to be acceptable practice. In the absence of a political consensus, all manner of beliefs can creep into official association policy and position statements through the process of compromise.

For the perfect example, consider the American Psychological Association's  Questions and Answers about Memories of Childhood Abuse, which contains this statement:

Some clinicians theorize that children understand and respond to trauma differently from adults. Some furthermore believe that childhood trauma may lead to problems in memory storage and retrieval. These clinicians believe that dissociation is a likely explanation for a memory that was forgotten and later recalled. Dissociation means that a memory is not actually lost, but is for some time unavailable for retrieval. That is, it's in memory storage, but cannot for some period of time actually be recalled. Some clinicians believe that severe forms of child sexual abuse are especially conducive to negative disturbances of memory such as dissociation or delayed memory. Many clinicians who work with trauma victims believe that this dissociation is a person's way of sheltering himself or herself from the pain of the memory. Many researchers argue, however, that there is little or no empirical support for such a theory.

Some clinicians theorize that children understand and respond to trauma differently from adults. Some furthermore believe that alien abduction may lead to problems in memory storage and retrieval. These clinicians believe that dissociation is a likely explanation for a memory that was forgotten and later recalled. Dissociation means that a memory is not actually lost, but is for some time unavailable for retrieval. That is, it's in memory storage, but cannot for some period of time actually be recalled. Some clinicians believe that alien abduction is especially conducive to negative disturbances of memory such as dissociation or delayed memory. Many clinicians who work with alien abductees believe that this dissociation is a person's way of sheltering himself or herself from the pain of the memory. Many researchers argue, however, that there is little or no empirical support for such a theory.

This highlights the core problem in the mental health industry today. The scientific method has been abandoned. There is not even a consensus on how to distinguish truth from falsehood, and as a result, there is no agreement on what is true and what is false. Chaos reigns.

Nor is the situation improving. Memory recovery therapy may be on the decline, but not thanks to an upsurge of conscience or scientific rigor in the mental health industry or a grass-roots movement for reform. It is only a surge of highly publicized lawsuits, damage awards, and settlements that have discouraged psychotherapists from continuing to practice memory recovery therapy.

Nor have systemic reforms been put in place that will prevent a future outbreak of some other form of harmful quackery. Until the mental health industry is reformed, it is an accident waiting to happen. Or more accurately, accidents are happening quietly every day in psychotherapists' offices without fanfare or exposure and will continue to happen until perhaps the mental health industry reforms itself in the early 21st century just as the medical industry reformed itself in the early 20th century.

You can choose to ignore these problems, or you can choose to get involved in solving them, but you can't pretend the problems don't exist or that you were unaware of them. What can you do?

• To make sure you fully appreciate the power of therapy to do harm as well as to do good, read the accounts on this site of  patients and families harmed by untested therapies. Also, listen to them tell their stories in their own words in this site's streaming audio speeches.
• First, do no harm. Restrict yourself to using therapies that have been tested for safety and effectiveness. If you don't, how can you be sure that you aren't harming your patients?
• If you come up with an idea for a new therapy technique, don't just try it out on the next unwitting client you think might benefit; that would be an uncontrolled human experiment without supervision or informed consent. Instead, set up a controlled study and find out whether your proposed therapy is safe and effective or not!
• Practice informed consent. Prior to beginning treatment, inform your patients of the risks, benefits, and alternatives to the proposed therapy so that the patient can make an informed choice.
• Write or email the industry trade groups demanding policy changes that will prevent future outbreaks of therapeutic madness in the mental health industry.
• Write or email your elected officials and support reform legislation that would guarantee psychotherapy patients their right to informed consent by making it legally mandatory. Why should patients ever be kept ignorant of therapeutic risks, benefits, and alternatives? What better protection can we have against future outbreaks of bad therapy than patient education?

Send email and let StopBadTherapy.com know what you are going to do! Emails received by StopBadTherapy.com are kept confidential and their contents are not disclosed without prior written permission from the sender.

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