69 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
69 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
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SUBJECT: UFO RESEARCHERS USING HYPNOSIS FILE: UFO2434
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BY PAUL McCARTY for OMNI MAG.
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ARE UFO RESEARCHERS USING HYPNOSIS TO MANUFACTURE MEMORIES IN ABDUCTEES ?
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Are UFO abductees describing true-to-life kidnappings at the hands of space
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aliens, or is the abduction experience all in the mind? Members of the False
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Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) say they have an answer: Abductees weave
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their strange tales based on the suggestions of overzealous therapists who may
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be unaware of the new studies on hypnosis and suggestibility. In fact, say
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falsememory advocates, abductees may soon start suing for malpractice like any
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patient claiming abuse by psychiatrists, psychologists, and other assorted
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shrinks.
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The False Memory Syndrome Foundation got its start in March 1992 in response
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to the cries of parents claiming they'd been wrongly accused of sexual abuse.
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Made up of both mental health professionals and family members trying to get
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to the bottom of some of these charges, the group has found that while sexual
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abuse is real, some claims emerge only after biased practitioners ask leading
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questions during therapy, casting doubt on whether actual abuse ever occurred.
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Foundation Executive Director Pamela Freyd, who has a PH.D. in education,
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admits her group does not investigate UFO abductions per say. However, she
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explains, their findings suggest abductions are the product of similarly
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biased practitioners who ask their clients leading questions during therapy.
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"Memories are reconstructed from bits and fragments and reinterpretations;
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they are not videotape," says Freyd. "In other words, hypnosis is not a
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reliable tool, and memory is not a fixed thing. People can recall what they
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want to recall or what they are encouraged to recall, even if the events
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never occurred."
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People who are confused may be led to interpret experience in light of what
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the hypnotist believes and suggests," notes Steven Lynn, an Ohio University
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psychologist who studies hypnotically induced pseudomemories. "The person
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becomes primed in one way or another to want to believe it," adds Concorde
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University psychologist Campbell Perry. Perry, an FMSF board member in
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Montreal, also suspects that abductees are highly responsive to hypnosis, have
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intense imaginations, and find it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.
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The scientific issues central to the false memory debate worry Toronto
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therapist David Gotlib because, he notes, it means "at least some abductee
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memories recalled under hypnosis may not be true."
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But Temple University historian and abduction researcher David Jacobs doesn't
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know if the falsememory work is applicable to abductees at all. "first of
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all," he says, "much of FMS is based on adult recollections of childhood
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events, while many abductees are trying to figure out what happened to them
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last week," throwing a further wrench into the works, Jacobs adds that
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"abduction researchers have uncovered false memories of childhood sexual abuse
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that masked the memory of the abduction itself."
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Still, Jacobs, who often hypnotizes the abductees he works with, is concerned
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about lawsuits. "That's why I'd rather have competent mental health people
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dealing with this than lay people."
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Pery is not reassured. "When I consider some of the flaky claims - like past
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lives - that people with M.D.s and PH.D.s have accepted uncritically," he
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says, "I'm not surprised that some of them buy into the abduction stuff."
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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**********************************************
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