In partnership with
THE MCMARTIN TRIAL AND THE FALSE MEMORY FOUNDATION THAT SET THE FIELD BACK TWENTY YEARS
There Were Real People Being Diagnosed
Real Clinicians Doing Real Work
Then A Moral Panic Swept Through A Country
When It Went Away It Took Decades Of Science With It
Not Because The Science Was Wrong
It Became Politically Inconvenient
This Is What Happens When A Country Loses Its Grip
Reaches For A Diagnosis Instead
THIS NEWSLETTER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOTHING IN THIS CONTENT CONSTITUTES MEDICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. ALWAYS CONSULT A QUALIFIED HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY HEALTH RELATED DECISIONS
A Quick Shoutout To Our Sponsor: PARTICLE
Here's What They Have For You 🧪
👇🏻
Men Age Differently. Most Find Out Too Late.
Most men don't think about their skin until eye bags, dark spots, and wrinkles seem to appear all at once. Particle Face Cream was engineered for exactly this. Premium anti-aging ingredients, one formula, trusted by over a million men. No complicated routine. Get 20% off now with the code BH20.
OKAY BACK TO THE TOPIC 🏛️
👇🏻
THE PANIC THAT STARTED IN A PRESCHOOL ⚖️
In 1983, A Mother In Manhattan Beach, California Called The Police
She Said Her Son Had Been Abused At His Daycare Center
The Center Was Called McMartin Preschool
What Followed Was The Longest And Most Expensive Criminal Trial In American History At That Time
Seven Years
$15 Million
Zero Convictions
The Children Had Been Interviewed With Suggestive Techniques
Leading Questions
Anatomical Dolls
Sessions Structured Around Producing Confirmation Rather Than Discovering Truth
The Therapists And Investigators Involved Were Not Always Acting In Bad Faith
Many Genuinely Believed They Were Protecting Children
That Is What Makes This Story More Complicated Than A Simple Fraud
The McMartin Case Was Not Alone
Dozens Of Similar Prosecutions Were Launched Across The United States Through The 1980s
Many Collapsed
Several People Went To Prison For Crimes That Evidence Later Suggested Never Happened
The Clinical Field Was Caught In The Middle
Dissociation Had Been Invoked To Explain Why Children Could Not
Remember Evidence Of Abuse Until Prompted
When That Framework Fell Apart In Court, It Took Clinical Credibility With It
A Quick Shoutout To Our Sponsor: GO TO MILLIONS
Here's What They Have For You 💻
👇🏻
Your Boss Will Think You’re an Ecom Genius
Optimizing for growth? Go-to-Millions is Ari Murray’s ecommerce newsletter packed with proven tactics, creative that converts, and real operator insights—from product strategy to paid media. No mushy strategy. Just what’s working. Subscribe free for weekly ideas that drive revenue.
THE FOUNDATION THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING 📰
In 1992, Two People In Philadelphia Founded An Organization
Their Names Were Peter And Pamela Freyd
They Called It The False Memory Syndrome Foundation
The Prompt Was Personal
Their Daughter, Memory Researcher Jennifer Freyd
Had Accused Peter Of Childhood Sexual Abuse
The FMSF Argued That Therapists Were Implanting False Memories Of Abuse In Vulnerable Patients
They Were Not Wrong About Everything
Suggestibility Research Was Real
Elizabeth Loftus, A Genuinely Important Memory Scientist
Had Demonstrated That Human Memory Was Malleable
That Therapists Could, Through Repeated Suggestion, Cause Patients To Believe Things That Had Never Occurred
That Memory Was Not A Recording
It Was A Construction
This Was Valuable, Rigorous Science
It Was Weaponized
Defense Attorneys Began Using Loftus As A Witness In Abuse Trials
Not To Challenge Specific Therapeutic Techniques
To Discredit Abuse Survivors Wholesale
To Argue That Any Memory Retrieved In Therapy Was, By Definition, Unreliable
The FMSF's Broader Message Migrated Beyond Courtrooms
It Entered Medical Journals
Popular Press
Clinical Training Programs
It Carried This Implication With It:
That Dissociative Disorders Were Not Discovered By Therapists
They Were Created By Them
A Quick Shoutout To Our Sponsor: PARTICLE
Here's What They Have For You
👇🏻
Hair Dye Causes New Problems. We’ll Fix the Original One.
Hair dye works. That's not the debate. The debate is what it costs you: the box every few weeks, the smell, the roots that give it away, the hairline that starts looking painted instead of real. You fixed the gray and created new problems.
Particle Anti-Gray Serum works differently. It targets the root cause of graying — restoring pigment gradually, naturally, without dye. Hair and beard. Results that look like yours, not like a product. Five seconds a day. Thirty-day money-back guarantee if you don't see a difference.
Over a million men trust Particle. This is the product that earns that number. Get 20% off and free shipping now with the exclusive promo code BH20.
WHAT THE ACCUSATION COST AND THE IRONY THAT FOLLOWED 🔥
The Damage Was Measurable
✰ DIAGNOSTIC DROP
Dissociative Disorder Diagnoses Fell Dramatically Through The 1990s And 2000s. What Had Been A Growing Area Of Clinical Recognition Quietly Shrank
✰ CLINICAL RETREAT
Therapists Became Afraid To Work With Dissociation At All. Not Because The Patients Disappeared. Because The Legal Liability Had Become Too Risky To Touch
✰ PATIENTS LEFT UNDIAGNOSED
People With Genuine Dissociative Disorders Spent Years, Sometimes Decades, Receiving Incorrect Treatments For Mislabeled Conditions
✰ RESEARCH FROZE
Funding Dried Up. Graduate Students Averted Their Careers Away From The Topic. A Field That Had Been Building Momentum Since Pierre Janet Simply Stopped
The People Who Paid The Price For This Were Not Researchers
They Were Patients
People Who Came Into A Clinician's Office With Symptoms That Had A Name, A Paper Trail, A Treatment Path
Were Told That What They Were Experiencing Was Probably Invented
Here Is The Irony History Recorded
Jennifer Freyd, Whose Accusation Sparked The Founding Of The FMSF, Was Not A Fringe Figure
She Was A Psychologist And Memory Researcher
She Later Developed Betrayal Trauma Theory
One Of The Most Rigorous Frameworks For Understanding Why Children Often
Cannot Remember Abuse Perpetrated By People They Depend On
The Organization Founded To Discredit Her Clinically Undermined
The Very Science She Spent Her Career Building
The FMSF Dissolved On December 31, 2019
Twenty Seven Years After It Began
Jennifer Freyd Continued Publishing
The Field Had To Spend Two Decades Rebuilding What Had Been Collateral Damage In A Culture War
The Research Exists Now
The Training Is Returning
Clinicians Are Learning The Difference Between Suggestive Techniques
That Create Memories And Legitimate Therapeutic Work
That Helps People Process What They Already Carry
The Field Knows How To Tell The Difference Now
It Just Took Twenty Years That Shouldn't Have Been Lost
