Allmo's/Mollbeck's Pretended Non-Influence and Its Historical Roots

Recurrently throughout the book Allmo claims that she had been very careful not to influence Elvira. And Elvira had recounted her narratives entirely on her own.

		[Elvira] "is testing me in many different ways, right into the depth of my mind. All the time she is very vigilant as to whether I would manage to hear, manage to understand, or if I show any sign of wanting to withdraw. [ ] As a warning she explains: You would never understand. You don't know what I have experienced." (p. 85) [Elvira] "begins to recount a little, with infinite pain and despair. She tries very hard to describe things as cautiously and veiled as possible. Gradually I feel forced to realise, with powerlessness and great sorrow, what her words mean." (p. 98) [On 1992-03-31 the social services and child psychiatric clinic] "make the assessment that Elvira is actually willing to talk. But her knowledge that it is about incest is an obstacle." (p. 100) "Elvira's recollections altogether rush forth here at home, with unspeakable agony and outrage. In order not to disturb the rest of the family, we sometimes walk out into the wood, alone, where Elvira can scream out her torment, 'run amok' and attack trees and tree-stumps, without anybody being upset. [ ] My role is just to sit on a stone or a tree stump in complete silence." (p. 100) "On Monday April 27th [ ] she feels ready to talk about concrete things." (p. 104) [In the police interrogation 1992-04-29] "I say that I have not made an effort to recall everything Elvira had recounted, because I only want to be a sounding board for her." (p. 112) [Q-45:1]

Since it has been proved in chapter 10 that Allmo was the person who invented and indoctrinated Elvira's "recollections", the statements about the non-influence cannot be true.

At the present time (2008) the following things have been thoroughly proven by scientific research and by muck racking by reporters; special references should no longer be needed. Recovered memory therapists do not bring back any memories that have hitherto been repressed into the unconscious. Instead they indoctrinate fantasies and, in turn, manipulate the patients to imagine that these fantasies are genuine recollections of authentic experiences. This form of therapy will usually have the side-effect that the patients will become highly neurotic.

In the United States, many of these therapies would give rise to civil suits against the alleged offender, who may be sentenced to pay enormous damages. Some therapists do not charge a fee per therapeutic session. Instead they charge a certain percentage of the damages later allocated to the patient by a court of law. And the therapists are prepared to commit perjury in court and testify that the patient's memories had emerged spontaneously, and that they were authentic.

In Sweden a patient can only obtain this kind of damages if the alleged offender is convicted in a criminal trial. If the convicted "offender" has no money, a specific public fund may pay the damages in advance to the injured party, and later try to get them back from the offender. This is what happened to Elvira, Oswald and Helena.

Chapter 38 (but also chapter 21) was devoted to the documentation of the conspicuous recency of many circumstances and ideas.

During the past hundred years, and still today, every psychoanalytic interpretation is based on the principle of similarity, which postulates that the cause is similar to the effect. By means of this rule we can disclose the cause of a symptom by finding or inventing an event that is similar to the symptom. For instance, Michael suffered from a stiff leg. A leg is oblong like a penis, and it is almost found at "the right place" of the body. And where is a "stiff" penis normally used In this way Freud deduced that when Michael was 2-4 years old an adult woman had used his foot as a masturbation tool.

It is not an unfounded generalisation that this feature is still today true of every interpretation. I have studied such interpretations for half a century, and have published numerous examples from most decades in several books (Scharnberg, 1984, 1993, 1996). Particularly relevant may be my Internet essay The Seven Corner Stones of Psychoanalytic Methodology (2008, found at the International Network of Freud Critics web site). – Psychoanalysts and any other readers who doubt my generalisation are hereby challenged to find an interpretation that is not based on the principle of similarity.

Resuming the main thread, Alice Miller claimed that her clinical observations are in agreement with Freud's accounts in his seduction papers. Does she mean that her observations agree with the examples quoted above from SE (the Standard Edition) And does she agree with Freud that sexual abuse after the age of eight cannot produce any psychic harm

At present worldwide scientific research has proved that Freud's seduction papers constituted pseudo-scientific fraud. Numerous researchers in many countries have published such proofs. Any set of references would be unjust to many who would also deserve to be included. Macmillan (1991, 1997), Esterson (1993), Israëls (1993, 1999), Israëls & Schatzman (1993), Wilcocks (1994, 2000), Crews (1995, 1998), Webster (1995). Concerning the seduction theory the most detailed analysis is provided by Scharnberg (1993).

The primary difference between psychoanalysis and recovered memory therapy is that the psychoanalysts were satisfied if the patients came to believe that they had experienced such and such events, and that these constituted the cause of their ailments. They never requested that the patients should recall the events. This request is what is new in recovered memory therapy.

Psychoanalysis and recovered memory therapy are identical in two further respects. Both essentially consist in influencing the patients, and both postulate that they carefully avoid influencing the patient.

Freud's own postulations are presented in almost literally the same wordings in 1895, 1896 and 1937, that is, over a period of 42 years (GW-I:300, 441; GW-XVI:48f./SE-II:295, SE-III:205, SE-XXIII:262). I shall quote the last excerpt: "The danger of our leading a patient astray by suggestion, by persuading him to accept things which we ourselves believe but which he ought not to, has certainly been enormously exaggerated. An analyst would have had to behave very incorrectly before such a misfortune could overtake him; above all, he would have to blame himself with not allowing his patients to have their say. I can assert without boasting that such an abuse of 'suggestion' has never occurred in my practice."

Among his followers Lawrence Kubie (1960) has most strongly asserted that the influence of the psychoanalyst is as minimal as possible. Kubie goes on to say that we can therefore know that the patient's reactions (e.g. outbursts of impotent rage) are caused by processes inside the patient.

But in his real life Kubie applied much coarser devices of influencing than most of his colleagues. One of his patients was Leland Hayward. When Hayward's son was 15 he dropped out of school and moved to another town with his girlfriend. His father fetched him back, but did not take his responsibility as a father. Instead he delivered his son to Kubie. Kubie locked him up in a mental hospital where he was given the choice between ice water torture and "voluntary" psychoanalysis. – Kubie was always very prone to lock in people. (Farber & Green, 1993:77ff.)




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Uppdaterad: 2009-11-19

Yakida