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When Jennifer Freyd accused her father of sexual abuse, her parents set out to discredit her — creating a controversial school of psychology that has bolstered the defense of countless sex offenders. @KTHeaney reports https://thecut.io/3s2MldY
In her second session with a therapist, Jennifer was asked whether she had ever been sexually abused. Jennifer gave a thoughtless “No,” but later that day, she began to remember http://thecut.io/3s2MldY
Jennifer has never publicly described what she says her father, Peter Freyd, did to her; she sees no benefit in recounting the details. If pressed to give it a name, she says he molested her http://thecut.io/3s2MldY
Peter denied his daughter’s claims, and in the wake of Jennifer’s disclosure, Peter and his wife, Pam, formed an organization called the False Memory Syndrome Foundation http://thecut.io/3s2MldY
Through the nonprofit’s work, they popularized a term — false memory — that became one of the most effective tools to instill doubt not only about allegations of child sex abuse but in all forms of sexual violence http://thecut.io/3s2MldY
Between 1992, when the foundation was launched, and December 2019, when it abruptly shuttered, it bolstered the defense strategy employed by countless sex offenders, from Michael Jackson to Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein http://thecut.io/3s2MldY
Today, the notion that one’s own memories of sexual violence are unreliable is owed, in large part, to how the Freyds responded to their daughter http://thecut.io/3s2MldY
Read @KTHeaney’s report on Jennifer Freyd’s accusations and the foundation Peter and Pam Freyd founded to discredit them http://thecut.io/3s2MldY
