False memory syndrome (FMS) describes a condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by memories which are factually incorrect but are strongly believed. Peter J. Freyd originated the term, which the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) subsequently popularized.
False memories may be the result of recovered memory therapy, a term also defined by the FMSF in the early 1990s, which describes a range of therapy methods that are prone to creating confabulations. Some of the influential figures in the genesis of the theory are forensic psychologist Ralph Underwager, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus and sociologist Richard Ofshe. False memory syndrome is not recognized as an official mental health diagnosis but the principle that memories can be altered by outside influences is overwhelmingly accepted by scientists.
Read more about False Memory Syndrome: Definition, Recovered Memory Therapy, Evidence For
Famous quotes containing the words false, memory and/or syndrome:
“if thou slip thy troth and do not come at all.
As minutes in the clock do strike so call for death I shall:
To please both thy false heart, and rid myself from woe,
That rather had to die in troth than live forsaken so.”
—Unknown. The Lady Prayeth the Return of Her Lover Abiding on the Seas (l. 19–22)
“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.”
—Luis Buñuel (1900–1983)
“[T]he syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech’s daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)