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Symptom Overreporting and Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

  • Original Article
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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

The authenticity of recovered memories is a much debated issue. Surprisingly, no study has systematically looked at symptom overreporting in people claiming recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). In a first sample we administered the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS) to individuals who said they had recovered CSA memories (n=66), individuals who said their CSA had always been accessible (continuous CSA memory group; n=119), and controls who said they had no CSA experiences (n=83). In a second sample individuals reporting recovered (n=45) or continuous (n=45) CSA memories completed the Morel Emotional Numbing Test (MENT). Our aim was to compare these groups with regard to their tendency to overreport symptoms. The results indicate that people with recovered memories do not score higher on the SIMS and the MENT than other CSA survivors suggesting that symptom overreporting is not typical for people reporting recovered memories.

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Acknowledgement

We thank Tim Brennen for comments on a draft of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200, Maastricht, MD, The Netherlands

    Elke Geraerts, Marko Jelicic & Harald Merckelbach

  2. Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Harald Merckelbach

Authors
  1. Elke Geraerts
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  2. Marko Jelicic
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  3. Harald Merckelbach
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Correspondence to Elke Geraerts.

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Geraerts, E., Jelicic, M. & Merckelbach, H. Symptom Overreporting and Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Law Hum Behav 30, 621–630 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9043-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9043-y

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