False accusations

Reading the story, “Molestation charges dropped against ex-church teacher” (BDN, June 29-30), brings to mind a September 1997 article in Scientific American titled, “Creating False Memories.”

The author, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, is a professor of psychology and adjunct professor of law at the University of Washington. At the time of the article, she was president of the American Psychological Society.

The gist of her article was that suggestion and imagination can easily create “memories” of events that did not actually occur. Dr. Loftus concludes that “Mental health professionals and others must be aware of how greatly they can influence the recollection of events and of the urgent need for maintaining restraint in situations in which imagination is used as an aid in recovering presumably lost memories.”

Abuse of children is a serious matter, but so are false accusations. I suspect that a fair number of people have had their lives ruined by sincere interviewers using flawed methods.

Gene Wilbur

Parkman