True or False Memories?

Reconstructing – and constructing – the Past

 A Nordic/International Seminar in Stockholm the 16-17 of June 1998.

Arranged by the Foundation for Forensic Psychology and the Nordic Interdiciplinary Forum for Individual Rights in Sexual Abuse cases and custody cases.

Location: Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 60.
Four prominent researchers will give the keynote lectures. Here is a short presentation of them and a relevant booktitle:

Jean La Fontaine, Professor Emeritus of social antropology, London School of Economics. Speak of the Devil. Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England, 1998.

Gisli Gudjonson, BSc, MSc, PhD, Chartered Psychologist, reader in forensic psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, London. The Psychology of Interrogations, Confessions and Testimony, 1993.

Elisabeth Loftus, Professor of Psychology and adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Washington, president of the American Psychological Society. The Myth of Repressed Memory. False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse, 1994.

Campbell Perry, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal. Since 1978 Fellow of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. Hypnosis, Will and Memory. A Psycho-Legal History, 1988.

Their lectures, or drafts of them, will be available before the seminar, as well as a presentation of the three Nordic family cases.

 

Miniseminars

What does it take to be a good investigator?

Can memories be created?

Is it possible to repress memories?

How is interrogative suggestibility to be avoided.

Children as witnesses, Secrets and Memories,

Legal aspects,

What can we learn from Bjugn? What can we learn from the Niko-case in Finland? From the Swedish case?

These seminars will be led by researchers from Sweden and other Nordic countries.

Welcome!

You are hereby invited to participate in a two-day seminar in Stockholm the 16-17 of June 1998. We welcome prosecutors, lawyers, jurors, judges, policemen, social workers, investigators, psychiatrists, psychologists, medical doctors, teachers, educators, journalists, researchers and students in criminology, psychology, law, antropology, sociology, journalism etc.

 

Program (smaller changes can be made):

                       June 16

9.00                Registration and coffee

9.30                Welcome

10.00               Construction of the past Three family examples. These families are from                           Norway (Bjugn), Finland (Helsinki, the”Niko”-case) and Sweden (a teacher-family).

12.00               Lunch

13.00               Jean La Fontaine: Constructing Tales of Satanic Abuse

14.30               Gisli Gudjonsson: Suggestibility

16.00               Coffee in your chosen miniseminar and discussion

17.30               Summary by a panel with one member from each miniseminar

18.30               Break

20.00               Buffé

 

                      June 17

9.30                 Elisabeth Loftus: Creating false memories

11.00               Miniseminar

12.00               Lunch

13.30               Campbell Perry: False Memories, hypnosis and some recent American legal decisions about ”repressed” memories

15.00               Coffee and discussions in your miniseminar

15.45               Plenary discussion

16.45               Final remarks

 

Background:

In 1981 the first international seminar was held in Stockholm, ”Reconstructing the past” . There is a book with the same title, documenting the seminar. When we remember we reconstruct the past.

In 1995 the Nordic Interdiciplinary Forum for Individual Rights in Sexual Abuse cases and custody cases was founded and has arranged three summer seminars.

In September 1996 the Foundation for Forensic Psychology was founded. Since then interdisciplinary seminars have been held every term. The Nordic/international seminar in June 1998 is planned to be followed up. The purpose is to develop and spread knowledge about memory and suggestibility – and thereby hopefully improve methods of investigation.

 

Remark made by Lena Hellbom Sjögren March 3, 2016:

This is history. A report/book and video from the conference had been prepad by me with the lecturers, but things turned out differently, sadly enough. The research and experiences presented on this Stockholm seminar is still not common knowledge, but some of it is, thanks to the revelation that anything can be created by phantasy and suggestible questioning and therapy, for example a serial killer who in reality had not killed anyone (”Tomas Quick”). This was disclosed after many years by clever digging journalists as Hannes Råstam ( who is not more among us still living).