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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 424-3 Filed 11/08/21 Page 11 of 29 Pathways to False Allegations 105 In this situation, the controversy is not whether sexual content occurred but whether consent for this sexual content occurred. The final level of complexity regarding this pathway occurs in the attempt of professionals involved in the case to accurately understand after the fact the details of whatever consent process did or did not take place. By its nature, this will generally be a “he said, she said” matter in which it is very difficult to resolve conflicting claims. However, much can ride on the heuristics individuals use to resolve this indeterminate matter. A False Memory The theory of repression, according to Freud (1910), posits that traumatic memories can be pushed out of conscious awareness and essentially forgot- ten for long periods of time. Though some psychologists argue there is a lack of empirical support for the theory of repression (Loftus, 1993), many psychologists do believe that repression is a real process by which memo- ries can be forgotten and later remembered (Boag, 2010). One psychological process that may resemble repression is false memory. The existence and prevalence of repressed memories is a source of controversy (McNally & Geraerts, 2009), and yet research does exist demon- strating the successful implantation of fabricated memories. In one of the first studies on the implantation of false memories, participants were given short narratives of childhood experiences, purportedly obtained from relatives, and asked to try to remember these experiences (Loftus, Coan, & Pickrell, 1996). Participants’ relatives were contacted and asked to provide childhood stories about the participants. However, researchers created one fabricated narrative: The participant, at age 5 or 6, had been lost in a public place (e.g. a shopping mall) for an extended period of time and eventually rescued. Participants were encouraged to try to remember both true and fabricated events over the course of several weeks. When participants were asked later whether they recalled the events, nearly one-fourth of them reported having memories of the fabricated event. Though some individuals reported remem- bering being lost only vaguely, others reported remembering vivid visual details and emotional experiences. Since this study, several researchers have successfully replicated these results using different suggestive techniques and scenarios (e.g. Mazzoni, Loftus, Seitz, & Lynn, 1999; Hyman & Billings, 1998; Hyman & Pentland, 1996; Garry, Manning, Loftus, & Sherman, 1998). Many of the suggestive methods used in these experiments are similar to those employed by some therapists during psychotherapy (Ofshe & Watters, 1994, Pesant & Zadra, 2004). It has been argued that suggestive therapeutic techniques could cause a client to create a false traumatic memory (Loftus, 1993). An example of this type of suggestion would be for a therapist to conclude that the client shows signs of abuse despite no memory of abuse, and thus the client should try DOJ-OGR-00006279