Legal Issues
In Ramona v. Isabella, George Ramona sued his daughter's therapist for implanting false memories of his abuse of her. In the first case putting recovered memory therapy, itself, on trial, he eventually was awarded $500,000 in 1994.
Discussing RMT in parliament in 1995, an Australian state Minister for Health, Dr Andrew Refshauge – a former medical practitioner – stated that the general issue of admissibility of evidence based on recovered memories was one for the Attorney General. In 2004 Australian Counseling Association issued a draft position statement regarding recovered memories in which they informed their membership of possible legal difficulties if they affirm accusations as true based solely upon discussion of a patient's recovered memories without adequate corroborating evidence.
A degree of controversy does remain within legal circles, with some holding the view that therapists and courts should consider repressed memories the same as they consider regular memories. Three relevant studies state that repressed memories are "no more and no less accurate than continuous memories."
Recovered memory therapy was an issue in the criminal trials of some Catholic priests accused of fondling or sexually assaulting juvenile-turned-adult parishioners.
Several court cases awarded multi-million dollar verdicts against Minnesota psychiatrist Diane Bay Humenansky, who used hypnosis and other suggestive techniques associated with RMT, resulting in accusations by several patients against family members, that were later found to be false.
In the UK, a woman who said she had falsely accused her father of rape successfully sued the hospital and psychologist who had treated her with what she described as a form of RMT and was awarded a large out-of-court settlement.
Read more about this topic: Recovered-memory Therapy
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