Devils and Details: Michelle Remembers Faulty Psychological Practices

As a trend, humans love discovery, and to have discovery, you need mystery. Something that is deeply unknown to us is our own brains. The way we think and the way we are is something that simply happens. Philosophers, psychologists, and nearly anyone with a slight curiosity would be searching for the answer to this impossible question.

As all science does, it has led us down a path that we can’t turn away from. I believe this is especially true with the direction psychology has gone down. From the infamous Freudian Psychology to the thousands of different psychological treatments in the modern day, humanity has a long way to go before anything is set in stone. I do find that it is best for us as a society to learn from our mistakes and the impacts of taking word as gospel.

Michelle Remembers is the psychoanalysis book that created the spark to fuel the Satanic Panic’s Fire. In 1980, when the book was first published, it was meant to be the records of Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith’s therapy sessions. These sessions (as well as the book itself) used ‘recovered memory therapy’ as the treatment option for Michelle’s past traumatic experiences. Some of these experiences were described by Michelle Smith, and they included, “[her being] imprisoned in cages among live snakes, forced to watch as members of her mother’s cult slaughtered kittens in front of her, and even endured 81 consecutive days of consistent physical abuse as the cultists engaged in a prolonged ritual to summon Satan himself.” Truly awful and fairly outlandish things that she had to suffer through.

Now, recovered memory therapy has largely been debunked by psychology professionals. A human being’s memory is very malleable to social influence. Elizabeth Loftus, who has studied psychology and memory extensively disagrees with the idea of ‘repressed trauma,’ “People don’t recall the past, she argued, but reconstruct it, molding it to the demands and beliefs of the present moment.” Despite this, Michelle Remembers gained more notoriety and the news outlets and talk shows representing the work, “rarely questioned the truthfulness of Smith’s account of her supposedly abusive upbringing and the atrocities she endured.” Not only were the news outlets taking her stories as fact, but prosecutors and police were using her book to prepare for cases related to molestation and the sexual assault of minors. This was the case for the McMartin Preschool Trial.

The McMartin Preschool Trial was one of molestation and cult ritual allegations related to multiple different teachers at the institute. Many of the children initially did not testify to sexual abuse from their teachers, until Michelle Smith, Lawrence Pazder, and other repressed memory counselors were brought on to talk to them. Once they had the opportunity to talk with the children, the children testified to participating in horrible satanic rituals, sexual and physical abuse, and assisting in ritual animal slaughter. This trial went on for quite a long time, and it “went on to become the longest and most expensive trial in American history, with a cost of $15 million.” It ultimately ended in mistrial mostly because the prosecution could not ascertain the truth from the children’s accounts, “The initial prosecutor in the McMartin case, Glenn E. Stevens, believes that Michelle Smith and other counselors influenced the children’s testimony against the accused.”

The messiness of psychology and the inability to confirm anything about the study would lead to inconsistencies such as this, but it’s a messiness that has living consequences on the people undergoing this treatment. These events and research gave a platform for the Satanic Panic to reach a turning point with a ‘witch hunt’ style of persecution and accusation. Hundreds of people were accused of sexual abuse based off a faulty form of psychotherapy. Dungeons and Dragons and a multitude of video games such as Doom were shunned and considered “satanic” by the public. Nearly 1 million people underwent repressed memory therapy during the 1980s into the 1990s, and it resulted in the changing of America’s culture and in turn the lives of many American citizens.

There was so much time, energy, and money put into the use of this type of psychotherapy only to bring a moral panic to the United States. There is a question of why, and it mostly relates to the political state of the United States after the 1950s. The counterculture movement led by Baby Boomers was growing larger under the oppressive fears and troubles of McCarthyism. The echoes of the past moral panic, the Red Scare, continued to haunt the nation and people were anxious for a method of protection and security. The rise of christian fundamentalism continued within America and ultimately led to the creation of the Moral Majority which contributed to the reinforcing of christian conservative ideals. It all comes to a critical point with this Satanic Panic era and the search for control over the uncontrollable.

Michelle Remembers is a testament to the powers of literature and art in the way of shaping a modern culture. The United States would not be where it is today without art, regardless of its morality or truthfulness. They manipulate humanity in a way that changes the course of history and society as a whole, and that’s what it means to have effective art.