Were children sent to locked facilities for repressed memory therapy?
The Division of Children and Family Services, to my knowledge, has not contracted for repressed memory therapy for any child in this state. The idea of repressed memory has been around for the last 100 years. It was developed by Sigmund Freud as an unconscious mechanism whereby the memory of painful or threatening events becomes inaccessible to the conscious mind as a way of providing relief from traumatic events. Typically this type of therapy involves several stages of treatment where a therapist uses techniques to help a victim remember past abuse. There continues to be quite a debate about this form of treatment. Were children sent to out-of-state hospitals to coerce reports of sexual abuse? No children were hospitalized in order to coerce reports of abuse. Between 1993-1995, four of the children in the Wenatchee cases were placed at Pinecrest Hospital for in-patient psychiatric care. The need for the hospitalization was medically determined by local treatment providers and support
