Standards for informed consent in recovered memory therapy

Malpractice suits against therapists for either instilling or recovering fa lse memories of sexual abuse have increased in the last few years and some of the awards have been large. Failure to give informed consent, that is, f ailing to inform patients concerning the risk of recovering false memories, is one of the main allegations increasingly made against therapists in rec overed memory cases. In the landmark case on informed consent, Conterbury v . Spence fashioned a standard of disclosure that focused on how material th e potential warnings were to the patient's decision and specifically stated the standard would be set by the law, not by the profession. The court rul ed that the "risk or cluster of risks" must be disclosed to the patient in a manner that meets the patient's "informational needs." A review of releva nt literature shows that a substantial body of information existed by the e arly 1990s that warned psychotherapists about the risk of false reports of sexual and physical abuse. This article concludes that the "risk or cluster of risks" that must be disclosed to a patient recovering repressed memorie s in psychotherapy should have included warnings about recovering false mem ories.