Second Thoughts (Paperback)

by Paul Simpson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Once a leading practitioner of Recovered Memory Therapy, Dr. Paul Simpson concludes that he had been "horrifically wrong", and that the movement has contributed to untold suffering in families where there have been false accusations of sexual abuse.

Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785274189
• ISBN-13: 978-0785274186
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #846,774 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An accurate, thoughtful account of false memory ., November 12, 1998

By A Customer

Dr. Paul Simpson presents an honest, most accurate account of the the effects of Recovered Memory Therapy and its tragic aftermath. Falsely accused parents and client/victims of RMT will find answers to the many questions related to this phenomenom. As a "retractor" of false memories and a therapist intern, I appreciated Dr. Simpson's courage to come forward as a therapist who had once been involved with this most unethical treatment. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Simpson at a recent conference. There, he apologized to all parents and clients negatively effected by RMT. His apology, given in the name of all RMT therapists, touched my heart. This book is a "must read" for all therapists and those who have recovered memories of abuse. I encourage all to read this book with an open mind. Take the time to have Second Thoughts.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Second Thoughts about the validity of recovered memory, April 17, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Texas) - See all my reviews

Dr. Paul Simpson is a christian psychologist who was very involved in the practice of helping his patients recover memories of abuse through the very popular therapy called RMT.

Like so many other therapists today, Dr. Simpson at first believed he was doing God's work, helping to retrieve memories of real abuse so that his patients could be healed from broken lives which had stopped working due to emotions out-of-control and destructive personal behaviors.

Later he discovered he had been greatly in error as are his colleagues who continue to practice RMT today commonly resulting in false memories, and assigning the false identity of "abuse victim" to dependent patients desperate for answers to their problems in living.

The author says the Christian Church is in great error in its acceptance of the concept of recovered memory and needs to do more to aid the falsely accused parents of children giving false witness based upon therapy suggested "memories."

The expose of what is happening in today's therapy is all the more important because it comes from someone who was inside the clinical office and involved from start to finish. Also, it is important because Dr. Simpson has all the right credentials, a born-again Christian, alumni of Christ for the Nations, Rapha therapist, dedicated care-giver. Still, his practice of RMT hurt his christian patients and their families.

Simpson says in RMT, he saw 100% of his patients go into severe decompensation[nervous breakdown] due to the effects from recalling or imagining vile scenes of horrific abuse. This led them to become very dependent upon him in an unhealthy way. Some of them could not even open their own mail. One assumes this is the point where such a patient will accept the label of MPD or satanic high priestess for themselves. Anything just to get it over with and back to a sense of normalcy.

Paul Simpson says he prayed with his clients and asked God to bless the therapy and still had ungodly results. He now realizes that God will not bless idolatry and occult practices no matter how much a spirit filled Christian might pray. Obedience to bibical principles and truth is absolutely necessary to avoid self-delusion.

Dr. Simpson gives an account of how his patients lives were affected before and after his therapy with them. The statistics as to how they were functioning supports his statement that he never saw a single patient who was better off after the therapy for having remembered such abuse.

This important book is must reading for all Christians and especially those who believe wrongly that christian psychologists will not lead them into error or that the Spirit of God will keep them safe from consequences of their idolatry.

The author has appeared on the James Dobson radio program Focus on the Family to discuss his book and the topic of RMT. Paul Meier was also on the show claiming that his own SRA and MPD patients were valid. He was talking when he should have been listening.

Buy this book, which like all truth is hard to find at the bookstore.

16 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Afterthoughts on Second Thoughts, November 18, 2001

By	Diane W. Hawkins (Grottoes, VA, USA) - See all my reviews

Paul Simpson is a psychologist who claims to have been deeply involved in what he calls "regression therapy," facilitating clients to recover forgotten "memories" through an induced hypnotic state. Eventually he came to question the validity of this method of therapy and the accuracy of the "memories" which were "resurrected" by it. This led to his contacting the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, whose tenets he now vociferously proclaims. He has become a strong advocate for accused parents and is involved in Project Middle Ground, serving as a supposedly unbiased mediator between accused parents and their accusing child (p. 119).

While some of Simpson's observations and concerns are quite valid, he unfortunately loses significant credibility through the manner in which he argues them. Generally he creates a worst case scenario and portrays it as a seemingly universal representation of all therapists and clients who believe in the concept of recovering dissociated, traumatic memories (e.g. pp. 3-6, 62, 115-17, 133, 137-38, 151-57, 166, 186-87).
He also erroneously lumps all such therapists together and labels them as "regressionists" when in reality this term should only be applied to those who deliberately age-regress their clients through hypnotic techniques for the purpose of recovering "forgotten memories." He ignorantly considers "dissociation" to be merely a renaming of "regression theory" (pp. 63, 203).

If his book were truly about the small group of true "regressionists" (frankly a term I've not heard before), it might have more validity, but I do not believe that this narrow focus is his intent. Nevertheless, using this term cleverly gives him a seemingly more legitimate platform to stand on as he wages his war against those he perceives as charlatans and witch hunters.

He engages in a similar type of "word gymnastics" when he attempts to convince his readers that any attempt to recover "forgotten" traumatic memories is not only unscriptural but in essence an unrecognized error of following the doctrine of demons. In these arguments he mockingly calls the process a "spiritual gift" (p. 184), a "doctrine" (p. 184), a "philosophy" (p. 188), a "new gospel" (p. 191), and a "miraculous event" (p. 192) just so he can falsely apply scriptures using these words to the phenomenon. He then paints a rather unsettling picture. Instead of believing in the existence of a covert web of multi-generational Satanists, which many "regressionists" claim, Simpson seems convinced that the therapists facilitating the recovery of these memories are the ones whom Satan is using to accomplish his agenda in the world (pp. 190-94).

In another place he twists psychological information to support his argument in a manner that less informed readers probably would not catch. After presenting good material on the characteristics of fantasy prone and easily hypnotized individuals, he quotes from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) that individuals with DID "tend to be highly hypnotizable." In questioning why this is so, he claims to have found the "secret of the False Memory Crisis." He says, "It's not that MPDs and repressed memory victims accidentally happen to be hypnotic virtuosos. It's the other way around." Highly hypnotizable people are particularly vulnerable when falling into the hands of "regressionist" therapists to imagine themselves into a false diagnosis of MPD [DID] (pp. 165-66).
His error is in failing to acknowledge that dissociability and hypnotizability are virtually synonymous terms (referring to a high propensity for entering an altered state of consciousness), meaning that dissociative individuals are indeed by their very nature "hypnotic virtuosos." The two are inseparable.

Another concern within the book is Simpson's inconsistent documentation. While his book is prolifically footnoted, some of his key technical points lack any footnotes at all(e.g. pp. 56-62; 121, 123, 134, 136, 161). He also fails on at least one occasion to list critical information regarding a study supporting his view(p. 45).

He claims there is little corroborating evidence to legitimize recovered memories (p. 11). While acknowledging the reality of true child abuse, Simpson seemingly only believes reports of such abuse if the person has "free standing" memories.

Making no allowance at all for dissociated traumatic memories, he also seems to question the existence of Dissociative Identity Disorder (pp. 24-25) even though this is fully recognized and described in the official diagnostic manual of psychologists (DSM-IV). On the other hand, he gives a lengthy description of "False Memory Syndrome" (pp. 105, 108, 121), which has never been professionally recognized or included in any diagnostic manual. Furthermore, after shooting down the definitive nature of symptoms lists others have established for suspecting buried childhood trauma (pp. 31; 94-102), he seemingly has no compunctions about creating his own list of symptoms which he says indicate a person is believing in false memories (pp 121-22).

Simpson's call for some sort of external corroboration of abuse memories and the witness of at least two individuals before making accusations of presumed perpetrators is both valid and biblical. Sprinkled through his chapters are other valid points regarding the potential influence of predisposing belief systems, mind contamination, suggestibility, and group dynamics in possibly creating "false memories," particularly in fantasy prone individuals. If he had presented these dynamics in a more balanced manner, allowing for the reality of true recovered memories as well, his book would make a more valuable contribution to the subject.

Simpson concludes his book by referring to the "mountains of research findings that contradict regressionism" (p. 224). Somehow I missed seeing these "mountains." The best I can say is that he presented material to cast a "reasonable doubt" on the validity of memories evoked under hypnotic conditions through the suggestions of therapists. However, the fervency with which he tries to cast this description on all therapists who believe in accessing dissociated, traumatic memories, his total rejection of any legitimate "recovered memories," his seeming manipulation of terminology and Scripture, and his selective documentation leave me wondering why.