GORDON KEENE VELLA. - On Point News

(Pope Decl. 37.)
Further, the bitter opposition over the theory of “dissociative amnesia” is very well
documented within the scientific community.
The profound absence of general acceptance of dissociative amnesia among the relevant
scientific community was recently detailed in an Amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the State
of California in Tau v. Loftus, 151 P.3d 1185 (Cal. 2007). In fact, “dozens and dozens of the
most prominent mental health and social science professionals in the world on the issue of socalled
‘repressed and recovered memories’” joined as Amici to demonstrate the lack of
acceptance of the “dissociative amnesia” hypothesis was (Barden Decl. 12, Ex. 3-D.)
Dr. Pope recently conducted his own study concerning the general acceptance of
“dissociative amnesia” by asking 301 randomly chosen board-certified psychiatrists if they
believed that “dissociative amnesia” should continue to be included in the American Psychiatric
Association’s diagnostic manual, DSM-IV, as an official diagnosis. “Only 35% of the
psychiatrists responded that “dissociative amnesia” should be included as an official diagnosis
without reservations, with 48% feeling that it should be included only with reservations (for
example as a “proposed” diagnosis in the Appendix), 9% feeling that it should not be included at
all, and 9% having no opinion.” (Pope Decl. 38, Ex. 8.) This study demonstrates that there is
no general consensus amongst the relevant scientific community.
In addition to the Dr. Pope study, numerous articles published over the last 15 years
demonstrate widespread skepticism over the theory of “dissociative amnesia.” (Pope Decl., Ex.
9.) Among the numerous articles is one entitled “Custer’s Last Stand: Brown, Scheflin, and
Whitfield’s Latest Attempt to Salvage “Dissociative Amnesia”, which specifically addressed the
claims of Dr. Brown himself. (Pope Decl., Ex. 10.) “In the face of these publications – none of
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