Hyping Hypnosis: The Myth That Made Capturing the Friedmans Persuasive

ABSTRACT

Those promoting the idea of “false memory syndrome” often invoke the specter of hypnosis to discredit those making accusations of sexual abuse and anyone they might have spoken to for investigative or therapeutic purposes. Capturing the Friedmans demonstrates that accusations of hypnosis have strong rhetorical value, even when they are not true. The film, classified as a documentary, tells the story of a family that is shattered when the father and son both plead guilty to sexually abusing boys in the after-school classes in their basement. Using tropes about hypnosis and misrepresenting the actual facts in the case, the movie persuaded many people that Jesse Friedman was actually innocent. A detailed Conviction Integrity Review that was prompted by the movie demonstrates that the conviction was sound, and that the movie is suspect.

KEYWORDS:

• Capturing the Friedmans
• child sexual abuse
• backlash
• politics

Acknowledgments

This work was not supported by any grant or other source, and there are no conflicts of interest. A previous version of some of this analysis appears in my book, The Witch-hunt Narrative (Oxford University Press, 2014). The author gratefully acknowledges comments from the editors and reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Debbie Nathan, a primary proponent of the claim that hundreds of cases in the late 1980s were “witch-hunts,” once posted a plea on the Witchhunt Listserve that this case be investigated. She indicated that she had extensive correspondence with Arnold Friedman and someone else in the family. After the movie was released, one of the producers described her as an “intermediary to the family.” But there is no reason why any facilitation would be necessary under Jarecki’s explanation about how he stumbled into the case (Cheit, 2014, p.446, fn. 179).

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.