To think some regressed memories be made up?

[LoveCherryTree]

So, a friend was going through life all ok and then went to see a therapist, suddenly after a few sessions she’s had these regressed memories come flooding back, I believe she’s remembering things wrongly, but she won’t listen to me. And in some instances she believes something happened and I’ve proved 100% that it didn’t but she still won’t think that if she is imaging things that aren’t true then maybe she should be questioning the therapy.
she told me that her therapist is a man hater and other personal things, isn’t it unprofessional for a therapist to portray any of this or any personal information?
I feel like my friend is ruining her life and yet she doesn’t question any of it, she just wants to think these things happen and that’s the end of it. She thinks a friend of my parents abused her when she was young, but again, it just isn’t possible when she said it happened, she could ruin this man’s life for no reason. I’m just after some advise?

How are you so positive the abuse didn't happen? I don't want to be goady but if she said oh this happened with details, then can you be sure?
Or did say this happened at Xmas 1992 and you know for a fact he was out the country or something?

Because she said someone else was there and it happened to them and that person has said in no uncertain terms, it did not happen. For context, the friend is very much me, me, me.

Memory is complex and poorly understood.

Your line about "ruining" a man's life is a cliche that makes your op less credible.

What qualifications does the therapist have? Why did you decide to post about your friend online?

That doesn't actually prove anything.

You can get false memories. You can be so convinced something has happened but it hasn't.

It does if you know both people. And when one of them is making things up and is remembering things out of the blue then there is definite questions to it all.

I think she is mixing memories and coming up with a complete fabricated story.

I can’t speak as to your friend, but there have definitely been “repressed memories” that never really happened. Once I watched an episode of some investigative show in which everyone in a woman’s group therapy claimed that her dad had sexually abused them when they were children. The problem was, she hadn’t met any of these people until well into adulthood, several US states away from where her dad lived. They claimed he traveled to abuse them, when he never had the time or money to go on a trip out of state. There was no evidence he’d ever met these people.

My sister in law same the same thing about her dad. Her sisters were very angry and said that their dad was not an abuser and that she was making it up or imagining it.

She also went on to say that my brother was a paedophile, had abused their daughter and was running a sex ring in his school. All of the was said out of badness, and she later had to officially retract because the claims were so ludicrous. She thought she would be instantly believed and my brother kicked out of house.

Some people are mad, some people are bad. I don't believe everything I hear anymore.

Sis in law was later diagnosed as having bipolar but if her claims had not been so far fetched, she may have been believed. Its so dangerous out there, especially for innocent men.

This is another problem, when she said these things happened my parents weren’t even friends with this man, she just won’t listen to anything, she’d just rather wallow in it instead of looking at it realistically

If you're sure she is imagining this, you must stick up for this innocent man. You can threaten her with slander if she keeps entertaining the notion.

Many aspects of therapy make their clients worse than better.

Can you regress lots of memories throughout your life? She had lots when she was young and then in her twenties….and then after a few therapy sessions she remembers it all?

Could your friend be a narcissist? My sister in law was also very me, me, me, and had zero empathy towards those she made false allegations about. No shame afterwards either.

That's terrible!

I just don’t know, she says lots of people around us are narcissist's. She’s always thought she worse off than anyone else

I also got the impression that my sister in law was quite perverted sexually, and her accusations were projections of her own mind. Her head was really in the gutter.
Perhaps your friend feels shame over something and is now pointing fingers.

Narcissists accuse others of being narcissists. If you are sure her accusations are false, she is a very dangerous individual unless she changes her ways.

Repressed memories are a Freudian concept that aren't really supported by modern psychology. If people have been abused or experienced trauma then they generally remember it (although they may have forgotten details that will come out again in therapy).

If you're going to make judgments about this, at least get the terminology correct - it's 'repressed memories', not regressed.

It's a really complex area. Memory of traumatic events can be repressed, but false memories can also feel real.

psychcentral.com/ptsd/repressed-trauma

Oh my god I’m so sorry, my auto correct corrected it….sorry, not sure where I said I was judging anyone, just trying to get some advice on what to do!

She didn't say ruining a man's life

@atticstage oh sorry i missed that bit

I can't comment on the specifics of your post OP, however, to answer the question in your thread title, yes, I think that sometimes memories can be made up (though of course not always maliciously or intentionally) and that some people will come to believe a memory is real when it is not as this study seemed to indicate.

https://www.washington.edu/news/2001/06/11/i-tawt-i-taw-a-bunny-wabbit-at-disneyland-new-evidence-shows-false-memories-can-be-created/#:~:text=About%20one%2Dthird%20of%20the,Bunny%20is%20a%20Warner%20Bros.

Thank you, that ls all I really want, is advice! I’ve lost a very good friend and I just don’t know what to do

I’m puzzled as to why you appear to feel qualified to judge on this matter. You can’t possibly know this abuse didn’t take place.