Customer Reviews

Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse

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Jennifer Freyd has written an incredibly powerful and moving book, the kind where her thinking gets yours going and you start to jot notes in the margins as you tear through it. Despite the fact that she has endured being outed as an incest survivor and being called a liar and a patsy by her parents and their coterie of non-traumatic memory experts associated with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, Dr. Freyd has risen above the fray about repressed memories in this book. Not one little shaft or snide remark escapes from her pen. Instead she focuses on the real issue: Do people forget trauma? Yes. Do we know how or why? Not completely but there seem to be several ways that it happens and more than one reason to do it. The element of betrayal appears to have a strong effect. Is it possible that therapists can implant memories? Possible. Is it possible for parents to cause kids to forget sexual abuse? Even more possible. Part of the joy of this book is her careful analysis of the implications of some of the more famous lab experiments on memory which are cited a "proof" that therapists can implant traumatic memories: For instance, the kid who was told he had been lost in a shopping mall "was convinced of the shopping mall story after being told that his older brother and his mother both remembered the event well. If this demonstration proves to hold up under replications it suggests both that therapists can induce false memories and, even more directly, that older family members play a powerful role in defining reality for dependent younger family members (p. 104)." The seven chapters in the book take us from "Betrayal Blindness," which discusses why people need to be blind to betrayals through "Conceptual Knots," which discusses problems with terminology and the implications of same. For example, "While I agree that memory repression is best understood as forgetting that is motivated in some way, I find it problematic to assume any particular motivation in the definition of the concept or repression itself (p. 19)." We need to examine "the range of phenomena, motivations and mechanisms implied by the varying uses of words like `repression,' `amnesia,' and `dissociation.'" She suggests using the "concept: knowledge isolation. Once that is done, why, how, when, and from what, knowledge is isolated can be determined, based on the resulting level of awareness of reality. Is the knowledge isolated at the time of the event? If so, is the limited material stored essentially unprocessed? Or is the knowledge instead blocked from consciousness after the event? Is the knowledge isolated following a desire to suppress awareness, or did it just seem to happen that something was not noticed or not forgotten?...This concept is useful specifically because it does not assume particular motivations, mechanisms, or resulting phenomena... we are in a better position to formulate precise and testable statements about the phenomena, the motivations, and the mechanisms (p. 26-27)." Chapter 3, Context and Controversy, details the current controversy with scrupulous fairness. She is also scrupulous in detailing what is known about how children and many abuse survivors do not reveal the whole story all at once: this used to be taken as proof they were making it up, but it now appears they are testing the waters out of fear of others' reactions (which turns out to be pretty well justified) and also because only parts of the experience are remembered at first. We have all had that experience. Even pleasant memories come back slowly. Traumatic ones can, too. Attempts to implant false memories in a 1995 study showed that a few people will remember a false event that is familiar (being lost in a shopping mall). None of them remembered a false event that wasn't familiar (having an enema). Dr. Freyd points out another small disrespectful action on the part of media and FMS spokespeople: They always use the first names of victims of child sexual abuse and the last names of their supposedly innocent parents. Chapter 4, Why Forget? details the reasons why the survival of a child may depend on not noticing or forgetting what its parents are doing so it can bond with them and receive care. Chapter 5, Ways Of Forgetting discusses them in the context of the latest in scientific studies and also details available studies about early childhood memories. Lots of very interesting science throughout this book. Chapter 6, Testable Predictions, discusses what the available scientific laboratory and clinical evidence suggests about forgetting trauma and how we can study these ideas to see if they are true. Chapter 7, Creating Connections, answers the question of why bring it up years later. The answer is to make this world a better place where instead of not talking about abuse, we don't do it. from the Post-Traumatic Gazette copyright 1996-Patience Mason

Because of her parents attacks on Dr. Freyd, I'd expected to find some of her justifible anger in the pages of this book. I did not. Dr. Freyd is logical, objective, and professional in her handling of this sensitive subject. She adds a somewhat new perspective to the old story of sexual abuse and betrayal. An excellent addition to any therapist's or survivor's library.

Before I read Betrayal Trauma, I obsessed over the details of WHAT had been done to me, to protect myself from the deeper and more devastating knowledge that I was severely betrayed by people who were expected, by society, to protect and care about me. As I let go of my denial that their behaviors were the norm, and accepted that they had wilfully chosen to betray me, I felt and fully experienced the deep, foundational pain that I'd secretly feared might kill me. I was stunned to realize how their innumerable betrayals had kept me separated from the rest of society for DECADES. Armed with that knowledge, I was able to let go of my childishly unrealistic expectations, and emotionally disconnect from them. As I let go, I realized how lonely I was. Although I'd used my inner selves in the past decades for company, I now dared to reach out to external others. As I did - miracle of miracles - I began to fully integrate. (I've been tested recently, and no longer have DID, although I still struggle with PTSD from hell.) Some of the healthy people I've since chosen to trust, love, and bond with have become members of my new family of choice. I cannot, in words, sufficiently express the joy and happiness I now feel when I interact with them. I never would have experienced this marvelous part of ordinary life, had I not allowed Dr. Freyd's words to lead me through my foundational pain. By example, she blazed a brave path that I am fortunate to have found and followed.

The daughter of the founder's of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation explores the valuable research which makes a strong case for repression/dissociation of abusive experiences in childhood. She is careful to make clear she is presenting a scientific THEORY which she calls "Betrayal Trauma." However, the research she notes to support this Theory is extremely strong and well presented. She avoids the personal voice you might expect, given her personal connection to the FMSF and it's creation, preferring to concentrate on the scientific issues at hand. She does a masterful job! This is a MUST read for any survivor of childhood trauma, for anyone involved in treating adult survivors of childhood trauma, and for anyone sincerely interested in looking at both sides of the "Memory War" with an eye for balance and truth. There are several surprises within these pages which truth seekers will appreciate. The text is well cited and eminently balanced.

I consider this book one of a small handful that really goes to the core of understanding trauma and its influence. Other such books include works by Alice Miller, Konrad Stettbacher, and Mortan Schatzman (Soul Murder; out of print; not the book by the same title by Leonard Schengold).

I'm still "digesting" the information contained within Freyd's book. As a person still seeking to understand and explain my own reality - which includes both "continuous" and "recovered" memories - this book has meant a lot. Betrayal is the most obvious yet most guarded "truth" that's woven through my own dissociative defenses against remembering. I think this is a breakthrough book and essential reading for anyone trying to understand the effects of childhood trauma on memory. It's so "simple" a concept with profound consequences. Betrayal is an essential truth of many childhood abuse experiences. "Betrayal Blindness" is the best explanation I've found for my own reactions. Ross Cheit's words throughout the book are the second best reason to read it. His courage and insight are so appreciated. The resurrection of Milton Erickson's 1938 paper and call for better understanding of 'retractors' is startling, considering the current FMS debate. Dr. Freyd deserves a standing ovation.

How could the huge betrayal of sexual abuse remain hidden in the back corners of my psyche for years and years? Can I really believe a memory that has been hidden so long?

Betrayal Trauma provides sensible, evidence-based answers to these questions. Freyd explains that forgetting is useful to the child because it enables her to remain in contact with the family that is essential for her survival. The closer the relationship with the abuser, the more important it is to forget the abuse in order to keep that relationship working, problematic though it is.

Freyd even found data showing that kids whose abuse was reported to authorities often "forgot" it for years, and the closer the relationship to the abuser (father vs. cousin, for example), the more likely the forgetting.

Isn't that stunning? Yet it makes total sense. I had to keep eating cornflakes every morning opposite my father and relying on him for food, learning, and yes, love. I could not allow myself to remember the abuse in the night.

I'm still "digesting" the information contained within Freyd's book. As a person still seeking to understand and explain my own reality - which includes both "continuous" and "recovered" memories - this book has meant a lot. Betrayal is the most obvious yet most guarded "truth" that's woven through my own dissociative defenses against remembering. I think this is a breakthrough book and essential reading for anyone trying to understand the effects of childhood trauma on memory. It's so "simple" a concept with profound consequences. Betrayal is an essential truth of many childhood abuse experiences. "Betrayal Blindness" is the best explanation I've found for my own reactions. Ross Cheit's words throughout the book are the second best reason to read it. His courage and insight are so appreciated. The resurrection of Milton Erickson's 1938 paper and call for better understanding of 'retractors' is startling, considering the current FMS debate. Dr. Freyd deserves a standing ovation.

This book is well written and well researched. I put it at the top of my list of good information and theory for any survivor.

The book seems to offer a perspective for why a child would forget and dissociate from childhood abuse. I appreciated the viewpoints from cognitive science regarding dissociation and memory. They seemed to explain why serious abuse would lead to processes in the brain that highly favor dissociation (to the point of forgetting). But, I wished that the book offered more information on this particular type of dissociation - dissociative amnesia - and also on how the healing process relates to the field of cognitive science and memory.