The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse (Paperback)

One of the things that becomes obvious in this book is the fact that, while the debate was a raging one, few people who took part in it understood what it was really about. The recovered/false memory debate is not about whether the sexual abuse of children is a lie, or that the family is the seat of all evil. It is an essentially scientific debate about the operations of memory and the clinical applications of such knowledge. Loftus navigates through the cultural and rhetorical detritus of the debate to this core issue, and we benefit from her position as an expert researcher.

The book is clearly written for lay people, or for clinicians wanting a very quick summary of the issues. More clinically pertinent summaries of the research findings and theories are available elsewhere. If you're a therapist or researcher looking for professional information, you'll find the journalistic style slow going. However, if you're a lay person, the book is an excellent introduction to the debate.

The core debate that Loftus addresses is not whether or not sexual abuse exists. Rather, what she wisely chose to target was the essential issues of defining "repression" and its validity as a concept, how memory storage and retrieval operate, and what the relationship between psychological trauma and memory impairment is. She demonstrates that the concept of repression is a dubious though not necessarily invalid one, but that far too much assumption and clinical arrogance were invested in the recovered memory mania of the 80s and 90s.

This book was obviously controversial, but despite its lay orientation and stylistic flaws I believe it will endure as an important work in the history of psychotherapy. The legion of detractors demonstrated the truth of Loftus' thesis by construing the book as an attempt to disprove the existence of incest. And, because Loftus is a woman, she was a complicated target and therefore subjected to more condescending and intense attacks. Her accomplishment in this book was not to settle any questions, but to take the risk of attacking cherished, widely held, and richly funded clinical errors that were derailing public mental health and the reputation of psychotherapy. Highly recommended.

Needless to say the repressed memory industry was not pleased with this finding. Because she told the truth, they tried to brand Dr. Loftus as a traitor to the feminist cause. Industry members who had been making a nice living conjuring up repressed memories went on the attack, but she held her ground. What is amazing in this book is how well the authors maintain a balanced and fair attitude in the midst of such attacks. Loftus even met with Ellen Bass, co-author of the infamous The Courage To Heal (rightly dubbed The Courage to Hate by its victims) and managed to keep an even keel and a civil tongue.

Loftus makes it clear that human memories are reconstructions. They are not accurate in a scientific sense, nor meant to be. Memories are reconstructions because what the tribal mind wants is conformity to what is believed by the tribe now. So human memories are intermittently reconstructed to conform to the "truth" as the individual under the influence of the tribe sees it at present. What happened years ago is important to the tribe only as it connects to the present, and it is usually the political present that is important. Therefore memories need not be factually accurate; it is far more important that they be politically correct. To make them politically correct they must be malleable since the political wisdom changes over time.

The idea of "repressed" memories fits into this scenario wonderfully. The memory is said to be "repressed" until such time as it is politically necessary to retrieve it and then it is voodooed up and molded to fit the current power politics. It's like the rewriting of history in Orwell's 1984, or medieval trials by fire or water. Through the suggestive and coercive power of therapists (quasi-priests), memories are rewritten to suit the needs of the therapists, and alas, sometimes the needs of a district attorney bent on furthering his or her career at any price. (Janet Reno in her Dade County days is a case in point.)

However, the reason the repressed memory of sexual abuse scenario became such a wide spread phenomenon in this country was not simply because it gave feminists power. That alone would not have done it. The hysteria was empowered by financial gain. Laws in many states were rewritten to restart the statute of limitations to begin at the time the "repressed memories" were conjured up, not when the alleged crimes took place (pp. 173-74). Now people could go after their parents many years after the fact, after the parents had made their retirement egg, and get some of it! This potential gain brought in the lawyers. For the therapists it meant that the therapeutic sessions on the couch and the group indoctrination sessions could be dragged on and on until the insurance money ran out. (The literature shows just how fast therapists typically dumped their clients when they could no longer pay.) Carol Tavris is quoted by the authors on page 220: "The problem is...their effort to create victims-to expand the market that can then be treated with therapy and self-help books."

What backfired on the male-hating feminists was the realization from their more astute sisters that this repressed memory/sex crime/satanic abuse scenario just made victims and incest survivors out of women and effectively continued their subjugation to the patriarchy. As Tavris puts it: women were encouraged "to incorporate the language of victimhood and survival into the sole organizing narrative of their identity...." (p. 221)

Another fraudulent aspect of the repressed memory business was the faddish diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder that often went along with the phony memories, an affliction heretofore almost as rare as hen's teeth. Therapists cozied up to this once esoteric disorder because it fit in so well with their theory about why no concrete evidence of satanic ritual abuse was ever found; i.e., the satanic cults had so thoroughly programmed their victims that the personalities that experienced the horrors of abuse were repressed. Naturally it would take a therapist many hours at lucrative compensation to conjure up the repressed personalities and all the horrific "memories" of abuse. To make sure they got paid, the therapists got the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders "updated" to make the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder "real" so the insurance companies keyed to the Manual would have to pay for treatment.

This is a courageous book that bends over backwards to be fair, yet is uncompromised in its expression of the truth.