Repressed-Memory Therapy: Lies of the Mind

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If such recovered memories are indeed false, where do they originate? From two sources, critics say: the popular culture and misguided or inept therapy. Sensational tales about recovered memories of incest have been grist for celebrity-magazine cover stories. And repressed-memory incest and satanic- ritual-abuse victims have been featured prominently on Geraldo, Oprah, Sally Jessy Raphael and other daytime TV talk shows.

In bookstores, pop-psychology sections are filled with dozens of self-help survivor titles. By far the most controversial and best selling (more than 700,000 copies) of these books is The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. In their 1988 publication, considered the bible of the recovered-memory movement, they include such dogma as "If you think you were abused and your life shows the symptoms, then you were," and "If you don't remember your abuse, you are not alone. Many women don't have memories . . . this doesn't mean they weren't abused." Like many of the authors of these self-help books, neither Davis nor Bass has any academic training in psychology, although Davis claims to be an incest survivor. Yet many therapists urge their patients to read Courage and other similar volumes.

Many of these books contain laundry lists of symptoms of repressed-memory victims. They inform their readers that even though they have no memory of the acts, they may have been victims of childhood sexual or ritual abuse if they experience some of the following conditions: depression, anxiety, loss of appetite or eating disorders, sexual problems and difficulty with intimacy. The all-inclusive nature of that list, critics say, suggests that among the entire U.S. population, only the rare individual has managed to escape childhood sexual abuse. That doesn't seem to surprise therapist E. Sue Blume. In her book Secret Survivors, she writes, "It is not unlikely that more than half of all women are survivors of childhood sexual trauma."

Almost any night, in any major American city, adult incest and ritual-abuse survivor meetings are held in church basements and community rooms. Churches and other institutions also offer counseling for dissociative disorders and satanic-ritual-abuse victims.

Private psychiatric hospitals, which advertise in medical journals and airline magazines, are profiting as well. "We can help you remember and heal," promises one ad for ASCA Treatment Centers in Compton, California. "Remembering incest and childhood abuse is the first step to healing."