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This is a timely collection of 13 papers relating to the controversies about recovered and false memory. These cover clinical, theoretical and legal issues. The general orientation is psychoanalytic.
Prozan, the editor, is a feminist psychoanalyst who has herself been a prey in the hunting of therapists by those who propagate the concept of false memory syndrome. Her account, reproduced here, of the reconstruction of early sexual abuse in the background of her patient, Penelope, has been fiercely attacked by Freud-bashers such as Ofshe, a sociologist, and Crews, a professor of literature. More psychoanalytically sophisticated commentaries upon the case of Penelope are provided here by Stephen Seligman and Katherine MacVicar.
Seligman highlights the political dimension inherent in Prozan's position:
… If the clinical situation always contains a political background, the treatment of women who were molested by trusted men during their childhood brings the sexual-political questions toward the foreground. As is often true when issues become politicized and especially when secrecy is at issue, it is impossible to avoid taking a stand…. For her [Prozan], analysis, feminism, and critical social thinking are synergistic rather than inconsistent. (p. 216)
In ‘Psychic reality and historical truth’, Howard Levine describes the evolution of Freud's theorizing on memory and its clinical implications. He presents some apt quotes from Freud which would not be out of place today as informed observations on the unreliability of memory as a record of literal truth. Levine emphasizes that there is nothing inherent in the affective quality or presentation of an apparent memory which would enable a reliable distinguishing of true from false; moreover, clinical improvement may occur on the basis of an incorrect interpretation or reconstruction. He concludes that the psychotherapist must steer a path between the extremes of excessive scepticism and too-ready belief' (p. 16).
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