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Going to court is difficult, exhausting business. This is particularly so when one's testimony pertains to whether a child patient has been sexually abused by the father, and the parents now embroiled in divorce proceedings. Are the child's accusations true or has the mother put the child up to it? Has the child related a lie, false memory (Loftus, 1993), a delusion in an atypical psychosis, or has memory been irretrievably altered by leading questions during prior sex-abuse inquiries? As Loftus notes, human memory is profoundly malleable at all ages but particularly so in young children being “treated” by a psychotherapist who suggests too much.
In this situation one needs authoritative help Fortunately, such is to be found in Richard Gardner's True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse. Although in many circumstances it will never be possible to say with absolute certainty whether abuse took place, the author suggests that by using his rating scales and “indicators,” the thoughtful clinician can compile a score that reflects the likelihood of the event. This is particularly important because today's approach to child sex abuse is clouded by hysteria. This current represents the third major wave of hysteria to grip this country, the first being the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the second the McCarthy anti-Communism hearings of the 1950s. Hence, while child abuse in Western society is probably at an alltime low, vigilance toward it runs high. The rush to judgment can be too quick and driven by many factors other than a quest for truth.
A particularly chilling example of the latter are the Little Rascals Day Care Center sex abuse trials taking place in Edenton, North Carolina In-death coverage has recently been provided by the PBS Frontline program, “Innocence Lost: The Verdict”. In this case, the two defendants tried to date were found guilty on the basis of testimony by children who were, on average, age 3 at the time of the alleged abuse. These children also cl