It is an ill wind that blows no good. In this instance, the ill wind that surrounds the rancorous disputes about recovered memories of trauma has, coincidentally, sparked an invigorated discussion of memory and influence. Voices not often heard, or listened to by clinicians—those of our laboratory-based colleagues—have weighed in with commentaries of their own. Infused with information about how memory actually works, and about the scope of influence out of conscious awareness, these commentaries may have begun to make fundamental changes in the way we look at the clinical process. They tell us memory is plastic, a product as much of the present as of the past; they tell us memory is used to persuade,