False Dialogues, Real Conflicts: A Response to the Symposium on the “False Memory” Controversy

We were very troubled by your decision to solicit and publish an article by Frederick Crews (1996), a member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation's (FMSF) advisory board, for your symposium on the “false memory” controversy in Psychoanalytic Dialogues. As long-time subscribers to the journal, we appreciate the forum you have offered to those willing to challenge traditional psychoanalytic ideas. We applaud your decision to take up the issue of sexual abuse and regard the article by Jody Messler Davies and Mary Gail Frawley (1992) in Dialogues as groundbreaking in the field of contemporary psychoanalysis. The contributions made by Adrienne Harris (1996a, b) and Jody Messler Davies (1996a, b) in the current symposium on “false memories ” are thoughtful, integrative papers, and their replies to the commentaries further clarify the issues. Although we disagree with C. Brooks Brenneis's (1996) perspective, we understand his participation to be within the parameters of clinical discourse.

However, in our opinion, publishing Crews's article was a politically naive and misguided decision, one that confuses poisonous pedagogy