Questions Raised by the Controversy Over Recovered Memories of Incest (Lief, 2003)

The article “Questions Raised by the Controversy Over Recovered Memories of Incest” by Harold Lief, a former president of The Academy and an advocate for the scientific study of sexuality, takes up a series of questions regarding recovered memories of incest. In answering these questions, Lief ranged into topics of interest to all mental health professionals: the nature of memory; the interaction between explicit and implicit memory; how pseudomemories evolve; the place of dreams, flashbacks, and repetitive behaviors in understanding memory; neural pathways involved in trauma; historical versus narrative truth; and the way clinicians should approach recovered memories in treatment. This paper was written during a time when media reports of ritual sexual abuse, satanic cults, and horrific incest were numerous and emerged as a result of recovered memories during psychotherapeutic treatment.

The most striking finding to me from this article has to do with the importance of the therapeutic relationship in promoting and sustaining pseudomemories. The therapeutic relationship in these instances was characterized as intense and dependent, with frequent contact, and compromised professional boundaries. These therapists would directly or indirectly reward the recall of memories of abuse and would look to these as a unitary explanation for the patient's difficulties. Patients would hold onto the role of incest survivor as a main source of identity and self-esteem. Lief acknowledges the high frequency of childhood sexual abuse but reminded the reader that, contrary to popular media depictions of trauma, total psychogenic amnesia is a rare occurrence after childhood sexual abuse and that memory distortion more often takes the form of intrusive memories, flashbacks, and symptoms of PTSD rather than amnesia. Approximately two-thirds of patients who have experienced childhood sexual abuse have memories of their