Analytic Reconstruction in the Treatment of an Incest Survivor

There has been little literature concerned with total or almost total amnesia for the event of sexual abuse. The sparsity of literature on amnesia for the sexual abuse event is striking, especially in light of information reports by analysts of such amnesia.

In the most comprehensive study concerning amnesia for sexual abuse, Herman and Schatzow (1987) studied 53 female incest survivors referred for group therapy. All the patients had either been sexually abused or they or their therapists suspected sexual abuse. Patients were categorized as having (1) full memory (36%), if they were judged to have full recollection of their abuse experiences, reported that they had always remembered the abuse in detail, and, in the course of group treatment, recovered no additional memories; (2) mild to moderate memory deficits (36%), if they were not aware of major gaps in memory but reported recent recall of new memories or recovered some additional memories during group treatment; or (3) severe memory deficits (28%), if they could recall very little from childhood and if they reported recent consciousness of memories that had been entirely repressed. In addition to finding that the majority of women (36% + 28% = 64%) had some amnesia for sexual abuse, they found a strong association between, on the one hand, the degree of reported amnesia and, on the other hand, the age of onset, duration of the sexual abuse, and occurrence of violent or sadistic abuse. In general, severe memory deficits were associated with abuse that began early, often in the preschool years. In addition, 60% of women with high memory deficits eventually recalled some violent abuse.