Memory in dispute

"This is a much-needed book - experienced clinicians writing intelligently about one of the most fraught and complex clinical problems facing psychotherapy today. We have patients who are suffering - suffering because of memories of experiences with which they cannot cope, with which nobody should have to cope. This book is aimed at the clinicians working with such individuals. For the most part, it does not attempt to resolve the dispute or to provide an illusion of certainty in a context where none can exist. It is a challenge to all of us to preserve precious doubt in a situation where we are under pressure from our clients, from their relatives, and from the general public to adopt a clear position; however, when clarity can only be achieved through extremism, the price is too high - the sacrifice of individual lives is intolerable. This book contains some excellent chapters, and the editor is to be congratulated on her selection of themes. It is clearly not the final word in the field of recovered memory. It is, nevertheless, an enormously valuable contribution to psychotherapists working within a psychoanalytic framework with an additional impossible dilemma in an already impossible profession."--Professor Peter Fonagy, from his Foreward to this book.

COVER; CONTENTS; ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS; FOREWORD; Introduction; CHAPTER ONE-Flying by twilight: when adults recover memories of abuse in childhood; CHAPTER TWO-"Children are liars aren't they?"- an exploration of denial processes in child abuse; CHAPTER THREE-Trauma, skin: memory, speech; CHAPTER FOUR-The psychoanalytic concept of repression : historical and empirical perspectives; CHAPTER FIVE-False memory syndrome; CHAPTER SIX-"What if I should die?"; CHAPTER SEVEN-False memory syndrome movements: the origins and the promoters.