Return of the furies: an investigation into recovered memory therapy. By Hollida Wakefield and Ralf Underwager. Open Court Publishing, distributed by Eurospan Group, London WC2E 8LU. 1994. ISBN 0-8126-9291-3. ISBN 0-8126-9272-1
✍ Scribed by Philip Lucas
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 41 KB
- Volume
- 7
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0957-9664
- DOI
- 10.1002/cbm.177
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This book deals with an important issue with profound implications for the way in which psychotherapy is practised. Its message and most of its conclusions are basically sound. But its hectoring style is irritatingly intrusive and its message vitiated by lack of balance. It is also uncertain whether it is addressing an academic or a lay audience.
The 'recovered memory therapy' of the title refers to a phenomenon that can perhaps best be understood sociologically. There has been a growth in the USA over the last decade of a 'therapy' which has at its core the following complex of beliefs: that sexual abuse of children, especially girls, within families, especially by fathers, is very much more common than generally believed; that such sexual abuse commonly leads to a wide range of serious psychopathology; that such sexual abuse may be forgotten or 'repressed' until 'recovered' in 'therapy'; and that recovery of such memories is necessary for 'healing' the effects of sexual abuse. Necessary but not apparently sufficient. According to the authors' account, to be healed also requires the catharsis of intense hate-filled anger directed at the perpetrator or those who defend him.
The authors describe how a growing number of vulnerable, mainly female, subjects are receiving this inappropriate therapy at the hands of incompetent and wrong-headed practitioners who have been strongly influenced by a selfhelp best seller, The Courage to Heal. Much of their book is devoted to a fairly academic discussion of the nature of memory to demonstrate how 'memories' of abuse may arise in response to therapists' expectations and suggestions. The authors are at their most passionate when recounting the effects of these 'false memories' on the subjects' families. Professionally, they are psychologists with considerable experience in the arena of child abuse. They describe their