Maintains that there is no controlled scientific evidence that memories of trauma may be "recovered" years later.

Lost Daughters movingly depicts the human toll exacted by the widespread belief in Recovered Memory Therapy. It portrays families devastated by daughters' RMT-inspired memories of childhood sexual abuse and their accusations against parents.

This volume contains two essays by Frederick Crews attacking Freudian psychoanalysis and its aftermath in the so-called recovered memory movement. The first essay reviews a growing body of evidence indicating that Freud doctored his data and manipulated his colleagues in an effort to consolidate a cult-life following that would neither defy nor upstage him. The second essay challenges the scientific and therapeutic claims of the rapidly growing recovered-memory movement, maintaining that its social effects have been devestating.

Recovered Memory: New York and Paris 1960-1980 is a meditation on time and place: before the internet and 24/7 news; when one could visit the Eiffel Tower without seeing police and automatic weapons, when a ride on the New York subway cost 15 cents, when the smell of fresh-baked baguettes wafted over nearly every Parisian neighborhood, and when the Coney Island parachute ride still thrilled thousands. Van Riper's striking black and white photographs spanning twenty years, coupled with his eloquent texts, capture the 20th-century romance and grit of New York more than a half century ago, and Paris, some forty years ago. It was a time when the pace of life was slower and somehow less threatening, people talked to each other instead of texting on their iPhones, and you literally had to stop and smell the coffee.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the concept of repressed memories. It provides a history and context that documents key events that have had an effect on the way that modern psychology and psychotherapy have developed. Chapters provide an overview of how human memory functions and works and examine facets of the misguided theories behind repressed memory. The book also examines the science of the brain, the reconstructive nature of human memory, and studies of suggestibility. It traces the present-day resurgence of a belief in repressed memories in the general public as well as among many clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, “body workers,” and others who offer counseling. It concludes with legal and professional recommendations and advice for individuals who deal with or have dealt with the psychotherapeutic practice of repressed memory therapy. Topics featured in this text include: The modern diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (once called MPD) The “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and its relation to repressed memory therapy. The McMartin Preschool Case and the “Day Care Sex Panic.” A historical overview from the Great Witch Craze to Sigmund Freud’s theories, spanning the 16th to 19th centuries. An exploration of the cultural context that produced the repressed memory epidemic of the 1990s. The repressed memory movement as a religious sect or cult. The Repressed Memory Epidemic will be of interest to researchers and clinicians as well as undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of psychology, sociology, cultural studies, religion, and anthropology.

In the last decade, reports of incest have exploded into the national consciousness. Magazines, talk shows, and mass market paperbacks have taken on the subject as many Americans, primarily women, have come forward with graphic memories of childhood abuse. Making Monsters examines the methods of therapists who treat patients for depression by working to draw out memories or, with the use of hypnosis, to encourage fantasies of childhood abuse the patients are told they have repressed. Since this therapy may leave the patient more depressed and alienated than before, questions are appropriately raised here about the ethics and efficacy of such treatment. In the last decade, reports of incest have exploded into the national consciousness. Magazines, talk shows, and mass market paperbacks have taken on the subject as many Americans, primarily women, have come forward with graphic memories of childhood abuse. Making Monsters examines the methods of therapists who treat patients for depression by working to draw out memories or, with the use of hypnosis, to encourage fantasies of childhood abuse the patients are told they have repressed. Since this therapy may leave the patient more depressed and alienated than before, questions are appropriately raised here about the ethics and efficacy of such treatment.

In 1988 Ericka and Julie Ingram began making a series of accusations of sexual abuse against their father, Paul Ingram, who was a respected deputy sheriff in Olympia, Washington. At first the accusations were confined to molestations in their childhood, but they grew to include torture and rape as recently as the month before. At a time when reported incidents of "recovered memories" had become widespread, these accusations were not unusual. What captured national attention in this case is that, under questioning, Ingram appeared to remember participating in bizarre satanic rites involving his whole family and other members of the sheriff's department. Remembering Satan is a lucid, measured, yet absolutely riveting inquest into a case that destroyed a family, engulfed a small town, and captivated an America obsessed by rumors of a satanic underground. As it follows the increasingly bizarre accusations and confessions, the claims and counterclaims of police, FBI investigators, and mental health professionals. Remembering Satan gives us what is at once a psychological detective story and a domestic tragedy about what happens when modern science is subsumed by our most archaic fears.