Memory in Dispute

In this opening chapter, Gwen Adshead provides a careful overview of the research literature concerning the main issues in this debate. She includes legal issues and child and adult memory in her remit.

Valerie Sinason is a poet, writer, child psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst. She is Founder Director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies and President of the Institute for Psychotherapy. She is an Honorary Consultant Psychotherapist at the University of Cape Town Child Guidance Clinic and Chair of Trustees of the First People Centre, New Bethesda, South Africa. She is a Patron of Dorset Action on Abuse (DAA), editor of 'Trauma Dissociation and Multiplicity' and co-editor of 'Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy after Child abuse'. She has published numerous articles and books, including two poetry collections. Valerie Sinason was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the ISSTD (International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation) in April 2016

Foreword -- Introduction -- Flying by twilight: When adults recover memories of abuse in childhood -- "Children are liars aren't they?"-An exploration of denial processes in child abuse -- Trauma, skin: Memory, speech -- The psychoanalytic concept of repression: Historical and empirical perspectives -- False memory syndrome -- "What if I should die?" -- False memory syndrome movements: The origins and the promoters -- Serving two masters: A patient, a therapist, and an allegation of sexual abuse -- Syndromitis, false or repressed memories? -- Terror in the consulting-room-memory, trauma, and dissociation -- Recovered memories: Shooting the messenger -- False memory syndrome-false therapy syndrome -- How can we remember but be unable to recall? The complex functions of multi-modular memory -- Objective fact and psychological truth: Some thoughts on "recovered memory" -- Appendix: Useful Addresses