Book Review: Memory in Dispute

Abstract

This volume, a collection of fourteen chapters brought together by the experienced hand of Valerie Sinason, is one that should, at any time, be prominent on the shelves of all counsellors and psychotherapists. In our current times when the issue of sexual abuse, particularly against children, and that of false memory as an alleged product of the therapeutic process itself is an increasingly pervasive and disturbing social and legal concern, it may well be a quite necessary addition. While predictably concentrating on the experience of sexual abuse in its relation to false and recovered memory, what the book also succeeds so effectively in doing is to remind the reader of just how profoundly complex and perŽdious a phenomenon memory itself is while remaining the very theoretical foundation on which psychoanalysis was constructed. It is perhaps the essentially elusive, unreliable nature of memory that makes the work of the psychodynamic counsellor and therapist so very difŽcult and, certainly when dealing with matters such as sexual abuse, so full of risk for client and therapist alike. As one of the contributors to this collection, Phil Mollon, puts it ‘Between the extremes of “true” and “false” memory lies a vast area of uncertainty and ambiguity’ (p. 127). The fourteen chapters in this book can be roughly divided into three categories, with considerable overlapping in most, but it will hopefully help to give the reader of this review some sense of the book’s rich and varied content around its deŽning subject. The categories are the historical/research, the societal, and the clinical. The Žrst of the historical/research chapters, with which the book opens, is provided by Gwen Adshead, who gives a background to the concept of false memory and outlines some of the most important Žndings and research methods related to it. She advocates an approach to all enquiry into the subject of false memory syndrome based on compassionate scepticism and intellectual rigour and asks the teasing question as to whether therapists actually believe their patients. Marjorie Orr takes a similar historical perspective in throwing light on the origins of the international false memory societies, and reminds us of the importance of protecting the few who are wrongly accused of perpetrating sexual abuse while bringing to justice the genuine offenders as well as seeking justice for the victims themselves. BOOK REVIEWS