Child Sexual Abuse and False Memory Syndrome / Edition 1

by Robert A. Baker

Overview

Is repressed memory fact or fiction? What role should therapists play in determining the truth? What, if any, weight should these "memories" be given when prosecuting claims of child sexual abuse? Noted experts seek answers that could affect thousands of lives.

Tabloid talk shows and the courts are overflowing with adults alleging sexual and other abuses they endured as children. Parents have been hauled into court, convicted, and jailed over their children's claims of abuse, many of which have been based upon "memories" that have surfaced after therapists employed dubious techniques and suggestive "therapies." In some cases, the abuse really did occur. Alarmingly, in other cases, it did not.

Noted psychologist and author Robert A. Baker states that experienced and responsible therapists vehemently disagree about the nature, source, and reliability of these "memories." In Child Sexual Abuse and False Memory Syndrome doctors, therapists, victims, researchers, and others search for answers in seven major areas: memory and its recovery, childhood trauma, repression and amnesia, hypnosis, suggestibility, professional problems and ethical issues, as well as needed research and legal implications.

Distinguished contributors include Maggie Bruck, Stephen J. Ceci, Gail Goodman, James Hudson, John F. Kihlstrom, Elizabeth Loftus, Richard Ofshe, Harrison Pope, Leonore Terr, Ralph Underwager, Hillida Wakefield, Ethan Watters, Michael Yapko, and more than 20 others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781573921824
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/01/1998
Pages:	482
Product dimensions:	6.31(w) x 9.47(h) x 1.35(d)
Lexile:	1370L (what's this?)

About the Author

The late Robert A. Baker, Ph.D. was the author of the acclaimed They Call It Hypnosis. He taught psychology at MIT, Standford University, and the University of Kentucky, where he was chairman of the Psychology Department until his retirement. He was also the author of Hidden Memories: Voices and Visions from Within, and Mind Games: Are We Obsessed with Therapy? and was editor of Child Sexual Abuse and False Memory Syndrome.

Editorial Reviews

While this handbook on child sexual abuse will be of primary interest to professionals and legal experts, its 32 lucid articles written by professionals will also be of value to victims, patients and their families. The compendium aims to help those involved identify instances of child sexual abuse while protecting innocent adults who may be wrongfully accused. Some selections demonstrate in disturbing detail how damaging recovered-memory therapy can be, especially when hypnosislike procedures produce confabulated memoriesi.e., fantasies inseparable from reality. Other contributors attest that many or most of the stories they hear alleging childhood incest or sexual abuse are true. Strong sections cover the role of childhood sexual molestation in the genesis of serious emotional disorders and the ethical issues facing marital and family therapists, lawyers, litigants and child protective-services workers. Baker (They Call It Hypnosis) has produced a dispassionate overview of a minefield. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly