login

Recovered memories of alleged sexual abuse: Lawsuits against parents

Behavioral Sciences & the LawPublished 1 September 1992
Hollida Wakefield, Ralph Underwager
Citations99
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score0.46
SNIP0.85

TL;DR

The claims of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse recovered in the course of therapy are unlikely to be supported by empirical data.

Abstract

Abstract Recently there has been increased civil litigation by adults suing parents and others for sexual abuse following the recovering of memories of the abuse through therapy. The memories are recovered with the help of therapists who use concepts such as repression and dissociation to account for the lack of memories and who then use techniques such as hypnosis and survivors' groups. However, the claims of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse recovered in the course of therapy are unlikely to be supported by empirical data.

Keywords

Psychology