4 ms·

Dated 1992... "This article was published in Issues In Child Abuse Accusations, 4(4), 197-213. (1992)."

• greenyoda 10y ago
  From the article's "conclusions" section: " The claims of recovered repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse represent an striking phenomenon in the mental health community. As Gardner (1992a, 1992b) observes, to believe these "victims" and their therapists, we must consider childhood sexual traumas to be a special experience in which well-accepted psychological principles are inapplicable and an entirely new set of psychological principles must be invented. The claims being presented are at variance with the scientific knowledge about the nature of memory and psychological concepts of dissociation, amnesia, and the reactions of people to documented trauma. Accepting the claims about recovered memories of repressed abuse means accepting a complex chain of assumptions, speculations, inferred internal states and mental processes with limited scientific support and little if any corroborating data. At best, this is a low-frequency phenomenon. On the other hand, there are credible data on the reconstructive nature of memory, social influence, conformity, and the power of therapy to produce conformity in the patient. It is much more probable that a claim of recovered memory of sexual abuse comes from a combination of these factors. It is an issue of antecedent probability and the best and most accurate decision always comes from going with the high base rate behavior. It is the only ethical choice a scientist can make."
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• facetube 10y ago
  ...which is located at http://www.tc.umn.edu/~under006/issues.html http://www.tc.umn.edu/~under006/issues.html. No telephone or credit card orders available yet.