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1982). Furthermore, the literature on experiments in cognitive psychology showed memory
to be highly plastic and highly susceptible to influence and suggestion (Loftus, 1993].
Additionally, Ceci‘s research with children indicated how easily young children can be
influenced to remember differently from week to week (Ceci, S.J., Ross, D.F., and Toglia,
M.P., 1987). Therefore, how could recovered memories from early life be accepted as
accurate without question?
Conclusions
There is no doubt that childhood sexual abuse exists. In many cases, those who have gone
to trauma therapists have experienced childhood sexual abuse. However, it is problematic
to discern the veracity of recovered memories of sexual abuse, particularly those memories
that did not arise spontaneously within the confines of a therapeutic relationship, but which
were induced through suggestion, hypnosis, soporific drugs or peer pressure. As reported in
this paper, memories can easily be re-shaped by both external and internal forces. The
appropriate role for the therapist is to explain this fact to the patient and to take a wait-
and-see approach. As Esman states, the ―empathic‖ acceptance of all material can lead to
iatrogenic suggestion. Esman recommends that, ―Neither unquestioning credulity nor
categorical disbelief, but a properly scientific attitude of enlightened skepticism would seem
to be in order‖ (Esman, 1994. Letter, JAPA, 43: 1, 195-296). Uncertainty is uncomfortable.
However, both patients and therapists need to be able to tolerate complexity and
uncertainty in life and resist the need for closure. It is unrealistic and harmful for patients to
see their therapists as all-knowing human beings.
Of course, all of this needs to be explored in the context of the therapeutic relationship,
particularly focusing on possible transference and counter transference reactions. Questions
to explore might include the following: Why is this memory surfacing at this point in the
therapy? Has this memory been influenced by a recent event occurring inside or outside a
therapeutic session? How is the patient feeling towards the therapist and how is the
therapist feeling towards the patient? What is the meaning of this memory to the patient?
How does the patient expect the therapist to receive this material and how does she/he
react when the therapist takes a wait-and-see approach? Certainly therapists are induced to
feel that patients who suspect they were abused need us to believe them. It is important for
therapists to be sensitive to all material presented in therapy sessions, especially when
traumatic events are shared. However, in the face of recovered memories that formerly
have been repressed, is the therapist responding empathically by automatically believing? Is
it more important to believe our patients in all matters or to be the voice of reality? It has
been pointed out by Galatzer-Levy that the parents‘ failures to respond empathically when
bad things happen frequently have a more profound impact on the child than the event
itself. Therefore, the therapist‘s desire to avoid repeating this response may lead him/her to
prematurely appreciate the patient‘s experience of the event. As Galatzer-Levy notes,
―Paradoxically, this very process may subtly repeat the parental failure to understand. It
invites assumptions of understanding that the analyst may lack‖ (Galatzer-Levy, 3. 998).
The more ―empathic‖ response is to be a concerned, careful, and caring listener who
informs the patient of the difficulty in knowing the historical truth when memories are
recovered. However, as Galatzer-Levy has noted, the emphasis should be on the meaning of
the recalled memory as it relates to the past, as it relates to the transference, as it relates
to other experiences with important figures and events from the past, and as it relates to
the patient‘s fantasy life. A case may illustrate some of these points.
A woman, 62 years of age, came to see the author two years after her husband‘s death,
because she continued to feel depressed. In early sessions she quietly extolled her happy
life with her husband. He was described as very ―proper‖ and this propriety had attracted
her to him. She had believed that she would feel ―safe‖ with this successful businessman.
After several sessions, she admitted with extreme shame and trepidation that she

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2003, Page 40
shoplifted. She seemed to come to life as she described the most recent episode, which had
a cloak and dagger quality to it. I noted, from the way she described these shoplifting
episodes, that they were exciting to her. However, they also appeared to fill her with shame
and trepidation. I questioned whether her need was for me to see her as a criminal and
punish her for engaging in such an exciting act. The patient admitted that she was
externalizing her own guilt. Although she loved her husband, her life with him had been
somewhat restricted. Now that he was dead, she was afraid that she was returning to her
childhood impulsive ways. She was afraid that she would stop being the proper upper
middle class suburban matron and turn into a whore. When I explored what being a whore
signified to her, she told me that she had seen her husband as quite different from her
bawdy and loud family. She really did not approve of her parents, particularly her father,
who was bad tempered and a failure as a provider. Her mother saved the family from
poverty by successfully running the family store. This patient described her early years as
very chaotic and had never forgotten memories of sleeping with her parents until she was
ten. At this point, she shared a bed with a young man who worked in her parents‘ store.
She began wondering if she had forgotten sexual experiences while she was in bed with
these adults. She wondered if she was treated like a ―whore.‖ She began to bring in dream
material that included recreations of sexual experiences.
As with all patients, I told her of the difficulty of distinguishing recovered memories from
fantasies. I described how children have sexual and aggressive feelings and fantasies that
continue into adulthood. I let her know that I felt she clearly had been over-stimulated
sexually as a child, but it was hard to know the extent of her childhood sexual abuse. (I was
also aware of the libidinal gratification gained from these recalled memories, particularly
now that her husband was dead.) She accepted this notion and continued to report dream
material and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Although I did not verify these
recovered memories as historical truths, I continued to be empathic and interested in what
she had to say. Furthermore, we began to understand how these recovered memories or
fantasies had shaped her character. Gaining a better understanding of herself by exploring
the transference, as well as the meaning of the recovered memories allowed the recovered
memories to continue even though they were treated as screen memories.
As she felt less judged by me (we discovered that this was a maternal transference reaction
as well as a projection of her own moralistic attitude), she became less inhibited in general.
She began to see how her shame of her past and her own rich fantasy life had left her quite
restricted in adulthood. In fact, she began to see her continued depression about her
husband‘s death as, in part, stemming from her need to punish herself for her anger
towards him regarding his need to have such a conservative and proper wife. As she felt
less shame about her inner life, she was able to be more open and colorful and this ability
was reflected in her writing. Instead of limiting her writing to scientific journals, she began
working on fiction. She also stopped shoplifting, as she had less of a need to act out her
conflict in this self-destructive way. The issue for this patient centered more on how she felt
about her inner life than whether or not all her revived material was true. Her feelings about
her inner fantasy life had a tremendous impact over her character, which was inhibited and
intensely proper throughout her early and middle adulthood. Over time, my acceptance of
the material from her inner life allowed her to loosen her defense of reaction formation. She
became less inhibited and more able to gain access to the creative and colorful part of
herself as she identified with the therapist‘s superego, which was less punitive than her
own.
Growth occurs from the therapist‘s attempt to be with the patient, to see the experience
from the patient‘s point of view and to help the patient expand her cognitive abilities,
particularly by examining transference and counter transference reactions. This examination
includes a toleration of ambiguity and an understanding that behavior is complex and