Repressed Memory Accusations: Devastated Families and Devastated Patients

The survey of British families reveals that the disputed ‘recovered memory’ accusations are mostly made by adult women who allege that abuse began prior to their eighth birthday. Therapy was involved in the recovery of memories in the vast majority of cases; satanic ritual abuse was remembered in a minority of cases. The accusations are devastating to the accused and other family members. But family members are not the only devastated group. Data from a recent report on patients who received compensation from a crime victims' compensation fund after recovering extensive histories of abuse in therapy reveal that some patients' lives are devastated after ‘memory’ recovery. Their health declines, they lose their jobs, they get divorced, and in some cases they lose custody of their minor children. Although these data do not prove that it was the therapy itself that made the patients worse, they do ring alarm bells about treatment outcomes for some recovered memory patients, and show a pressing need for information on this topic. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.