Freud and False Memory Syndrome (Postmodern Encounters)

Since about 1992, an astonishingly fierce scientific, professional and legal controversy has arisen around the allegation that psychotherapists may sometimes have fostered false memories of childhood sexual abuse. Some have blamed Freud for this, arguing that he sowed the seeds of 'false memory syndrome' 100 years ago. He has been accused by some critics of abandoning, out of professional cowardice, his original recognition of the prevalence of sexual abuse amongst his patients, substituting his theory of childhood sexuality and the Oedipus complex, and by others of fabricating and implanting false memories in his patients' minds.

Phil Mollon is a psychoanalyst, psychotherapist and clinical psychologist. He served on the Working Party on Recovered Memory of the British Psychological Society, and has written widely on the subject.