Psychology Astray: Fallacies in Studies of "Repressed Memory" and Childhood Trauma

Can individuals "repress" the memory of traumatic childhood experiences? Does childhood sexual abuse cause victims to develop psychiatric disorders years later in adulthood? Dr. Harrison Pope examines the evidence for these two hypotheses, and takes a rigorous and incisive look at the studies available. His conclusions are startling-there is presently no satisfactory evidence that people can actually "repress" memories, nor is there adequate evidence that childhood sexual abuse causes adult psychiatric disorders. The fact remains that the "evidence" cited in many of these studies can be more readily explained by more mundane processes, such as early childhood amnesia, ordinary forgetfulness, or elective non-disclosure.

Psychology Astray is written for students and scholars in the fields of psychology, mental health, medical research and law. The flaws in existing studies are exposed and illustrated, using simple and colorful analogies from ordinary life which everyone can understand.

Harrison Pope's Psychology Astray is a "model of clear thinking and clear exposition. It outlines the pitfalls of epidemiology such as confounding causes: post hoc does not mean propter hoc-two correlated events may have a common cause, such as genetic factors.

To clarify his argument, he analyzes widely held but mistaken popular and medical myths: for example, that salt is bad for you, that power lines damage the body, and that schizophrenia is caused by bad upbringing. Pope's careful analysis of possible sources of error should be useful to intending epidemiologists, and regrettably some practising ones, and to other disciplines within the social sciences -- Stuart Sutherland, Nature, July 17, 1997