Victims of Memory: Incest Accusations and Shattered Lives - Softcover

Pendergrast, Mark

4.12

34 ratings by Goodreads

9780002556842: Victims of Memory: Incest Accusations and Shattered Lives

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0002556847 ISBN 13: 9780002556842

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1997

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A study of how families are being torn apart and adult children turned against their parents by mesmerizing but deluded analysts and social workers. Using real life cases, the book examines the phenomenon of Repressed Memory Syndrome.

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From the Back Cover:

A DEVASTATING BOOK ABOUT HOW VULNERABLE FAMILIES ARE, AND HOW LIVES CAN BE DESTROYED BY THE BEST OF INTENTIONS.

Home can be Hell. Incest does happen. But can it be forgotten, buried in the vaults of the mind, only to be recalled years later? Some psychotherapist think so, and 'help' clients, mostly adult woman, to recall grotesque incidents of childhood rape and ritual abuse. But what kind of 'memories' are these? And how can we gauge what Memory can, and cannot, do?

This shattering book demonstrates how families are being torn apart by a minority of mesmerising, misguided analysts, using hypnosis, dreams and persuasion to bend minds and unintentionally create false memories of terrible events that never occurred. Real cases, real lives, are examined, and the whole terrifying phenomenon of Recovered Memory is clearly described, as perceived by accused parents, accusing children, retractors and analysts. Hundreds of thousands of families are in a state of civil war today in Europe, North America and Australasia: children are suddenly 'dead' to their parents; accusations of gang-rape, Satanism, bestiality and sadism annihilate previously calm, unremarkable families.

In his sane, even-handed and unsentimental study, Mark Pendergrast explores why this phenomenon has arisen now and explains how delusive memories can prove so very powerful, persuasive and tragic.

"By far the best, most detailed, most accurate, most compassionate history of this tragic witch-hunt."
MARTIN GARDNER

"The most ambitious, comprehensive, emotionally committed of studies."
FREDERICK CREWS, 'New York Review of Books'

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