"...The current practice of retrieval of "repressed memories" of childhood abuse (Recovered Memory Therapy) is the most controversial issue to hit the psychotherapeutic community in decades.
Thousands of families across our nation have been torn apart by false accusations of childhood sexual abuse, satanic ritual abuse, and other unthinkable charges.
These false accusations are the result of false memories that are the product of a variety of influences that came to a white hot climax in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The notorious book "Courage to Heal", and its many imitators, were one such influence. Some kinds of radical feminism were another. So were sensationalist TV talk shows.
But above all, recovered or repressed memory therapy was the most to blame. This therapy is unproven, unethical and widely discredited since the mid-1990s.
It was practiced (and to some extent still is) by a significant number of therapists of all levels of expertise, from psychiatrists with national reputations attached to major hospitals all the way down to unlicensed "counselors" with a little weekend training..."
From the Illinois-Wisconsin FMS Society home page.
