Freud and False Memory Syndrome

Author: Phil Molin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Since the beginning of writing about psychoanalysis—i.e., studying the ability of the mind to deceive itself—more than a hundred years have passed. Today, at the dawn of the 21st century, Freud is still troubling us. Over a hundred years after the creation of psychoanalytic theory, his theory still inspires us to explore the endless depths of human nature and the human psyche! Since about 1992, an unusually intense debate has emerged. This debate, involving science, professionals, and the law, revolves around the argument that therapists sometimes create false memories of childhood sexual abuse. As a result, some blame Freud for planting the seeds of false memory syndrome a century ago. Some of these criticisms accuse Freud of abandoning his original recognition of the widespread existence of sexual abuse in patients due to professional cowardice, replacing it with the theory of the Oedipus complex—the objectively existing childhood sexual behavior. Others accuse him of fabricating and promoting false memories in patients' minds. Was Freud really the "bad father" who infected society with the idea of miscegenation and gave birth to the monstrous offspring of false memory syndrome in the world? Or was he a groundbreaking genius whose profound understanding of memory far surpassed his time? We criticize Freud too much while reading his works too little. Freud remains deeply connected to the issues highly concerned by contemporary psychology and society.