MAN KAN IKKE BINDE ÅND

- om falske erindringer i psykoterapi

Abstract

Some therapists help their clients to recover repressed memories of child sexual abuse by means of specific therapeutic techniques, usually labelled Memory Work. Memory researchers, on the other hand, have strongly argued against the use of such techniques which they assume involve a considerable risk of generating false memories - that is, phantasies of sexual abuse which the client erroneously takes to refer to real episodes in the personal past. This article discusses the historical and theoretical background for this controversy. It is pointed out that diagnoses, such as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Multiple Personality Disorder (MDP), have authorised the idea that traumatic events are common etiological factors. This belief has invoked the use of so-called Memory Work techniques in psychotherapy
to dig out traces of alleged dissociated sexual trauma. However, the use of such techniques conflict with a growing consensus among cognitive psychologists that autobiographical remembering is largely a reconstructive process rather than a reactivation of stored memory traces. Consistent with the constructivist view, this article suggests that fictitious tramatic experiences may become projected into a person's past in order to create landmark events of emotional and personal importance in an otherwise ambiguous life story.