Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, almost every newspaper, mass circulation periodical, and television news show covered a fiercely polarizing debate, played out in highly publicized court cases around the country, about whether it was possible to recover childhood memories of abuse. Galvanized by bestselling self-help publications like The Courage to Heal, empowered by the women’s movement, and spurred to action by the growing recognition that child abuse was far more prevalent than had been believed, an increasingly vocal adult survivors’ movement had begun to form, determined to bring to light the previously ignored subject of child abuse. During this time, many clients began to tell their therapists tales of early abuse they’d never spoken of before.
In the fervor that accompanied the public airing of what had previously been family secrets, critics began to argue that overzealous therapists were fueling a witch hunt against innocent parents and irresponsibly ignoring the basic rules of scientific evidence, not to mention sound clinical judgment, encouraging the fabrication of stories of childhood abuse years after the fact. Many troubled families were torn apart by irresolvable conflicts about whether abuse had taken place. Some of these cases wound up in court, with therapists being sued for causing irreparable psychological damage through their treatment of suggestible and emotionally vulnerable clients.
Enter Elizabeth Loftus, a…
