The Recovery of Unconscious Memories (University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0 226
21660 8) by Matthew Hugh Erdelyi is published at a time when the subject is
highly controversial. Parents and other adults, especially in the US, have been
accused of sexually abusing children, on the basis of memories repressed but
later recovered from the victim via psychotherapy. Sensational reports
heightened the horrors. Later scepticism about the truth of such memories piled
confusion on top of human anguish. Erdelyi’s book is strictly for psychologists.
Others will have to look elsewhere for approachable discussion.
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