The Costs of Speaking Out Against the False Memory Inquisition

Dear Editor:

It is exciting to see that Clio’s Psyche has put forward an issue on “The Psychology and History of Sexual Violation.” This is another indication that times are changing, challenging the social rule of silence regarding sexual abuse.

I only regret that my article, “The False Memory Inquisition,” was published in the previous issue of Clio’s Psyche instead of here, as I had specifically submitted it for this issue. Efforts to speak out are still scattered, and I would have appreciated inclusion of my piece with others on a similar topic.

I hope readers will refer back to my article—in the Spring 2018 issue—for its special perspective: exploration of social reluctance to accept the existence of sexual abuse, and the reprisal directed against many of those willing to believe and support victims of sexual violation. To my knowledge, there have been few testimonies to the impact of the backlash unleashed on a generation of mental health professionals whose therapeutic work uncovered child sexual abuse. There was a risk, in the 1990s and beyond, in bearing witness on behalf of those abused—it ran parallel to the dangers assumed in speaking out by the victims themselves.

I would like here to share a recent exchange I had with Bessel van der Kolk, the distinguished psychiatrist whose pioneering work with trauma has persisted despite the backlash. His efforts have included successful prevention of the inclusion of the (spurious) diagnosis of “False Memory Syndrome” in the psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. After I attended a recent presentation by him, I went up to him, shook his hand, and thanked him for surviving. I said: “So many of the people I admired didn’t survive.” He answered simply: “None of us did.”

Thanks again to Clio’s Psyche for entering into the painful and sometimes even hazardous discussion of sexual violation.

Sincerely,

Candace Orcutt

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