Most people do not forget traumatic experiences unless they are rendered unconscious at the time of the experience. .
Since its resurrection in the late 1980's after being discarded by Freud, "it has been more an "ad hominem" war, appealing to feelings and prejudices, rather than a matter of reasoned professional disagreement (Scheflin,2004,para.2)." The debate was not only based on personal reservations of the psychiatrists, but also the possible out comes of the people involved."Until recently, the false memory/recovered memory controversy has been defined by zealots from both ends of the spectrum (Scheflin,2004,para 3)." There are those who support the idea that environment, and therapy can trigger repressed memories. While there are others who are skeptical of this idea and believe that these memories are no more than falsehoods or figments of imagination, that may have actually been planted by therapists.
According to Kenneth S. Pope many explanations were advanced to account for these "recovered memories." Many theories were pure conjecture, without any significant experimental basis. .
"For example, reports of recovered memories of child sex abuse may be described as the result of implanting, false memory syndrome, repression, dissociation, motivated forgetting, directed forgetting, amnesia, betrayal trauma, retroactive inhibition, suggestion, self-induced hypnotic trance states, personality disorder, thought suppression, retrieval inhibition, cognitive gating, or biological protective processes. These terms may be used without clear definition or scientific basis and may unintentionally foster pseudoscientific beliefs (Pope, 1998,para 3).".
There have been several cases in which psychiatrists have been sued for planting false memories in patients heads. Patricia Burgus sued the Chicago mental hospital at which she, "claims she was convinced by her psychotherapists that she had recovered memories of participating in a cannibalistic satanic cult, being sexually abused and abusing her own sons.
