False Memories and True Memories of Childhood Trauma: Balancing the Risks

How often do clinical psychologists discuss with their adult clients the possibility that the clients might have been abused as children but had repressed the memory? If during the course of therapy clients remember being abused as children when the clients had no previous memories of such abuse, how likely is it that the memories are false? These questions underlie Patihis and Pendergrast’s Mechanical Turk survey study (this issue, p. 3). We discuss relevant scientific findings, including from longitudinal research on adults who as children experienced documented child maltreatment. We question inferences and generalizations resulting from the methodology Patihis and Pendergrast employed. We argue that clinicians are often justified in asking about past child abuse, remembered and forgotten, and that clinicians and researchers should strive to balance the risk of adults forming false memories with the need for adults to overcome childhood trauma