Making Monsters: False memories, psychotherapy, and sexual hysteria

One hundred years ago, psychotherapy was born of Breuer and Freud's attempt to cure mental illness by recovering memories of trauma that had, according to their theory, been denied to conscious awareness. Today, classical psychoanalysis has largely been replaced by other forms of treatment. Nevertheless, Breuer and Freud's essential theory and technique have been revived in the guise of ``recovered-memory therapy,'' in which patients are encouraged to remember forgotten instances of incest, abuse (including ritual satanic abuse), and trauma that are supposed to lie at the heart of their problems. Through a proliferation of professional and self-help books, journal and . . .