A research psychologist whose specialty is memory pokes giant holes in claims that survivors of sexual abuse repress their memories of the abuse and can then recover them with the help of therapists. Loftus, who also teamed up with Ketcham to write Witness for the Defense (1991), points out that no scientific evidence exists to validate such claims. Comparing the current rash of sex abuse charges based on ``recovered memory'' to the 17th-century Salem witchcraft trials, she often opens chapters with quotes from The Crucible, Arthur Miller's play on that subject. Loftus describes her own research at the University of Washington, which found that false memories of a mildly traumatic childhood event (becoming lost in a large store, for example) were easily implanted in the minds of adult subjects. According to Loftus, therapists operating under the assumption that ``incest is epidemic, repression is rampant, recovery is possible, and therapy can help,'' implant similarly false memories of more serious traumas through a variety of therapeutic techniques, including suggestive questioning, age regression, and hypnosis. Memories ``recovered'' through these techniques, she asserts, can lead to painful and destructive confrontations that rip apart families and sometimes end in prison sentences for innocent people. Loftus, who has served as an expert witness, recounts her experience testifying in defense of George Franklin, whose adult daughter's recovered memories resulted in his conviction for the murder of one of the daughter's childhood friends. She also details the bizarre case of Paul Ingram (see Lawrence Wright's Remembering Satan, p. 216), whose recovered memories led him to confess to participation in quite unbelievable satanic rituals. Sure to arouse controversy: Proponents of the validity of repressed memories (``True Believers,'' as Loftus calls them) will see this as anathema; others will applaud her reasonable and restrained approach to a touchy subject. (First printing of 30,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-11454-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
When a curious-minded neurologist meets a neurological curiosity—in this case, a neighbor who experiences tastes as physical shapes—the result, at least here, is a mixed bag: a fascinating scientific exploration of that rare sensory linkage and overlapping called synesthesia plus less interesting ponderings on the nature of the human mind. Washington, D.C., neurologist Cytowic was so intrigued to learn that his neighbor ``Michael'' possessed synesthesia—a trait found in only ten people per million—that he enlisted him in a research project to explore this mysterious phenomenon. Here, Cytowic divides his report on synesthesia into two sections. The first, ``A Medical Mystery Tale,'' is an account of his research and medical findings. Michael, the author tells us, cooperated in countless tedious tests and eventually even agreed to an angiogram to determine the pattern of blood flow in his brain. From this research, Cytowic concluded that synesthesia is localized in the limbic system of the brain's left hemisphere— and that it's a normal brain function that's always existed in everyone but has been lost from conscious awareness in all but a few individuals. Apparently solving the mystery of synesthesia, Cytowic created a new conception of the organization of the mind- -one that places greater importance on the limbic system and thus on the primacy of emotion over reason. While the cortex analyzes what's going on in the world, he contends, the limbic system gives value to events. In the second part of the text, ``Essays on The Primacy of Emotion,'' the author looks at the implications of his findings. In pieces that discuss imagination, objectivity and subjectivity, consciousness, reason, and spirituality, he would have us understand that behind the rational mind is another irrational, emotional one that's really in charge. An absorbing tale of medical detection coupled with less- than-gripping philosophical musings. (Photographs, line drawings- -not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-87477-738-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993
An accurate, though imperfectly analyzed, account of an unfinished revolution. After 18 years of driven work (serving as associate publisher of Bantam and publisher of William Morrow and other houses), McKenna walked into her boss's office and quit her job. She was successful according to all the conventional measures of career success. But she was miserable. Feeling she had to choose between her work and her life, she chose her life. McKenna convincingly argues that the women's movement opened up the world of work to women but didn't change a culture hostile to the realities of women's lives. Even though women are pressured, like men, to identify completely with work and sacrifice everything to it, they are still expected to succeed on traditionally feminine terms—to marry, to have children, to be perfect wives and mothers. Neither the workplace nor the larger society has done much either to alleviate those expectations or to help women live up to them. McKenna interviews other women about their work experiences and analyzes their stories along with her own. Part self-help book, part social criticism, part feminist manifesto, this volume drags at points; it's repetitive, and it's also weakened by her continued reliance on the notion that the values of the work world—i.e., competition, success as defined by money and status, etc.—are somehow at odds with ``women's values''—cooperation, caring, relationships, etc. It's a familiar idea, but one that has inspired much controversy and needs to be argued carefully or approached critically, not taken as a given. After all, especially in this era of huge conglomerates and a bottom-line business mentality, many men are frustrated with their jobs for some of the same reasons that McKenna was. For all its theoretical fuzziness and scattered organization, much of McKenna's analysis is sound—and timely. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-31795-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
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