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
A study of divorced older women that has important things to say to them—above all, that their lives may just be beginning anew after the long hiatuses of their marriages. Hayes (Director/National Center for Women and Retirement Research), Anderson (research coordinator of a recent study called ``Divorce After 40''), and freelance journalist Blau base their ``good news'' on the results of the Divorce After 40 study, which surveyed 342 women in their 40s and 50s who'd been married for approximately 20 years each. Eighty-two percent of the respondents found themselves stronger and more independent after divorce, and encouragingly high numbers reported better sex lives, enriched relationships with their children, a large and sturdy circle of female friends, little fear of loneliness, and a surprisingly low drive to go out and get married again. In analyzing the responses, the authors came up with four personality profiles: ``pausers,'' who essentially put themselves on hold during their marriages; ``slow movers,'' who had hints while married that they were missing something in life; ``rewinders,'' who were never happy as wives and leaped into new experiences after divorce, with sometimes problematic results; and ``players,'' who—ever in search of healthy independent selfhood—knew both before and after divorce how to take the good and build on it. The text is leavened with respondents' stories about how they learned to manage money, fight the emotional battle of letting go, and experiment with sex (sometimes for only the second time in their lives). The findings are limited to white, middle-class women, indicating that less-heartening news may await lower-class divorcÇes. And while there's plenty of sound advice for those who fit the demographics, the authors' cheery tone may fail to enthuse women in the throes of divorce. Still, their friends and caregivers will want to know about it, and the basic premise will be welcome to many.
Pub Date: May 3, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-74005-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
Atlanta psychiatrist Pittman (Private Lies, 1989) returns with an engaging, if not always convincing, assessment of the causes and cures of masculine inadequacy in America today. Citing a diminished patriarchy and patrimony as reasons for the difficulties modern men have in making the transition from sons to fathers, Pittman isolates three primary character types— ``philanderers,'' ``contenders,'' and ``controllers''—as reflecting arrested or socially damaging development. Histories of the author's gym-buddies and cases from his family-therapy practice, specifics of a difficult relationship with his own father and of turbulent times with his son, and a dazzling array of references to popular cinema from Life with Father to Dances with Wolves help to illustrate these types, with a similar variety of examples used to examine the conditions necessary for becoming and being a ``man.'' When absent, overbearing fathers create men out of balance, Pittman says, equilibrium is attained only by understanding bonding and friendship, and, if necessary, by coming to terms with and forgiving one's parents. Men can then perceive women as equals and can ``join the team'' by working with others rather than by always striving to prove their masculinity. Long on personal anecdote but short on substantive analysis, and gushing with feel-good fixes from a seemingly bottomless reservoir; still, a witty, well-meaning consideration of a serious social problem.
Pub Date: May 31, 1993
ISBN: 0-399-13819-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1993
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