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Response: Most people who think that they are likely to enter psychotherapy also think it is plausible that they could have forgotten their own memories of childhood sexual abuse
Author(s) -
Rubin David C.,
Berntsen Dorthe
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1462
Subject(s) - psychology , sexual abuse , false memory , child abuse , psychotherapist , childhood abuse , suicide prevention , poison control , developmental psychology , cognition , psychiatry , medicine , environmental health
Pezdek and Blandon‐Gitlin (2008) found that 25% of their participants reported as plausible or very plausible that they themselves could have been a victim of childhood sexual abuse without being able to remember it. In addition, they found that the 25% figure increased to 61% for participants who reported that they were likely at some point in their life to seek psychotherapy. Given past work showing that it is easier to implant a false memory for plausible events, and counter to Pezdek and Blandon‐Gitlin's conclusions, these data point to a substantial danger of implanting false memories of childhood sexual abuse during therapy in many people and in most people who are likely to go into therapy. Theoretical issues regarding plausibility are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.