Recovered Memories of Child Sexual Abuse: Forgetting to Remember and Remembering to Forget, Part 2: The Nature of Memory and Ordinary Forgetting

Abstract

This is the second of three articles on recovered memories of child sexual abuse. The phenomenology of recovered memories is distinct from other, non-traumatic, memories and is most usefully considered in the context of the nature of memory and forgetting. A number of experimental paradigms and approaches that attempt to elucidate the mechanisms of recovered memory are described, and the evidence for the creation of false memories is examined and found wanting. The article concludes with a case study. The third article will consider the role of trauma and dissociation in recovered memories of child sexual abuse.