The recovered memory controversy: An anthropologist's view

Abstract

The false memory controversy falls in the border zone between facts and values. Scientific claims are made that are also heavily influenced by moral and political convictions. Observations are offered on the sociology of this affair, on the politics of knowledge, and on the influence of the DSM rubric in setting up the terms of the debate. Several non-Western “psychiatric” conditions are discussed that reveal the interpenetration of theory and experience in the interpretation of illness, and that reciprocally tell us something about this relationship in the practice of Western psychiatry itself.