STEPS TOWARD HEALING - FALSE MEMORIES AND TRAUMAGENIC AMNESIA MAY COEXIST IN VULNERABLE POPULATIONS

Child abuse is surely the most agonizing psychological issue of our ti me. We decry the tendency to polarize around the either-or dichotomy o f ''recovered versus false memories,'' when both are likely to occur. Memory researchers seem to generalize from the mild, one-shot stressor s of the laboratory to the severe repeated traumas reported by abused populations, an inferential leap that is scientifically dubious. Natur alistic studies show (a) some post-traumatic memory impairment (not ju st forgetting, but difficulty remembering in spite of repeated efforts ); (b) dissociativity, such as emotional numbing, detachment, and the like; but also (c) increased suggestibility (Spiegel & Cardena, 1991). About 20% of the normal population is highly suggestible, and in thes e individuals it is trivially easy to show suggested amnesia, detachme nt, perceptual blocking, etc., as well as to suggest dramatically fals e memories. It is therefore vital to assess suggestibility and dissoci ativity in traumatized populations. Adult survivors of abuse may show both more false ''memories'' and more ''false forgetting'' than the no rmal population. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.