THE ILLUSION OF ILLUSORY MEMORY

In this commentary on the paper, Psychotherapy and Memories of Childho od Sexual Abuse: A Cognitive Perspective, by Lindsay and Read, three p oints are addressed. First, although the bulk of Lindsay and Read's pa per is devoted to elaborating an explanation for the phenomenon that ' memory recovery therapies' may 'inadvertently lead some adult clients to create illusory memories of childhood sexual abuse', this phenomeno n itself has never been demonstrated. There is a logical flaw in infer ring the existence of a phenomenon from the fact that there might be a n explanation for it. Second, Signal Detection Theory (SDT) is propose d as a useful heuristic for conceptualizing the debate regarding true memory versus illusory memory for sexual abuse. SDT is applied to eluc idate the phenomenon of memory for sexual abuse, and then several dire ctions for future research on this topic using the SDT framework are p roposed. Finally, the cognitive research literature on the prevalence of suggestively planted memories is discussed. It is proposed that 'me mory recovery therapy' is not widespread in the field of psychotherapy and that the evidence for therapist-implanted illusory memories for i ncestuous sexual abuse is very weak.