Reason and reflection can help dampen hysteria...
There are many very good and lengthy reviews of the book. After reading the book I have some general impressions. I am impressed with the author's honesty and courage in telling her story of being blown to and fro by the winds of our culture. I am also surprised by the emotional "neediness" that leads her on the paths she chooses (though I appreciate her sharing that). Clearly the winds of culture and the emotional needs are two undercurrents that feed hysteria. I am saddened by the hurt and pain the untrue recollections of abuse heap on the accused, the accuser and the collateral damage done to all those who are forced to witness the carnage. Finally I understand her focus on the hysteria not being limited to a particular political orientation. The search and elimination of witches, attacks by our enemies that require inordinate response, the search and eradication of communists or the search and destroy mission against those accused of sexual child abuse (innocent or guilty) all had a hysteria in common. Hysteria can happen to the religious, avowed atheists, conservatives or liberals. All of us are vulnerable. Reason and reflection are our only defense.
The title of the book is the opposite of the typical expression of the time when "recovered memories" of child sexual abuse were all the "rage" in the 1980's and 1990's. The accuser, when challenged by those knowledgeable of the actual family, would say indignantly that this is "My Truth" as if facts took a back seat to the importance of the accusation. Her perspective changed and now she realizes it was truly "My Lie".
My Amazon Review of this book on June 1, 2016
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It Takes Courage to Retract Accusations
Sheri J. Storm on January 15, 2013
Been here. Did this myself - I didn't write a book, but fell in with a bad therapist who eventually induced MPD and false memories within me, among many other of his patients. By the time I discovered my mental illness was created within therapy and had to face my trusted doctor's betrayal of trust, I became cemented in shock and despair. I was ashamed too. There weren't any books out to debunk this thing when I became ill. I am grateful that more and more are surfacing now though. I hope you found healing in your writing Meredith - as well as comfort in the knowledge you're helping others. Thank you.
Post Script. Please be aware that anon's marketing campaign remains grossly inaccurate.
Excellent!
Janet Macdonald on May 19, 2011
I tried to find this book in the library system here in Mass. but was unable to do so. And so I bought it. I shall donate it to my local library. It is a very informative book and well worth reading.
The book covers the problem of Recovered Memory Therapy from the perspective of the client of a therapist or therapists. It tells about Ms. Maran's journey into RMT and the fall out of her relationships with her family. Her father took the brunt of her "recovered memories." One of the worst things you can do to a parent, especially a father, is to accuse him of sexual abuse. They have no defence. All they can do is deny it but then with that type of therapy they get hit with "your in denial." A no win situation.
Fortunately Ms. Maran started to question her "memories" and realized what she had done. She could have left it there but went the full nine yards with this book. An apology to her father. And he accepted her apology.
I am biased against RMT. My daughter got into it and has cut off her entire famliy for the last twenty years. I know what she "remembers" is not true but she was and is suggestible and trusting. I pray some day she and the other misguided clients of less than reputable therapists will come home to their families. My daughter will always be welcome.
The story of recovered memory therapy gone horribly wrong.
By Amazon Customer on September 18, 2015
Every person involved in psychotherapy should read this book. It is the story of recovered memory therapy gone horribly wrong. Fortunately 'recovered memory therapy' has largely been debunked, but there are still some therapists who haven't changed, improved, or modified their methods. This is a story about a women who became, through bad therapy, convinced that her father had abused her. Then, later, through good therapy learned the truth. A family ruined and serious damage done by well meaning, but wrong-trained therapists.
A Page-Turner that is Well researched and evenly told
Margaret on October 6, 2010
I can't remember the last time I stayed up far too late into the night for a book of non-fiction, but My Lie had me doing just that. From the title, I expected an intimate tell-all memoir, and I did get that. But I found it a surprisingly - and refreshingly - measured and balanced one. Part of what made this revelatory story so compelling was the mix of personal story with societal examination. Yes, there are children who were abused. But there are also families that were torn apart by "memories" that never actually happened. Meredith Maran's intimate telling of her own personal story, mixed with considerable discussion of the science of the brain and press clips from sources including Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, puts the issue of "recovered memory" into a context that made me think, and want to know that which isn't, unfortunately, always knowable.
I am glad it was written
E. Ervin TOP 1000 REVIEWER on August 6, 2015
Format: Hardcover
People need to be aware of what is going on in the world of psychiatry. This book is raw with emotion and feelings of regret. I am so very glad that it was written and I plan on sending it to several people who need to read it. This is a subject that is painful but must be acknowledged and reckoned with - at least in my opinion. It is a sad, sad situation. I applaud Meredith Maran for her bravery in writing this book.
Hope for a fractured family
RW44 on October 29, 2010
I finished this book with tears in my eyes. Tears of sadness for the heartache, pain and even prison time caused by the false accusations spawned by the repressed memory hysteria. Tears of anger because so many supposed professionals in mental health and law enforcement would be so gullible or so greedy that they would fan the flames of this psychological malpractice. And tears of hope that this book could help close this ugly chapter in American culture and my life. I am one of the thousands of fathers who were falsely accused of molesting their daughters based on the crackpot theory of repressed memories. I have had no meaningful contact with my daughter for almost twenty years and now have two grandchildren I may never meet. "My Lie" gives a cogent account of how this happened from a woman who has a unique perspective on this destructive phenomenon. I hope the book will be a powerful counterweight to "The Courage to Hate", a poisonous, speculative, unscientific volume of blather that has played a major role in fracturing families.
Five Starts for Public Awareness
Patriciaon January 30, 2013
Meredith Maran's retraction and her exposure of a tragic national dilemma that lives on today gets five stars. More public awareness like this book is needed to expose misguided therapists and therapies. Past life regression techniques using hypnosis, guided imagery, trance, and similar, that are responsible for implant false memories through so-called 'memory recovery therapy' need to be carefully monitored.
Accusers may find this book challenging!
Michelleon June 18, 2012
As a family recently affected (2009) by false allegations that are a product of recovered(false)memory, I highly recommend this book. Whilst I will never fully get my head around the concept of someone making something up out of nothing, this book has helped me to further understand the vulnerability of the human mind and how easily some of us can be swept away by an idea.
This is an important read for ALL people. Mothers and Fathers, Uncles and Aunts, Sons and Daughters, the Accused and the Accusers.
But here for the grace of god go all of us!
REALITY
Fred Pauseron April 25, 2011
I agree with the thoughts expressed in common in the 4 and 5 star reviews so I'm not going to repeat, except to reiterate that Meredith Maran deserves kudos for telling her story.
The title, "My Lie," may seem to some to be inappropriate. At the time she accused her father, she believed what she said, which means she was not lying (although she vacillated a lot between doubt and certainty). An important bit of dogma among Radical Feminists and "post-modernists" of the era was: "Everyone has their own truth." ("Truth is subjective.") In the letter Meredith wrote to her father in 1989 (and never sent), she stated, "I don't want to see you because I'm afraid I'm not strong enough to defend my truth in the face of yours."
In a case in which one person's "truth" is that incest occurred, and the other's "truth" is that it did not, there is not a lot of middle ground. So given the environment in which Meredith lived at that time ("Planet Incest," as she calls it), I see the title "My Lie" as quite appropriate, and then some -- it's sort of a wake-up call for those who would hold the absurd notion that we all have our own "truth." (Granted, we all have our own beliefs and opinions -- which may or may not be true, and which we should always be ready to modify given better information/evidence.)
The fact that Radical Feminism played an important role in the Recovered Memory hysteria and of the 80s and 90s has been apparent to a few of us who really studied the issue, but it has not been a point of focus (probably because of fear of being attacked as anti-women). [So in self defense, I am a conventional feminist -- for equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal pay for equal work (ie: an equity feminist). And I acknowledge that sexual abuse of girls in our society is a serious problem, but of which not all men are guilty.] To get back to the point, thank you Meredith, for helping to illuminate the role of feminist extremism in false accusations of abuse.
A chapter in the latter part of the book is (rather sarcastically) titled "In Neuroscience We Trust." However, it contains some excellent information resulting from interviews conducted by Meredith of some of our top scientists regarding memory. After one interview, Meredith wrote: "It was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth I was after, and the synapse story didn't quite satisfy." That's an admirable attitude. Yes, consider all reasonable sources of information. BUT remember: although not perfect, science usually provides *by far* our most reliable knowledge!
One of Meredith's friends, at one point in the book, said (paraphrased): It seems that we go through life trading one set of "cultish beliefs" for another. Later Meredith wrote, "But I'd lived fifty-seven years in the United States of Anything Goes ... This time I'd be taking the long way home." (Ie: cross-checking, verifying, getting facts.) Meredith's story became her search for life based upon reality, a journey upon which she has made very considerable progress. Almost at the very end of the book she wrote, "Goddess knows..." Is the Supreme Being of only one sex? Does the cult of Planet Incest or the resentment within Radical Feminism still have a bit of a hold? Oh well, none of us has a 100% handle on reality, but such a search is of major importance!
My Lie is a very worth-while read.
Meredith Maran's experience is important on several levels
Midwest Book Review on January 14, 2011
Format: Hardcover
MY LIE: A TRUE STORY OF FALSE MEMORY tells of a daughter who at age 37, an award-winning journalist, accused her father of sexual abuse. Ten years later she realized, nearly too late, that he was innocent. Meredith Maran's experience with false memory is important on several levels: it traces her own divided life and it also closely examines the phenomenon of false memory.
All-Beware the True Believers who are posting comments in support of repressed memory therapy. RMT is being discredited at warp speed. If you want to see a well-reasoned legal opinion about RMT look at a second circuit opinion on Friedman decided 8/16/10. Just go to the website of the second circuit court of appeals and search on Friedman. The judges' opinions of RMT start at page 18. In that opinion the judges severely rebuked the psychologists, prosecutors, police and anyone else supporting RMT. The dispassionate views of a group of independent judges are far more credible than True Believers who are fully caught in in the RMT hysteria. Subject yourself to RMT only at your own peril!!!
My Truth
ByRedRockeron December 11, 2010
Any family member confronted with "I know, but it is My truth" will appreciate this book's title. I lived in the Bay Area during the relevant time period and can confirm the rampant nature of this phenomenon and the complicity of the therapeutic community - especially in creating the "My Truth" excuse. So I am glad that I bought and read this book but I am very sad that Ms. Maran's acknowledgement of the deep wounds caused to her family members is so tepid and only briefly explored. It is one thing for an accused family member to drive comfort from the knowledge that they have been falsely accused but how does that help the accused person manage their relationships with their children, in-laws, friends and co-workers? the questioning looks from friends who "ran into" your daughter, former wife or sister? I hope Ms. Maran (or someone) writes a book which will explore much more deeply a "day in the life" of a falsely accused person. I also hope that more people like Ms. Maran will step forward and acknowledge their awful crime. It will take a lot more books like this for people to understand that although truly terrible things are done to children, not all people who tell these tales are honest.
Fascinating Story of One Woman's Journey
ByM. Galindo VINE VOICE on December 9, 2010
Meredith Maran seemed to have had an average, normal life. She had a close relationship with her father, a somewhat strained relationship with her mother, a rebellious adolecense, a seemingly happy marriage, two wonderful kids. In the 70s and 80s, Ms Maran began taking on jobs editing articles for survivors of childhood abuse/incest. Eventually, she finds herself in a rocky marriage, the victim of strange dreams, and involved in a circle of friends and colleagues who have all "miraculously" recovered memories of childhood abuse/incest. It doesn't take long before Ms Maran does the unthinkable: she accuses her own father of molesting her as a child.
I remember the late 1980s and 1990s, and the whole "recovered memory" phenomenon. It seemed at the time almost everyone had suffered some form of molestation as a child, with the worse being ritual satanic abuse. Those who attempted to deny or fight back were placed in an unfortunate position of being guilty and attempting to prove their innocence. Pre-schools became places were children were continuously and almost ritually abused and molested.
Ms Maran eventually comes to realize that her accusation is not true (hence, the title of the book), but the true gem of this book is the journey she takes along the way. And, ultimately, the work to make amends to those in her family she hurt. Her story and her journey just fascinated me, and I'm so happy she decided to share her story.
The "recovered memories" idea can bring about intense emotions on both side - the "memory wars" as they are called. Do people recover memories? Do they not? I'm not an expert. However, I do think Ms Maran was heavily influenced by the media at the time, as well as the company she kept. I do think there are some people who are like this. And I do feel that people can jump on the latest "trend." I think Ms Maran has an important story to tell, and I do not think hers is the only one.
A courageous book
David Con November 9, 2010
At the outset, it should be made clear that this is not a book about child sexual abuse (CSA) and incest. It is a book about false accusations of CSA and incest.
It is impossible to write a book like this without reference to genuine cases of CSA and incest, but these are not Maran's primary concern. This is to tell a story about false memory , a phenomenon that led to incredible harm to families caught up in the CSA hysteria that swept across the USA and other countries in the 1980s and 1990s. Although much abated since those early days, cases still arise. At worst, the falsely accused are still being sent to prison to join other falsely accused still incarcerated.
Critics will attack the concept of "false memory." If so they will be ignoring the vast mountain of evidence for the existence of false memories, ranging from the anecdotal to academic research at the highest level.
Where rational dissension still exists is on the question of recovered memory. It is believed by some that the trauma of CSA can result in a repression of the memory of the event or events but not its elimination. (Repression refers to the involuntary banishing of a memory as compared with suppression which is the conscious pushing out of one's mind the memory of an unpleasant or traumatic event.) The repressed memory is believed to be retrievable at a later date, given the appropriate cues. For a discussion of how memory works, and for a balanced discussion of this question, "Searching for Memory: the Brain, the Mind and the Past" by Daniel Schacter is recommended, and there are other excellent works along similar lines.
What certainly appears to be the case is that if the recovered memory phenomenon exists, it represents only a tiny fraction of those cases in which false accusations have been made.
Then there is the collateral harm. Many of the families involved have children who have suffered, sometimes excessively, as a consequence of false accusations. Maran's own family is a case in point. It is another form of child abuse and it is an excruciating thought that those who purport to be interested in child protection, but deny the reality of false memory, should be promoting an attitude that itself can be the cause of abuse. Men (and possibly women) falsely accused have committed suicide. In such cases, those making false accusations bear a terrible responsibility.
Those actually abused will all the more readily understand the trauma caused by false accusations. It is those who make false accusations who should be criticized because they make it more difficult for the voices of the genuinely abused to be heard. Maran was one of these but she has courageously acknowledged the harm she caused, and through her book is seeking to make amends, as far as possible. For her trouble she has received hate mail and death threats as she described to Derrick Ashong on the Oprah Radio show.
In this grippingly written book, Meredith Maran describes how she was brought into the world of incest politics by editing a book for a "pioneering feminist" researcher. She spent several years writing on CSA for newspapers and magazines. She joined the CSA "panic" (her word) and shortly after the publication in 1988 of the "Bible of the recovered memory movement, `The Courage to Hate' " accused her father of molesting her. Whatever help it has brought to genuine survivors of CSA, "The Courage to Hate" is here revealed as the incredibly damaging vehicle it has been in encouraging or inciting women falsely to accuse parents.
Maran describes the relationship she had with her father (largely to the exclusion of her mother), in her early years. She describes her lengthy involvement with therapists, her marriage, the raising of her two children and the effect on them and the whole family of her accusations. She describes the break up of her marriage and the establishment of a relationship with a woman who was also living with the effects of alleged CSA but the memories of which Maran eventually comes to believe to be false, like her own. This realized, she severed their relationship.
Maran had nightmares about incest. Eventually she concluded "My incest nightmares weren't fantasies. They were memories."
After eight years of separation, Maran finally became reconciled with her father. She apologiszd to him: "I accused you of doing something terrible to me. And I was wrong."
Reactions to this book are bound to be complex because readers will come to it from many and varied backgrounds. However, in so spectacularly blowing the lid off the false memory/recovered memory hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s, Maran has not only done an immense service to those falsely accused of CSA, she has also done a great service to genuine survivors of CSA by delineating ways in which women get to believe, wrongly, that they have been abused. In doing this she has put into relief the experiences of the genuinely abused, the vast majority of whom, far from having difficulty remembering the abuse they suffered, have difficulty in forgetting.
Fascinatin
Anne Masterson VINE VOICE on October 27, 2010
In this book, the author, who is also a journalist, comes to suspect that she may have been molested by her father. She has no actual memories of this, just a vague feeling. She is convinced by others around her, including friends and therapists, that this did indeed happen and accuses her father. Several years later she removes herself from the people around her when she starts to have doubts and comes to realize it never happened.
The story that is told is how a false accusation can rip a family about and whether or not true forgiveness is ever really possible. Also included are snippets of newspaper stories regarding other "recovered memory" cases, most notably the McMartin pre-school trial. Other reviewers have said they detract from the story, but I disagree. One may wonder how someone could accuse their parent of such a heinous act and the news stories show the hysteris that was going on at the time and how one could get caught up in it.
A fascinating, but disturbing story.
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I am intrigued by the strong hint of "blame the victim" in your last post. My daughter was trying to sort her life out and used therapy. Unfortunately she was a trusting and suggestible individual. In her last phone call to me she asked "Was I abused as a child?" My response "you would have told me." That was twenty years ago. She was then swallowed up by therapists in Florida and again in Seattle by a therapist who taught at Anitoch University. She has since gotten away from the worst of the therapists and the recovered memory groups and is now leading a fairly normal life. She works and teaches math. But her extended family has been discarded. She will not reply to any of us. Her grandparents have all died. Her favorite uncle has died. Her cousins have married and have had children. She is now an great-aunt. And her own father died two years ago. No response. Where is the healing in all of this? And she quotes from The Courage to Heal. (Quite frankly I think it should be called The Courage to Hate.) And another question. Why haven't reputable therapists who have seen the damage this therapy has wrought done a thing? Is it because to question it is to open the door to their being considered to be approving of child sexual abuse? I don't see a lot of courage coming from the mainstream therapists. Their heads are still in the sand. And people like my daughter and her family are the ones who are being damaged.
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Compelling, sad story
John Kellyo n October 18, 2010
This book was well written, with a journalistic style, that was a little off putting (the snippets of newspaper clippings interspersed with the text, for example). Other then that, it was a great read.
It was also a frightening, sad tale. I felt sorry for virtually every person in this book. I also respected the honesty that Ms Maran brought to this project. I don't know many people who can admit that they perpetrated a great injustice. Ms Maran aims a laser at herself, and is unsparing in her analysis.
What I found most interesting is the cultural aspects of the recovered memory movement. At one point, the reader concludes that Ms. Maran began to think she had been molested in order to participate in the solidarity of other victims, including her lover. It was a strange turn of the story, one that was hard for me to understand, but it was believable and honestly related.
I wish Ms Maran the best, and although I was at some times horrified at her behavior, I can certainly respect her honesty, and her attempts to make up for her mistakes. I thoroughly recommend this book.
An Important, Long Overdue Book
Mark H. Pendergraston October 4, 2010
It's about time someone such as Meredith Maran wrote a book like this. Her book explains how in 1988 she came to accuse her father of incest, when he did not sexually abuse her - and how she later came to realize her mistake. As I observed in VICTIMS OF MEMORY, my book on the repressed memory epidemic of the late 20th century (roughly 1985-1995), it is likely that, during that time period, over a million people came to believe that they had been sexually abused throughout their childhoods but had repressed the memory and completely forgotten it until adulthood. This belief led to devastated lives and split families. The theory of "massive repression" runs counter to everything we know about how memory actually works, and I could not find one convincing case. If people are traumatized for years of their childhood, they tend to remember it all too well, even if they choose not to speak of it.
Fortunately, it is now clear to nearly everyone that these "memories" were illusory, encouraged by misguided therapy that relied on dream interpretation, hypnosis, vague bodily pangs, and other questionable methods. Yet as a society we have not really learned much from this disastrous pseudoscientific adventure in psychotherapy, just as we have not learned much from the closely related day care sex abuse accusations (McMartin Preschool, Fells Acres, Little Rascals, and over a hundred more), in which young children were interviewed in a leading manner and came to make false accusations that put their caregivers in prison.
I know how little we have learned, because I now serve on the board of the NATIONAL CENTER FOR REASON AND JUSTICE ([...]), an innocence project that focuses on people falsely accused of child abuse. Although we are a lamentably underfunded organization, and we have not received a great deal of notice, we still receive an overwhelming number of heart-rending requests for help. We have been able to research and sponsor only a few of these cases, and we have helped to free some innocent people, but they are the tip of an iceberg. So this book review is not just a review, but an urgent request that people contact the NCRJ to offer help. It is likely that hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent people convicted of child abuse are rotting in American prisons, and many others took plea bargains, admitting to a crime they did not commit, in order to avoid a lifetime in prison.
I urge anyone interested in late 20th century culture, gender conflicts, social influence, and human suggestibility to read MY LIE. It is a clear account of how an intelligent young woman could come to believe something so horrible about her own father, when it was not true. In my book, I concluded that therapists were the primary cause of these false accusations, since about a quarter of all psychotherapists in the U. S. specialized in repressed memories by the early 1990s. Yet Maran's book makes it clear that the social milieu could be even more important. She lived in Berkeley, California, in a climate where she became desperate to recall incest memories in order to fit in. Her lover had such memories, and so did almost everyone she befriended. In her book, she called it "Planet Incest, where the question was always incest and the answer was always incest and the explanation for everything was always incest, and no one ever asked, `Are you sure?'" She thus interpreted dreams about her father to constitute proof that he had abused her.
Consequently, Maran gobbled up the message of THE COURAGE TO HEAL, by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, when it was published in 1988, with its message, "If you think you were abused and your life shows the symptoms, then you were." So Maran went to her therapist wanting confirmation and reassurance that she really was an incest survivor. Rather than helping her client understand how memory actually works, Maran's therapist only told her, "What matters is what you think."
While the book is fascinating and instructive, however, readers should be cautious about accepting everything Maran writes at face value. For instance, she misrepresents Sigmund Freud's early "seduction theory," asserting that Freud's clients of the 1890s told him spontaneously about their alleged childhood sex abuse memories. In fact, Freud pressured his clients into having such "repressed memories" in order to fit his theory of repression.
Once Maran concluded that she had been mistaken, she was left with the nagging question, "If my recovered memories weren't true, why had I wrecked my family?" She went back to visit her old therapist, who told her that such memories were "metaphorically true, or emotionally true, but not literally true." Maran apparently still believes this, even though her own narrative makes it abundantly clear that the social pressure to become an "incest survivor" was overwhelming and had nothing to do with her father.
It may be comforting for retractors such as Maran to conclude that their accusations had some justification. Her brother told her, "What happened between you and Dad could only happen when there's anger and disconnection between a parent and child." That simply is not true. I interviewed many women who accused their fathers on the basis of repressed memories, and their relationships with their fathers before the repressed memory movement were varied. Some fathers were warm and loving; others were distant and emotionally unavailable. The fact is, all of us have conflicted relationships with our parents - we love them and we resent them in turns. It is part of the human condition. Some parents really do abuse their children, in many different ways, but I concluded that almost anyone was vulnerable to false memories under the right circumstances, without proper cautions about how memory actually works.
In post-publication interviews, Maran has helped to call attention to the plight of innocent people in prison, and I hope that she will continue to do so. But she concluded a September 2010 interview with Salon with an incredible opinion. "Would I allow an innocent man to sit in prison if it meant keeping children safe?" she asked rhetorically. "I think so." Maran appears to feel that this is an either-or matter, that convicting innocent people may be a necessary price to pay for protecting children from harm. That is absurd. All reasonable people want to prevent child abuse and prevent false convictions. If we can only learn from our recent past, we can do both. --Mark Pendergrast,
Why do such things with something as beautiful as the Mind?
Brad4d VINE VOICE on September 25, 2010
I found this a highly educational but uncomfortable book. The first sentence, "When I was a little girl, my dad was my best friend, and I was his," tells you it's going to be a hard ride because later, the author falsely accused this former "best friend" of incest. When she finally apologized to him, his Alzheimer's prevented his understanding her, and the carnage these accusations had on her family remained. Heavy stuff, as people used to say, but deeper than a fictional horror novel or a trip into madness -- and Ms. Maran remains eerily sane throughout the ordeals she describes so well.
This review is not about the validity of repressed memories, whether Maran had them, etc. (you can form your own ideas on those topics). I rated it highly partly because of its intensity and relevance, and partly because the author tries to understand how she did some pretty darn weird stuff with her mind. She tells a well-written story, starting with her childhood relationship with her dad -- a relationship that changed from love to frostiness before she left high school. After they parted company she found great meaning and solace with a radical feminism and specifically, with passionately investigating the reported existence of huge but hidden swaths of Incest in America -- a perception solidified by a tremendous media frenzy. She began to hear, and then believe, "voices in her head" -- not the rather more benign voices of imaginary demons, but of the prevailing psycho-theory-stated-as-fact ("repressed memories," or a conviction that the mind covers up major trauma like incest -- sort of the opposite of PTSD). She began to trust those voices enough to accuse her father of a rather vague and ill-defined molestation, which effectively tore her family apart to a degree she did not realize until she began formally interviewing her family members when they were adults. Far from being "the mother that her own mother was not," she also became a nightmare to her children and relatives. The author then gives some reasonably nuanced interviews discussing current thinking about Repressed Memories. She discusses a subject, sexual abuse, which still forms a significant but poorly-understood part of today's news, and, of course, she sympathizes with all its victims.
Perhaps the book's key sentences came near the end: "As a child I desperately wanted my feelings to matter, my words to carry weight, my stories to be believed. And then finally my parents took me seriously, the world took US seriously -- but only when what I was saying, what we were saying, wasn't true." This seems the crux -- wanting to be taken seriously became THE most important thing in her own life and that of her friends (and maybe even her generation), and seemed more desirable than developing a sound persona or a truthful character. The author jokes, "it's not whether you win or lose, but where you place the blame," and much of the book tries to figure out what to blame. She variously criticizes herself, her lover, "everyone else," pseudoscience, Wishful Thinking, our neural circuitry, her desire for comfort and security, the "it-must-be-true-if-you-believe-it,-dear" pop therapy community, etc. Astonishingly, she does NOT blame, but indeed still lionizes, the radical political orientation and emotive-centered Sixties worldview which, IMHO, formed vast parts of her pie chart.
I found a notably disturbing part of the book was the deeply hellish picture of not trusting anything (and wow, she made me realize what this felt like). In the world Maran describes, you cannot trust your feelings, your friends, your family, your sensibilities, and certainly not the media or the justice system. Your memories become like optical illusions for your mind. Don't trust yourself, or anyone else. Simply being accused of impropriety means part of your life is done with, so you'd better worry. Maran's descriptive world sounded like a police state or a McCarthyist regime -- paranoia on steroids.
Yet, after these thoughts arose and passed on, I felt reminded of the beauty that so much in our lives CAN be trusted -- our loved ones, our training, the desire to help the injured, the existence of reason and integrity and compassion, etc. etc. Maran's book reinforced the value of Honesty, by how she describes its absence. I appreciated her effort and her skill in telling us her story, and her apparent hopes to help avoid similar calamities within the lives of others. Yes, suffering, abuse, human-produced satanism, etc. exist, but the Next Big Question is, "How do YOU respond to them?" It's a good, universal question.
The author speaks out in an interview:
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*** WARNING ***
If you are seeking help for personal struggles and a therapist, counselor or friend says that "recovering childhood memories can help you get better" then IMMEDIATELY get up from your chair (or off the couch), run to the door, open it and flee. Hundreds of thousands have lost families, years of productive living and squandered immense wealth with tragedy inducing therapy that produces horrid false memories, splinters families, isolates the client and is documented to cause decline in mental health.
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This is an effort to Break the Cycle of Shame