The debate over recovered memory of sexual abuse: a feminist-psychoanalytic perspective

This paper presents a feminist-psychoanalytic analysis of the contemporary debate over the veracity of memories of sexual abuse recovered in treatment. Clinical discourse is currently divided between those who argue that recovered memories are veridical accounts of sexual trauma and those who claim that many therapists are creating memories of abuse in their patients. I present here an analysis of the debate on recovered memory and of the social dynamics underlying it, and discuss how these dynamics have shaped clinical practice. In exploring the clinical issues raised by the debate, I reassess Freud's abandonment of seduction theory and explore some of the problematic issues in separating fantasy and memory in female psychosexual development. Conflictual aspects of female development are situated in an analysis of patriarchal social relationships that continue to mediate feminine experience. I argue that the jettisoning of the concept of fantasy in much of the clinical literature on sexual abuse has contributed to a reification of memory-that is, as "true" or "false"- and a sacrifice of complexity in the clinical elaboration of women's abuse experiences. In reclaiming the concept of fantasy, I explore a range of meanings located between the imaginary and the "real" suggested by female narratives of sexual abuse.