ABSTRACT
The topic of recovered memories of abuse is of considerable social importance, and of personal concern—indeed of grief—to many individuals. This chapter draws these various threads together. First, there is ambiguity logically in knowing how to classify a recovered memory. Second, the proposed route to a true positive is based on the dual assumptions of amnesia generated by repression and an uncovering mechanism available through hypnosis or other related procedures. Third, the proposed route to a false positive is based on the evidence of the reconstructive nature and frailness of long-term memory. Fourth, however, neither the universal negative nor the universal positive is capable of proof, and so retrospective analysis of memory in relation to historical events without external corroboration is forever doomed to an uncertain conclusion. Finally, infantile amnesia seems to be violated in accounts of abuse accusations, and so this is an area rich for further research, especially of the implicit memory aspects.
