Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to discuss issues around the reliability of memory and the so-called “false memory syndrome” (FMS). The FMS model provided an explanation for the beginning of the exposure of the scale of Child Sexual Abuse worldwide, and it enabled the awful truth to be displaced. The multitude of stories of abuse that were beginning to be made public could be explained away – they could be blamed on the therapists who were hearing their clients’ histories. The FMS may have gone off-grid for, but it is simply another move in the theories of denial of abuse, and more efforts to silence the truth will follow. For long after the demise of the FMS Foundation, the notion of the invented diagnosis “false memory syndrome” will remain in psychology textbooks.