ABSTRACT
This chapter begins psychotherapy’s contribution to the discourse related to memories of childhood sexual abuse. The revisionist vocabulary must accomplish two things: first, it must reflect the current state of empirical knowledge; second, it must be radically client centered. The term “re-collection” is used to capture a relative, storytelling function of memory. The life narrative serves a number of purposes: it is a “history of the self”; it is an explanation of how the past became the present; it is the personal data that serves to support the self-image. The life narrative is constructed not just in the face of this ever-changing world but in conjunction with it. A dis-integrated re-collection is a life experience that is disconnected from the life story. The epiphany experience may leave positive or negative marks on a person’s life. Integration is the process of fitting an experience into the life narrative.
