`Frontline' focuses on `recovered memories' of abuse
04/04/95
THE FRESNO BEE

       A major, two-part "Frontline" report, "Divided Memories" (8
p.m., Ch. 18; concludes next Tuesday), investigates one of the
hottest legal and psychological controversies blazing today: the
validity or lack thereof in "recovered memories" of childhood sexual
abuse. It's an issue of importance today, especially since repressed
memories are being cited in civil and criminal cases.
   The opener looks at therapies that allegedly access repressed
memories, including hypnosis, age regression (one therapist cites a
"woman that accessed a memory from when she was in the fallopian tube
and got stuck there, and this stuckness has hurt her in her adult
life") and even past-life regression (in which patients return to
previous incarnations).
   The casualness of some therapists about whether or not such
memories are objectively factual can be breathtaking. One (who
supported the decision of a patient to sue her parents for $20
million based on supposedly recovered memories of childhood abuse)
says, "When I'm deposed in court cases, the attorneys say . . . `How
do you know it's true?' And I say, `I don't care if it's true.'
What's important to me is that I hear the child's truth, the
patient's truth. What actually happened is irrelevant to me --
doesn't matter."


