DON'T FORGET! `MEMORIES' PROBES PROVOCATIVE SUBJECT
04/03/95
THE SEATTLE TIMES

     Throughout the 1980s, the subject of sexual abuse, especially
among family members, seemed almost to become a growth industry,
helped immeasurably by repressed memory, a therapy technique in
which patients recalled incidents, often from long ago, of such
abuse.
     TV talk shows explored the subject with a vengeance, TV movies
enthusiastically joined the bandwagon and bookshelves overflowed
with tomes on the topic. It is presently reported that of the
approximately 225,000 licensed psychotherapists in the U.S., many
thousands work specifically on incest-related disorders.
     One of the most serious explorations of this subject can be
found in a two-part, four-hour edition of PBS' "Frontline," the
first two hours of which air at 9 p.m. tomorrow on KCTS-TV.
     Titled "Divided Memories," it is the work of producer Ofra
Bikel, who is an extraordinarily fine documentarian and thoughtful
interviewer, possibly best known for her lengthy, probing
documentary about the daycare child abuse case in a small North
Carolina town, which aired on PBS a couple of years ago.
     Bikel brings the same kind of exhaustive research to this
subject of repressed memory. "Divided Memories" is a mesmerizing mix
of interviews with victims, with therapists, counselors,
psychiatrists and psychologists, with both the accusers and the
accused. This week's two-hour segment offers many case histories of
women who have remembered sexual abuse. But next week's episode does
an equally compelling job reporting on the False Memory Syndrome
Foundation, a support network with 15,000 members designed to help
those who say they have been falsely accused of sexual abuse.
     Bikel wants you to make up your own mind about this
controversial subject and both sides are allowed plenty of time to
make their cases. (There are a number of Seattleites who are
interviewed during the four hours.) And both sides are equally,
eloquently sincere. The pain of those who are shown in the process
of recalling traumatic incidents from their past certainly seems
real - but just as affecting are the cries of those who stand
accused but who deny the charges. (Of course, the therapists have
the last word: "classic denial," they sniff.)


