by Joan Ross Acocella
Acocella is well known as a dance critic (Mark Morris, 1990), but she is also coauthor of a text on abnormal psychology; her current book began as a 1998 New Yorker article. She deftly links the epidemic of hysteria diagnoses in the late nineteenth century to the explosion of multiple personality disorder (MPD) diagnoses over recent decades; both periods, she maintains, reflected "widespread, bitter intellectual debate, a war between biological and psychological psychiatry, a fascination with the occult, an obsession with sex and an explosion of pornography, a new concern over cruelty to children, feminism and opposition to feminism." Acocella traces MPD's history; the therapy applied and its theoretical scientific basis; and the trajectory (crisis, outcry, retrenchment) of public attitudes toward the related issues of recovered memory, MPD, and satanic ritual abuse. Feminism and the child-protection movement bear some of the blame for MPD diagnosis and treatment abuses, but Acocella argues that these abuses have weakened the credibility of both movements as well as of insight therapy in general. Mary Carroll - Copyright© 1999, American Library Association. All rights reserved Book Description
Customer Comments A much-needed expose of a current social
problem.
A fascinating summary of a shameful chapter
in psychotherapy
Perhaps most damning to the psychotherapy profession she correctly points out the near absolute refusal of the professional organizations to take any substantial actions against the practitioners of this psuedo-science which is so destructive. Importantly, she uses the publications and actions of the practitioners of RMT to illustrate its fallacies. She is to be commended for having the moral courage to speak out against the unscientific practices. Practitioners of repressed memory therapy will probably try to punish her by reducing the use of her standard textbook on abnormal psychology. In my opinion, she deserves an award for her willingness to sacrifice herself and suffer the criticism of the practitioners of repressed memory therapy when most of her contemporaries have simply sat silent and let women and families continue to be destroyed. O that we had a thousand like her! * * * There are some people who have been abused sexually and physically as children, and who have partially or totally blocked the memories from view. The problem is that these are far fewer than the modern psycho-babblers would have us believe. Until lately, it was politically correct to believe the abused, never the accused. The "technology" of modern psychology is so varied and flawed that whatever results are obtained are highly questionable. Basing personal and family decisions, and legal actions upon the findings of psychotherapists doing "repressed-memory" work is ludicrous considering the horrendous state of the field's methodology.
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