False Memory Researchers Misunderstand Repression, Dissociation and Freud.

Various authors have argued that dissociative amnesia is a synonym for repressed memories, recovered memories are almost always false memories, and dissociative amnesia and dissociative identity disorder are not valid disorders. These authors commit numerous errors of logic and scholarship; they misunderstand Freud's thinking about childhood sexual abuse, dissociation and repression and blame both Freudian repression theory and Freudian therapists for an epidemic of false memories. In fact, however, Freudian repression theory is based on the assumption that the childhood sexual abuse never happened. Extreme skeptics about dissociative amnesia do not understand they are actually in agreement with Freudian repression theory. These errors and other failures of logic and scholarship are analyzed and critiqued in the present paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]