U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Trauma, Science, and the Law: A Brief History of Trauma Research and the Social Response (From Sexual Abuse Litigation: A Practical Resource for Attorneys, Clinicians, and Advocates, P 1-47, 2000, Rebecca Rix, ed. -- See NCJ-193287)

NCJ Number
193288
Author(s)
Rebecca Rix
Date Published
2000
Length
47 pages
Annotation
This chapter provides an overview of the history of the science of traumatic neurosis, as well as the cultural reception of this science.
Abstract
The historical analysis permits the tracing of the cultural patterns of science and law in the context of the current memory controversy in child sexual abuse cases. The first section of the chapter traces the development of medical awareness of traumatic neurosis and the concurrent development of a language of conflict over the awareness and denial of this phenomenon. The development of traumatic memory studies and cultural responses are examined in five diverse and overlapping stages of history. The second section of the chapter argues that the terms of the current memory debate have been influenced by the legacy of past memory debates and the advent of legal-defense deconstruction of traumatic memory studies. "False memory syndrome" offers an alternative explanation for the delayed memories of child sexual abuse. Advocates of this alternative explanation suggest that the sensory data encoded by the survivor amount to fantasy, not traumatic experience. They attack the reliability of delayed memories by arguing that because scientists do not understand precisely how an implicit memory becomes explicit after a period of amnesia, the resulting explicit memory cannot be trusted. "False memory syndrome" is a culturally appealing alternative to the reality of child sexual abuse, especially since it invokes such familiar ideas as psychoanalytic repression and fantasy. Familiarity with the developing scientific literature on traumatic memory and posttraumatic stress disorder is crucial to effective advocacy for the victims of child sexual abuse, as is awareness of the cultural and historical context of the "false memory" debate. 190 notes