False Memory Syndrome – In Fiction

In the Fourth Season of Star Trek Voyager there was an episode called ‘Retrospect”  If you click on the name of the episode, you will get a explanation of the episode.   In case you want to watch it, this link will help.

The episode was aired in 1998 when the law suits against psycho-therapists became public.

Although there had been previous successful law suits brought against therapists for creating false memory it was in the late 1990s that the public began to pay attention.

The dangers of False Memory do not just effect the person who is subjected to this ‘diagnosis’  but those around them.

The woman made to believe that her father abused her when she was a child does not just damage her own life, but those of her parents and other family members.

Be very careful if you are made to ‘suddenly remember’  some traumatic childhood event.   In reality, there is previous actions/reactions which the memory, when it was fresh provoked;  i.e. the child who threw a tantrum every time her parents wanted to take her to her grandparents, the boy who quits being part of the choir at church, etc.

If there were no ‘responses’ at the time of the ‘event’ then it is likely the event never happend.