The Memory Wars of the 1990s, from Freud to Geraldo
Show Notes
Frederick Crews is a professor emeritus of English at the University of California at Berkeley. His many books include The Critics Bear It Away: American Fiction and the Academy, The Random House Handbook (currently in its sixth edition), and Postmodern Pooh.
Interview, 6/28/2023
The Freudian Cover Up
Mark Pendergrast
Interview 6/14/2023
Quotes from Prodigy, early internet chat room, taken from his book Victims of Memory.
His more recent and comprehensive book on this subject is Mind Warp:
Ms. Magazine Cover Story - Believe it. Cult ritual abuse exists
The article is unavailable on the Ms. Magazine website archives; a PDF copy can be accessed here (2 parts):
Trenchant reaction to the Ms. Magazine article (but terrible formatting):
Somehow, other horrifying crimes (for argument's sake, let's imagine the mass slaughter of 11 million Jews, Gypsies, gays, dissidents, and their children) haven't created this widespread psychological block; but a few unsubstantiated accounts of ritualized baby-eating are enough to send legions of experts into psychotic states of "denial." And, yes, I have heard one SRA therapist compare her critics to Holocaust revisionists.
Melody Gavigan’s story of retraction appears in Time Magazine, in an article Lias of the Mind from 1993
Statements from professional organizations disavowing recovered memory therapies: Americal Medical Association
American Psychiatric Association https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/930fb215-2147-40e9-9d44-f06d84fc64de/Position-2013-Memories-Child-Abuse.pdf
Decision in the Holly Ramona legal case:
Geraldo Rivera, as quoted in The Day Care Ritual Abuse Moral Panic, 2004
-from CNBC 12/12/1995
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation
War of Remembrance, Philadelphia Magazine, January 1994
Pam Freyd Interview with David Calof in Treating Abuse Today 1994
Clips from the Documentary Making Memories used with permission of Patrick Clancy
Access it here:
Pam Freyd’s article, published anonymously: How Could This Happen? Coping with A False Accusation of Incest and Rape, Jane Doe
The Cut chooses Jennifer Freyd
Rebuttals
Beware the Incest Survivor Machine, New York Times, Carol Tavris 1993
Cover image collage from
Lilah McCarthy as Jocasta, by Harold Speed, 1907, Victoria and Albert Museum
The tragic story of Oedipus
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