Thursday, November 20, 2008

Destructive Delusions

11/20/08. Theodore Dalrymple reviews Paul McHugh's book: "Try to Remember. Psychiatry's Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind."

This is the story of how some psychiatrists and psychologists lost their way --- treating "victims" who were seized by the return of repressed memories of sexual abuse in childhood, and leveled false charges against family members, wrecking their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

I have met with fathers in psychotherapy who were psychologically devastated after being falsely accused of child sexual abuse by their daughters.

Of course, child sexual abuse occurs. The sexually abused females who I have worked with in psychotherapy never forgot the soul murdering effects of their nightmares of sexual abuse.

McHugh carefully follows these psychiatric misdirections. He describes the limits and follies of our psychiatric diagnostic system, defines and discusses hysteria, and traces the seminal work of psychiatrist Jerome Frank on the components of effective psychotherapy. Frank wrote a classic book on psychotherapy called "Persuasion and Healing."

McHugh is a clear, concise thinker with years of clinical experience and teaching, and with a razor sharp mind laced with honest reflections on treating the mentally ill and addressing the follies and misadventures of psychology and psychiatry.

Have you known someone who was falsely accused of sexual abuse based on recovered memories discovered during psychotherapy?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122714489697843157.html

More on McHugh from the Jerusalem Post:

http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225910048733&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

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