W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. Description: The 237-page book is adequately bound and the typeface is legible and pleasing, which is the most positive statement that can be made about it. The book jacket describes the author as a masters level psychotherapist in private practice in Denver. The goal of the book "... is to help therapists empower clients to resolve experiences of sexual abuse." The 12 chapters describe the kind of therapy Ms. Dolan employs which she asserts is a combination of "solution-focused therapy and Ericksonian hypnosis." Each chapter deals with one step in a postulated therapy
process, from beginning assessment to termination and the final chapter contains
handy hints for therapists. The book assumes that many people do not remember
childhood abuse and the aim of therapy is to help them acquire the memories they did not have before
therapy. Whether or not there is any healing, it is likely the behaviors
described in this book will succeed in producing new memories. At best the
accuracy of the newly acquired memories will be indeterminate while at worst it
will be clear the process has fabricated and implanted totally false memories. Discussion: Freudian personality theory is a brilliant intellectual tour de force, even though it is by and large false and cannot claim to be scientific inasmuch as it cannot meet the philosophy of science criterion of falsifiability. Freud was a first-rate intellect and was properly trained in 19th century concepts of physics, causality, and intellectual history. This volume by Dolan is a case study in what can happen when an inept and intellectually limited disciple attempts to follow the footsteps of a brilliant, complex, and charismatic leader. While the structure and language sounds vaguely familiar, without the perception, balance, and control of the superior intellect, the outcome is absurdity. This book is based principally on the assumption that the therapist can carry on a direct dialogue with the unconscious mind of another individual. All that has to happen is that the person closes their eyes, signals some kind of apparently relaxed state, and the therapist says now I am talking to the unconscious. The next assumption is that material produced by this conversation with the unconscious is symbolic and can be transformed by some kind of rite into truthful and reliable knowledge about the past. This is a bastardized Freudianism that cannot be supported by appeals to Freud. He knew that the unconscious was a concept that had to remain essentially unavailable in order for his structure to remain intact. He also understood the quality of symbolism and the tenuous relationship to truthfulness. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Throughout the description of behaviors by the putative therapist and responses by the person identified as the recipient, there is no effort whatsoever to link them to any scientific theory, scientific research, or recognized scientific understanding of human behavior. There is no effort to provide any data on the validity, reliability, or effect of the proposed therapeutic techniques beyond unsupported assertions that people get better when they do what she tells them to do. Many of the acts depicted as therapeutic tasks are reprises of ancient animistic rituals, including medicine bundles, symbolic representations of funerals, ritualistic burning, and the production of talismans. If the patina of misunderstood and misapplied Freudian terms is stripped away from these behaviors, it would be well nigh impossible to distinguish them from the behaviors of witch doctors and their clients. So many unfounded dogmas, hyped up myths, and nonrational perceptions are incorporated into this morass of sloppy thinking that it is hard to single out any one basic error. However, one of the more egregious examples is the assumption that when a person remembers childhood sexual abuse this means the loss of the family along with rage and hatred toward the family. The coldblooded, uncritical, and almost gleeful approach to treating family members as dead or divorced, or monstrous, leprous aberrations is chilling. The anguish, horror, and misery engendered by accusations without any factual basis is simply ignored. How any person committed to a concept of healing can so cavalierly endorse hostility, rage, and anger as a positive value is Freudian thought gone crazy. If these prescriptions are ever accepted by the broader society in which we live, we will have gone back to a primitive and uncivilized level of human history with hatred as the single most unifying force. This book is of value only to demonstrate the absurdity of
the concepts and procedures followed by those who claim to assist people to
recover memories of childhood abuse. Reviewed by Ralph Underwager, Institute for Psychological Therapies, Northfield, Minnesota.
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