Desperate to emerge from a dark depression, Elizabeth Carlson sought therapy. What she got instead was a terrifying belief that she had repressed memories of satanic ritual abuse as a child.
With hypnosis and mind-altering drugs, she became convinced she had created multiple personalities - including animals and a nun - to deal with sexual assaults by her parents, neighbors and godmother.But most devastating, says the 39-year-old Carlson, is that she now realizes the abuse never happened.
She is part of a growing movement that questions whether all memories of abuse, especially those retrieved years after the fact, are true.
"The books all say, `Don't doubt,' " said Carlson, who is suing her therapist. "I'm saying, `If you do have thoughts that flash into your head, challenge them.' "
Such skepticism comes as a challenge to the idea that children sometimes repress memories of physical, emotional or sexual abuse but can regain those memories as adults through psychotherapy.
Many such cases have given rise to lawsuits and even criminal charges; Chicago's Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, for example, is the defendant in a civil lawsuit over alleged sexual abuse filed by a man who says he recovered memories of abuse while in therapy.
The skeptical viewpoint is gaining some ground. The American Medical Association this year adopted a resolution saying that memory enhancement techniques in the area of childhood sexual abuse are "fraught with problems of potential misapplication."
But some people with recovered memories of abuse have been able to verify their suspicions. And some experts who believe memories can be repressed say the skeptics are part of a backlash that doesn't want to admit the prevalence of abuse.
"I sure hope we don't let a bunch of accused perpetrators decide what public policy is going to be on memory repression," said Renee Frederickson, a St. Paul therapist and author of "Repressed Memories." She contends millions of people have buried memories of trauma or even entire childhoods.
The standard-bearer for the "false memory" movement is the Philadelphia-based False Memory Syndrome Foundation, made up of families who say they have been wrongly accused of abuse. Formed only last year, the group already claims 7,000 families as members.
The group was formed after parents seeking solace found patterns. Most accusers were women between 25 and 45 who had entered therapy for issues such as relationship problems, according to director Pamela Freyd. Confrontations with families were similar, and many daughters cited the "bible" of the incest-recovery movement, "The Courage to Heal" by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.
"If you are unable to remember any specific instances . . . but still have a feeling that something abusive happened to you, it probably did," the book says in a much-quoted passage.
Parents who protest their innocence say allegations of sexual abuse have put thousands of couples across the country in a Catch-22: If they deny it, they're "in denial." Either way, they effectively lose their children.
"The only defense we've got is to say, `We didn't do this,"' said Terry Stone, mayor of Madelia, Minn.
One of his nine children accuses Stone and his wife, Colette, of sexually abusing her from infancy through age 18; the daughter said she retrieved the memories after entering therapy. The therapist also concluded the other eight children were abused without talking to any of them, the Stones say.
The siblings deny any abuse, and the daughter who made the accusation has cut contact with the family. Though the Stones hope for reconciliation with their daughter, they are angry about the therapy.