Once victims to a seemingly untreatable diagnosis, gender dysphoric patients who feel their gender identity differs from their biological gender, now have therapeutic options: reconstructive surgery and hormonal therapy for transitioning to the correct gender. The passionate adherence to a perspective, and the accompanying resistance to any challenges, resembles the insistent sure-footedness of the modern transgender movement. It was a terrifying and consequential example of the false security of consensus.
But much damage was done before the idea of “recovered memory” lost its authority, despite the absence of supporting evidence. As critics pointed out, memory of traumatic events is not usually repressed–it remains, rather, percolating beneath the surface, haunting its victims. According to their therapists, the patients had waited so long before making accusations because they had repressed their memories of sexual abuse only with prolonged counseling were these memories “recovered.” After a number of scandals, a small group of skeptical psychiatrists challenged these claims, courts decided cases in favor of the accused, and the influence of recovered memory advocates waned. At the time, a number of patients, encouraged by their psychiatrists and psychotherapists, falsely accused their parents and teachers of sexually abusing them.
In the late 20 th century, American psychiatry suffered a schism over the idea of recovered memory.
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