Scylla and Charybdis. Sexual abuse or 'false memory syndrome'? Therapy-induced 'memories' of sexual abuse.

The increasing importance and frequency of so-called 'false memories' of sexual abuse, which in reality never occurred, occasions a theoretical reflection about therapy-induced 'memories' of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is first seen to involve a serious loss of psychic structure. As such it has much in common with other, endogenous forms of severe psychic disorders. Drawing upon the (Kleinian) categories of projective identification, projective counter-identification and psychotic personality aspects, together with the Jungian conception of the 'mutual unconsciousness' between therapist and patient, the author presents a psychodynamic hypothesis regarding the origins of 'false memories' or 'recovered memories' of sexual abuse. This is exemplified with two therapy cases involving such memories of abuse.