Memories of Sexual Abuse: Robbins vs. Benatar

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Main body
Conclusion

Introduction

It is evident that there is great controversy over the truthfulness of recovered memories of sexual abuse. The significance of the topic of child sexual abuse is heavy enough to make society pay sufficient attention to the issue so as to find out how to verify adulthood disclosures of childhood sexual abuse. The two articles present a good attempt at supporting or debunking the credibility of memories of childhood sexual abuse. In this reaction paper, I will focus on the arguments made by the two authors and my own perspective about the subject.

Main body

May Benatar, who is of the opinion that memories from childhood sexual abuse can be recovered, makes does her best in making her point. But unfortunately, she makes many references to case studies and the research done by Sigmund Freud as well as other pioneers such as Janet. These references do not provide a strong foundation for the point she is trying to make. She even states at some point that the respected psychologist, Sigmund Freud, retracted from a research he was carrying out about hysteria and its connection to traumatic memory. This does not help the argument she makes. It is quite unfortunate that the argument does not come out as strong as it should since childhood sexual abuse is commonplace and there have been many cases of correct recall by victims; after several years of silence.

Susan Robbins on her part does a wonderful job at rebutting the claims made by Benatar. She effectively dismisses the computer memory analogy and deflates the misconceived representation of the functioning of the human memory in Benatar’s case. She also clearly points out that reliance on case studies is not the best way of verifying the recall problem in cases of recovered memory as far as childhood sexual abuse is concerned. Her acceptance of the presence of many cases of sexual abuse on children makes us view her, not as someone who denies that children get abused and later remember these events, but as someone who accepts the reality and seeks to find a better way of ensuring that whatever that the victims bring forward is true and not mere imagination. This is understandable given the implication of the accusations on family members or other members of the community.

Conclusion

Concerning the strength of the arguments, I feel that the argument made by Robbins is stronger than the one made by Benatar. Robbins does a marvelous job at debunking the claims made by Benatar, a scenario that renders Benatar’s argument toothless or weak. Benatar’s position would have been stronger had she provided solid backup that would have withstood scrutiny. Reduction of the number of case studies and presentation of a possible verifying method for recovered memories would have made the difference. This area of study has raised a number of issues that I would like to see further researched further. The major of these areas is the possibility of verifying whether what “victims” are saying about their recalled or recovered memories is true. I have witnessed a case where a thirty six year old girl came out to accuse her rich father of childhood sexual abuse for financial gain. Since her father never wanted his name tainted, he paid her off only for the girl to later confess that she had made up the story as a blackmail strategy so as to gain financially. This is why a method of substantiating the memories would be helpful.

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Memories of Sexual Abuse: Robbins vs. Benatar

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