This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. The practice of recovered memory therapy (RMT) and the resulting accusations of childhood sexual abuse have polarized the psy
This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. The practice of recovered memory therapy (RMT) and the resulting accusations of childhood sexual abuse have polarized the psychotherapy community and crowded the courts. Television dramas, talk shows, and newsmagazine programs have brought the more sensational elements of this social phenomenon into everyone's living room. Meanwhile, false accusations of abuse have devastated the lives of many people — from modest elderly couples to the late spiritual leader of Midwest Catholics, Joseph Cardinal Barnardin.
Reinder Van Til's
Lost Daughters movingly depicts the human toll exacted by the widespread belief in RMT. First-person stories, the first of which is Van Til's own personal narrative, portray families devastated by daughters' RMT-inspired memories of childhood sexual abuse and their subsequent accusations of fathers and mothers. In chapters that alternate with these narratives, Van Til critically examines the influences in our culture that have allowed this phenomenon to flourish and that continue to fuel the debate.
Elizabeth F. Loftus
—president of the American Psychological Society
author of The Myth of Repressed Memory
"Lost Daughters skillfully weaves moving, tragic first-person stories with astute evaluations of scientific and social evidence and makes a convincing case that some psychotherapy practices are catastrophically misguided. Van Til does all this with a hard look at current cultural trends but also with compassion for the genuine victims of abuse, whose suffering is all too often equaled by that of the falsely accused."
Stephen J. Ceci
—Cornell University
"In the battle between victims whose allegations of abuse are not believed and defendants whose innocence is not believed, Van Til's Lost Daughters reminds us of the horrific costs paid by both sides. In heart-wrenching chapter after chapter, Van Til exposes the underbelly of the recovered memory movement, giving readers an unusually graphic and well-written glimpse into the shattered lives on both sides of this battle."
Paul C. Vitz
—author of Psychology as Religion
"A dramatic but all too accurate portrayal of how psychology, particularly in its popular forms, can itself be a form of abuse."
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Reinder Van Til is a longtime editor at Eerdmans Publishing Co. In addition to writing a nonfiction book, Lost Daughters: Recovered Memory Therapy and the People It Hurts (Eerdmans), he has collaborated with William Brashler (under the pseudonym Crabbe Evers) on five murder mysteries set in baseball stadiums, including Murder in Wrigley Field and Tigers Burning
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