Memory Warp
Memory Warp is available from Upper Access Books
“Must Paul Revere ride twice? Mark Pendergrast was heroic in opposing the recovered memory craze twenty years ago. It’s back—but so is he, with an urgent and eloquent plea for adherence to scientific truth about the mind.”
—Frederick Crews, author The Memory Wars and Freud: The Making of an Illusion
“In Memory Warp, Mark Pendergrast has captured not only the personalities of all those involved, but the science (or lack thereof) underlying the repressed memory debate. His compassionate, even feminist, account makes for compelling reading that explains how the repressed memory epidemic arose and (unfortunately) continues.”
—Elizabeth F. Loftus, Ph.D., UC Irvine Distinguished Professor of Social Ecology, and Professor of Law, and Cognitive Science, author, The Myth of Repressed Memory
“Today many people believe that “recovered memory therapy” is a past aberration of the mental-health establishment, one that fueled the moral panic over sexual abuse in the 1990s and then subsided. But as Mark Pendergrast shows with new research and other evidence in this impressive, meticulously documented volume, far too many therapists never abandoned the mistaken belief that trauma is “repressed,” and, under the national radar, they continue using methods that create false and perniciously harmful memories in their clients. Memory Warp is essential, if scary, reading. It won’t allow us to forget.”
—Carol Tavris, social psychologist, co-author, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
“Reading Memory Warp could save your finances, your sanity, your family, and even your life. If you seek mental health treatment in the US health care system, you are at serious risk of being harmed by reckless methods based on dangerous junk science theories and practices. Mark Pendergrast has written a compelling, well-researched book about the epidemic of false memories of abuse that occurred in the final part of the 20th century and continues in a reduced—though still dangerous—form to this day, negatively impacting the lives of millions of people.”
—R. Christopher Barden, Ph.D., J.D., scientist-clinician-attorney-legislation and public policy expert specializing in multi-disciplinary analysis and reform
Just as Memory Warp was about to go to press in 2017, Netflix aired The Keepers, a seven-part series that heavily promoted the theory of repressed memories by resurrecting and validating a previously dismissed Baltimore case from the early 1990s.
The series purveys all the old stereotypes, including a psychologist who explains confidently: “Some things we experience are so unbearable and so painful that we shut them out.”
This popular series could undo years of good memory science in the public arena.
Mark Pendergrast unearthed disturbing background facts in this legal document, “Doe v. Maskell, Consolidated Brief of Appellees,” which were not presented in The Keepers.
Pendergrast was able to include a detailed critique of The Keepers in Memory Warp.
Downloads for Memory Warp
Memory Warp Endnotes and Bibliography
Oral History Interviews with Therapists, Survivors, the Accused, and Retractors