Precious Daughter, Lois, It’s over twenty-two years since you walked into my office for help with depression , which we decided was secondary to chronic pain brought on by multiple abdominal surgeries. You told me your birth family was “close”. Little did I know just how “close” your family was! Nine years passed, during which you saw me off and on. I didn’t seem to be able to make much of a dent in your depression. Then again, other people and approaches to dealing with pain and depression didn’t seem to help either. There were some indications that your parents weren’t quite as nice as you claimed. For example, they blamed you when a blizzard made you late in getting home, and they seemed to see their own illnesses as more important than yours, but nothing foreshadowed the horror you have described here. Were someone like you to walk into my office today, I would suspect severe abuse, but then, it didn’t cross my mind.

Two events closely preceded the onset of your recovered memories. Like many depressed people, you could not access any feelings of anger. I began suggesting things that would make almost anyone angry, saying, in the first person, “You can rob me and I won’t get angry.” Nothing worked until I said, “You can tell me to spread my legs and I won’t get angry.” At that, you did get angry. On another occasion, you told me the following story about your family: Your sister, then a teenager, wanted some money. Your father agreed to play a board game with her. If she won the game, she got the money. I asked what happened if she lost the game. You told me that, if she lost the game, your father got to spank her. Little did I know what “spanking” meant in your family, but I did suggest that getting pleasure out of spanking had sexual implications. (Note: I did NOT say that it indicated sexual or even physical abuse.) I’m not sure which of these two events precipitated your recalling between sessions that your father had molested you. After that, the memories came thick and fast, getting ever more sadistic and bizarre. You’ve told me your parents said the more bizarre the abuse was, the less likely anyone would believe you.

Though the False Memory Foundation alleges that recovered memories result from suggestion by the therapist, I did not and could not have suggested your memories. Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine such scenes.