3

ENTRANCED

I never knew it before. I never knew anything before.… But then—then she sit there, denying and denying, and I feel a misty coldness climbin’ up my back, and the skin on my skull begin to creep, and I feel a clamp around my neck and I cannot breathe air; and then—entranced—I hear a voice, a screamin’ voice, and it were my voice—and all at once I remembered everything she done to me!

—Mary Warren, in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

He sat her down on the bench seat of his 1965 shortbed pickup and made her watch as he took out his pocket knife and slit the fish up the middle of its belly. “That’s yucky,” she cried, screwing up her face in horror and disgust as the fish guts spilled out onto the dusty Texas soil. He smiled and wiped his bloody hands on his jeans. With one hand he unbuckled his belt and with the other pushed hard against her chest, pressing her body flat against the seat. She stared up at the water-stained ceiling and thought about her legs hanging outside the truck. They felt funny; thick with blood and muscle, heavy and disconnected, going numb.

He pushed up her dress and she felt something warm and sharp against her belly. Pressing hard, he cut a line from her sternum to her pubic bone. She screamed in terror and jerked up, sure that she would see her insides spilling onto the rusted-out floor of the pickup, gutted just like that dead fish. He laughed; then, slapping the blunt side of the knife against the palm of his hand (“Thought I’d cut ya, didn’t ya?”), he threw the weapon down and unzipped his pants, all of it happening in seconds. Then there was the familiar pain and pushing, the ripping-apart feeling, the hot vinyl scraping against her bottom, and the strange sensation of floating up to the sky and staring down at this scene, which always looked and felt the same.

When it was over, they drove back through the Texas oil fields, nothing out there but the burning sun, the swirling dust, and her uncle smiling at some private joke.

Lynn Price Gondolf never forgot this memory of her uncle raping her when she was six years old. She could call up other memories of similar scenes throughout the years: concrete and detailed pictures of fondling, sodomy, sadistic teasing, even torture. Twenty years later she could still feel the warm, bloody edge of the knife pressing against her belly. She could remember the color of her sandals and the blister on her heel, the white-hot sky and the dust in her teeth. She could see in her mind the dead, unblinking eye of the fish … like her eyes, she thought, as she drifted upward and stared down at her uncle’s heaving body and the helpless child trapped beneath him, her legs hanging out the door. The years passed, but the memories stayed on, unwelcome guests with no intention of seeking out another resting place.

Thirteen years after the last time her uncle raped her, Lynn picked up the phone and dialed the number of a local therapy clinic. Fifty pounds overweight, she had suffered from an eating disorder for years, binging on junk food and then using diuretics, laxatives, and ipecac syrup to purge her body. Each episode of binging and purging added to her feelings of guilt and remorse. She was depressed, anxious, filled with shame, and tired of feeling out of control of her own body. She wanted to be “normal.” She explained all this to the counselor who returned her phone call. He listened to her story, was silent for a moment, and then said, “Tell me, Lynn … have you ever been sexually abused?”

“Yes,” she said, surprised by the counselor’s ability to read her past from her symptoms. Briefly, she related the abuse by her uncle.

“Was he the only one?”

She laughed. “He was enough.”

Lynn started therapy that week, and right from the beginning her counselor was preoccupied with uncovering the explicit details of her childhood sexual abuse. He insisted that she recount in excruciating detail exactly what happened in the pickup, even to the point of describing the size and shape of her uncle’s penis. Over and over again she was asked to relive those painful memories. At the end of the second or third session, the therapist’s questions shifted, not so subtly, to her parents.

“Where were your parents during these episodes of abuse?” he asked. “Didn’t they know that your uncle was abusing you?”

“I never told them,” she said, “not until this year.”

“Are you sure? Think about it, Lynn … think about all the times you went off with him—what were there, twenty or thirty separate episodes of abuse? What did your parents think was going on when your uncle drove away with you?”

She argued with him. “They didn’t know,” she said, “because I didn’t tell them. I was too ashamed. They were dirt poor, they both worked twelve hours every day of the week, they had three other kids to think about. I was the oldest, and they just assumed that I could take care of myself or that I would tell them if someone hurt me.”

“All I want you to do is think about it,” he said in a gentle and reassuring tone. “Try to imagine the scene in your mind. You were a little girl, just six years old, going off with your uncle for several hours and coming back dirty, sweaty, probably scared to death. You must have cried, acted out, misbehaved, clung to your mother. Do you really think they didn’t know that something was wrong? Just think about it, Lynn. Keep trying to remember exactly what happened.”

She thought about it; after a while, she couldn’t think about anything else. Her counselor kept encouraging her to sift through her memories, suggesting that she keep a daily journal and regularly hypnotize herself by relaxing, breathing deep, and trying to imagine what might have happened. After a few weeks of intensive therapy and “soul-searching,” she weakened. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe they did know.”1

Her therapist shifted focus again. “If your parents knew,” he said, “why did they let it go on?” She shrugged her shoulders, causing him to put a slightly different spin on the question. “Now that we know they knew, and we know they didn’t do anything to stop it, don’t we have to wonder: Could they have been part of this? Is it possible that you were also abused by your father or mother, perhaps both?”

Once again she was on the defensive. Maybe they didn’t want to think about it, she argued. Maybe they knew but didn’t want to believe it was true. Maybe they didn’t know how to protect me. Maybe they just did the best they could, even if they didn’t protect me, even if they weren’t able to stop the abuse. They weren’t perfect, but they did the best they could.

She tried switching the subject back to her eating disorder. “I’m still having trouble with feeling out of control,” she said. “I just don’t seem to be able to stop myself from binging and purging.”

“You’re trying to vomit up a flashback,” her counselor concluded. “Once you remember the truth about your past, the need to purge yourself will stop and your eating disorder will gradually fade away.”

“My mother and father never touched me!” she said, suddenly angry.

“Lynn, Lynn,” he said, using the exasperatedly patient voice a parent would employ with a rebellious child, “your symptoms are too severe and long-lasting to be explained away by your uncle’s abuse, as awful as that was. You remember those incidents, you’ve faced what he did to you and come to terms with it. But your eating disorder persists, you continue to feel out of control, and you don’t understand why. I believe there must be something else back there in your past, something much, much worse that you have not been able to face.”

Think, he told her, write, dream, imagine. Dig down into your unconscious and pull these memories out. If you can only remember, he assured her, you’ll feel so much better.

After a month of searching desperately for the memories and coming up empty-handed, Lynn agreed to join a group of eight women for weekly therapy sessions, in addition to her private sessions. “You’re in a safe environment here, with people who care a great deal about you,” the therapist told the women, whose problems ranged from eating disorders to depression to sexual abuse. “Let the memories come, don’t be afraid of them. If you can recover these long-lost memories, they will lose their power over you, and you will be free to become yourself again.”

He liked to talk about the mind’s “gateway.” Everyone, he explained, has a little gateway in the mind, secured by a latch-type mechanism that keeps painful and traumatic memories locked away from consciousness. When we are “safe”—emotionally prepared, physically protected, and surrounded by people who care about us and want us to get well—the latch will spontaneously spring open, and the memories will be released. “Let the gateway open,” he encouraged the women. “Don’t be afraid.”

Lynn was afraid. She was, in fact, scared to death. Everything she believed in and cared about was being challenged. She had always believed that her mother and father had loved and protected her—but why hadn’t they saved her from her uncle? Could her therapist be right? Could it be that the people she loved most in the world, the parents she had trusted for all those years of growing up, had abused her? But if they had molested her, her whole life had been built on fantasy and denial. How could she have deluded herself for so many years? How could her mind have cast away such important pieces of her past?

As these questions circled around and around in her mind, Lynn began to wonder if she might be going crazy. If she didn’t know the truth about her own past, then how tenuous was her grip on reality? If she didn’t know the truth about her own parents, then how could she trust herself to understand anyone’s motives? If she was so easily deceived, who would take advantage of her next?

Concerned about her erratic mood swings and increasingly severe bouts with depression, her therapist referred her to a physician who prescribed antidepressants and sleeping pills. The drugs seemed to help, but it was only when she was in therapy with her counselor and the other group members that she felt real and substantial; only in therapy did she feel understood and appreciated. Her therapist seemed to know exactly what was going on in her mind. He was so confident and self-possessed as he assured the group that they would find this mysterious truth, and that when they did, all their current problems would fade away.

“Together we will find the truth,” he intoned, “and the truth will set you free.”

The search for the truth began in earnest. Eight women sat in a tight circle, telling their stories, encouraged by their therapist’s verbal prodding to expand and elaborate on the details. One day in group Lynn talked for an hour and a half, sharing the details of being raped by her uncle. Afterward, one of the women broke down in tears. “I can understand why Lynn is having so much trouble,” she sobbed. “She has a good reason for her problems. But what’s the matter with me? Why am I so unhappy?”

“Keep looking for those lost memories,” the therapist reassured her. “Something in your past is trying to make itself known. Keep listening, waiting, watching, imagining. The memories will come.”

The first memory flashed into Lynn’s mind when she was driving to the grocery store. As she waited impatiently at a red light, her mind suddenly filled with an image of a man standing in a corner of a dark room. That was all she could see. It was as if someone had taken a faded black-and-white photograph, ripped off the corner, and stuck it in her head. Shaken, she drove straight home and called her therapist.

“Can you identify the man in the memory?” he asked.

“I think it’s my father,” she answered. As they talked, the image became less grainy, more focused in her mind. “Yes, yes, I’m sure it’s my father.”

“What is he doing?”

“He’s standing in the corner. I can only see his head.”

“Not his body?”

“No, just his head in the corner.”

“Is he moving or gesturing?”

“No, he’s just standing there.”

“Where are you? How old are you?” Her therapist sounded excited.

“I’m probably about six or seven,” Lynn said. “It looks like I’m lying down on a bed or something, watching him.”

“Imagine that your father is walking toward you,” her therapist suggested. “Picture him approaching the bed. Can you tell me what happens next?”

Lynn started to cry as the ripped-off corner of the picture suddenly matched up with another jagged piece. “He’s right above me,” she whispered. “I can feel him touching me. He’s touching me. He’s touching my legs.”

Another piece of the memory slid into place, joined by another and then another. She could see it all now.

“He’s pulling my legs apart. He’s standing over me. He’s on top of me.” She was sobbing uncontrollably, and her voice was hoarse as she struggled to talk through the tears. “Oh God, oh God, Daddy, no, Daddy, no!”

Several weeks later, another memory emerged. Lynn was talking to the group about a time in fourth grade when her mother gave her a bath and rolled her hair up on hard pink curlers. “She pulled my neck hairs,” Lynn remembered. “I hated that. It hurt.”

Her therapist wanted to talk about the bath. “Did anything happen in the bathtub that seems significant to you?” Lynn said no, nothing else happened, all she could remember was the rollers and that pinching feeling. Her therapist suggested that perhaps she was subconsciously blocking out a traumatic memory. “Think about what happened in the bathtub,” he said. “Go home and think, write, imagine, do some soul-searching.”

Three days later, Lynn had another flashback. She was in the bathtub. Her mother was washing her hair when her hand began to move slowly and methodically down Lynn’s chest. She began to rub Lynn’s breasts, and then her hand continued downward, touching, poking, probing into forbidden places.

As Lynn related the memory to the group, she flushed with embarrassment and shame. “Your body is remembering the shame you felt twenty-five years ago,” the therapist explained. “A body memory is a powerful sign that your body has stored this memory as a kind of physical energy. Now that you are ready to face your past, the forgotten memory emerges spontaneously, triggering a strong physiological reaction. What must be felt again is felt, both physically and emotionally.”

Lynn had been in therapy for less than two months when her therapist suggested that she confront her parents with the truth about her past. Only by facing them and speaking openly about the abuse she suffered at their hands, he assured her, would she be able to release herself from the past. The idea filled Lynn with horror, but her therapist reminded her that he would be there with her, helping her every step of the way. A face-to-face confrontation was the only sure way to move through and beyond her pain, he insisted.

Lynn called her parents and told them she was in therapy for her eating disorder. She explained that she was taking three different prescription medications for depression, anxiety, and insomnia, and she had been feeling suicidal. Her therapist was worried about her and thought it might help to meet with her parents. Would they be willing to drive down for a meeting? Yes, of course, they said, just tell us when and we’ll be there.

The week before the “conjoint session” Lynn practiced for the confrontation with her parents. “You’re being too nice,” the women in the group told her. “You need to be more forceful about your feelings.”

“You’re in denial,” her therapist said, “because your inner child still has this loyalty to your parents. Remember, they must have known about the abuse, and if they knew, that means they were participants. Be strong, and don’t back down.”

Lynn walked into the session with a list of all the injuries and abuses her parents had committed. Her therapist began by explaining that Lynn was seriously ill; she had been suffering with an eating disorder for many years, and she had recently developed a major depressive disorder.

“Your daughter’s survival depends on you,” he concluded. “Please listen carefully and without interruption to the things she is about to say.”

Lynn read down her list: You never understood me. You never really loved me. You didn’t come to my basketball games. You were never interested in what happened at school. You used to yell at me and spank me. Once Dad called me a heifer. My uncle sexually abused me, and you did nothing to stop him.

“We didn’t know he was abusing you,” her father said, stumbling over his words. “But maybe we should have known. If we had known, honey, we would have protected you.”

“Please don’t interrupt,” the therapist said. Lynn’s mother was crying. The therapist handed her a box of tissues.

Lynn continued to read down her list. At the very end she hesitated. In group therapy the week before, she had discussed a traumatic memory involving her father’s sister, a woman who had been in and out of mental hospitals. When Lynn was about seven years old, her aunt took her aside and said: “Your parents were married two weeks after you were born. That means your daddy may not even be your daddy. For all we know, you may be another man’s child.”

When the group reviewed the list Lynn would read to her parents, they insisted that she discuss her fears with her parents. “You’ll never get well if you don’t,” her therapist agreed.

She had written down a simple question. Looking right at her father, Lynn finally blurted it out: “Are you my dad?”

Her father mumbled something like, “Think so.”

Lynn stood up and left the room, her therapist following right behind her. In the hallway he gave her a big hug. “You were wonderful,” he said. Behind the closed door she could hear the sound of her mother’s strangled sobs.

*   *   *

In the next year, Lynn tried to kill herself five different times. After one attempt, she was hospitalized for two days. She was taking several different prescription medications at once including Xanax for anxiety, Mellaril to control her flashbacks, Lithium for mood swings, Zantac and Carasate for ulcers, Restoril to help her sleep, and Darvocet for headaches. Her therapist kept changing the diagnoses. In less than a year Lynn was diagnosed with schizoid affective disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, neurotic depressive disorder, chronic posttraumatic stress disorder, clinical depression, dissociative disorder, dysthymic disorder, and borderline personality disorder.

The other women in the group were also going downhill fast. In their first meeting together, when they had introduced themselves and briefly discussed their problems, only one woman identified herself as a victim of sexual abuse. After three months of weekly sessions, every woman in the group had recovered memories of being abused by one or more family members. They were all “Survivors.”

Once the therapist established that every woman in the group had been abused by someone in her family, he suggested that they would be better off avoiding all family get-togethers. “The family’s denial system is well-entrenched,” he explained, “and only by removing yourself from the family system can you ever hope to get well.”

One day, one of the women broke down in tears. “I want to talk to my brother,” she sobbed. “I miss him so much. Please, all I want to do is call him and tell him how much I love him.”

“It’s too dangerous,” the therapist said. “Your brother is in his own denial about what happened to you. If you try to reestablish a relationship with him, you’ll get caught up in that denial all over again. You’re too vulnerable right now, you need to get strong. Remember … we’re your family now. We’re the only people you can trust.”

When group members received cards or letters from their families, they brought them to the group to be read and analyzed. Lynn shared a short note from her father that was signed “Love, Dad.” After a long discussion, the group concluded that her father was trying to convince her that he was, in fact, her father and thus lure her back to the family. Stay away from him, she was warned. Watch yourself. Don’t let your guard down.

Efforts to recover the buried memories intensified. One day Lynn’s therapist asked her to close her eyes, breathe deeply, and relax; after a few moments he tried to “age regress” her to the day she was born. Lynn closed her eyes and concentrated, trying hard to bring back the memories of her birth. But the images wouldn’t come. Her therapist encouraged her to keep trying. “If you can’t remember any details, just try to imagine what it must have been like,” he said. “Visualize the womb, picture yourself as a tiny, helpless baby inside, think about what it must have felt like to emerge into the world.”

When age regression didn’t work to bring back the buried memories, other techniques were employed. “Trance writing” was a favorite exercise used in group therapy. The therapist would begin with standard relaxation techniques, asking the women to close their eyes and breathe deeply; whenever a thought or image appeared in their minds—no matter how trivial or bizarre—they were instructed to describe it in their journals. One woman filled several pages with a graphic description of sexual abuse, but ended her narrative with the words “This isn’t real.” When the therapist read what she had written, he explained that all sexual-abuse victims believe that their suffering isn’t “real,” because they don’t want to admit that these terrible things actually happened. All survivors, he said, are in denial.

“Denial” was the buzzword that reverberated throughout the room, the quick diagnosis that explained everything. If one of the women expressed doubts about being abused, she was “in denial.” If you are in denial, the therapist explained, that is further proof that you were, in fact, abused. If a parent or sibling resists your story, accuses you of getting your facts wrong, or asks for external proof or corroboration, then they are “in denial.” Most likely, they have repressed memories of their own.

The group sessions were becoming more unpredictable and emotionally chaotic. In a typical session, one of the women would describe a “flashback” in which she was sodomized and tortured by her father, brother, or grandfather. Sitting in a circle around her were three or four women holding hands, tears streaming down their faces. On the other side of the room a woman was beating the wall with an “encounter bat”—a soft, foam rubber club—while another sat moaning in the corner, her hands pressed against her ears, and yet another hunkered down in the middle of the floor methodically ripping the pages out of a telephone directory.

Adrenaline surged, emotions seethed, abreactions abounded. Just being in this room filled with high drama and wild emotional breakthroughs became addictive, for only here was it possible to let go of everything and scream, cry, curse, howl. No one ever told you to stop, to grow up, to behave yourself, to get a grip. After a ninety-minute session, the outside world seemed tame, inconsequential, almost manageable.

*   *   *

In May 1987 Lynn became suicidal, and her therapist admitted her to an in-patient hospital psychiatric ward. Three months later, she was still there, still suicidal, still plagued by flashbacks so brutal and bizarre that she knew she was losing her mind. Each new memory of abuse, sodomy and torture seemed to eat away at her dwindling sanity. Months earlier she had cut off all ties with her family; now she had no friends outside her therapy group. She had been out of work for six months, her car had been repossessed, and she was so doped up with sedatives, relaxants, anti-psychotics and sleeping pills that she felt as if her life consisted of one blurry dream after another.

The last straw came on the day her therapist received a letter from Lynn’s insurance company explaining that the latest diagnostic codes were unacceptable and all additional claims would be denied. Her therapist marched into her hospital room and read the letter to her.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked, his voice tight with anger.

“I don’t know,” she said miserably.

“How are you going to pay your hospital and therapy bills?” he demanded.

“I have no idea.” She began to cry.

He kept asking her the same questions: What are you going to do? How are you going to meet your obligations? Where will you go from here? Feeling abandoned by the person she trusted more than anyone else in the world, Lynn finally said, “I guess I’ll have to go home and rot.”

The next day sheriff’s deputies arrived at the hospital with an order for protective custody signed by her therapist and a psychiatrist. Lynn was handcuffed and escorted to the mental diagnostic center to be evaluated for admission to a state institution. Lynn remembers the diagnostic center as a vision of hell. Men and women hammered their heads against the wall, masturbated openly, urinated and defecated on the cement floor. Cries of terror shattered the fetid air. Lynn sat sobbing in a corner of the large, crowded room; after twelve hours her body began to shake and convulse with withdrawal symptoms. When she begged for help, an attendant told her to stop crying and get control of herself. “You’re headed for the institution for sure,” he said, looking at her in disgust.

When the attendant allowed her to call her therapist, she begged him to sign an order for her release. “I’ll do anything, anything,” she pleaded with him. “I promise I’ll work hard, I’ll find a way to pay you, I’ll do anything you ask.”

“I’m sorry, Lynn,” he said. “But what can I do? You don’t have a job, you don’t have any insurance, and you’re suicidal. I can’t just allow you to go home and kill yourself. Your only option is the state mental institution.”

Her tears seemed to move him. “It’s the only solution,” he said. “But I’ll make a deal with you. If you agree to be institutionalized for two years, I promise to accept you back as a patient when you’re released.”

“I can’t go to an institution,” Lynn cried. Her aunt had been involuntarily committed to a state mental institution, and Lynn remembered the stories about the barred windows, the stench, the shuffling feet, the wild-eyed stares. “Please help me, please, I’m begging you, I’ll do anything you want me to do, anything…”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, hanging up the phone.

Seventy-two hours later Lynn was interviewed by a state psychiatrist. Heart racing, hands shaking uncontrollably, she watched as he read through her chart. After a minute, he looked up at her. “You don’t belong in an institution,” he said. Advising her to go home and get on with her life, he signed the order for her release.

Lynn doesn’t remember much about the next weeks. She recalls being taken to a friend’s house where she lay in bed unable to sleep, sweating and shaking from withdrawal symptoms because she had no money left to pay for her medication. And she remembers calling a therapist whom she had seen several years earlier, and begging for his help. He agreed to accept her as a patient and waive all fees until she could afford to pay him. Concerned about her withdrawal symptoms, he referred Lynn to a physician, who prescribed mild tranquilizers and provided her with free samples.

Several months passed. Lynn found an apartment, bought an old car, and got a job as a computer programmer. Over time, as the memories of abuse began to fade away, she decided that she was strong enough to live her life without drugs, and entered an alcoholism and drug-treatment program. Something very strange happened there. She was told to forget about the past and get on with her life.

What was she going to do about now, today, this moment? the counselors asked her, over and over again. When she said she couldn’t stop thinking about the past because she still wasn’t sure what happened back in her childhood, the counselors advised her to stop looking in the past for the answers to her present pain.

“Who promised you that life wouldn’t hurt? So what if you’re depressed?” they said. “We all have days when we feel lousy, but we get up and go to work. We sleep, eat, take a shower, comb our hair, walk out the door and down the street. You have to keep moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other.”

Lynn didn’t know how to respond to this advice. In her previous therapy she had been told that she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do. If she felt sad, sick, depressed, or just unwilling to face the demands of the day, she was told to call her therapist who would help her “get in touch with her feelings,” write in her journal, or get out her frustrations by pounding the furniture with her fists. But these counselors were telling her to stop trying to “fix” herself and start taking “responsibility” for herself. She wondered what the word “responsibility” meant.

She struggled to understand what had happened to her in therapy. Where did all those vivid, terrifying memories come from? Were they real? As time went by the memories became almost cartoonlike, colorful animations that gradually lost their power to hurt. After she had been sober and drug-free for several months, she knew the truth. All those detailed memories of her parents abusing her were the fantasies of a confused, drug-saturated mind. She began to understand that these imagined memories were created from fears, dreams, and desires, along with bits and pieces of real life. The massive doses of drugs, the preoccupation with sexual abuse, the paranoia inspired by her therapist, and the mass hysteria of the group worked together to create a traumatic but wholly fictional world. The memories had actually created the trauma.

What had she done to her parents? How could she ever face them? The questions caused her physical pain. She ached to put her arms around them and beg their forgiveness, but she could not find the courage. Every week she called her sister, who kept her informed about the family. “Mom and Dad are desperate to see you, Lynn,” her sister said. “They miss you so much.” But for two more years Lynn was too filled with shame for what she had done to them.

Then, one day, the pain of being separated from her parents overwhelmed her fear of facing them. She was at her sister’s house when they walked in the door. Seeing their daughter for the first time in three years, they opened up their arms and hugged her as if they would never let her go. They never asked Lynn to explain what happened, nor did they request an apology. They had what they wanted, and what for years they had believed would never be theirs again: their daughter, safe, sane, alive.

*   *   *

What a story, you may be thinking … what an amazing, bizarre, fantastic story. Perhaps, like many people I know, you find yourself wondering about Lynn. Why did she come to accept memories that she initially insisted were false? Was there something inherently wrong with her—a mental weakness of some kind, a psychological flaw, an inability to separate fact from reality? Surely only a fragile, troubled individual would allow herself to become convinced that a false memory was actually real … and if she were so vulnerable, so easily misled, wouldn’t that indicate that in fact something terrible had occurred in her past?

Or perhaps you are thinking: All those memories that Lynn recovered in therapy were true, if not in all the particulars then at least in the general outline. For how could the mind create such visual, emotionally charged memories out of thin air? Lynn later retracted her accusations not because the memories were false but because she could no longer stand the pain of being separated from her family. She was back, to use the familiar words, in denial.

Perhaps you are not prepared to put the blame on Lynn: She simply had the misfortune to run into a misguided and overzealous therapist. Or perhaps the problem is with therapy itself: a profession that has become our new religion, offering quick and easy answers for life’s complex and essentially unanswerable problems. In its zeal to ameliorate our suffering, has therapy reduced all our problems to symptoms, equating suffering with abuse, and holding forth the false hope of redemption through the resurrection of lost innocence?

How do we make sense of this story? Is Lynn a fragile and disturbed individual whose memories represent a distorted but basically accurate representation of the past? Is her therapist to blame? Was the group like gasoline on a smoldering fire, a volatile mixture of depressed and dependent women urging each other onward and upward into a conflagration of false memories? What can we learn from the bizarre twists and turns of this tale of therapy gone berserk?