In this opening chapter, Gwen Adshead provides a careful overview of the research literature concerning the main issues in this debate. She includes legal issues and child and adult memory in her remit.

Foreword -- Introduction -- Flying by twilight: When adults recover memories of abuse in childhood -- "Children are liars aren't they?"-An exploration of denial processes in child abuse -- Trauma, skin: Memory, speech -- The psychoanalytic concept of repression: Historical and empirical perspectives -- False memory syndrome -- "What if I should die?" -- False memory syndrome movements: The origins and the promoters -- Serving two masters: A patient, a therapist, and an allegation of sexual abuse -- Syndromitis, false or repressed memories? -- Terror in the consulting-room-memory, trauma, and dissociation -- Recovered memories: Shooting the messenger -- False memory syndrome-false therapy syndrome -- How can we remember but be unable to recall? The complex functions of multi-modular memory -- Objective fact and psychological truth: Some thoughts on "recovered memory" -- Appendix: Useful Addresses