logists and psychiatrists (Loftus & Polage, 1999). Most frequently, false memory syndrome is seen in therapy during which patients will remember some form of childhood abuse which objective evidence eventually indicates never happened (Loftus, 1998).
Real study of false memory phenomena began during the 1990s when it was brought to the publicÆs attention after a report of literally thousands of cases in which adult sons and daughters seeing therapists for various problems such as depression or low self-esteem suddenly claimed that they remember horrific cases of childhood abuse such as being tortured in Satanic rituals and so forth.
According to Loftus (1996) inquiries into the facts in such cases indicated quite clearly that most of the remembered events never happened. Many argued that the therapists themselves had implanted these memories into their clients (see: Loftus & Polage, 1999).
Following this claim, several theories of how thera
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