Trauma, Memory, and Law, 3rd Ed: Lectures on false memories, repression, dissociative amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder

This book is the latest revised 2026 version of Trauma, Memory, and Law, 3rd Edition: Memory Science for Lawyers, Students, and the Falsely Accused.It features general revisions and the addition of new recent research.High praise for Trauma, Memory, and Law:I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an accessible introduction to the topic of the relationship between memory and trauma. Unfortunately, many members of the general public, as well as legal and other professionals, have a poor understanding of the nature of memory. This can have truly devastating consequences including families being torn apart because of allegations based upon false memories and wrongful convictions of the innocent. Patihis is a superb guide through the history of memory research basing his conclusions upon the very latest and highest quality research.Emeritus Professor Christopher French, Goldsmith’s University. Author of The Science of Weird S#!/!This is a timely contribution to the burgeoning history and science of human memory. Lawrence Patihis' exposure of pseudoscience is brilliant and illuminating. Erudite, measured and meticulously researched, Patihis walks us through the 'memory wars,' and his appraisal of false memory theories and false memory research is fascinating. Essential reading for students and researchers of psychology, law, and sociology and anyone interested in the repressed memory epidemic which continues to fracture families across the western world.Dr Kevin Felstead, PhD. Author of Memory Injustice and Justice for Carol. Former Communications Director for the British False Memory Society.-------------------------------In this book, Dr Patihis discusses the pseudoscientific origins of repressed memory and dissociative amnesia, and includes some legal case studies in the first part of the book. These false accusation cases appeared to be due to false memory creation in therapy, and these cases motivates a deep dive into several fields of memory science in the remainder on the book.Early chapters discuss the history of false memories in therapy both before 1980 and afterwards, and then discuss scientific skepticism tools before outlining research on false memories.In the middle chapters, the book debunks catharsis theory and introduces readers to the appraisal theory of emotions, explains how memories of emotion can change and be distorted--including memories of emotion from childhood.In the later chapters, Dr Patihis discusses dubious aspects of trauma-and-dissociation theory, dissociative amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder. He also explains how infantile and childhood amnesia are not caused by trauma, debunks the idea of body memories, and discusses new research in false memories and trauma broadening.------------------------------About the author:Dr. Lawrence Patihis, PhD, is a British-American psychology academic at the University of Portsmouth. His interests include scientific skepticism in the traditions of the skeptic schools of Athens, the Enlightenment’s rediscovery of skepticism, humanism, and Popper’s critical rationalism. Dr Patihis has generalist interests in how to distinguish objective truths and reliable theories from pseudoscience in many fields both inside and outside psychology. He has researched highly superior autobiographical memory, false memories, motivated forgetting, memories of emotion, and trauma and dissociation. He has published in prestigious journals such as The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Clinical Psychological Science, and Perspectives in Psychological Science. Read more