Explains the phenomenon of forgotten childhood abuse. This text describes "betrayal trauma", a blockage of information that would otherwise interfere with one's ability to function within an essential relationship - that of parent and dependent child, for instance.

How can someone forget an event as traumatic as sexual abuse in childhood? This book examines the logic of forgotten abuse. Psychologist Jennifer Freyd's breakthrough theory explaining this phenomenon shows how psychogenic amnesia not only happens but, if the abuse occurred at the hands of a parent or caregiver, is often necessary for survival. What Freyd describes, with real-life examples, is "betrayal trauma", a blockage of information that would otherwise interfere with one's ability to function within an essential relationship - that of parent and dependent child, for instance. "Betrayal Trauma" also explores the ubiquity of not knowing or not remembering as a human response to betrayal - even on the small scale of a boss using a patronizing voice or a spouse flirting with a friend. Freyd suggests that knowledge is multilayered, and that we can know and not know at once - and that implicit memory may surface in oblique ways: as specific phobias, learned behaviours, an image of oneself as a "bad boy" or "bad girl".

Betrayal blindness
conceptual knots
context and controversy
why forget?
ways of forgetting
testable predictions
creating connections.