Repressed Memories, Ruptured Families
So Kate sued her parents and grandparents for $20 million. Her therapist, Douglas Sawin, backed her story.
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Kate describes herself as a “survivor” of childhood, although precious little of her seems intact. When Bikel asks if the ritual abuse is more painful to contemplate than her mother’s indifference, Kate replies that the abuse was “just a fact of life.” She goes on, “What continues to be, I think, the root of every pain that I feel, every bit of desperation in my life, is the lack of mother.”
Kate’s mother says, “And I went to grab the phone from him because he was in shock. It was just an unbearable sound coming out of a man.”
“It really is a war,” she told me last week, meaning the debate over repressed memory. “It isn’t something you could discuss reasonably with anybody. Those who believe it are very messianic–they’re saving the souls of these people. And on the other side, every therapist is a quack.”
To Bikel, though not to many of the therapists who appear in “Divided Memories,” the true purpose of therapy is reconciliation, not estrangement. “You realize the love you want is not the love that old woman can give you now. You forgive it or not forgive it. You come to terms with it. It’s not that old man you’re mad at anymore.”
“Heck, we wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings over a little old war in which 292,000 Americans were killed in combat, more than a million wounded, and more than 16 million served, would we? You would think a little history might have brushed off on a guy who went to Georgetown, Yale and Oxford.
