The result is a solid overview of the issues and a prescription for an appropriate analytic approach to the problem of memory. Target argues that much of the debate on recovered memory is based on misunderstanding the aims of psychoanalytic treatment-in some cases by therapists themselves. Writers on both sides of the debate assume that therapy should find out what happened in the patient's past. Target focuses on the questions of what kinds of truths analysts and psychotherapist are in fact trained to uncover, and how their techniques can best serve the patient. Target argues that this requires a fuller understanding of the different kinds of memory.
Repression is particularly likely if the abuse is in infancy, or is repeated.
True memories of abuse have distinctive characteristics. Repression can be lifted by analysis, revealing quite accurate memories of early abuse. Retrieving these memories should be therapeutic for the patient. Those assumptions, she believes, have led to many problems surrounding recovered memories. For instance, it is found that detailed memories of childhood abuse, if retrieved for the first time as an adult, are unlikely to be factual, especially if the events are from before four years of age.