I've seen the same phenomenon refereed to by various terms -- "recovered memory," "repressed memory," and "false memory" (the last term used by skeptics) -- both in popular magazines and scholarly literature.
As for the nature of your main objection, my contention wasn't that most therapists who created and propagated the idea of recovering repressed memory of child abuse were Freudian, though, as Freud put it, "The theory of repression is the corner-stone on which the whole structure of psycho-analysis rests." I don't know if the original proponents were Freudian psychoanalysts or other schools of psychoanalysts, but eventually the belief in the recovered memory spread very widely within the therapeutic profession:
<blockquote>Many therapists believe in the authenticity of the recovered memories that they hear from their clients. Two empirical studies reveal this high degree of faith. Bottoms, Shaver, and Goodman (1991) conducted a large-scale survey of clinicians who had come across, in their practice, ritualistic and religion-related abuse cases. Satanic ritualistic abuse (SRA) cases involve allegations of highly bizarre and heinous criminal ritual abuse in the context of an alleged vast, covert network of highly organized, transgenerational satanic cults ( Braun & Sachs, 1988; Ganaway, 1989, 1991 ). Clients with SRA memories have reported vividly detailed memories of cannibalistic revels and such experiences as being used by cults during adolescence as serial baby breeders to provide untraceable infants for ritual sacrifices ( Ganaway, 1989; Rogers, 1992b ). If therapists believe these types of claims, it seems likely that they would be even more likely to believe the less aggravated claims involving ordinary childhood sexual abuse. Bottoms et al.'s (1991) analysis revealed that 30% of responding clinicians had seen at least one case of child sexual abuse. A detailed analysis of 200 clinicians' experiences revealed that a substantial number of cases involved amnesic periods (44% of adult survivor cases). Overall, 93% of clinicians believed the alleged harm was actually done and that the ritualistic aspects were actually experienced by the clients. The conclusion was, in the investigators' own words, "The clinical psychologists in our sample believe their clients' claims" (p. 10).
A different approach to the issue of therapist belief was taken by Loftus and Herzog (1991). This study involved in-depth interviews with 16 clinicians who had seen at least one repressed memory case. In this small, nonrandom sample, 13 (81%) said they invariably believed their clients. One therapist said, "if a woman said it happened, it happened." Another said, "I have no reason not to believe them." The most common basis for belief was symptomatology (low self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, self-destructive behavior), or body memories (voice frozen at young age, rash on body matching inflicted injury). More than two thirds of the clinicians reacted emotionally to any use of the term authentic, feeling that determining what is authentic and what is not authentic is not the job of a therapist. The conclusion from this small study was that therapists believe their clients and often use symptomatology as evidence. (Elizabeth F. Loftus, "The Reality of Repressed Memories," _American Psychologist_ 48, 1993, <http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/lof93.htm>)</blockquote>
Initially, most clients who believed that they recovered their repressed memory of sexual abuse were women and children, but nowadays an increasing number of men, too, seem to suffer from the same idea, as some of the Catholic Church sex scandals, which has given a second wind to the false memory syndrome, show. -- Yoshie
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