London, Apr 9 (IANS): A sociologist from the University of Huddersfield has revealed that reading self help books can help convince women that they were victims of childhood sexual abuse even if they have no memory of it.

According to Jo Woodiwiss, after reading the self-help books women could come to believe that that they had blocked the memories from their minds.

Many books offered checklists of symptoms of past abuse.

"These checklists are so wide that a significant number of the questions could be checked by all of us,so when women talk about having recovered memories they are not necessarily talking about recovering a concrete memory of being sexually abused, they are often talking about identifying symptoms which they interpret as evidence of sexual abuse in childhood," telegraph.co,uk quoted Woodiwiss as saying.

Symptoms could include feelings of anxiety and sadness, as well as sexual problems in adulthood.