| New book on false accusation and group think | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 6 2010, 02:58 PM (230 Views) | |
| Quasimodo | Nov 6 2010, 02:58 PM Post #1 |
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http://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/false-allegations-false-memories-and-false-remorse-meredith-maran/ False Allegations, False Memories and False Remorse: Meredith Maran Sept. 10, 2010 Meredith Maran self-identifies as a journalist, author and feminist. Twenty years ago, she believed she recovered repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father because—get this—she was having dreams about his hands. She never confronted her father, but instead cut him out of her life and wrote books about it. She now has a new book, My Lie: A True Story of False Memory, in which she recants all of her previous memories and allegations and says she feels ‘embarrassed’ by her actions and for the pain she caused her father and the rest of her family. Back in the 1980s, Maran states she was swept away by the Salem Witch Trial-esque hysteria of repressed sexual abuse memories spawned by the book, The Courage to Heal (Bass and Davis, 1988). Bass and Davis infamously claimed, “If you think it happened, it happened,” which is a prime example of emotional based reasoning. Feelings are not facts. If an individual doesn’t reality check his or her feelings, it almost always causes problems. Additionally, automatically accepting one’s feelings as facts is at the core of many personality disorders and general hysteria. http://www.amazon.com/My-Lie-Story-False-Memory/dp/0470502142 My Lie: A True Story of False Memory [Hardcover] ![]() REVIEWER COMMENT AT SITE: (snip) Maran's book is the story of a woman who went through the feminist movement of the 1980's, where "molestation" was a keyword and trying to tease out repressed memories was a main goal. Maran's story isn't about "suddenly" thinking she was molested after reading Courage to Heal (as one reviewer writes) but about how false memory can develop over many years by being around well-meaning folks caught in the grip of a well-meaning hysteria. (snip) The book is a very well-written and very insightful book written by a woman who has great power of introspection. She very ably describes a climate where very well-meaning and good people can talk themselves into a frenzy, where every revelation of abuse is received uncritically in the name of "validation" (so criticality is not a factor), and how "I was molested" became something of a code-word for the in group. And then, the rest of the world began to have their doubts. Very interesting book for those who want a story about the power of inadvertent persuasion. Not only is the book a surprisingly gripping read, it will give many insights into the nature of the human mind, its vulnerability, and its ability to deceive. |
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9:14 AM Jul 11