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More relevant, the core accusations are based entirely on "repressed memories", which are junk science. False memories are demonstrably very easy to create. If

by o11c 3y ago

More relevant, the core accusations are based entirely on "repressed memories", which are junk science. False memories are demonstrably very easy to create. If there had been some more reasonable basis to the claims, "unhinged" should not count against them - abuse is one of the common causes of mental instability, and people with mental instability are often targets.

SkyMarshal 3y ago
> abuse is one of the common causes of mental instability, and people with mental instability are often targets. Sounds like a chicken-and-egg problem that's impossible for armchair observers like us to decipher either way.
yawpitch 3y ago
Unless I’m missing something she never mentions having repressed or reclaimed memories, and certainly in a quick skim of the linked article there’s nothing I can see where she specifically details recovering detailed repressed memories with the help and guidance of someone acting as a psychotherapist (the “junk science” associated with the Satanic Panic of the 80s, where “psychotherapists” of often dubious training and always with an agenda guided children to the story the agenda demanded), she just describes some of the memories as things she “buried”. It’s not obvious that a single one or the accusations, much less the “core” ones, is based on the kind of Satanic Panic-style repressed memories you’re talking about. Now, dismiss my 40+ years of living with CPTSD if it makes you more comfortable, but I never (once) “repressed” memories, and I certainly never had someone else walk me through memories I didn’t actively have to try and help me “recover” details… what I had was memories I really, really didn’t want to think about or give a lot of credence to, because doing so would push me into a flashback state, especially if I focused on the more horrifying details or tried too hard to establish a clear and consistent sequence. I tried, hard, to bury those memories — I still try hard to bury them, though nowadays more by trying to bury them with acceptance rather than bury them through avoidance — but memories I’ve always had and didn’t want is not the same as memories I didn’t have and after the intervention of another now do. I don’t see a lot of reasons to see her claims as either unreasonable or unhinged… if they’re as consistently stated as presented in the linked post they should likely be presumed to be true, especially if stated in public, for exactly the same reason all such claims should be presumed true.

by o11c 3y ago

SkyMarshal 3y ago

> abuse is one of the common causes of mental instability, and people with mental instability are often targets. Sounds like a chicken-and-egg problem that's impossible for armchair observers like us to decipher either way.

yawpitch 3y ago

Unless I’m missing something she never mentions having repressed or reclaimed memories, and certainly in a quick skim of the linked article there’s nothing I can see where she specifically details recovering detailed repressed memories with the help and guidance of someone acting as a psychotherapist (the “junk science” associated with the Satanic Panic of the 80s, where “psychotherapists” of often dubious training and always with an agenda guided children to the story the agenda demanded), she just describes some of the memories as things she “buried”. It’s not obvious that a single one or the accusations, much less the “core” ones, is based on the kind of Satanic Panic-style repressed memories you’re talking about. Now, dismiss my 40+ years of living with CPTSD if it makes you more comfortable, but I never (once) “repressed” memories, and I certainly never had someone else walk me through memories I didn’t actively have to try and help me “recover” details… what I had was memories I really, really didn’t want to think about or give a lot of credence to, because doing so would push me into a flashback state, especially if I focused on the more horrifying details or tried too hard to establish a clear and consistent sequence. I tried, hard, to bury those memories — I still try hard to bury them, though nowadays more by trying to bury them with acceptance rather than bury them through avoidance — but memories I’ve always had and didn’t want is not the same as memories I didn’t have and after the intervention of another now do. I don’t see a lot of reasons to see her claims as either unreasonable or unhinged… if they’re as consistently stated as presented in the linked post they should likely be presumed to be true, especially if stated in public, for exactly the same reason all such claims should be presumed true.