If you have experience or knowledge that is upsetting, the video is not meant to make things worse. It may be of interest, and could help people to find approaches or ideas that make sense for them. If something does not feel helpful there is nothing to feel ashamed of in steering away from it. It is not a failure on your part. Learn what suits you, be ready to change an approach, or look for things to be doing to help yourself.
The placebo effect seems relevant for whether we get better or how quickly. Does this apply to how convincing a psychotherapist is, or how damaging the wrong emphasis is for some vulnerable people? If you had unsuitable help, perhaps you can gain strength from that in some way.
Since preparing the video, we have come across other material agreeing with some issues, disagreeing with others or providing further information. What makes sense for us is individual, depending on what happens and how we experience it. Areas need to be open to discussion without putting all one's eggs into one ideological basket, or doing things to jeopardise other people's wellbeing or reality.
How we remember things may differ from actual events and many factors are involved. Laboratory experiments on memory are not ideal, but people who have studied memory say we probably don't repress memories to surface later on. Other people think traumatic events get stored differently, or perhaps there are even more types of memory?
This is a difficult subject to raise because of people's painful experiences and the accusations that can follow. When someone is abused they may want to set the record straight and tell people, which is natural. Sometimes the wrong person is accused through confusion over facts or impressions, and their life gets damaged too. Some issues may be straightened out over time but not always.
Books where you may find useful information are listed here in addition to ones in the video, and covering a spectrum of views. Inclusion of these books is not meant to imply acceptance of any or all of their content. The list appears at http://whorls.angelfire.com/falseconf...
'I: the philosophy and psychology of personal identity' by Jonathan Glover
'Memory and Abuse' by Charles Whitfield
'Multiplicity: the new science of personality' by Rita Carter
'Open to Suggestion' by Robert Temple
'Pillar of Salt' by Janice Haaken
'Searching for Memory' by Daniel Schacter
'Suggestions of Abuse' by Michael Yapko
'Theater of Disorder: Patients, doctors, & the construction of illness' by Brant Wenegrat
'The Plural Self: multiplicity in everyday life' by John Rowan, Mick Cooper
'The Saturated Self: dilemmas of identity in contemporary life' by Kenneth Gergen
Blog on behaviour that is out-of-character for us is at http://toukanalia.blogspot.com
In a 1995 book Survivor Psychology: the dark side of a Mental Health mission Susan Smith raises concerns that 'mental health practitioners... are using a system of theory and therapy with common elements identified as survivor psychology. The system is based on myth, superstition, folklore and folk psychology and incorporates powerful persuasion techniques, sales psychology and aggressive therapeutic modalities.'
It would be possible to cite book after book along broadly similar lines, but you can seek them out for yourself and see what you think.
Type into Google for the UK:
middle ground false memories
A number of papers are listed, written by academics at universities here, who have tried to bridge the gap between views that polarise. Views on emotive and personal matters are likely to polarise by their very nature, but it should be possible to get a stage beyond that and move forward from there.
Implicit or explicit in some material on survivors is that a lot more people are getting drawn into a 'helping situation' and being labelled as survivors who need longterm help. Sadly what can happen is they become less able to cope, and may find they are effectively being abused by the very system they relied on for help.
What are we doing?
What can we do about it!
Visit http://www.middleground.me.uk for further information
Also see http://www.yarntangled.net for a strange tale of cults, ritual abuse, social control, and bad therapy - fruitloop therapy!
Loading...
4:49
Dissociationby DOCTOROFMINDMD3,191 views
All Comments