Memory

12 Pages 3009 Words

happened at all. And
there is no evidence to support the claim that subjective certainty about
the accuracy of memories or the vividness of memories significantly
correlates with accuracy. Finally, the claim of a causal connection between
abuse and health or behavior does not warrant concluding that ill health,
mental or physical, is a 'sign' of having been abused.

This model is the basis for a number of pseudoscientific works on child
abuse by self-proclaimed experts such as Ellen Bass, E. Sue Blum, Laura
Davis, Beverly Engel, Beverly Holman, Wendy Maltz and Mary Jane Williams.
Through communal reinforcement many empirically unsupported notions,
including the claim that about half of all women have been sexually abused,
get treated as a 'fact' by many people. Psychologist Carol Tavris writes

In what can only be called an incestuous arrangement, the authors of these
books all rely on one another's work as supporting evidence for their own;
they all recommend one another's books to their readers. If one of them
...