The Trauma Myth ****MAJOR TW*****

Una+ wrote:
Take the book back to the store for a full refund. Say the back cover blurb is highly misleading and the book is unacceptable to you. The store will return the book to the distributor, who will return it to the publisher. This is how the book trade penalizes deceptive marketing.

brandonsmom777 wrote:I will check out the book you suggested, is that about DID?? or just denial in general??

One of the world's foremost experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder investigates her own unsolved adolescent sexual assault at the hands of a serial rapist, and in so doing, examines the horrors of trauma and denial.

Alone in an unlocked house in a safe neighborhood in the suburban town of Concord, Massachusetts, two good, obedient girls, Jessica Stern, fifteen, and her sister, fourteen, were raped on the night of October 1, 1973. The girls had just come back from ballet lessons and were doing their homework when a strange man armed with a gun entered their home. Afterward, when they reported the crime, the police were skeptical.

The rapist was never caught. For over thirty years, Stern denied the pain and the trauma of the assault. Following the example of her family, Stern—who lost her mother at the age of three, and whose father was a Holocaust survivor—focused on her work instead of her terror. She became a world-class expert on terrorism, a lauded academic and writer who interviewed terrorists around the globe. But while her career took off, her success hinged on her symptoms. After her ordeal she could not feel fear in normally frightening situations.

Stern believed she'd disassociated from the trauma altogether, until a devoted police lieutenant reopened the sisters' rape case and brought her back to that harrowing night more than three decades past. With the help of the lieutenant, Stern began her own investigation—bringing to bear all her skills as a researcher—to uncover the truth about the town of Concord, her family, and her own mind. The result is Denial, a candid, courageous, and ultimately hopeful look at a trauma and its aftermath.

100 of 142 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Clancy's Own Research Contradicts the "findings" of her Book, "The Trauma Myth", February 1, 2010
By
Ellen P. Lacter (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children--and Its Aftermath (Kindle Edition)
Clancy uses circular reasoning to conclude that sexual abuse is not traumatic in her book, "The Trauma Myth".
Her book is based in part on an article she co-authored with Richard J. McNally, entitled, " 'Who Needs Repression? Normal Memory Processes Can Explain Forgetting' of Childhood Sexual Abuse", published in The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice (2005/2006, Fall/Winter 4(2)).
In this study, Clancy asked 27 adults who reported sexual abuse as children to rate their levels of trauma at the time of their abuse on a 10-point scale, with #10 to indicate "extremely traumatic" and #1 to indicate "not traumatic at all". The average rating was 7.5.
Any logical person would consider 7.5 on a 10-point scale to be quite high.
Not Susan Clancy!
She concluded that child sexual abuse "experiences were unpleasant, distressing, or confusing, but not traumatic (e.g., terrifying) at the time they occurred." (p. 70)
How did she arrive at this conclusion?
She limited her definition of "trauma" to abuse that was "overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening". (p. 67)
Then she determined that only two of her subjects perceived that level of threat, and parenthetically dismissed one of these subjects' reports as "bizarre" and "questionable" (p. 68).
Clancy discounted all lesser levels of distress as nontraumatic, essentially re-rating them all as #1 on her 10-point trauma scale.
Why did she even bother asking them to rate their levels of trauma if she planned to ignore their reports?
Clancy considers the following reports of two of her subjects as lacking in trauma:
"I went from confused to bewildered to scared . . . it culminated in me feeling somewhat angry and betrayed."
"I didn't think of it as sex, I just thought of it as disgusting . . ."
To further make her case, she wrote that two men, "while reporting that the [rape] was painful, did not describe it as traumatic [recall Clancy's definition of trauma: 'overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening']. In the words of one of the victims, 'He would always say if you love me you'll do it. It hurt, and after a while I knew it was wrong, but not at the beginning.' The other victim of penetration reported, 'I didn't like it-- I knew it was wrong-- but it was better than having to go back to DYS [Department of Youth Services custody]'."
Clancy dismisses painful rape of a child as nontraumatic simply because the victims did not describe the abuse as "overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening".
She also dismissed as nontraumatic all other painful emotional states described by her 27 subjects, including:
"definitely feeling dirty"
"I couldn't breathe"
"I was shocked at what was happening, and I think I was afraid, there was a lot of weirdness, insecurity, a lot of anger"
"I thought it was my fault."
Clancy categorizes all such psychological reactions as, "unpleasant, distressing, or confusing, but not traumatic."
Clancy acknowledges that, "All of our subjects (1) had either symptoms or diagnoses of PTSD [posttraumatic stress disorder] and (2) reported negative life effects from the abuse." (p. 71)
Yet, this does not influence Clancy to consider that they might have suffered trauma at the time of their abuse. Instead, she states that since child sexual abuse is, "not necessarily traumatic at the time it occurs", "it may be the retrospective interpretation of the event, rather than the event itself, that mediates its subsequent impact." (P. 72)
In her words, the later PTSD is the result of, "an understandable tendency to project our adult fears, repulsion, and horror onto child victims".
So, she claims, it is adults, especially therapists per her book, "The Trauma Myth", who project their own project fear, repulsion, and horror onto child sexual abuse.
She ignores her subjects' own reports of contemporaneous fear, repulsion, and horror.
And then she entitles her book, "The Trauma Myth", categorically painting sexual abuse as nontraumatic with one sweeping brush stroke.
To reiterate, a mean score of 7.5 on a 10-point scale of trauma is very high.
Clancy has no objective basis to dismiss as a myth her subjects' experiences of having been traumatized by their sexual abuse, simply because their reports did not meet her overly-restrictive criteria of overwhelming terror or having feared for their lives.

It is important to note that the McNally-Clancy article was published in the journal, "The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice", which claims to be peer-reviewed and endorsed by, "The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health" (CSMMH). Scott Lilienfeld is founder and editor of this journal and of the CSMMH. Many of the coordinating committee and fellows of the CSMMH have a long history of affiliation with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and of advocating on behalf of accused sex abuse offenders in legal actions. These fellows include Elizabeth Loftus, Paul McHugh, and Harrison Pope. I believe it is necessary to question the degree of scientific objectivity of the peer-review process of this article by Clancy and McNally.

Clancy's book also oddly neglects to adequately incorporate the vast body of psychological research documenting the myriad short-term damaging effects of sexual abuse on children. It is standard for psychologists to first conduct an unbiased review of the literature on our subject and to include that review in our books and papers. Clancy failed to do conduct such a review. Instead, she selectively cites only a few studies that support her position. This approach suggests that Clancy has a biased agenda rather than an objective of honestly representing the work in the field. This raises questions of potential bias in her research methods, her interviews of victims, and her interpretation of her results.

As a psychologist for 24 years, I have treated hundreds of abused children and adults abused as children. Cases of children experiencing only "confusion" her thesis) during the time period of their abuse are very rare. In most cases, abused children and adults abused as children report that during the time in which they were abused, in addition to confusion of various types, they experienced a combination of many of the following:

1. Physical pain, in some cases extreme.
2. Disgust for the sexual acts, abuser genitalia and emissions.
3. Terror in cases of extreme force, restraint, or restriction of the child's breathing, gagging, etc.
4. Terror based in threats to self, loved one, pets, etc., to ensure compliance and/or to prevent disclosure.
5. Fear based in the abuser over-riding their attempts to escape, ignoring their pleas for the abuser to stop, etc.
6. Fear, shame, and guilt, based in an awareness that private parts should be covered and not bothered (molested), and an awareness that the abuser was making great efforts to hide the abuse, to keep it secret, and to ensure that they kept it secret, causing the child to understand that these acts were harmful and morally wrong, as in hitting someone, stealing, lying, etc.
7. Betrayal and hurt in cases of abuse by loved ones, based in an awareness that the abuser was engaging them in harmful and immoral acts, and in many cases, that family members were allowing the abuse to continue.
8. Guilt and shame for not escaping or physically fighting off the abuser. (The truth is that children usually understand in the moment that they will be overpowered or assaulted for resisting)
9. Feeling like an "accomplice" based in receiving gifts and special privileges from the abuser. Clancy portrays these "gifts" as "benefits" that the child derives from sexual abuse. This equates child victims with prostitutes who trade money for sex. But, children cannot enter "contracts" to be sexually exploited. Sexual abuse is imposed on children against their will and with no knowledge of the meaning of sexuality. Abusers then use gifts and favors to further manipulate and entrap children.
10. Anxiety-producing sexual arousal during the abuse, in cases in which the abuser took precautions to prevent or minimize the perception of pain.
11. Residual sexual feelings and responses that caused great anxiety, crying, tantrums, pleas to caregivers to, "Make it [the sexual response] stop", etc.
12. Rage at the abuser for inflicting the above.
13. Social, behavioral, and cognitive (including academic) problems driven by the above.
14. Physical damage, including damage to internal organs, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, and in some rare cases, death.

In addition, when children first disclose their abuse, the supportive caregivers in their life typically are devastated to have discovered the true basis for their children's recent psychological and physical problems, such as separation anxiety, nightmares and night terrors, frequent crying, assorted fears, defiance, temper tantrums, academic problems, urinary and bowel "accidents", etc. All of these are clear indicators that the sexual abuse was damaging to the child pre-disclosure.

I do not discount the rare cases of children feeling only "confused" during the period of their sexual abuse. However, this reaction usually occurs only in cases that do not involve pain, coercion, and threats, that involve more "mild" sexual acts, that are very short-term, and in younger children.

My internet search reveals that Susan Clancy is an experimental psychologist. I have found no evidence that she is a licensed psychologist or psychotherapist of any kind. I do not believe that a non-therapist is adequately experienced to write a book about the effects of child sexual abuse.

It is significant to note that Susan Clancy is a member of the "International Committee of Social, Psychiatric, Psychological, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Neurological Scientists", a group that submitted an amicus brief in on behalf of Roman Catholic priest Paul M. Shanley in his appeal of his conviction of child sexual abuse. Shanley's sexual assault convictions were recently upheld on appeal.

This book feels more like a political agenda to upend the establishment of years of psychological and medical practices which have been effectual, especially recent advancements with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder therapy modalities such as EMDR, which helped to heal my life and many other survivors I know, all over a very narrow definition of what trauma is and when it actually occurs. While I realize that sells books, I don't think it helps victims, especially when the controversy it stirs up causes more confusion rather than clarity.

doe-eyed wrote:This book feels more like a political agenda to upend the establishment of years of psychological and medical practices which have been effectual,.....

doe-eyed wrote:Her book is based in part on an article she co-authored with Richard J. McNally, entitled, " 'Who Needs Repression? Normal Memory Processes Can Explain Forgetting' of Childhood Sexual Abuse", published in The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice (2005/2006, Fall/Winter 4(2)).

Scott Lilienfeld is founder and editor of this journal and of the CSMMH. Many of the coordinating committee and fellows of the CSMMH have a long history of affiliation with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and of advocating on behalf of accused sex abuse offenders in legal actions. These fellows include Elizabeth Loftus, Paul McHugh, and Harrison Pope. I believe it is necessary to question the degree of scientific objectivity of the peer-review process of this article by Clancy and McNally.