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Old 22nd October 2012, 09:28 AM   #20
douglas mesner
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Join Date: Dec 2009
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I'm very glad to find this as a topic of discussion over here. Please know that if any of you have blogs or websites where you think the open letter to Dr. Phil might be of interest, you may feel free to post it in its entirety. The background to this is that I wrote a review of the book in question -- Twenty-Two Faces by Judy Byington -- for Skeptical Inquirer which will appear in the Jan/Feb issue. I was appalled by the uncritical media attention this book was drawing, especially given the number of supernatural claims the book makes which I detail in my letter. On one such uncritical review online, I decided to comment regarding my own impressions of the book at which I found myself entered into an infuriating exchange with the author herself. She accused me of spreading "falsehoods". When pressed for an example of anything I stated that was false, she failed to reply. No matter what the question, in fact, she only replied by saying that I was "defending rapists and murderers", and a bit later she decided I am a satanist as well. This is the quality of person we are dealing with here. This is the person whose book is being endorsed by a president of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). The most frustrating thing about this to me is that the author of this unhinged lunacy is by no means alone. There are plenty of therapists who go along with this insanity, and they use the idea of an anti child-abuse campaign as a sheild against critical assault. Thus, when I object to supernatural claims, I'm "defending rapists and murderers". As I wrote elsewhere:
"This tactic of argumentation is truly offensive, as it hijacks children’s rights and attempts to create human shields of real victims as protection against criticisms directed at patently absurd claims. In the proper context, Twenty-Two Faces is a helpful book, as it illustrates this problem clearly for those who may doubt the magnitude to which conspiracists have over-run the study of Dissociative Disorders. Byington does not simply misappropriate the condition of multiple personalities as a plot device for her ridiculous book, she shows the condition for what it largely (if not entirely) is: a collaborative therapeutically-created delusion. In trying to expose a Satanic conspiracy, Byington unwittingly exposes a foul movement that exploits vulnerable mental health consumers. Let’s hope the licensing boards and professional associations eventually move to erase such embarrassments from practice."
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