Talk:The Courage to Heal

Noting Changes in Current Addition

How is this categorised under "memory"? This should be under "child sexual abuse" or, at the very least, "self-help." That it's categorised under "memory" shows that the critics are manipulating this entry. Memory is merely one aspect of the book, and although the criticism has been addressed in great detail in the latest edition, there is plenty more there to the book than a discussion of survivors memories.

The reference to the Australian critical study was to page 2 of the study instead of page 1, so the reference was out of context. It should be made clear that the "study" was a survey conducted among an organization of allagedly falsely accused sexual abusers, which is why the link needs to be made page 1, not page 2.

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Just a suggestion--perhaps the "negative review" listed in the external links section should be removed, since it's not a review by any established reviewer of note (like, say, the Times Book Review) but rather by a guy with a pret-ty big axe to grind, judging by not just the "review" itself but by the rest of the site which is unabashedly anti-feminist. Thoughtful criticism is one thing but the "review" reads like an angry teenage boy pissed off at his ex-girlfriend--he manages to bash lesbians, survivors of sexual abuse and all feminists in one fell swoop.

64.132.218.4 16:12, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

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The current addition of "The Courage to Heal" uses different language and recognises the occurance of false memories or confabulation of memories. Older additions did use very bold and misleading language, however it has been remedied. This is a text used by many survivors who have continious memories of Sexual Abuse and the techniques used in the current addition, specifically writing about the trauma, are shown to be helpful in healing (similar to exposure therapies used with survivors)

This is a 600 page book, false memory syndrome should not be the only notable feature although it may be pop psychology's favorite topic.

Feel free to add this information to the article. MaxMangel 03:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Just want to add that I feel that this article does a disservice to the book. While I think the anti repressed memory people have a point, even the fact that this article is filed under "memory" and not another topic tells the story of its hijacking. I wish the RMF people would build their own page and simply offer a link from the CTH page to theirs for people who wanted to learn more about "repressed memory."

Mijames 21:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Article Cleanup

This article has gone bad due to poor edits from people probably ignorant of wiki policies. Firstly, if you are going to do masses of edits, get a login name.

Second, sign your edits on the discussion page using four tildas - it really isn't that hard.

Thirdly, let's try for a little less bias and POV statements in the article. Keep sentences factual. I haven't had the time for the wiki for a while and it is very disappointing that so many of the articles I have started or worked on have gone so bad. MaxMangel 15:38, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

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The article reads like a piece of propaganda from the all-recovered-memory-is-false-memory crowd. It also contained factual errors. I have performed several revisions, which I believe are only the beginning of cleaning up the mess.

The first paragraph was at best misleading. Recovering memory is not the "primary thrust" of the book at all; the book is 600 pages long and only a couple of chapters out of that deal with memory at all, let alone the recovery of it. I have removed that sentence and replaced it with one that more accurately describes the book's purpose. Following that was a claim that the book created a false-memory industry. No citations backed up the claim. I removed it.

The second paragraph did not do justice to the controversy surrounding the book, as it spoke only of the negative reaction and not the positive. I added a couple of sentences to the paragraph to amend that.

The Overview section sought to give the impression that there is no evidence for the claim that traumatic memories may be repressed. In fact, the authors provide multiple references. I have edited the Overview to include this.

The list of chapters given included "Honoring the Truth". In fact, that chapter does not exist in the 4th edition. I removed it from the list, and added a missing chapter: References.

Also in the Overview, there was the following statement: "The Courage to Heal was part of the vision that childhood sexual abuse could be discovered with no corroborating evidence beyond a vague set of symptoms." This reeks with bias. "Part of the vision" doesn't really mean anything. The "vague set of symptoms" were never defined; as far as I can tell, the authors are in fact extremely specific. A reference to a book about "moral panic" was included; that belongs not in this article but in the article about moral panic. I decided that the sentence was irredemable and removed it. The article also failed to acknowledge that the authors have come to recognize the reality of false memory syndrome; I have included a quote that shows that in fact they have, in the most recent edition.

That's all for now; I hope to tackle more of the problems later.Feeline (talk) 14:26, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I decided to remove the See Also section and the box about Satanic Ritual Abuse. The See Also section was full of stuff about false memory syndrome and was not relevant. The book is not about Satanic Ritual Abuse, and mentions false memory syndrome only indirectly. Both sections were inappropriate and being used to mislead.Feeline (talk) 14:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

External links

Currently there is a long list of external links to "Other references relevant to recovered memories". WP:EL has clear guidelines on what external links should or should not be added to an article. Specifically, it recommends against including

Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked to from an article on a more specific subject. Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject. If a section of a general website is devoted to the subject of the article, and meets the other criteria for linking, then that part of the site could be deep-linked.

I recommend this extra section of external links be removed, since none of them seem to be about The Courage to Heal. First, thought, I thought it would be a good idea to float my proposal on the talk page. This is a controversial subject and perhaps things have been worked out this way for a good reason. If no-one objects I will eventually remove the section. Anyone who believes the links are good references, but not directly related, could perhaps move them to another more relevant article. Katherine Tredwell 07:05, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess another editor agreed with me. The article looks better now. Katherine Tredwell 18:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

reverting recent additions of OR and synthesis

I have reverted the 4/9/08 additions to the page of OR without sources and synthesis of ideas.ResearchEditor (talk) 02:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

removed miscategorization

I have removed the category pseudoscience, since the topic does not qualify under the wiki-definition of this. ResearchEditor (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Not so sure... See this book review by Robert Sheaffer (I read it originally in Skeptical Inquirer). —Cesar Tort 02:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

External link

• 1993 Recovered Memories article by Elizabeth Loftus

Should be an embedded reference, not an EL. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 13:07, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Sources

[1] WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)