Matthew and Julian sit down for the second of a two-part examination of the 1988 bestseller at the heart of the recovered memory movement. This is episode 10 of the Swan Song Series.
Show NotesControversy Behind the False Memory Syndrome Foundation The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Truth and reconciliation Cases That Have Resulted in Convictions Why The Courage to Heal Isn't on My Recommended Reading List Creating Hysteria25 Years of Trauma Treatment Networker 2014
-- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to a sample of our weekly Patreon bonus episode.
If you'd like to support our research and production time, and help keep us ad-free and editorially independent, you can subscribe for $5 a month to listen to these Monday episodes, or choose a higher tier to access our live streams and bonus videos.
All of this is available at patreon.com slash conspirituality.
Thank you for your support.
Welcome, everyone, to Swan Song Series, Episode 10, The Courage to Heal, Part 2.
Hey, Julian, we are back in the writing workshop of Ellen Bass and Laura Davis.
How is your poetry writing going these days?
Have you got some good stuff?
Are you blocked up?
No, you know, I used to write a lot more many years ago.
Every now and again, I'll hit a little streak, but I haven't been writing poetry really.
Maybe we should do some grounding exercises before we begin.
Yeah, I mean it'd be good to really get in touch with the deeper layers before we put pen to paper.
For our listeners, welcome.
We're referring to some of what we began to uncover in part one of this examination of this incredible book, incredibly influential book.
You should really check out part one first.
We covered the very mixed reception that The Courage to Heal has had, and we really spent the balance of our time discussing how Bass and Davis, the authors, introduced their project.
And just to review, Bass says that she had no idea or implies that she had no idea that child sexual abuse existed until she started hearing stories at the age of 27 in her creative writing class, and that class eventually became a magnet for people with survivor stories.
Laura Davis, for her part, says that she plunged into the project to heal herself, and both of them were clear about not having any formal training.
And you said a very mixed reception of the book.
I think I want to just put a point on that, that very polarized.
Reception, right?
That's better, yeah.
Right?
Super, super passionate praise and alarm sounding from other people.
Right.
Now, we are going to continue with the introductory matter in which they begin to discuss their epistemology, their views on memory formation and recovery.
their views on how writing can be a good tool for navigating the territory of repressed memory.
And then we'll also look at some of the problematic content that they include in amongst their
stories that they have solicited from writing students and, you know, people who answered their
ads in a newspaper.
So, let's get going.
They mark their introduction with a piece of advice for the reader saying that strong feelings are to be expected while reading the book, and that that should be fine.
But let's check out the way this particular part of that piece is written.
Quote, if you have unfamiliar or uncomfortable feelings as you read this book, don't be alarmed.
Strong feelings are part of the healing process.
On the other hand, if you breeze through these chapters, you probably aren't feeling safe enough
to confront these issues.
Or you may be coping with the book the same way you coped with the abuse,
by separating your intellect from your feelings.
If that's the case, stop, take a break, talk to someone for support, and come back to it later.
It's important that you don't bear this book the way you bore the abuse, numb and alone.
If you come to a part that stops you, you may be having a hard time with the material in that section.
Don't force yourself to read it.
Try a different chapter.
So, Julian, this seems like pretty good advice, but there's a super heavy assumption going on here.
Yeah, I mean I hear these two options, right?
It could be that you have really strong feelings, in essence that this is triggering for you and that's okay, that's to be expected, that's actually part of the healing process.
Keep going unless it really overwhelms you and you need to just change to another chapter.
But then there's this other implication that if you're not having strong feelings, well then that's probably evidence that you are in denial.
And you've gone into this split between your intellect and your feelings, right?
And either way, either way, you are recovering something real.
There's no real other option.
It's not that you're reading these stories and they are making you uncomfortable because they're stories of intimate abuse and you feel empathetic for the people who wrote them.
It must be about you.
It must be about you.
Yeah, and actually in the last episode I said that one of the things that was really complicated for me in terms of my interaction with this book and other books and my time in the forest yoga community was that I did know people and I had intimate relationships with a couple women who had Really difficult family abuse histories and part of my process in my 20s was going well
If I'm attracted to women who have these histories, what does it mean about me?
And must it mean that they're mirroring something back to me about my own history that I thus far have been unwilling to face?
And that must be it.
And if I can get to that, then maybe my next relationship will be more satisfying or maybe I'll be with someone who doesn't have that issue because I've worked through it in myself.
So, they offer some tools.
This is one of the first indications that we get of the book being also a self-help manual.
So, they advise that you take a break and so on.
You maybe try another chapter.
They're going to go on to talk about, you know, deep breathing and other aspects of self-regulation.
So, it's therapeutic advice.
And throughout the book, Bass and Davis, they do paint therapy and therapists in a positive light.
I didn't actually find any references where they criticized a therapeutic encounter that one of their interlocutors had had.
Maybe I missed it, but in general, there's this sense that, like, well, this is part of therapy, we like therapy, and this is all moving towards, you know, therapeutic resolution.
However, in this opening material, they also don't say, you know, if this book brings up memories for you, find someone qualified to talk with you.
They do say something similar in the chapter called the emergency stage, the emergency stage being the point at which the crisis of your memory erupts, where the details become more intense or more clear.
They do suggest there that you should seek professional help.
One of the stages, however, is called believing it happened.
And in it, they write, survivors often doubt their own perceptions.
Coming to believe that the abuse really happened, and that it really hurt you, is a vital part of the healing process.
And this sounds, I mean, to me, like a true statement on its own, or a reasonable statement, but it can also function I think as a threshold, or a kind of dare, or a trust, or a test.
And to underline the point I'm making here, let me just quote from this same section.
And here's where we get into their ideas about memory and how it's recovered.
Often the knowledge that you were abused starts with a tiny feeling of intuition.
It's important to trust that inner voice and work from there.
Assume your feelings are valid.
So far, no one we've talked to thought she might have been abused and then later discovered that she hadn't been.
The progression always goes the other way, from suspicion to confirmation.
If you think you were abused and your life shows the symptoms, then you were.
Julian's eyes are bugged out.
I mean, it's as definitive a statement as you can get of, and literally, confirmation bias.
