The moment I saw your subject line, I was like ERIN NO!
I too tried to read this book and was kinda taken in by it... but I’m not sure how much I can trust Debbie Nathan since she’s on the National Center for Reason and Justice, which argues, IIRC, that most accusations of child abuse are trumped up and fights for the release of even people whose crimes are well-documented, like Father Shanley. I have no trouble believing there was therapeutic abuse involved with Sybil, but Nathan herself has lied and distorted enough in other works that I would want to go over her claims really thoroughly. (It’s actually why I didn’t finish the book: the level of fact-checking I felt obliged to do was Too Much, similar to the Colin Ross problem.)
The NCRJ website doesn’t work on my broken old smartphone, but I can dig through my stuff and find other records for this on paper if you want; I own a miserable academic 500-page bookslab originally made to refute one of her other books, Satan’s Silence.
no subject
I too tried to read this book and was kinda taken in by it... but I’m not sure how much I can trust Debbie Nathan since she’s on the National Center for Reason and Justice, which argues, IIRC, that most accusations of child abuse are trumped up and fights for the release of even people whose crimes are well-documented, like Father Shanley. I have no trouble believing there was therapeutic abuse involved with Sybil, but Nathan herself has lied and distorted enough in other works that I would want to go over her claims really thoroughly. (It’s actually why I didn’t finish the book: the level of fact-checking I felt obliged to do was Too Much, similar to the Colin Ross problem.)
The NCRJ website doesn’t work on my broken old smartphone, but I can dig through my stuff and find other records for this on paper if you want; I own a miserable academic 500-page bookslab originally made to refute one of her other books, Satan’s Silence.