Research and clinical issues in trauma and dissociation: ethical and logical fallacies, myths, misreports, and misrepresentations.

Jenny Ann Rydberg (1, 2)

1 APEMAC - Maladies chroniques, santé perçue, et processus d'adaptation
2 Centre Pierre Janet [Metz]

Introduction. The creation of a new journal on trauma and dissociation is an opportunity to take stock of existing models and theories in order to distinguish mythical, and sometimes dangerous, stories from established facts. Objective. To describe the professional, scientific, clinical, and ethical strategies and fallacies that must be envisaged when considering reports, claims, and recommendations relevant to trauma and dissociation. Method. After a general overview, two current debates in the field, the stabilisation controversy and the false/recovered memory controversy, are examined in detail to illustrate such issues. Results. Misrepresentations, misreports, ethical and logical fallacies are frequent in the general and scientific literature regarding the stabilisation and false/recovered memory controversies. Conclusion. A call is made for researchers and clinicians to strengthen their knowledge of and ability to identify such cognitive, logical, and ethical manoeuvres both in scientific literature and general media reports.

Mots clés: Complex trauma; dissociation; ethics; false memory syndrome; logical fallacies; recovered memory; stabilisation.

Domaines: Psychologie

Jenny Ann Rydberg. Research and clinical issues in trauma and dissociation: ethical and logical fallacies, myths, misreports, and misrepresentations.. European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 2017, 1 (2), pp.89-99. ⟨10.1016/j.ejtd.2017.03.011⟩. ⟨halshs-02963722⟩