Susan Clancy
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Susan A. Clancy is a
cognitive psychologist Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which he ...
and
Associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...
in
Consumer behaviour Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and all the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services. Consumer behaviour consists of how the consumer's emotions, attitudes, and pr ...
at INCAE as well as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. She is best known for her controversial work on repressed and recovered memories in her books ''Abducted'' and ''The Trauma Myth''.


Education

In 2001, Clancy received her PhD in
experimental psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...
from
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.


Career

Susan Clancy joined the Harvard University psychology department as a graduate student in 1995. There she began to study memory and the idea of repressed memories due to trauma. The debate in this field was strong at the time, with many clinicians arguing that we repress memories to protect ourselves from trauma that would be too hard to bear. Many cognitive psychologists, on the other hand, argued that true trauma is almost never forgotten, and that memories brought up years later through hypnosis are most likely false. In 2003, Clancy remarked to Bruce Grierson of the New York Times that "nobody was doing research on the group that was at the center of the controversy -- the people who were reporting recovered memories. Memory function in that group had never been examined in the laboratory." Clancy hypothesized that there was a group of people who were more susceptible to false memory creation and that this tendency might be demonstrated in the lab by giving standard memory tests. The tests included giving participants lists of related words and then later asking them to recall the first list by circling words from a second list that included similar words. Her data strongly suggested that some people are more likely to "remember" seeing similar words to those on the lists that weren't an exact match, more so than a control group. Essentially "creating a recollection out of a contextual inference, a fact from a feeling." These findings were published in the journal Psychological Science in 2000. Her work was heavily criticized by some in the community. It was suggested that it could be possible that those with recovered memories of trauma, had such traumatic memories that they were not only repressed, but that they also manifested as cognitive impairment that could cause memory problems in test conditions like this study. Additionally, she received letters suggesting that even conducting this kind of research at all "cheers on child molesters" and ridicules the suffering of children. In 2000 when she was invited to speak at Cambridge Hospital, she was told that many in the psychiatric department protested her lecture. Clancy decided at this point to find a new group to study. She began studying alien abductees, whose stories could produce more methodologically clear study results. She began canvassing for participants until she found 11 willing abductees. This posed its own challenges because many of the study participants do not believe in repressed memories, but rather some kind of extraterrestrial interpretation, such as the aliens erasing their memories or controlling their minds in some manner. In 2003, Clancy took a position as a professor at the Harvard-affiliated Central American Business Administration Institute in
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,
Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
. She went on to become the research director at the Harvard-affiliated Center for Women's Advancement, Development and Leadership in Nicaragua.


Select bibliography


''Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped By Aliens''

Published by
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
in 2005, Susan Clancy's book ''Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped By Aliens'' was met with strong positive reviews. The book uses data derived from several memory studies on self described abductees that took place in the preceding few years. The book explores what mainstream experts believe to be the sources of abduction stories, such as
sleep paralysis Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which one is conscious but is completely paralyzed. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episodes ...
and the use of
hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...
techniques to "recover" forgotten memories. Clancy finds that previous interest in the
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
and emotional investment also play a role in creating abduction memories.
Benedict Carey Benedict Carey (born 3 March 1960) is an American journalist and reporter on medical and science topics for ''The New York Times''. Biography Carey was born on 3 March 1960 in San Francisco, and graduated from the University of Colorado with a d ...
of the
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
believes the book is about more than just aliens, that "the book hints at a larger ambition, to explain the psychology of transformative experiences, whether supposed abductions, conversions or divine visitations." Clancy demonstrates that alien abduction stories give people meaning and a way to understand their own lives and circumstances. It also gives them a feeling that they are not alone in the universe. Carey's take away is that, "in this sense, abduction memories are like transcendent religious visions, scary and yet somehow comforting and, at some personal psychological level, true." Paul McHugh, of
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
also points out that, no matter how bad the experience, none of the abductees regret it happening. Many of them feel that they were special or "chosen" for having these experiences. Benedict Carey's only critique is that Clancy did not ask the abductees that she interviewed to share their religious beliefs, which he notes that Clancy herself regretted as well. He concludes that "when it comes to sounding the depths of alien stories, a scientific inquiry like this one may have to end with an inquiry into religion." In an interview with
Madeleine Brand Madeleine Brand is an American broadcast journalist and radio personality. Brand is the host of the news and culture show ''Press Play'', on KCRW-FM (89.9), one of Los Angeles' two National Public Radio (NPR) affiliates. The show made its debut ...
on the
Day to Day ''Day to Day'' (''D2D'') was a one-hour weekday American radio newsmagazine distributed by National Public Radio (NPR), and produced by NPR in collaboration with ''Slate''. Madeleine Brand, Alex Chadwick, and Alex Cohen served as hosts. Topics r ...
radio show by
NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
, Clancy responds to the question of how her interview subjects responded to the publishing of her book. She explains: Clancy, in response to the idea that alien abduction experiences are similar to religious beliefs and experiences says:


''The Trauma Myth: The Truth about the Sexual Abuse of Children—and its Aftermath''

This book, published in 2010, got its beginning when Clancy was working on her graduate research project in the mid-1990s and she began interviewing adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Much to her surprise, she found that most of the victims of childhood abuse did not feel trauma, in the usual sense of the word, until they grew old enough to really understand what had happened. One of the most common feelings among her sample was self-blame. The majority of those interviewed never experienced violence or remembered feeling pain, rather it was mainly confusion at the time. But the psychological damage begins when they realize that their trust and innocence had been betrayed. It is this feeling of participation from the victim that causes the greatest distress later in life. Clancy says that ninety-five percent of childhood sexual abuse victims never seek treatment because of their false beliefs about what abuse should look like: There was much outrage over the findings presented in this book. When questioned about the critique that her book could be arguing that children are not hurt by sexual abuse, Clancy says, "I will never say that. I could not be more clear. This is an atrocious, disgusting crime." Many have also accused Clancy and this book of encouraging child abusers. To this she responds that: Clancy argues that her model is what may truly help the adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. These survivors are often ashamed of their behavior and that they did not fight back, they blame themselves and often do not speak about the events or even believe that what happened to them can be considered abuse. She finds that it can be very beneficial for these survivors to learn that their experience and their reaction, or lack of reaction, was normal. According to an interview with
Susan Pinker Susan Pinker is a psychologist, author and social science columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal''. She is a former weekly columnist for ''The Globe and Mail'', and has also written for ''The New York Times'', ''The Guardian'', and ''The Times o ...
, writing for
The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
in 2010, Clancy makes it clear through her book "that children are never at fault, that sexual abuse is always a crime and that the blame always rests with the adult." This book also addresses the idea of repressed memory. Clancy argues that the reason many children do not remember sexual abuse until later in life was that it simply was not memorable at the time. She says in an interview with Salon: On how we should treat sexual abuse victims, Clancy says:


Journal articles

*''¿Por qué no hay más Mujeres en la Cima de la Escala Corporativa: Debido a Estereotipos, a Diferencias Biológicas o a Escogencias Personales? / Why aren’t more Women at the Top of the Corporate Ladder: Stereotypes, Biological Differences or Choices'' (2007) *''Autobiographical memory specificity in adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse'' (2006) *''Clinical characteristics of adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse'' (2006) *''Sleep paralysis and recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse: A reply to Pendergrast'' (2006) *''Who needs repression? Normal memory processes can explain “forgetting” of childhood sexual abuse'' (2005) *''Sleep Paralysis, Sexual Abuse, and Space Alien Abduction'' (2005) *''Sleep paralysis in adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse'' (2005) *''Reality Monitoring in Adults Reporting Repressed, Recovered, or Continuous Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse'' (2005) *''Inhibiting retrieval of trauma cues in adults reporting histories of childhood sexual abuse'' (2004) *''Psychophysiological Responding During Script-Driven Imagery in People Reporting Abduction by Space Aliens'' (2004) *''Reconceptualizing the teaching team in universities: Working with sessional staff'' (2002) *''Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens'' (2002) *''Directed forgetting of trauma cues in adults reporting repressed or recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse'' (2001) *''False Recognition in Women Reporting Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse'' (2000) *''Personality profiles, dissociations, and absorption in women reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse'' (2000) *''Cognitive processing of trauma cues in adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse'' (2000) *''Effects of guided imagery on memory distortion in women reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse'' (1999) *''Cardiorespiratory Symptoms in Response to Physiological Arousal'' (1998) *''Directed forgetting of trauma cues in adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse with and without posttraumatic stress disorder'' (1998) *''Differential diagnosis of palpitations. Preliminary development of a screening instrument'' (1996) *''Somatized Psychiatric Disorder Presenting as Palpitations. Archives of Internal Medicine'' (1996)


See also

*
Repressed memory Repressed memory is an inability to recall autobiographical information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. The concept originated in psychoanalytic theory where repression is defined as a protective mechanism that excludes memory of ...
*
Hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...
*
Alien abduction Alien abduction (also called abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction) refers to the phenomenon of people reporting their experience of being kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subjected to physical and psychological ...
*
Experimental psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clancy, Susan American women psychologists American cognitive psychologists Ufologists Harvard University faculty Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Living people American women academics 21st-century American women scientists