The book was written by Bessel Van Der Kolk, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School before he founded the Trauma Centre in Massachusetts, which he led for 35 years.
The woman described Dr Van Der Kolk’s book as part of the process in her recounting the allegations.
“Bessel Van Der Kolk explains that, for survivors of torture and trauma (whether physical, psychological and/or sexual) our bodies will store traumatic events and only allow them to resurface when our minds are able to examine them, usually several decades later,” she wrote.
“My Adelaide-based psychiatrist confirmed that these are ‘somatic memories’ (i.e. lodged in the body rather than the brain, although the mind can access them) in an appointment in late 2019.”
The woman also wrote that her account was based on “near contemporaneous” notes of the rape based on information from 1989, 1991 and 1992.
Her written account includes several appendices with what she describes as details from the time of the alleged rape.
Loading
The document was sent with an anonymous letter to Liberal backbencher Celia Hammond on Wednesday, February 24, and she referred the claims to the Australian Federal Police and the Prime Minister’s Office.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison raised the accusations with Mr Porter that Wednesday night but neither of them read the document.
Dr Van der Kolk’s book was a New York Times best-seller and the Trauma Centre trained thousands of mental health professionals, but his approach has been the subject of dispute.
The New York Times described him as a leading defender of repressed-memory therapy during the 1990s, when he was an expert witness in sexual abuse cases and argued that victims could suppress all memory of that trauma until recalling it many years later.
Richard McNally, the Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, rejected the case for repressed memory in his 2005 book, Remembering Trauma.
National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 737 732. Crisis support can be found at Lifeline: (13 11 14 and lifeline.org.au), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467 and suicidecallbackservice.org.au) and beyondblue (1300 22 4636 and beyondblue.org.au).
David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Most Viewed in Politics
Loading
Source: | This article originally belongs to smh.com.au
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue82erqxnp6S6orqMnamer12ku26vzq6lrJ2cobavs4ybnJ%2Bnopp6s7HCqKynrJmjtG6ty6WcoJ2UYr%2BivMRo