Clancy, Susan A.

views updated

Clancy, Susan A.

PERSONAL: Female. Education: Earned a Ph.D.; attended Harvard University.

ADDRESSES: Office—Harvard University, Department of Psychology, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER: Writer and educator. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, postdoctoral fellow in psychology; Central American Institute for Business Administration, visiting professor.

WRITINGS:

Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Educator and author Susan A. Clancy has worked as a postdoctoral fellow of psychology at Harvard University, where she researched memory function with Dr. Richard McNally. Those studies led Clancy and McNally to study memory and trauma in people who claimed to be alien abductees.

In 2005 Clancy wrote a book about her research. In Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens the author discusses sleep paralysis—a neurological disorder that causes hallucinations during the onset of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep—and the use of recovered-memory hypnosis as possible causes of the alien-abduction belief phenomena. Indeed, according to Kaja Perina, writing in Psychology Today, Clancy theorizes that "alien abductees aren't just amenable to suggestion under hypnosis; instead they actively create false memories." Clancy also uses extensive research to determine that her abduction subjects are "schizotypy," or inclined to fantastical thinking. Overall, reviewers praised Clancy's work on the book. Many found the author's tone to be approachable and sensitive yet full of solid research and thought. "Clancy offers an intelligent and compassionate look at people whose 'weird' belief usually elicits derision, and argues convincingly for the need to look deeper into its significance," wrote one Publishers Weekly contributor.