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AccidentalAcademic

Well-known member
I'm wandering where she would be without social media ? Did she really use such annoying self-promotion that she tricked vulnerable ppl on socials that she's a new voice of feminism?.
I found her on Twitter and wander if others found her via n different routes? Without twitter I'd probably not have heard of her...
It's all social media. I stumbled on her via Twitter. Someone linked to her "What about the men?" blog post, and I followed her on the strength of that. Based on the post I imagined her to be the manager of this third sector mental health service, carrying out PhD research alongside it. When I started seeing things that caused flickers of doubt in my mind - the unnecessarily combative online presence, overconfident declarations that seemed to go well beyond her expertise - I reasoned that it must just be that her communication style wasn't my cup of tea. I believed her implicitly when she reeled off all the different roles she'd supposedly worked in, and I thought that if there was a genuine problem, others would have seen by now. When I understood her habit of embellishing the facts, and realised that she could turn a job as a supermarket cashier into "handling significant amounts of currency for the Bank of England", it all became clear. It's like those false-fronted buildings they used to use on old-fashioned film sets - from the front it looks solid, imposing, but walk round the back and you find very little there. That's Jessica's career.
 
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AccidentalAcademic

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Jaimi tweeted to others about that too, I think she said the "real" women affected are getting upset. I really can't see how Jaimi didn't know what she was doing at that point, sharing online that SA was deluded and also somehow responsible for triggering another "real" woman, making it look as if SA was upsetting others . As if SA was inconsiderate...

Taking some moral ground like they don't care about SA but there are real women they're helping and protecting.
This is something Jess does a lot when challenged - invoke invisible women who are apparently feeling terribly hurt and frightened by what the person raising concerns is saying. It happened when a large number of autistic women and women with ADHD challenged her on her view that these diagnoses are being given falsely to traumatised women. First she tried to back pedal and claim she hadn't meant this was always the case, just some of the time, getting increasingly aggressive. (This is something else she seems to do a lot when she changes story - insist she was saying the same thing all along and that her listeners just weren't paying attention/didn't understand her.) And when that failed, she declared that she was getting lots of messages from women who agreed with her and who were just too scared to say it publicly. It's extremely manipulative, because it implies that anyone with concerns is this nasty intimidating figure, while she is the only person in the situation whom vulnerable people feel safe confiding in. "Back off, you're scaring my invisible friends" is a ludicrous response to criticism, but one she falls back on frequently.
 
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I think its possible to convey complex information much more succinctly. It's so badly written IMO, that many people won't read it and take the content seriously. Unfortunately, I think it's a wasted opportunity. Journalist badly needs an editor who can hone the piece into something much more powerful, articulate and remove all errors.
I'm a writer, although not of this type of stuff. I'm thinking however, as I write for the CPTSD Foundation which has a pretty good reach, I could do a piece on how unethical practice retraumatises survivors and get a bit in on Jess and some links? I'm sure Julian would be happy with a link, but I would want permission from the affected women before driving traffic to them.
Could do a longer (free) Medium piece too, with screenshots. I don't have a platform on there anymore sadly, but everyone could share it and drive engagement. Again, it has to depend on the women themselves. They may well not want anymore articles about it.
 
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judgejohndeed

VIP Member
I really admire the effort and work the author has put into this but it is really terribly written, far too long which makes it easy to give up before you get to what are IMO the most salient issues, and I fear rather than expose Jess, will actually obscure what she’s done/is doing. I haven’t managed to finish it yet and I was reading it for what felt like a long time last night.
 
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AccidentalAcademic

Well-known member
I’m starting to wonder if Jess thought her viva was harassment 😂
All jokes aside, it's very likely she did see questions from her supervisors as an attack. According to her, she triumphantly battled through her PhD despite hordes of hostile academics who were determined to keep her from completing it on the basis that she was a single mum/too poor/too working class/too much of a survivor. While I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that she did face classism and other prejudice during her time at university, her behaviour has repeatedly demonstrated that she interprets even the most legitimate, reasonable, courteously worded question as an attack. In one of the earlier threads a poster said that she began to doubt Jess after she asked an innocous question, not intending it as a criticism at all, only to get her head bitten off because Jess saw malice in it - this stuck with me as it suggests a person who really does read hostility into anything that isn't unqualified agreement and praise.

Her defence of her Etsy-esque products is incoherent and contradictory. In the same breath she says that the cards aren't based on "therapeutic theories", but are reflections based on "academic research on these topics". That brings us back to square one. What research?! What, exactly, are the studies the cards are based on? What did the researchers attempt to find out, how did they measure it, why is it important? If the research doesn't involve therapeutic efficacy, why does it mean the cards will be beneficial for women who have experienced violence? Where is the relevance? She is once again throwing out a few academic buzzwords to try and quiet any doubts that might be rising among fans, in the hope that people might still trust her enough to accept the academicese at face value without asking further questions that her non-answers raise. Such as:

1.) Who is on this "ethics board" that she speaks of? Why isn't there a list of names on the Victim Focus website, with a description of what exactly their qualifications are and how they function as a committee?
2.) What does she mean when she says the cards are "peer reviewed"? The aim of peer review is to assess accuracy, quality, and rigor and - in the case of therapeutic tools - validity and efficacy too. This means that the project being peer reviewed has to be very clearly defined. Jess has half-suggested that the cards aren't intended to be therapeutic, so again, what exactly are they for and how did the peer reviewers evaluate how closely they match up to their purpose?
3.) Again, who are these mystery peer reviewers who are only mentioned in the abstract? We know Jessica has asked people who currently hold no higher qualification than an undergraduate degree to "peer review" for her, and these were people whom she knew to admire her and hold her in high regard. In at least one case, the "reviewer" was an employee - someone dependent on Jess for a salary. Peer review is supposed to be carried out objectively by appropriately qualified professionals. Do these "reviewers", whoever they are, meet these criteria?

She can play all the semantic games she likes and obfuscate as much as she likes, but all she is doing is cementing her reputation among academics and clinicians as an unprofessional charlatan. She views it as harassment when academics and clinicians explain why we think this, no matter whether it's done publicly or privately, and no doubt the story she tells her fans will be that we're just too frightened of her powerful mind to accept that everything she says is right and everything she does is amazing. But she makes herself look even less credible with every outburst, to the point where even people with zero knowledge of psychology are eventually going to struggle to take her at face value.
 
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AccidentalAcademic

Well-known member
Gotta be honest but I think it reads less well than the first. Badly needs editing and there's tonnes of errors. She could have made her points in about a quarter of the time. I'm concerned that it undermines the credibility of the important points she makes about the gross and unethical behaviour of JT.

Edited to add: huge respect for the women who have spoken out. Extremely courageous and honourable.
This is my concern. The posts are overly long, repetitive, convoluted, and the salient points get lost in a ping pong game of "X said this, so then Y said this, so X said this, so Y said this", which dilutes their gravity. To be honest I think the only people likely to read that blog in full are people who have already been harmed by Jess Taylor's unethical research practices or lack of professionalism and who want to know who else has been left in their position - I can't see the average person having time or inclination to wade through such long posts that on a cursory glance might look like one side of a gossipy internet squabble.

The heart of the matter is that Jessica frequently misleads people into thinking that she has clinical/therapeutic training she does not possess, which she is able to do because the term 'psychologist' is not in itself a protected title (a long-standing source of concern among clinicians). She is doing research without having any oversight or process of ethical review in place, so falling far below the accepted standard in academia, and she has either self-published the results or used a commercial press (meaning that there is no appropriate peer review to guarantee either research quality or methodological integrity). Because she presents herself as a seasoned academic with some sort of clinical background, she was able to win the trust of vulnerable women, whose stories she published without informed consent. She has then proceeded to lie about these women, first claiming that they're not in the book at all, that they're just identifying strongly with other women's stories, that they've been misled by a sinister third party, and finally that they are in the book but she did have consent. She sat back and watched while her staff gleefully talked about how to intimidate and harass the most vulnerable of these women, and told a pack of cruel and outrageous lies about how the woman concerned was going to be arrested, charged, bailed with conditions, and stripped of her electronic devices for "stalking" Jess. All of this is demonstrably untrue.

There are screenshots that illustrate the contradictory lies she told, and juxtaposing Sally Ann's initial message to her with the published story shows clearly that these are indeed Sally Ann's words in the book. I think this would be enough for the unfamiliar reader to grasp the key points.
 
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Whatevesmate

Chatty Member
Yet again she demonstrates how unethical and immoral she is in gleaning intimate details about people's experience of abuse and its impact and extracting it for her own financial gain. She behaves in hideously abusive and exploitative ways and yet again, her behaviour is indicative of someone with no psychological awareness, never mind professional expertise. These questions are not trauma-informed in any way. Ugh, she is so gross.

Re her banging on about her age. 32 is hardly that young to keep flagging it up. I think this reveals more about how she feels psychologically. She is certainly stunted, hence the pathological narcissism and sociopathic behaviour masquerading as legitimate self confidence.

Edited to add - @FruitPie obviously I cannot speak for others, but I don't think that you should delete your post. You are simply articulating what many of us already feel. It's not your behaviour that is distressing.
 
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FruitPie

Member
The free course exists in 3 formats, as a PDF, as a web page and as an interactive e-learning course alongside the paid for e-learning courses.

Here's the web version https://www.victimfocus.org.uk/free-caring-for-yourself-after-sexual-violence

There's no data collection with the first two formats.

But it looks like there is on the e-learning version.

Here are all the e-learning courses, it looks like they're all collecting data.
Thanks for directing me to the course @witchinghour

It makes for grim viewing. The words FREE and UNLIMITED are plastered all over the advertising - but it's not free is it? At least the online version isn't. There is a personal cost to undertaking the 'course'. You must first relinquish control of whatever copy/personal experiences you input. You must give ownership of your copy/experience to someone else to gain access to the help the course/JT promises it will offer. Who sees what people input? Is it JT, JT and her wife, the VF team ...anyone else who fancies a gander? How is the data stored? How long is it kept for? Who do you contact if you want your data deleted/removed? What's the protocol for data removal? Let's be clear this kind of information is STANDARD in data handling/research participation - it's not extra, it's not supercharged ethics it's STANDARD! Then there should be an 'extra layer' of safeguards when collecting/handling data of vulnerable/previously victimised people. I don't know anyone with a research background who would behave like JT. She must know. I don't believe she doesn't understand this (I kind of wanted to believe this was a competency issue but I don't think it is). She must know how deeply unethical and harmful this is. It is disempowering, deceptive and frankly (lack of professional ethics/standards aside) just plain heartless. It's revictimisation.
 
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witchinghour

Active member
Erm…


then names Malala, Greta Thunberg and Beyoncé amongst others.
Oh dear. Jaimi, I'm sorry but your wife IS a fraud.
You must know this, deep down really, surely?

Jess isn't being accused of lying because people are out to get her, or because of misogyny or jealousy or any of the other supposed reasons.

It's simply because she's a liar. She lies and lies and lies, and everyone sees through it eventually as the inconsistencies become so glaringly obvious.

You're several years in, though, how are you dealing with the constant and changing lies?

Are you aware that you've changed your tune about Sally Ann, just as Jess has done. You do KNOW it's lies, right? Or are you deluding yourself?

She gets you collude with her lies so often. Are you even aware you're doing it?
 
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judgejohndeed

VIP Member
What a warped view of themselves those two have. Trying to compare with Malala and Beyoncé yet the other week commenting that the Daily Mail wouldn’t pick up the story about Jess - she’s not important enough.

Also, I feel like blocking the lady raising the (legitimate) data concerns about the VF courses goes to show you what kind of person Jess really is. If that were me, I would just reply and explain if it’s not true - and make sure it’s in response to the thread, so that anyone else worried can see it. These are paying customers after all, does she not care what people think of her courses? Why the immediate blocking of someone asking the question and ignoring the issue if it’s a misunderstanding that she can put right? She is a very strange, rude, arrogant woman, success or no success.
 
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timesup

Member
I’ve known professionals over the years to make errors of judgement. I’ve known professionals to sometimes be unprofessional and do something I’m not comfortable with. Most of those people have the ability to recognise their mistakes, their errors, and be accountable as-well as reflect on them. We’re human beings, we all make mistakes. But I’ve never ever known someone whose whole setup, whose whole persona, is to systematically manipulate, lie, and use people for their own gain. I’ve never seen anyone so calculating, egocentric, and so dangerous to vulnerable women. You shouldn’t believe a word that comes out of her mouth; absolute none of it is genuine, or without an alternate motive. she should not have a platform, she should not be providing guidance or advice to anyone. Out of all those women who follow her; she’s the one who needs professional help the most.
 
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AccidentalAcademic

Well-known member
For people not involved in the UK psychology scene, there is trouble at the mill. The core committee for the Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group resigned en masse on Friday. This is the result of concerns going back years, even before PsyPAG merged with the BPS, mainly relating to the BPS leaning heavily on unpaid/voluntary work from postgraduate researchers without offering them the support that was promised to them at the time of the merger. The merger actually resulted in PsyPAG events becoming inaccessible to those on low incomes. There is a good summary of the issues as they developed here (second half of the interview). The issue that is now being voiced by the former committee members - that the BPS wouldn't listen to them, and kept vaguely saying that they couldn't make any of the changes PsyPAG members were pushing for because their policies and procedures didn't allow for it - is reminiscent of the inadequate response to Sally Ann. It amuses me that Jessica - such a zealous critic of harmful systems! - would like everyone to believe that the BPS is a credible regulator. Her supposed principles can be so easily bent to suit her interests. I'm sceptical that this will lead to any meaningful structural reform at the BPS, but there are lots of pissed off members venting their frustrations with them now, so I'm curious to see what will happen next.
 
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Whatevesmate

Chatty Member
For all her pretentions of being politically astute, she's actually just part of the neoliberal machine with her wannabe influencer vibes and positive affirmation tat. As previously noted, she's not very bright.
 
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AccidentalAcademic

Well-known member
I suppose it was ten years ago so she definitely would look different, it was the fact she came across so condescending then about dieting, especially to women who followed her. Basically some of her posts used to imply it was soooooo easy and we all know it isn’t
This is at odds with her recent posts about refusing to lose weight for her wedding, and complaints that women's weight loss is often glorified at the expense of their health (something I agree with her on). It could be that she's become more body-positive with time, but that doesn't fit with how she presents her views - now, as then, she's boasting about how unique and special her approach makes her. Whether it's declaring that she decided to be a leader and not lose weight for the wedding, or bragging repeatedly about improbable amounts of weight lost, it's all about spotlighting her brilliance.

And for someone who doesn't care what others think about her, she spends enough time subtweeting critics. 🙄 That response is telling in its own right - no mention of the women and girls whose rights she supposedly cares so passionately about, just bestselling books and being on TV. She makes her true priorities crystal clear. Nigel Farage has been on TV more times than I've had hot dinners and I can think of a number of shitty bestsellers by people like him, but that doesn't mean they've won some kind of intellectual and moral victory, it means they're good at grifting. Once again, Jessica doesn't seem to realise that this isn't an enviable trait.
 
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ste1982

Active member
😂😂😂😂 she’s such a twat! Actually the three of us who were in the private group ten years ago have gone on to great things, I’m a therapist, hundreds and hundreds of hours of supervised practice, ensuring my clients have the best therapy possible. Front line work with trauma as opposed to her “work” which is basically a vanity project, always was with her.
The other two did doctorates and have produced amazing research which is peer reviewed. She actually asked one of them to peer review a piece of her work before they were qualified to do so, they said no so I guess she asked lots of people who said yes!

Welcome @ste1982!

Looks like Jessica has already noticed your input here too…
 
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AccidentalAcademic

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1. Peer review happens before publication, not after, for what should be obvious reasons.
2. Peer review does not consist of asking sw
self-described 'leaders' on the internet to email you for a copy. That's known as marketing or self-promotion, not peer review.
 
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Whatevesmate

Chatty Member
I think its possible to convey complex information much more succinctly. It's so badly written IMO, that many people won't read it and take the content seriously. Unfortunately, I think it's a wasted opportunity. Journalist badly needs an editor who can hone the piece into something much more powerful, articulate and remove all errors.
 
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Wolf359

Chatty Member
She hasn’t got a fucking ‘legal team’. Her legal team is probably Mandy googling the CAB website.

Only extremely wealthy organisations can afford to have (or indeed, need) in-house legal teams.

No one has committed a crime or a tort against Jessica. She, on the other hand, has committed plenty against other people.

If she were to ‘bring legal action’ against you, the correct response would be to say alright, let’s see it then. It would probably be a long letter full of legal spaff from a high street solicitors that you would be under no obligation to reply to. And that would be the end of it.

The truth is a defence to libel.
 
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empowered1

Well-known member
I completely agree … unfortunately institutions like that dont really care, its appauling but they are thinking of money and box ticking 😞 even if they do look like ballbags. They would be better doing Rachel Williams lunch and learn. It looks like she is doing super well!



Hey Jess 👋 for my masters degree (yes jess when you read this, I actually did one so you cant fucking argue with me about it because i do meet the qualifications in your narcissistic mind to talk about it) I am not in anyway saying that like no one else can, only that in her large egotistical head, qualifications mean something which is stupid. But ill pull it out the bag for this one - the police treatment victims of sexual violence terribly and even more terribly when the victim suffers from a perceived or diagnosed mental illness . Its a global problem in every police force 🥺 it breaks my heart. And then they feed into ballbags like Jessica Taylor who literally have no idea what CRAP they are spouting. Its absolute utter poison that comes out of her mouth. People like her absolutely should not have any platform, even a small one to spout their shit from. She has absolutely enraged me today. Not only do victims go through what they go through which must be horrendous in all kinds of ways. They are then retraumatised by someone who claim to be a professional- I cannot imagine how awful that would be
I have experienced reporting sexual trauma as a child and as an adult not that long ago. If the police really want to know what it’s like from a victims perspective they should fucking ask us. Not get some Z list celebrity wannabe bullshitter in to do it.
 
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