Bass and Davis have no formal training or qualifications in psychiatry, psychology or any form of treatment for mental illness. Psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson state that despite the authors' lack of knowledge about the workings of memories, the scientific approach or information and lack of qualifications, neither author has ever acknowledged the errors they have made in their descriptions of memory and trauma. They accuse the authors of basic errors regarding the science of memory that they say have never been corrected between editions; in the third edition, the book stated that for a small number of women their symptoms may have originated in emotional rather than sexual abuse. This lack of qualifications resulted in Bass, Davis and others who adopted their approach leaping to conclusions that caused considerable harm, irrespective of their intentions. They have been accused of creating an industry which has isolated and separated family members despite having no positive proof the abuse occurred, and for replacing individual identities with that of a "survivor". Bass and Davis also never acknowledged criticisms that their description of how memory works was flawed or incorrect. Paul R. McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and award-winning researcher in the field of memory describes the book as the "bible of incompetent therapists". A report for the Australian branch of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) found the book was linked to nearly 50% of the cases in which a false allegation of child sexual abuse was made based on recovered memories and a 2005 report by the Health Services Commissioner to the Minister for Health of Australia stated that some respondents from families where there were accusations of child sexual abuse called for the book to be banned, believing that it promotes the practice of recovered memory therapy. Frederick Crews has criticized the book for appealing not to women who have always remembered abuse, but rather being aimed at those who struggle to convince themselves they were abused as children in the absence of previously-existing memories, and that the authors' claim to promote self-esteem are actually based "on a shattering of their readers' prior sense of identity and trust".