Vatican and clergy abuse, trauma and dissociation

from http://ritualabuse.us

Vatican can be sued for clergy abuse, judges rule - An Oregon man who alleges he was molested in the 1960s by a priest can pursue a civil lawsuit against the Holy See, a federal appeals court says.
By Manya A. Brachear March 5, 2009 Reporting from Chicago -- A federal appeals court ruling has brought an Oregon man one step closer to suing the Vatican for sexual abuse he says he suffered by a Roman Catholic priest. In a 59-page decision issued Tuesday, a three-judge panel from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the man -- who says he was molested in the 1960s by a priest at a Catholic school -- can pursue a civil lawsuit against the Holy See because the priest allegedly abused him while serving in a religious capacity.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sue-the-vatican5-2009mar05,0,2880227.story



Trauma Articles - This page includes selected full-text articles about trauma -- versions of preprints, published articles, or chapters. Several other resources relevant to trauma, disasters, psychology, and neuroscience are available on the Resources Page, as well as the Links page.
http://www.trauma-pages.com/articles.php


The Body Keeps The Score: Memory & the Evolving Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress
by Bessel van der Kolk first published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 1994, 1(5), 253-265.
http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/vanderk4.php

Dissociation & the Fragmentary Nature of Traumatic Memories: Overview & Exploratory Study
Bessel A. van der Kolk & Rita Fisler This is a version of their article published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, 1995, 8(4), 505-525. Since trauma is an inescapably stressful event that overwhelms people's coping mechanisms it is uncertain to what degree the results of laboratory studies of ordinary events have relevance to the understanding of traumatic memories. This paper first reviews the literature on the differences between recollections of stressful and of traumatic events. It then reviews the evidence implicating dissociative processes as the central pathogenic mechanisms that give rise to PTSD. We present the results of a systematic exploratory study of 46 subjects with PTSD which indicates that traumatic memories are retrieved, at least initially, in the form of dissociated mental imprints of sensory and affective elements of the traumatic experience: as visual, olfactory, affective, auditory and kinesthetic experiences. Over time, subjects reported the gradual emergence of a personal narrative that can be properly referred to as "explicit memory". The implications of these findings for understanding the nature of traumatic me mories is discussed. http://www.trauma-pages.com/a/vanderk2.php