also: America's shocking secret: Pictures that show how U.S. experimented on its own disabled citizens and prison inmates
Six Million Children Maltreated in 2009?
http://www.childlaw.us/2011/02/six-million-children-maltreate.html
By James R. Marsh February 3, 2011
In 2009, an estimated 3.3 million referrals involving the alleged maltreatment of approximately 6.0 million children were received by CPS agencies nationwide. Of these, CPS determined that at least one child was a unique victim of abuse and neglect in 702,000 cases. The rest were unsubstantiated or closed with no finding.
These and other data appear in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Child Maltreatment 2009, the 20th in a series of reports designed to provide national statistics on child abuse and neglect.
Most states recognize four major types of maltreatment: neglect, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, and sexual abuse. Although any of the forms of child maltreatment may be found separately, they also can occur in combination....
More than 75 percent (78.3%) suffered neglect;
More than 15 percent (17.8%) suffered physical abuse;
Less than 10 percent (9.5%) suffered sexual abuse; and
Less than 10 percent (7.6%) suffered from psychological maltreatment....
For the analyses included in this report, a perpetrator is the person who is responsible for the abuse or neglect of a child. Forty-nine States reported case-level data about perpetrators using unique identifiers. In these States, the total duplicate count of perpetrators was 894,951 and the total unique count of perpetrators was 512,790.
For 2009:
Four-fifths (80.9%) of duplicate perpetrators of child maltreatment were parents, and another 6.3 percent were other relatives of the victim;
Of the duplicate perpetrators who were parents, four-fifths (84.7%) were the biological parents of the victim;
Women comprised a larger percentage of all unique perpetrators than men, 53.8 percent compared to 44.4 percent; and
Four-fifths (83.2%) of all unique perpetrators were between the ages of 20 and 49 years.
The full report is available on the Children's Bureau website:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm09/cm09.pdf
America's shocking secret: Pictures that show how U.S. experimented on its own disabled citizens and prison inmates By Daily Mail Reporter
28th February 2011 Pictures have emerged providing the shocking proof that U.S. government doctors once experimented on disabled American citizens and prison inmates.
Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital. Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission.
The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last year for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago.
U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in America - studies that often involved making healthy people sick.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361275/Americas-shocking-secret-US-experimented-disabled-citizens-prison-inmates.html
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Horrific US Medical Experiments Come to Light
describes experiments
"Many prominent researchers felt it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society - people like prisoners, mental patients, poor blacks. It was an attitude in some ways similar to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews."
"In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees."
Horrific US Medical Experiments Come to Light Feb 27, 2011 Mike Stobbe AP
ATLANTA -- Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.
Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission. The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last fall for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago.
U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in the United States - studies that often involved making healthy people sick.
An exhaustive review by The Associated Press of medical journal reports and decades-old press clippings found more than 40 such studies. At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments; at worst, some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but provided no useful results....
In this June 25, 1945 photo, a doctor exposes a patient to malaria-carrying mosquitoes at Stateville Penitentiary in Crest Hill, Ill. A series of malaria studies at Stateville and two other prisons were designed to test antimalarial drugs that could have helped soldiers fighting in the Pacific during World War II....
Many prominent researchers felt it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society - people like prisoners, mental patients, poor blacks. It was an attitude in some ways similar to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews.
....The AP review of past research found:
-A federally funded study begun in 1942 injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients at a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Mich., then exposed them to flu several months later. It was co-authored by Dr. Jonas Salk, who a decade later would become famous as inventor of the polio vaccine....
-In federally funded studies in the 1940s, noted researcher Dr. W. Paul Havens Jr. exposed men to hepatitis in a series of experiments, including one using patients from mental institutions in Middletown and Norwich, Conn. Havens, a World Health Organization expert on viral diseases, was one of the first scientists to differentiate types of hepatitis and their causes....
-Researchers in the mid-1940s studied the transmission of a deadly stomach bug by having young men swallow unfiltered stool suspension. The study was conducted at the New York State Vocational Institution, a reformatory prison in West Coxsackie....
-A University of Minnesota study in the late 1940s injected 11 public service employee volunteers with malaria, then starved them for five days. Some were also subjected to hard labor, and those men lost an average of 14 pounds. They were treated for malarial fevers with quinine sulfate....
-For a study in 1957, when the Asian flu pandemic was spreading, federal researchers sprayed the virus in the noses of 23 inmates at Patuxent prison in Jessup, Md., to compare their reactions to those of 32 virus-exposed inmates who had been given a new vaccine.
-Government researchers in the 1950s tried to infect about two dozen volunteering prison inmates with gonorrhea using two different methods in an experiment at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. The bacteria was pumped directly into the urinary tract through the penis, according to their paper.
The men quickly developed the disease, but the researchers noted this method wasn't comparable to how men normally got infected - by having sex with an infected partner. The men were later treated with antibiotics....
in 1963. Researchers injected cancer cells into 19 old and debilitated patients at a Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in the New York borough of Brooklyn to see if their bodies would reject them.
The hospital director said the patients were not told they were being injected with cancer cells because there was no need - the cells were deemed harmless....
At nearby Staten Island, from 1963 to 1966, a controversial medical study was conducted at the Willowbrook State School for children with mental retardation. The children were intentionally given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured with gamma globulin....
In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.
Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia made extensive use of inmates for medical experiments....
As the supply of prisoners and mental patients dried up, researchers looked to other countries. It made sense. Clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules. And it was easy to find patients who were taking no medication, a factor that can complicate tests of other drugs....
U.S.-funded doctors failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study in Uganda even though it would have protected their newborns. U.S. health officials argued the study would answer questions about AZT's use in the developing world.
The other study, by Pfizer Inc., gave an antibiotic named Trovan to children with meningitis in Nigeria, although there were doubts about its effectiveness for that disease. Critics blamed the experiment for the deaths of 11 children and the disabling of scores of others. Pfizer settled a lawsuit with Nigerian officials for $75 million but admitted no wrongdoing.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/27/horrific-us-medical-experiments-come-to-light/
"Many prominent researchers felt it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society - people like prisoners, mental patients, poor blacks. It was an attitude in some ways similar to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews."
"In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees."
Horrific US Medical Experiments Come to Light Feb 27, 2011 Mike Stobbe AP
ATLANTA -- Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.
Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission. The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last fall for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago.
U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in the United States - studies that often involved making healthy people sick.
An exhaustive review by The Associated Press of medical journal reports and decades-old press clippings found more than 40 such studies. At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments; at worst, some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but provided no useful results....
In this June 25, 1945 photo, a doctor exposes a patient to malaria-carrying mosquitoes at Stateville Penitentiary in Crest Hill, Ill. A series of malaria studies at Stateville and two other prisons were designed to test antimalarial drugs that could have helped soldiers fighting in the Pacific during World War II....
Many prominent researchers felt it was legitimate to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society - people like prisoners, mental patients, poor blacks. It was an attitude in some ways similar to that of Nazi doctors experimenting on Jews.
....The AP review of past research found:
-A federally funded study begun in 1942 injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients at a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Mich., then exposed them to flu several months later. It was co-authored by Dr. Jonas Salk, who a decade later would become famous as inventor of the polio vaccine....
-In federally funded studies in the 1940s, noted researcher Dr. W. Paul Havens Jr. exposed men to hepatitis in a series of experiments, including one using patients from mental institutions in Middletown and Norwich, Conn. Havens, a World Health Organization expert on viral diseases, was one of the first scientists to differentiate types of hepatitis and their causes....
-Researchers in the mid-1940s studied the transmission of a deadly stomach bug by having young men swallow unfiltered stool suspension. The study was conducted at the New York State Vocational Institution, a reformatory prison in West Coxsackie....
-A University of Minnesota study in the late 1940s injected 11 public service employee volunteers with malaria, then starved them for five days. Some were also subjected to hard labor, and those men lost an average of 14 pounds. They were treated for malarial fevers with quinine sulfate....
-For a study in 1957, when the Asian flu pandemic was spreading, federal researchers sprayed the virus in the noses of 23 inmates at Patuxent prison in Jessup, Md., to compare their reactions to those of 32 virus-exposed inmates who had been given a new vaccine.
-Government researchers in the 1950s tried to infect about two dozen volunteering prison inmates with gonorrhea using two different methods in an experiment at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. The bacteria was pumped directly into the urinary tract through the penis, according to their paper.
The men quickly developed the disease, but the researchers noted this method wasn't comparable to how men normally got infected - by having sex with an infected partner. The men were later treated with antibiotics....
in 1963. Researchers injected cancer cells into 19 old and debilitated patients at a Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in the New York borough of Brooklyn to see if their bodies would reject them.
The hospital director said the patients were not told they were being injected with cancer cells because there was no need - the cells were deemed harmless....
At nearby Staten Island, from 1963 to 1966, a controversial medical study was conducted at the Willowbrook State School for children with mental retardation. The children were intentionally given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured with gamma globulin....
In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.
Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia made extensive use of inmates for medical experiments....
As the supply of prisoners and mental patients dried up, researchers looked to other countries. It made sense. Clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules. And it was easy to find patients who were taking no medication, a factor that can complicate tests of other drugs....
U.S.-funded doctors failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study in Uganda even though it would have protected their newborns. U.S. health officials argued the study would answer questions about AZT's use in the developing world.
The other study, by Pfizer Inc., gave an antibiotic named Trovan to children with meningitis in Nigeria, although there were doubts about its effectiveness for that disease. Critics blamed the experiment for the deaths of 11 children and the disabling of scores of others. Pfizer settled a lawsuit with Nigerian officials for $75 million but admitted no wrongdoing.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/27/horrific-us-medical-experiments-come-to-light/
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators
By Michael Hastings February 23, 2011 The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators....
The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.
"My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line."
The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts....
In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesman for Caldwell "categorically denies the assertion that the command used an Information Operations Cell to influence Distinguished Visitors."
....As for the operation targeting U.S. senators, there is no way to tell what, if any, influence it had on American policy. What is clear is that in January 2011, Caldwell’s command asked the Obama administration for another $2 billion to train an additional 70,000 Afghan troops – an initiative that will already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $11 billion this year. Among the biggest boosters in Washington to give Caldwell the additional money? Sen. Carl Levin, one of the senators whom Holmes had been ordered to target.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223
The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.
"My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line."
The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts....
In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesman for Caldwell "categorically denies the assertion that the command used an Information Operations Cell to influence Distinguished Visitors."
....As for the operation targeting U.S. senators, there is no way to tell what, if any, influence it had on American policy. What is clear is that in January 2011, Caldwell’s command asked the Obama administration for another $2 billion to train an additional 70,000 Afghan troops – an initiative that will already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $11 billion this year. Among the biggest boosters in Washington to give Caldwell the additional money? Sen. Carl Levin, one of the senators whom Holmes had been ordered to target.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The United States Truth and Reconciliation Commission (US TRC)
The United States Truth and Reconciliation Commission (US TRC)
seeks Truth and Reconciliation over historical and present-day extreme abuse and human rights violations including human experimentation, human trafficking, organized ritual crime, and other forms of torture committed in the US and/or by representatives of the US government.
Definitions of Trauma & Dissociation, Trafficking & Torture, Extreme Abuse & Ritual Abuse and Mind Control http://unitedstatestrc.com/faq/
seeks Truth and Reconciliation over historical and present-day extreme abuse and human rights violations including human experimentation, human trafficking, organized ritual crime, and other forms of torture committed in the US and/or by representatives of the US government.
Definitions of Trauma & Dissociation, Trafficking & Torture, Extreme Abuse & Ritual Abuse and Mind Control http://unitedstatestrc.com/faq/
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity, PTSD-trauma link
also: Twin study may quiet doubts over PTSD-trauma link
Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity
TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity. PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent The Irish Times - February 23, 2011
TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity. Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope’s home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.
They claim the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”. They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes”. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0223/1224290630240.html
Criminal Charges against Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on grounds of Crimes against Humanity According to Art. 7 ICC Statute
http://www.kanzlei-sailer.de/pope-lawsuit-2011.pdf
Twin study may quiet doubts over PTSD-trauma link
By Lynne Peeples NEW YORK Sep 30, 2010 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Trauma really is the trigger of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, suggests a new study that could help settle an ongoing debate.
"It's been argued by some that PTSD is not a bona fide disorder, that these people are just maladjusted and the trauma doesn't have anything to with it," senior researcher Dr. Roger Pitman of Boston's Harvard University told Reuters Health....
Pitman and colleagues from Harvard and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs looked to 103 pairs of identical male twins from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry to test whether trauma truly causes PTSD, or if its sufferers would have developed symptoms of the disorder regardless. One brother from each pair had been exposed to combat in the Vietnam War; the other had not. Fifty of the combat-exposed men had PTSD.
The researchers found a substantial difference in mental disorders between the twins: Men exposed to combat and diagnosed with PTSD had three-fold more symptoms than their brothers, as well as compared to the combat veterans without PTSD and their co-twins. Similar patterns appeared when considering only PTSD-related psychiatric symptoms, report the researchers in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. According to Pitman, "If you assume that the identical twin is a representation of what the veteran would have been like had he not been exposed to combat, with the same genes and same family upbringing, then the conclusion is that psychiatric trauma causes substantial psychiatric symptoms in a portion of the population."
Given the similarities in symptoms between co-twins of combat-exposed brothers that did and did not develop PTSD, the findings also refute the presence of any predisposing genetic or environmental traits that increase vulnerability to trauma-induced PTSD, the authors say.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/30/us-twin-ptsd-idUSTRE68T47B20100930
Is Trauma a Causal Agent of Psychopathologic Symptoms in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? Findings From Identical Twins Discordant for Combat Exposure
Mark W. Gilbertson, PhD; Alexander C. McFarlane, MD; Frank W. Weathers, PhD; Terence M. Keane, PhD; Rachel Yehuda, PhD; Arieh Y. Shalev, MD; Natasha B. Lasko, PhD; Jared M. Goetz, BA; and Roger K. Pitman, MD, for the Harvard/VA PTSD Twin Study Investigators
J Clin Psychiatry 2010;71(10):1324–1330
10.4088/JCP.10m06121blu
....Method: A case-control twin study conducted between 1996–2001 examined psychopathologic symptoms in a national convenience sample of 104 identical twin pairs discordant for combat exposure in Vietnam, with (n = 50) or without (n = 54) combat-related PTSD (DSM-IV–diagnosed) in the exposed twin....
Results: Combat veterans with PTSD demonstrated significantly higher scores (P < .0001) on the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised and other psychometric measures of psychopathology than their own combat-unexposed cotwins (and than combat veterans without PTSD and their cotwins).
Conclusions: These results support the conclusion that the majority of psychiatric symptoms reported by combat veterans with PTSD would not have been present were it not for their exposure to traumatic events.
http://article.psychiatrist.com/dao_1-login.asp?ID=10007050&RSID=75635130271135
Study on twins may quiet doubts on PTSD-trauma link
Researchers found major difference in mental disorders in twins if one had seen combat
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39441551/ns/health-mental_health/
Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity
TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity. PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent The Irish Times - February 23, 2011
TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity. Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope’s home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.
They claim the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”. They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes”. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0223/1224290630240.html
Criminal Charges against Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on grounds of Crimes against Humanity According to Art. 7 ICC Statute
http://www.kanzlei-sailer.de/pope-lawsuit-2011.pdf
Twin study may quiet doubts over PTSD-trauma link
By Lynne Peeples NEW YORK Sep 30, 2010 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Trauma really is the trigger of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, suggests a new study that could help settle an ongoing debate.
"It's been argued by some that PTSD is not a bona fide disorder, that these people are just maladjusted and the trauma doesn't have anything to with it," senior researcher Dr. Roger Pitman of Boston's Harvard University told Reuters Health....
Pitman and colleagues from Harvard and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs looked to 103 pairs of identical male twins from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry to test whether trauma truly causes PTSD, or if its sufferers would have developed symptoms of the disorder regardless. One brother from each pair had been exposed to combat in the Vietnam War; the other had not. Fifty of the combat-exposed men had PTSD.
The researchers found a substantial difference in mental disorders between the twins: Men exposed to combat and diagnosed with PTSD had three-fold more symptoms than their brothers, as well as compared to the combat veterans without PTSD and their co-twins. Similar patterns appeared when considering only PTSD-related psychiatric symptoms, report the researchers in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. According to Pitman, "If you assume that the identical twin is a representation of what the veteran would have been like had he not been exposed to combat, with the same genes and same family upbringing, then the conclusion is that psychiatric trauma causes substantial psychiatric symptoms in a portion of the population."
Given the similarities in symptoms between co-twins of combat-exposed brothers that did and did not develop PTSD, the findings also refute the presence of any predisposing genetic or environmental traits that increase vulnerability to trauma-induced PTSD, the authors say.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/30/us-twin-ptsd-idUSTRE68T47B20100930
Is Trauma a Causal Agent of Psychopathologic Symptoms in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? Findings From Identical Twins Discordant for Combat Exposure
Mark W. Gilbertson, PhD; Alexander C. McFarlane, MD; Frank W. Weathers, PhD; Terence M. Keane, PhD; Rachel Yehuda, PhD; Arieh Y. Shalev, MD; Natasha B. Lasko, PhD; Jared M. Goetz, BA; and Roger K. Pitman, MD, for the Harvard/VA PTSD Twin Study Investigators
J Clin Psychiatry 2010;71(10):1324–1330
10.4088/JCP.10m06121blu
....Method: A case-control twin study conducted between 1996–2001 examined psychopathologic symptoms in a national convenience sample of 104 identical twin pairs discordant for combat exposure in Vietnam, with (n = 50) or without (n = 54) combat-related PTSD (DSM-IV–diagnosed) in the exposed twin....
Results: Combat veterans with PTSD demonstrated significantly higher scores (P < .0001) on the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised and other psychometric measures of psychopathology than their own combat-unexposed cotwins (and than combat veterans without PTSD and their cotwins).
Conclusions: These results support the conclusion that the majority of psychiatric symptoms reported by combat veterans with PTSD would not have been present were it not for their exposure to traumatic events.
http://article.psychiatrist.com/dao_1-login.asp?ID=10007050&RSID=75635130271135
Study on twins may quiet doubts on PTSD-trauma link
Researchers found major difference in mental disorders in twins if one had seen combat
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39441551/ns/health-mental_health/
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
ACLU Urges UN to Take Action on Solitary Confinement in the United States
ACLU Urges UN to Take Action on Solitary Confinement in the United States February 21, 2011 by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway
The American Civil Liberties Union last week filed a statement with the United Nations' Human Rights Council, urging it to to "address the widespread violations of the human rights of prisoners in the United States associated with solitary confinement and call for the adoption of appropriate measures to protect their human rights.
The ACLU calls on the Council to urge the United States to take concrete and appropriate measures to end the egregious violations stemming from solitary confinement of prisoners."
After providing background on the widespread use of solitary confinement in the United States today, the statement includes a concise and well-documented section titled "Harmful Effects of Solitary Confinement."...:
There is a broad consensus among mental health experts that long-term solitary confinement is psychologically harmful. Indeed, the damaging effects of solitary confinement, even on persons with no prior history of mental illness, have long been well known. http://solitarywatch.com/2011/02/21/aclu-urges-un-to-take-action-on-solitary-confinement-in-the-united-states/
The American Civil Liberties Union last week filed a statement with the United Nations' Human Rights Council, urging it to to "address the widespread violations of the human rights of prisoners in the United States associated with solitary confinement and call for the adoption of appropriate measures to protect their human rights.
The ACLU calls on the Council to urge the United States to take concrete and appropriate measures to end the egregious violations stemming from solitary confinement of prisoners."
After providing background on the widespread use of solitary confinement in the United States today, the statement includes a concise and well-documented section titled "Harmful Effects of Solitary Confinement."...:
There is a broad consensus among mental health experts that long-term solitary confinement is psychologically harmful. Indeed, the damaging effects of solitary confinement, even on persons with no prior history of mental illness, have long been well known. http://solitarywatch.com/2011/02/21/aclu-urges-un-to-take-action-on-solitary-confinement-in-the-united-states/
Monday, February 21, 2011
Archdiocese removes Monsignor Lynn
Archdiocese removes Monsignor Lynn By JULIE SHAW Philadelphia Daily News Feb. 20. 2011
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Monsignor William Lynn - who was recently charged with child-endangerment offenses on allegations he covered up sexual abuse by other priests - was placed on administrative leave effective Friday.
Temporarily taking his place at St. Joseph Parish in Downingtown, Chester County, will be Monsignor Joseph McLoone, the pastor of St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Chester, Delaware County....
The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office on Feb. 10 released a scathing grand-jury report accusing Lynn of endangering children by shielding pedophile priests from detection and shuffling them into unsuspecting parishes. Prosecutors charged Lynn, 60, with two counts of child endangerment.
The grand jury, in its blistering report, also accused two priests, one former priest and a lay teacher of rape and related charges in connection with sexual offenses on two boys between 1996 and 2000. Charles Engelhardt, 64, and Edward Avery, 68, both priests; former priest James Brennan, 47; teacher Bernard Shero, 48; and Lynn were arrested the day the grand-jury report was released.
The arrests are believed to be the first time nationally that a high-ranking church official - Lynn - has been charged on allegations that he concealed priest sex-abuse.
The five accused men, who have posted bail, are scheduled for a preliminary hearing March 3 in Family Court. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/116568633.html
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Monsignor William Lynn - who was recently charged with child-endangerment offenses on allegations he covered up sexual abuse by other priests - was placed on administrative leave effective Friday.
Temporarily taking his place at St. Joseph Parish in Downingtown, Chester County, will be Monsignor Joseph McLoone, the pastor of St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Chester, Delaware County....
The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office on Feb. 10 released a scathing grand-jury report accusing Lynn of endangering children by shielding pedophile priests from detection and shuffling them into unsuspecting parishes. Prosecutors charged Lynn, 60, with two counts of child endangerment.
The grand jury, in its blistering report, also accused two priests, one former priest and a lay teacher of rape and related charges in connection with sexual offenses on two boys between 1996 and 2000. Charles Engelhardt, 64, and Edward Avery, 68, both priests; former priest James Brennan, 47; teacher Bernard Shero, 48; and Lynn were arrested the day the grand-jury report was released.
The arrests are believed to be the first time nationally that a high-ranking church official - Lynn - has been charged on allegations that he concealed priest sex-abuse.
The five accused men, who have posted bail, are scheduled for a preliminary hearing March 3 in Family Court. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/116568633.html
Sen. Scott Brown: Abuse shaped his life
Scott Brown: 'That Life Made Me the Man I Am Today' Feb 21, 2011 – Sen. Scott Brown gave the first copy of his memoir, "Against All Odds," to his mother, Judith, weeks before news broke that he was sexually abused as a child by a camp counselor, the Massachusetts Republican told AOL News.
It was also the first time his mother would learn about the physical attacks allegedly inflicted on him by her husbands -- childhood traumas he had never shared with anyone.
"I told her, 'I think you need to read this, Mom.' I gave a copy to my sister [Leeann], and she tried to get her to read it too,'' Brown said. "She didn't. She was dealing with some health issues, and I'm not sure she wanted to really know what was in it. It's a difficult process now, but I don't regret writing the book."
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts says he has no regrets about revealing that he was sexually abused by a camp counselor as a child.Brown said his mother still hasn't read the book, but they've spoken and she told him she's proud of him....
The sexual abuse Brown describes allegedly happened the summer after he finished the fourth grade, when the 10-year-old was sent to a Christian camp on Cape Cod. While he will not name his alleged abuser and said he will not seek prosecution against the man, Brown can recall everything about the assault.
"I can remember how he looked, every inch of him: his long, sandy, light brown hair; his long, full mustache; the beads he wore; the tie-dyed T-shirts and the cutoff jeans, which gave him the look of a hippie,'' Brown wrote. "I was standing there with my pants down, and he came right up next to me and asked me if I needed help, and then he reached out his hand."
What happened next was an account of a brutal fondling that ended only when Brown screamed. He didn't tell a soul because his abuser said, "If you tell anybody, I will kill you."
It was a threat Brown took seriously, citing the incident as one of the reasons he was such a strong proponent of victims' rights in the Massachusetts State House.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/21/sen-scott-brown-no-regrets-about-revealing-sexual-abuse/
Sen. Scott Brown: Abuse shaped his life
By Susan Page, USA TODAY 2/21/11
WASHINGTON — When Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown agreed to write a book about last year's upset victory to claim the Senate seat of liberal icon Edward Kennedy, he didn't plan to reveal the story of a childhood of abuse that he had long kept secret from nearly everyone. In the end, he found he couldn't keep it hidden. Struggling with poverty and hunger, shoplifting to feed his younger sister and himself, enduring beatings by two stepfathers and fighting back against two separate sexual predators are all part of what he calls the "spider web" of his life, each thread building on the last....
But neither his wife, Gail, nor his parents knew that a counselor at a summer camp had accosted and fondled him at age 10. When Brown was 71/2, a teenage boy had taken him into a woods, pulled a knife and ordered him to perform a sex act. Brown managed to grab a rock, smash it into his tormentor's face and run free.
At age 6, he was beaten by one stepfather. Much worse were the beatings that came later from another stepfather, who repeatedly threatened to break his hands, an injury that would imperil the basketball career that offered him a way to attend college and, in his word, to "escape."
He credits teachers, coaches and a juvenile court judge who took an interest in him for giving him encouragement and resilience.
Brown expresses no regrets and shows no bitterness toward his mother, who drank too much, and his father, who in many ways was absent from the family by the time he was a toddler. He now has built positive relationships with both, calling their family ties "a work in progress."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-02-21-RW_scottbrown21_ST_N.htm
It was also the first time his mother would learn about the physical attacks allegedly inflicted on him by her husbands -- childhood traumas he had never shared with anyone.
"I told her, 'I think you need to read this, Mom.' I gave a copy to my sister [Leeann], and she tried to get her to read it too,'' Brown said. "She didn't. She was dealing with some health issues, and I'm not sure she wanted to really know what was in it. It's a difficult process now, but I don't regret writing the book."
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts says he has no regrets about revealing that he was sexually abused by a camp counselor as a child.Brown said his mother still hasn't read the book, but they've spoken and she told him she's proud of him....
The sexual abuse Brown describes allegedly happened the summer after he finished the fourth grade, when the 10-year-old was sent to a Christian camp on Cape Cod. While he will not name his alleged abuser and said he will not seek prosecution against the man, Brown can recall everything about the assault.
"I can remember how he looked, every inch of him: his long, sandy, light brown hair; his long, full mustache; the beads he wore; the tie-dyed T-shirts and the cutoff jeans, which gave him the look of a hippie,'' Brown wrote. "I was standing there with my pants down, and he came right up next to me and asked me if I needed help, and then he reached out his hand."
What happened next was an account of a brutal fondling that ended only when Brown screamed. He didn't tell a soul because his abuser said, "If you tell anybody, I will kill you."
It was a threat Brown took seriously, citing the incident as one of the reasons he was such a strong proponent of victims' rights in the Massachusetts State House.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/21/sen-scott-brown-no-regrets-about-revealing-sexual-abuse/
Sen. Scott Brown: Abuse shaped his life
By Susan Page, USA TODAY 2/21/11
WASHINGTON — When Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown agreed to write a book about last year's upset victory to claim the Senate seat of liberal icon Edward Kennedy, he didn't plan to reveal the story of a childhood of abuse that he had long kept secret from nearly everyone. In the end, he found he couldn't keep it hidden. Struggling with poverty and hunger, shoplifting to feed his younger sister and himself, enduring beatings by two stepfathers and fighting back against two separate sexual predators are all part of what he calls the "spider web" of his life, each thread building on the last....
But neither his wife, Gail, nor his parents knew that a counselor at a summer camp had accosted and fondled him at age 10. When Brown was 71/2, a teenage boy had taken him into a woods, pulled a knife and ordered him to perform a sex act. Brown managed to grab a rock, smash it into his tormentor's face and run free.
At age 6, he was beaten by one stepfather. Much worse were the beatings that came later from another stepfather, who repeatedly threatened to break his hands, an injury that would imperil the basketball career that offered him a way to attend college and, in his word, to "escape."
He credits teachers, coaches and a juvenile court judge who took an interest in him for giving him encouragement and resilience.
Brown expresses no regrets and shows no bitterness toward his mother, who drank too much, and his father, who in many ways was absent from the family by the time he was a toddler. He now has built positive relationships with both, calling their family ties "a work in progress."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-02-21-RW_scottbrown21_ST_N.htm
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Settlement reached in priest abuse case - Chicago Jesuit priest John Powell
Settlement reached in priest abuse case
Monday, November 21, 2005
By Theresa Gutierrez
November 17, 2005 (WLS) -- A settlement has been reached in connection with a Roman Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse. At least six adults claimed father John Powell abused them in the late 60's and 70's. No criminal charges were filed against Powell but the priest has admitted to the abuse.
Two of the former Chicago Jesuit priest John Powell's victims spoke out Thursday. Patrice Regnier says Father Powell -- a former Loyola University professor -- started abusing her when she was 12 years old. She just received a settlement.
"The idea people found from me speaking the truth that they could come out themselves and speak the truth is a good thing," said Patrice Regnier, victim of sexual abuse.
Diane Ruhl says she was abused at 17 years old by Father Powell on the Loyola campus when she was a student. She confronted him 30 years later by writing him. He responded and admitted to the abuse in his letters.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=3643364
Monday, November 21, 2005
By Theresa Gutierrez
November 17, 2005 (WLS) -- A settlement has been reached in connection with a Roman Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse. At least six adults claimed father John Powell abused them in the late 60's and 70's. No criminal charges were filed against Powell but the priest has admitted to the abuse.
Two of the former Chicago Jesuit priest John Powell's victims spoke out Thursday. Patrice Regnier says Father Powell -- a former Loyola University professor -- started abusing her when she was 12 years old. She just received a settlement.
"The idea people found from me speaking the truth that they could come out themselves and speak the truth is a good thing," said Patrice Regnier, victim of sexual abuse.
Diane Ruhl says she was abused at 17 years old by Father Powell on the Loyola campus when she was a student. She confronted him 30 years later by writing him. He responded and admitted to the abuse in his letters.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=3643364
Saturday, February 19, 2011
New Ritual Abuse Survivor book
Ritual Abuse and Other Acts of Love by Elspeth Liberty.
Ritual Abuse and Other Acts of Love is my autobiography. It is the story of the power of the human spirit. It is my journey to the depths of hell and back, returning triumphant. I tell of my journey through drug and alcohol addiction, psychiatric hospital and jail. Then, how in my thirties, the life-changing memories of having been ritually abused as a child broke into my life turning my world upside down but also making sense of so much that had gone before.
Ritual Abuse and Other Acts of Love is also the story of my quest for a spirituality that makes sense to me, has integrity and brings new life. Ritual Abuse breeds in darkness and secrecy, it seeks to destroy hope, love, joy and faith. People trapped in it believe there is no way out. My life proves this is not true. ISBN: 978-0-646-55065-7
http://elspethliberty.com/index.php
Ritual Abuse and Other Acts of Love is my autobiography. It is the story of the power of the human spirit. It is my journey to the depths of hell and back, returning triumphant. I tell of my journey through drug and alcohol addiction, psychiatric hospital and jail. Then, how in my thirties, the life-changing memories of having been ritually abused as a child broke into my life turning my world upside down but also making sense of so much that had gone before.
Ritual Abuse and Other Acts of Love is also the story of my quest for a spirituality that makes sense to me, has integrity and brings new life. Ritual Abuse breeds in darkness and secrecy, it seeks to destroy hope, love, joy and faith. People trapped in it believe there is no way out. My life proves this is not true. ISBN: 978-0-646-55065-7
http://elspethliberty.com/index.php
Friday, February 18, 2011
Lawsuit Says Military Is Rife With Sexual Abuse, suggestibility research
Lawsuit Says Military Is Rife With Sexual Abuse
By ASHLEY PARKER February 15, 2011
WASHINGTON — A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses the Department of Defense of allowing a military culture that fails to prevent rape and sexual assault, and of mishandling cases that were brought to its attention, thus violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
The suit — brought by 2 men and 15 women, both veterans and active-duty service members — specifically claims that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, “ran institutions in which perpetrators were promoted and where military personnel openly mocked and flouted the modest Congressionally mandated institutional reforms.”
It also says the two defense secretaries failed “to take reasonable steps to prevent plaintiffs from being repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by federal military personnel.”
Myla Haider, a former Army sergeant and a plaintiff in the suit, said she was raped in 2002 while interning in Korea with the military’s Criminal Investigative Command. “It is an atmosphere of zero accountability in leadership, period,” she said an interview.
Ms. Haider, who appeared with other plaintiffs at a news conference earlier Tuesday at the National Press Club, said: “The policies that are put in place are extremely ineffectual. There was severe maltreatment in these cases, and there was no accountability whatsoever. And soldiers in general who make any type of complaint in the military are subject to retaliation and have no means of defending themselves.”....
Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that “sexual assault is a wider societal problem” and that Mr. Gates was working to ensure that the military was “doing all it can to prevent and respond to it.”....
Though the suit, which was filed in Federal District Court in Virginia, seeks monetary damages, those involved with the case said their goal was an overhaul of the military’s judicial system regarding rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/us/16military.html
APPLYING SUGGESTIBILITY RESEARCH TO THE REAL WORLD: THE CASE OF REPEATED QUESTIONS
THOMAS D. LYON Cited: 65 Law & Contemp. Probs. 97 (Winter 2002)
....With respect to the psychology of child witnesses, this article will consider the application of the research literature on repeated questions to sexual abuse cases. It will review the entire corpus of research on repeated questions and apply that research to State v. Larson.
The article will argue that the risks of question repetition have been exaggerated. The leading research on repeated questions does not support a claim that repetition increases error. Whether repetition leads to inconsistency depends on the types of questions asked, the age of the child, and the child's memory of the event. Most important, researchers ignore the potential effects of repetition on false denials, emphasizing instead the risk that repetition will lead to false allegations....
The distinction between repeating questions within interviews rather than across interviews is important.71 Repeated questions within interviews may lead to error because of the child's perception that a different response is expected. Repeating questions across interviews may also lead to increased error, but for different reasons: Children forget over time, so that later interviews are more error-filled, and children may confuse what actually occurred with their responses in earlier interviews.
On the other hand, repeating questions across interviews may decrease error. Repetition is a form of rehearsal, which strengthens memory, and children may recall new details during subsequent interviews (something memory researchers call "reminiscence").72 Therefore, errors across interviews do not tell us whether children will err within an interview....
The two Poole and White studies provide little evidence that non-abused children are likely to fabricate abuse allegations in response to repeated yes/no [*pg 111] questions. Although the youngest children in the first study were more likely than older subjects to change their answers when questions were repeated, the follow-up study found no distinction among age groups. Even in the first study, the youngest subjects were no more likely than adults to claim after repeated questions that something anti-social had occurred.
Rather, the studies suggest that children, like adults, are reluctant to accuse others of wrongdoing, at least when the interaction is ambiguous or difficult to recall. These findings do not argue against the reliability of an abuse allegation in response to a repeated question....
Children with stronger memories are less susceptible to repeated questions. Several of the studies discussed in the previous section found that children who recalled more were less likely to change their answers to repeated questions.141 Christine Ricci and Carol Beal repeated wh- questions (general, specific, and suppositional) and found that "none of the children who were initially accurate later answered inaccurately when the question was repeated a second time."142 The effects of certainty were anticipated by the Piagetian research on children's understanding of number: Gelman and her colleagues found that if children counted an array of objects three times rather than once (thus increasing their confidence in their answer), they were less swayed by a suggestive request to count again....
Evidence that repetition increases error is remarkably hard to find. As noted above, repeated open-ended questions do not decrease accuracy....Children are reluctant to disclose abuse....The evidence that repetition undermines accuracy is weaker than it first appears, and the ways that repetition may increase accuracy have been ignored.
http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?65+Law+&+Contemp.+Probs.+97+%28Winter+2002%29
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Scott Brown Tells '60 Minutes' He Was Molested as a Child
"Looking back, he explains, "It was certainly, back then, very traumatic."
Scott Brown Tells '60 Minutes' He Was Molested as Child Feb 16, 2011 Steven Hoffer Contributor
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has decided the time is right to publicly reveal a secret he has kept inside for many years.
In an interview scheduled to air on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday, the Republican congressman reflects openly for the first time on his childhood hardships, including episodes of abuse from his stepfather and being sexually assaulted by a camp counselor when he was 10 years old....
Brown also mentioned that he has never discussed the incident. "When people find people like me at that young vulnerable age, who are basically lost, the thing that they have over you is, they make you believe that no one will believe you," he said.
"My mom will read about it for the first time. I haven't told anybody." http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/16/scott-brown-tells-60-minutes-he-was-molested-as-child-video
Scott Brown Recalls Childhood Sexual Abuse In 60 Minutes Interview (VIDEO) 02/16/11 Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) reveals that he was sexually abused as a child multiple times in an interview scheduled to air on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday evening....
Looking back, he explains, "It was certainly, back then, very traumatic."
"As predators do... He said 'If you tell anybody...I'll kill you. I will make sure that nobody believes you," recalls Brown of being threatened by the counselor. The interview with Brown comes just before the release of memoir Against All Odds. The Senator details the traumatic experiences he endured in the book. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/scott-brown-sexual-abuse_n_824159.html
Sen. Scott Brown Recalls Childhood Abuse
February 16, 2011
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown tells Lesley Stahl he was the victim of physical, psychological and sexual abuse when he was a child. Stahl profiles the senator Sunday, Feb. 20, 7 p.m. ET/PT. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7355810n
Scott Brown Tells '60 Minutes' He Was Molested as Child Feb 16, 2011 Steven Hoffer Contributor
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has decided the time is right to publicly reveal a secret he has kept inside for many years.
In an interview scheduled to air on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday, the Republican congressman reflects openly for the first time on his childhood hardships, including episodes of abuse from his stepfather and being sexually assaulted by a camp counselor when he was 10 years old....
Brown also mentioned that he has never discussed the incident. "When people find people like me at that young vulnerable age, who are basically lost, the thing that they have over you is, they make you believe that no one will believe you," he said.
"My mom will read about it for the first time. I haven't told anybody." http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/16/scott-brown-tells-60-minutes-he-was-molested-as-child-video
Scott Brown Recalls Childhood Sexual Abuse In 60 Minutes Interview (VIDEO) 02/16/11 Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) reveals that he was sexually abused as a child multiple times in an interview scheduled to air on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday evening....
Looking back, he explains, "It was certainly, back then, very traumatic."
"As predators do... He said 'If you tell anybody...I'll kill you. I will make sure that nobody believes you," recalls Brown of being threatened by the counselor. The interview with Brown comes just before the release of memoir Against All Odds. The Senator details the traumatic experiences he endured in the book. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/scott-brown-sexual-abuse_n_824159.html
Sen. Scott Brown Recalls Childhood Abuse
February 16, 2011
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown tells Lesley Stahl he was the victim of physical, psychological and sexual abuse when he was a child. Stahl profiles the senator Sunday, Feb. 20, 7 p.m. ET/PT. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7355810n
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on Clergy Sexual Abuse
"By the Archdiocese’s own account, at least 37 priests remain in ministry despite reports that they have engaged in improper behavior with minors."
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS - FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA - CRIMINAL TRIAL DIVISION - IN RE: : MISC. NO. 0009901-2008 COUNTY INVESTIGATING : GRAND JURY XXIII : C-14
REPORT OF THE GRAND JURY - R. SETH WILLIAMS District Attorney of Philadelphia
REPORT TO THE HONORABLE RENÉE CALDWELL HUGHES, SUPERVISING JUDGE:
We, the Twenty-Third County Investigating Jury, were impaneled pursuant to the Investigating Grand Jury Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 4541, et seq., and were charged to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by Archdiocesan clergy and employees. Having obtained knowledge of such matters from physical evidence presented and witnesses sworn by the Court and testifying before us, upon our respective oaths, not fewer than twelve of us concurring, we hereby submit this report to the Court.
Overview
In September 2003, a grand jury of local citizens released a report detailing a sad history of sexual abuse by priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
That abuse was known, tolerated, and hidden by high church officials, up to and including the Cardinal himself. The previous grand jury was frustrated that it could not charge either the abusers or their protectors in the church, because the successful cover-up of the abuse resulted in the expiration of the statute of limitations. Now, measures taken in response to the previous report have led to new information about more recent abuse, which this grand jury was empaneled to investigate. The fact that we received that information, and from the church itself, is some sign of progress; and this time there will be charges. The present grand jury, however, is frustrated to report that much has not changed.
The rapist priests we accuse were well known to the Secretary of Clergy, but he cloaked their conduct and put them in place to do it again. The procedures implemented by the Archdiocese to help victims are in fact designed to help the abusers, and the Archdiocese itself.
Worst of all, apparent abusers – dozens of them, we believe – remain on duty in the Archdiocese, today, with open access to new young prey....
We implore Cardinal Rigali and his staff to review all of the old allegations against currently active priests, and to remove from ministry all of the priests with credible allegations against them. By the Archdiocese’s own account, at least 37 priests remain in ministry despite reports that they have engaged in improper behavior with minors. That should not be acceptable to anyone.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2011_01_21_Philadelphia_Grand_Jury_Final_Report_Clergy_Abuse_2.pdf
IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS - FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA - CRIMINAL TRIAL DIVISION - IN RE: : MISC. NO. 0009901-2008 COUNTY INVESTIGATING : GRAND JURY XXIII : C-14
REPORT OF THE GRAND JURY - R. SETH WILLIAMS District Attorney of Philadelphia
REPORT TO THE HONORABLE RENÉE CALDWELL HUGHES, SUPERVISING JUDGE:
We, the Twenty-Third County Investigating Jury, were impaneled pursuant to the Investigating Grand Jury Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 4541, et seq., and were charged to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by Archdiocesan clergy and employees. Having obtained knowledge of such matters from physical evidence presented and witnesses sworn by the Court and testifying before us, upon our respective oaths, not fewer than twelve of us concurring, we hereby submit this report to the Court.
Overview
In September 2003, a grand jury of local citizens released a report detailing a sad history of sexual abuse by priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
That abuse was known, tolerated, and hidden by high church officials, up to and including the Cardinal himself. The previous grand jury was frustrated that it could not charge either the abusers or their protectors in the church, because the successful cover-up of the abuse resulted in the expiration of the statute of limitations. Now, measures taken in response to the previous report have led to new information about more recent abuse, which this grand jury was empaneled to investigate. The fact that we received that information, and from the church itself, is some sign of progress; and this time there will be charges. The present grand jury, however, is frustrated to report that much has not changed.
The rapist priests we accuse were well known to the Secretary of Clergy, but he cloaked their conduct and put them in place to do it again. The procedures implemented by the Archdiocese to help victims are in fact designed to help the abusers, and the Archdiocese itself.
Worst of all, apparent abusers – dozens of them, we believe – remain on duty in the Archdiocese, today, with open access to new young prey....
We implore Cardinal Rigali and his staff to review all of the old allegations against currently active priests, and to remove from ministry all of the priests with credible allegations against them. By the Archdiocese’s own account, at least 37 priests remain in ministry despite reports that they have engaged in improper behavior with minors. That should not be acceptable to anyone.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2011_01_21_Philadelphia_Grand_Jury_Final_Report_Clergy_Abuse_2.pdf
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study : The Origins of Addiction
Video Series on: The ACE Study
ACE Study - Vincent Felitti, MD "We saw that things like intractable smoking, things like promiscuity, use of street drugs, heavy alcohol consumption, etc., these were fairly common in the backgrounds of many of the patients...These were merely techniques they were using, these were merely coping mechanisms that had gone into place."– Vincent Felitti, MD
When Dr. Vincent Felitti, head of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, began to delve into the reasons for the high dropout rate of patients who'd been successfully losing weight in Kaiser’s obesity program, he found to his surprise that a high proportion of those dropping out had histories of childhood abuse or neglect. Dr. Robert Anda, who had been doing research with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the psychosocial origins of health-risk behaviors in patients at VA hospitals, heard Felitti speak about his findings, and in 1992 the two began to collaborate on the largest-scale study to date of the incidence and effects of childhood trauma, known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.
According to data collected from the over 17,000 Kaiser patients in this ongoing retrospective and prospective study, adverse childhood experiences, though well concealed, are unexpectedly common, have a profound negative effect on adult health and well-being a half century later, and are a prime determinant of adult health status in the United States.
http://www.cavalcadeproductions.com/ace-study.html
The Origins of Addiction: Evidence from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study Vincent J. Felitti, MD - Department of Preventive Medicine - Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program
ABSTRACT:
A population-based analysis of over 17,000 middle-class American adults undergoing comprehensive, biopsychosocial medical evaluation indicates that three common categories of addiction are strongly related in a proportionate manner to several specific categories of adverse experiences during childhood. This, coupled with related information, suggests that the basic cause of addiction is predominantly experience-dependent during childhood and not substance-dependent. This challenge to the usual concept of the cause of addictions has significant implications for medical practice and for treatment programs....
Our overall findings, presented extensively in the American literature, demonstrate that:
• Adverse childhood experiences are surprisingly common, although typically concealed and unrecognized.
• ACEs still have a profound effect 50 years later, although now transformed from psychosocial experience into organic disease, social malfunction, and mental illness.
• Adverse childhood experiences are the main determinant of the health and social well-being of the nation....
Conclusion:
The current concept of addiction is ill founded. Our study of the relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult health status in over 17,000 persons shows addiction to be a readily understandable although largely unconscious attempt to gain relief from well-concealed prior life traumas by using psychoactive materials
http://www.acestudy.org/files/OriginsofAddiction.pdf
The Relation Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Health: Turning Gold into Lead By Vincent J Felitti, MD
The ACE Study reveals a powerful relation between our emotional experiences as children and our adult emotional health, physical health, and major causes of mortality in the United States. Moreover, the time factors in the study make it clear that time does not heal some of the adverse experiences we found so common in the childhoods of a large population of middle-aged, middle-class Americans. One doesn't "just get over" some things.
http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/winter02/goldtolead.html
ACE Study - Vincent Felitti, MD "We saw that things like intractable smoking, things like promiscuity, use of street drugs, heavy alcohol consumption, etc., these were fairly common in the backgrounds of many of the patients...These were merely techniques they were using, these were merely coping mechanisms that had gone into place."– Vincent Felitti, MD
When Dr. Vincent Felitti, head of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, began to delve into the reasons for the high dropout rate of patients who'd been successfully losing weight in Kaiser’s obesity program, he found to his surprise that a high proportion of those dropping out had histories of childhood abuse or neglect. Dr. Robert Anda, who had been doing research with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the psychosocial origins of health-risk behaviors in patients at VA hospitals, heard Felitti speak about his findings, and in 1992 the two began to collaborate on the largest-scale study to date of the incidence and effects of childhood trauma, known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.
According to data collected from the over 17,000 Kaiser patients in this ongoing retrospective and prospective study, adverse childhood experiences, though well concealed, are unexpectedly common, have a profound negative effect on adult health and well-being a half century later, and are a prime determinant of adult health status in the United States.
http://www.cavalcadeproductions.com/ace-study.html
The Origins of Addiction: Evidence from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study Vincent J. Felitti, MD - Department of Preventive Medicine - Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program
ABSTRACT:
A population-based analysis of over 17,000 middle-class American adults undergoing comprehensive, biopsychosocial medical evaluation indicates that three common categories of addiction are strongly related in a proportionate manner to several specific categories of adverse experiences during childhood. This, coupled with related information, suggests that the basic cause of addiction is predominantly experience-dependent during childhood and not substance-dependent. This challenge to the usual concept of the cause of addictions has significant implications for medical practice and for treatment programs....
Our overall findings, presented extensively in the American literature, demonstrate that:
• Adverse childhood experiences are surprisingly common, although typically concealed and unrecognized.
• ACEs still have a profound effect 50 years later, although now transformed from psychosocial experience into organic disease, social malfunction, and mental illness.
• Adverse childhood experiences are the main determinant of the health and social well-being of the nation....
Conclusion:
The current concept of addiction is ill founded. Our study of the relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult health status in over 17,000 persons shows addiction to be a readily understandable although largely unconscious attempt to gain relief from well-concealed prior life traumas by using psychoactive materials
http://www.acestudy.org/files/OriginsofAddiction.pdf
The Relation Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Health: Turning Gold into Lead By Vincent J Felitti, MD
The ACE Study reveals a powerful relation between our emotional experiences as children and our adult emotional health, physical health, and major causes of mortality in the United States. Moreover, the time factors in the study make it clear that time does not heal some of the adverse experiences we found so common in the childhoods of a large population of middle-aged, middle-class Americans. One doesn't "just get over" some things.
http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/winter02/goldtolead.html
ritual abuse and child abuse newsletter
The latest issue of the SMART newsletter is at: http://ritualabuse.us/2011/02/issue-97-march-2011/
This issue contains information on the Pope and the Vatican, the Vatican and the Holocaust, The Vatican in Wikileaks cables, clergy abuse in the world, the Knights of Columbus, pedophile and porn rings, Jeffs' bigamy case, Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Author of 'Pedophile's Guide', Salvation Army, CIA experiments, Operation Paperclip, Operation Artichoke, CIA's MK/NAOMI Project, CIA Hypnosis Projects, Guatemala STD Study, the Bush Six, ritual abuse and mind control, DID movie (When the Devil Knocks), child abuse effects and cases, "Frankie and Alice" Halle Berry DID movie, human trafficking and the Ramona case.
This issue contains information on the Pope and the Vatican, the Vatican and the Holocaust, The Vatican in Wikileaks cables, clergy abuse in the world, the Knights of Columbus, pedophile and porn rings, Jeffs' bigamy case, Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Author of 'Pedophile's Guide', Salvation Army, CIA experiments, Operation Paperclip, Operation Artichoke, CIA's MK/NAOMI Project, CIA Hypnosis Projects, Guatemala STD Study, the Bush Six, ritual abuse and mind control, DID movie (When the Devil Knocks), child abuse effects and cases, "Frankie and Alice" Halle Berry DID movie, human trafficking and the Ramona case.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Philadelphia Priests Accused by Grand Jury of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up
Philadelphia Priests Accused by Grand Jury of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up By JON HURDLE February 10, 2011 PHILADELPHIA
A grand jury on Thursday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children more than five years after a grand jury report documented abuse by more than 50 priests. The new report said a senior church official charged with investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests had in fact allowed some of those accused to remain in posts that gave them continued access to children. It charged him with endangering the welfare of minors and accused three priests and a teacher of raping two boys between 1996 and 1999.
“By no means do we believe that these were the only two parishioners who were abused during this period,” the report said.
At least 37 priests who are subject to “substantial evidence of abuse” are still in roles that bring them into contact with children, the new report said, and 10 of those have been in place since before 2005, when the last grand jury made its allegations....
The report also charged Msgr. William Lynn, secretary of clergy in the archdiocese under former Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, with endangering the welfare of children by allowing “dangerous” priests to remain in place. Monsignor Lynn was responsible for investigating abuse allegations from 1992 to 2004.
“The rapist priests we accuse were well known to the Secretary of Clergy, but he cloaked their conduct and put them in place to do it again,” the grand jury said....
In a statement issued late on Thursday, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia, rejected the report’s assertion that there were active priests who had been credibly accused of abuse....
The report accused the archdiocese of lacking urgency in its efforts to eradicate sexual abuse by its priests....
“These are simply not the actions of an institution that is serious about ending sexual abuse of children,” the report said.
The 124-page report, which contains graphic descriptions of abuse of the 9- and 10-year-old boys, said the grand jury decided “reluctantly” not to press charges against Cardinal Bevilacqua, who stepped down in 2003 after 15 years as archbishop, even though he worked closely with Monsignor Lynn, because it did not have enough evidence.
In 2005, a grand jury report accused the church of an “immoral cover-up” that had exposed hundreds of children to sexual assault. That report recommended no criminal charges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11priest.html
A grand jury on Thursday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children more than five years after a grand jury report documented abuse by more than 50 priests. The new report said a senior church official charged with investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests had in fact allowed some of those accused to remain in posts that gave them continued access to children. It charged him with endangering the welfare of minors and accused three priests and a teacher of raping two boys between 1996 and 1999.
“By no means do we believe that these were the only two parishioners who were abused during this period,” the report said.
At least 37 priests who are subject to “substantial evidence of abuse” are still in roles that bring them into contact with children, the new report said, and 10 of those have been in place since before 2005, when the last grand jury made its allegations....
The report also charged Msgr. William Lynn, secretary of clergy in the archdiocese under former Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, with endangering the welfare of children by allowing “dangerous” priests to remain in place. Monsignor Lynn was responsible for investigating abuse allegations from 1992 to 2004.
“The rapist priests we accuse were well known to the Secretary of Clergy, but he cloaked their conduct and put them in place to do it again,” the grand jury said....
In a statement issued late on Thursday, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia, rejected the report’s assertion that there were active priests who had been credibly accused of abuse....
The report accused the archdiocese of lacking urgency in its efforts to eradicate sexual abuse by its priests....
“These are simply not the actions of an institution that is serious about ending sexual abuse of children,” the report said.
The 124-page report, which contains graphic descriptions of abuse of the 9- and 10-year-old boys, said the grand jury decided “reluctantly” not to press charges against Cardinal Bevilacqua, who stepped down in 2003 after 15 years as archbishop, even though he worked closely with Monsignor Lynn, because it did not have enough evidence.
In 2005, a grand jury report accused the church of an “immoral cover-up” that had exposed hundreds of children to sexual assault. That report recommended no criminal charges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11priest.html
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinars, Abuse Rates Higher Among Deaf Children
Abuse Rates Higher Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children Compared With Hearing Youths, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2011)
A new study at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that the incidence of maltreatment, including neglect and physical and sexual abuse, is more than 25 percent higher among deaf and hard-of-hearing children than among hearing youths.
The research also shows a direct correlation between childhood maltreatment and higher rates of negative cognition, depression and post-traumatic stress in adulthood.
The study, which was presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, is one of the first to compare childhood maltreatment between deaf and hearing children....The group, which also included undergraduate psychology student Danielle Burnash and Gail Rothman-Marshall, associate professor of liberal studies at RIT's National Technical Institute for the Deaf, conducted a survey of 425 college students, 317 hearing and 108 deaf, asking them to describe any maltreatment they had experienced prior to the age of 16.
Seventy-seven percent of deaf and hard-of-hearing respondents indicated experiencing some form of child maltreatment, compared with 49 percent among hearing respondents. In addition, respondents with more severe hearing loss indicated an increased rate and severity of maltreatment. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118154733.htm
Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinars
Saturday, February 19
noon Pacific Time
Alison Miller, Ph.D.
"Safety for Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Survivors."
It is important for survivors to know whether or not they are presently safe from abusers. This Webinar will look at determining how safe you are, recognizing and understanding access programming (including reporting on disclosures), and maintaining or regaining physical safety. The BIG LIE that abusers know everything you do and say will be called into question.
Alison Miller is a psychologist licensed in British Columbia, Canada. She has been working with ritual abuse and mind control survivors since 1991. She is also an expert in parenting. She also presented a Webinar for Survivorship on July 24, 2010 on "Self-injury, Flashbacks, and Flooding as Programmed Responses, and How to Deal with Them."
COST
Last year, Webinars cost $20.00. Now we have changed to a sliding scale so that each person can pay what they are able to. The scale starts at $50.00 and, in $5.00 increments, goes down to $0.00 (full scholarship). There is no longer any need to request a full or partial scholarship -- you make the decision yourself. (Please factor in the cost of a telephone call to the East Coast.)
The PayPal button is under the description of the Webinar at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html
REGISTRATION
Registration closes Thursday evening January 17. If you wish to pay by PayPal, go to http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html Otherwise, send your check to:
SURVIVORSHIP
Family Justice Center
470 27th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
To reserve a space in the Webinar, e-mail Shamai at shamai@survivorship.org and give her this information:
1.Your name
2. The Webinar you wish to attend: "Safety for Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Survivors" on February 19 and/or one of the Webinars listed below
3. Amount and method of payment (check, PayPal, money order)
4. Your preferred e-mail address (so we can send you instructions)
5. The name you will be using for the Webinar. (This does not have to be your real name or your message board screen name.)
FUTURE WEBINARS
Saturday, April 9
Staci Sprout, LICSW, CSAT
"Authentic Sexuality after Extreme Sexual Abuse: Part II: Tools You Can Use."
This Webinar follows up what was begun in the December Webinar. (If you were not there I recommend reviewing it on the Survivorship Website). We will take the concepts of sexual addiction/anorexia in the context of surviving extreme trauma to the next practical level: how to assess your current sexual health today, how to organize daily nurturing tasks to improve sexual self-esteem, what is the role of making love with yourself/masturbation, and what are your visions for a healthy tomorrow?
We will discuss sexuality in both general and specific terms.
Staci Sprout works as an individual group psychotherapist at Sexual Recovery Services in Washington state. (See www.sexualrecoveryservices.com for more information.). She is a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist (CSAT). She is also a survivor of extreme trauma and will share "what's worked" along her personal journey of recovery as part of the presentation. Caution will be taken to promote safety by not using explicit language or stories, though content at times may be triggering for survivors.
Saturday, March 26
Trish Fotheringham
"Inner Structures - Settle In and Get Comfortable."
Trish was born into a female-only matriarchal healing cult and an ancient patriarchal family clan who were connected to a variety of organized crime groups, including a group of wealthy political elite and their child pornography rings and child sex slave trafficking network. She is a 50-year-old Canadian Survivor of extreme abuse and trauma that included MKUltra-style ritual abuse, torture, mind control, and experimentation.
Trish will share some of the ways she handled her many different implanted Inner structures and tell how she, as an adult, intentionally self-created more structures that served healing purposes. The Webinar will be designed for dialog and interaction rather than as a lecture
PAST WEBINARS
Survivorship members may listen to past Webinars in the members’ section. (For information on joining Survivorship, go to http://www.survivorship.org/about/membership.html
Complete details on all our Webinars are at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2011)
A new study at Rochester Institute of Technology indicates that the incidence of maltreatment, including neglect and physical and sexual abuse, is more than 25 percent higher among deaf and hard-of-hearing children than among hearing youths.
The research also shows a direct correlation between childhood maltreatment and higher rates of negative cognition, depression and post-traumatic stress in adulthood.
The study, which was presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, is one of the first to compare childhood maltreatment between deaf and hearing children....The group, which also included undergraduate psychology student Danielle Burnash and Gail Rothman-Marshall, associate professor of liberal studies at RIT's National Technical Institute for the Deaf, conducted a survey of 425 college students, 317 hearing and 108 deaf, asking them to describe any maltreatment they had experienced prior to the age of 16.
Seventy-seven percent of deaf and hard-of-hearing respondents indicated experiencing some form of child maltreatment, compared with 49 percent among hearing respondents. In addition, respondents with more severe hearing loss indicated an increased rate and severity of maltreatment. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118154733.htm
Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinars
Saturday, February 19
noon Pacific Time
Alison Miller, Ph.D.
"Safety for Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Survivors."
It is important for survivors to know whether or not they are presently safe from abusers. This Webinar will look at determining how safe you are, recognizing and understanding access programming (including reporting on disclosures), and maintaining or regaining physical safety. The BIG LIE that abusers know everything you do and say will be called into question.
Alison Miller is a psychologist licensed in British Columbia, Canada. She has been working with ritual abuse and mind control survivors since 1991. She is also an expert in parenting. She also presented a Webinar for Survivorship on July 24, 2010 on "Self-injury, Flashbacks, and Flooding as Programmed Responses, and How to Deal with Them."
COST
Last year, Webinars cost $20.00. Now we have changed to a sliding scale so that each person can pay what they are able to. The scale starts at $50.00 and, in $5.00 increments, goes down to $0.00 (full scholarship). There is no longer any need to request a full or partial scholarship -- you make the decision yourself. (Please factor in the cost of a telephone call to the East Coast.)
The PayPal button is under the description of the Webinar at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html
REGISTRATION
Registration closes Thursday evening January 17. If you wish to pay by PayPal, go to http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html Otherwise, send your check to:
SURVIVORSHIP
Family Justice Center
470 27th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
To reserve a space in the Webinar, e-mail Shamai at shamai@survivorship.org and give her this information:
1.Your name
2. The Webinar you wish to attend: "Safety for Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Survivors" on February 19 and/or one of the Webinars listed below
3. Amount and method of payment (check, PayPal, money order)
4. Your preferred e-mail address (so we can send you instructions)
5. The name you will be using for the Webinar. (This does not have to be your real name or your message board screen name.)
FUTURE WEBINARS
Saturday, April 9
Staci Sprout, LICSW, CSAT
"Authentic Sexuality after Extreme Sexual Abuse: Part II: Tools You Can Use."
This Webinar follows up what was begun in the December Webinar. (If you were not there I recommend reviewing it on the Survivorship Website). We will take the concepts of sexual addiction/anorexia in the context of surviving extreme trauma to the next practical level: how to assess your current sexual health today, how to organize daily nurturing tasks to improve sexual self-esteem, what is the role of making love with yourself/masturbation, and what are your visions for a healthy tomorrow?
We will discuss sexuality in both general and specific terms.
Staci Sprout works as an individual group psychotherapist at Sexual Recovery Services in Washington state. (See www.sexualrecoveryservices.com for more information.). She is a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist (CSAT). She is also a survivor of extreme trauma and will share "what's worked" along her personal journey of recovery as part of the presentation. Caution will be taken to promote safety by not using explicit language or stories, though content at times may be triggering for survivors.
Saturday, March 26
Trish Fotheringham
"Inner Structures - Settle In and Get Comfortable."
Trish was born into a female-only matriarchal healing cult and an ancient patriarchal family clan who were connected to a variety of organized crime groups, including a group of wealthy political elite and their child pornography rings and child sex slave trafficking network. She is a 50-year-old Canadian Survivor of extreme abuse and trauma that included MKUltra-style ritual abuse, torture, mind control, and experimentation.
Trish will share some of the ways she handled her many different implanted Inner structures and tell how she, as an adult, intentionally self-created more structures that served healing purposes. The Webinar will be designed for dialog and interaction rather than as a lecture
PAST WEBINARS
Survivorship members may listen to past Webinars in the members’ section. (For information on joining Survivorship, go to http://www.survivorship.org/about/membership.html
Complete details on all our Webinars are at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html
Monday, February 7, 2011
Ritual Abuse Book Articles
Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse
Cult and Ritual Abuse
Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century
Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse
copied with permission
Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse
Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse discusses the clinical issues around the treatment of survivors of ritual Satanist abuse. Authors from the United States and the United Kingdom look at the historical foundations of ritual abuse and clinical accounts from children and adults. The book has definitions of ritual Satanist abuse. It discusses issues in psychotherapy involving clients suffering from ritual abuse.[1]
Valerie Sinason is the director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, London and a psychoanalyst and consultant research psychotherapist at the Psychiatry of Disability Department at St George's Hospital Medical School, London.[2]
The book has been reviewed by the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis[3], the British Journal of Psychotherapy[4] and Survivors of Spiritual Abuse[5].
References
1. Sinason, V. Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse Routledge, New York 1994 ISBN 0-415-10543-9
2. Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder - Valerie Sinason (editor) (2002) Brunner-Routledge, Hove, East Sussex, UK ISBN: 041519556X
http://www.clinicfordissociativestudies.com/ATMworkingwithDID.htm
3. Johns, M. (1998) Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. Edited by Valerie Sinason.: London: Routledge 1994. Pp. 320 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis Volume 79 p. 1255-1258 http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=IJP.079.1255A
4. Black, D. M. (Autumn 1995). "Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse edited by Valerie Sinason". British Journal of Psychotherapy 12 (1): 119-131. "Most of the book is written by therapists who have lived through a very real trauma themselves: that of slowly coming to believe that the appalling stories they are hearing may be literally true. Some therapists have further paralleled their patients' experience by meeting disbelief or dismissiveness in their professional colleagues. Far from an overeagerness to accept these stories, virtually every contributor describes initial extreme reluctance to believe them, only gradually overborne by the weight of the evidence....we also meet the courage and devotion of many impressive therapists, who have persevered and very often won through, and we are also, very practically, given a great deal of helpful and directly useful information: what to do and who to turn to if we think we may be faced with these issues. This book is not fun, but it is admirable and necessary." http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119961579/abstract
5. Review of Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse edited by Valerie Sinason
http://web.archive.org/web/20060925195442/http://www.sosa.org/treating.html
External Links
* Valerie Sinason's web page for the Clinic for Dissociative Studies
http://www.clinicfordissociativestudies.com/valeriesinasondirector.htm
Cult and Ritual Abuse
Cult and ritual abuse discusses the idea that ritual abuse is an age-old phenomenon and it is found in many cultures throughout the world. It explores the many specific psychiatric symptoms caused by ritual abuse, including dissociative identity disorder. The book gives suggestions for effective ways to deal with the legal and social problems that can result from this severe form of abuse. A new diagnosis "Cult and ritual trauma disorder" is proposed in this edition. Cult and ritual abuse was first published in 1995 with a revised edition in 2000. [1]
The book was co-authored by James Randall Noblitt, a clinical psychologist and the executive director of a professional organization dedicated to treating survivors of cult and ritual abuse.[1] Noblitt is a professor and Director of the Psychology program at Alliant International University.
Contents
* 1 Comments and critiques
* 2 References
* 3 Articles and Books
* 4 External links
Comments and critiques
Kenneth E. Fletcher in a Psychiatric services review, discusses evidence of ritual abuse from the book and states that parts of the book are interesting and intriguing with uneven writing at times. Fletcher concludes that those interested in the topic of cult and ritual abuse will find it a worthwhile read.[2]
An article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy stated that "Whether or not one believes in MPD and/or Ritual Abuse, this book provides one with what is probably the most comprehensive and reasonable review of the subject that has appeared up to now." [3]
References
1.Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P. Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (2000) Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 269 ISBN 027596664X http://books.google.com/books?id=zJkTTpfyJ-8C
2. Fletcher, K., July 2001 Cult and ritual abuse: Its history, anthropology, and recent discovery in contemporary America, revised edition Psychiatric services Volume 52 p. 978-979 http://www.psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/52/7/978
3. Coomaraswamy, R. Summer 1996 Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America American Journal of Psychotherapy 50, 3 p. 383 http://www.ajp.org/
Articles and Books
* Noblitt, J.R. (1995). "Psychometric measures of trauma among psychiatric patients reporting ritual abuse". Psychological Reports 77(3):743-747. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8559911
* Noblitt, R.; Perskin, P. Ritual abuse in the Twenty First Century (2008) Reed Publishers, Bandon, OR p. 552 ISBN 1-934759-12-0 http://www.rdrpublishers.com/catalog/item/6339393/5820690.htm
External links
* An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/an-empirical-look-at-the-ritual-abuse-controversy-randy-noblitt-phd/
* Ritual Abuse articles
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/studies/satanic-ritual-abuse-evidence-with-information-on-the-mcmartin-preschool-case/
* Ritual Abuse Cases
http://www.ra-info.org/resources/ra_cases.shtml
* Extreme Abuse Survey
http://extreme-abuse-survey.net/
* http://www.ritualabusetorture.org/
* http://www.ra-info.org
* http://www.survivorship.org
* http://web.archive.org/web/20071218103952/http://www.aches-mc.org/
Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century
Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century contains articles from two dozen international authors who write about the psychological, forensic, social and political consequences and ramifications of ritual abuse in modern times.
The book explores cross-cultural reports of abusive ritual life-threatening ordeals. It includes information on diagnosis, controversy, cult brainwashing, satanic abuse, police and media handling, prayer, inner healing, patterns in mind control, and therapy. Its chapters discuss current issues including ritually based crime and civil suits involving allegations of ritual abuse. Ritual trauma for diagnostic and treatment applications are also discussed. [1]
References
1. Noblitt, R.; Perskin, P. Ritual abuse in the Twenty First Century (2008) Reed Publishers, Bandon, OR p. 552 ISBN 1-934759-12-0 http://www.rdrpublishers.com/catalog/item/6339393/5820690.htm
Books and Articles
* Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P. Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (2000) Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 269 ISBN 027596664X http://books.google.com/books?id=zJkTTpfyJ-8C
* Noblitt, J.R. (1995). "Psychometric measures of trauma among psychiatric patients reporting ritual abuse". Psychological Reports 77(3):743-747. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8559911
Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse
Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse: Recognizing and Recovering from the Hidden Trauma was written about satanic cult ritual abuse. It describes what it is, what its signs are, how survivors can recover from it, and work being done to fight this problem.[1] The book discusses mind control, torture and ritual abuse.[2]
Ryder was a Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor and Licensed Social Worker who had worked with ritual abuse victims for many years. He stated that he had been an abuse victim in childhood and wanted to bring the reality of this abuse before the public.[1]
The book was reviewed in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.[3] The reviewer wrote "the book is worth owning."
References
1. Ryder, CCDC, LSW, D. Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse: Recognizing and Recovering from the Hidden Trauma Compcare Pubs. Minneapolis 1992 p. 265 ISBN 0-89638-258-3
2. Excerpts from: Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse - Recognizing and Recovering From the Hidden Trauma
http://mcrais.googlepages.com/ryder.htm
3. Riley, E.A. (1992) Breaking the circle of satanic ritual abuse: Recognizing and recovering from the hidden trauma Journal of Traumatic Stress 6(3) "Those of us who work with satanic ritual abuse (SRA) are grateful for any treatment oriented materials on the subject. There is so little available and a majority of those most experienced fail to speak frankly and openly for a variety of reasons. In this instance, since the author (not his real name) is both a survivor and a mental health professional, the expectations of insightful revelations are perhaps greater than they should be. He interviews a number of clinicians and quotes them liberally as to their own experience with SRA survivors. As a result, embedded throughout, are little gems of clinical technique and activity....In summary, the book is worth owning..." http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112447634/abstract
External Links
Satanic Ritual Abuse: the Evidence Surfaces by Daniel Ryder, CCDC, LSW "my research shows it does exist. And indications are we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of a social phenomenon that, when totally exposed, will rock the core of societal beliefs."
http://web.archive.org/web/20080125051057/http://home.mchsi.com/~ftio/ra-evidence-surfaces.htm
has information on extreme abuse
Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder
The book Forensic aspects of dissociative identity disorder looks at the role of crime in the lives of people that suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is a collection of essays written by several international researchers. It explores the legal, moral, ethical and clinical questions that psychotherapists and other professionals face while working with those suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Authors that have contributed to the book come from the fields of psychotherapy, counseling, psychology, medicine, law, police, psychoanalysis and social work. Chapters include discussions on ritual abuse, dissociative identity disorder, mind control, extreme abuse, survivor accounts and criminal convictions.[1]
References
1. Sachs, A. ; Galton, G. (Eds). (2008) Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder Karnac Books. ISBN 10 : 1855755963 http://www.karnacbooks.com/product.php?PID=25876
Bibliography
* Baer, Richard A. (2007). Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities. [New York]: Crown. ISBN 0307382664.
* Braun, B.G. (1989). Dissociation: Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 066-069: Iatrophilia and Iatrophobia in the diagnosis and treatment of MPD (PDF). http://hdl.handle.net/1794/1425
* Brown, D; Frischholz E, Scheflin A. (1999). "Iatrogenic dissociative identity disorder - an evaluation of the scientific evidence". The Journal of Psychiatry and Law XXVII No. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1999): 549–637.
* Gleaves, D. (July 1996). The sociocognitive model of dissociative identity disorder: a reexamination of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin 120 (1): 42–59. DOI:10.1037/0033-2909.120.1.42. PMID 8711016. http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=1996-01403-003
* Goettmann, B. A.; Greaves, B. G.; Coons M. P. (1994).Multiple personality and dissociation, 1791-1992: a complete bibliography. Lutherville, MD: The Sidran Press, 85. ISBN 0-9629164-5-5.
http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/diss&CISOPTR=38
* Kluft, R.P. (1989). Iatrogenic creation of new alter personalities (PDF). Dissociation 2 (2): 83–91.
http://hdl.handle.net/1794/1428
* Underwood, Anne. Identity Crisis - What is it like to live with 17 alternate selves? A survivor of multiple personality disorder discusses the disease and the painful integration process that made her whole. Newsweek, October 22, 2007. http://www.newsweek.com/id/57861
* Rhoades, G. F.; Sar, V. (Eds) Trauma And Dissociation in a Cross-cultural Perspective: Not Just a North American Phenomenon Routledge (2006) ISBN-13: 978-0789034076
External links
* United States of Tara - Learn More About D.I.D. - Showtime supports the awareness for Dissociative Identity Disorder http://www.sho.com/site/video/brightcove/series/title.do?bcpid=1847322218&bclid=5253538001&bctid=6803420001
Cult and Ritual Abuse
Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century
Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse
copied with permission
Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse
Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse discusses the clinical issues around the treatment of survivors of ritual Satanist abuse. Authors from the United States and the United Kingdom look at the historical foundations of ritual abuse and clinical accounts from children and adults. The book has definitions of ritual Satanist abuse. It discusses issues in psychotherapy involving clients suffering from ritual abuse.[1]
Valerie Sinason is the director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, London and a psychoanalyst and consultant research psychotherapist at the Psychiatry of Disability Department at St George's Hospital Medical School, London.[2]
The book has been reviewed by the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis[3], the British Journal of Psychotherapy[4] and Survivors of Spiritual Abuse[5].
References
1. Sinason, V. Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse Routledge, New York 1994 ISBN 0-415-10543-9
2. Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder - Valerie Sinason (editor) (2002) Brunner-Routledge, Hove, East Sussex, UK ISBN: 041519556X
http://www.clinicfordissociativestudies.com/ATMworkingwithDID.htm
3. Johns, M. (1998) Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. Edited by Valerie Sinason.: London: Routledge 1994. Pp. 320 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis Volume 79 p. 1255-1258 http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=IJP.079.1255A
4. Black, D. M. (Autumn 1995). "Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse edited by Valerie Sinason". British Journal of Psychotherapy 12 (1): 119-131. "Most of the book is written by therapists who have lived through a very real trauma themselves: that of slowly coming to believe that the appalling stories they are hearing may be literally true. Some therapists have further paralleled their patients' experience by meeting disbelief or dismissiveness in their professional colleagues. Far from an overeagerness to accept these stories, virtually every contributor describes initial extreme reluctance to believe them, only gradually overborne by the weight of the evidence....we also meet the courage and devotion of many impressive therapists, who have persevered and very often won through, and we are also, very practically, given a great deal of helpful and directly useful information: what to do and who to turn to if we think we may be faced with these issues. This book is not fun, but it is admirable and necessary." http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119961579/abstract
5. Review of Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse edited by Valerie Sinason
http://web.archive.org/web/20060925195442/http://www.sosa.org/treating.html
External Links
* Valerie Sinason's web page for the Clinic for Dissociative Studies
http://www.clinicfordissociativestudies.com/valeriesinasondirector.htm
Cult and Ritual Abuse
Cult and ritual abuse discusses the idea that ritual abuse is an age-old phenomenon and it is found in many cultures throughout the world. It explores the many specific psychiatric symptoms caused by ritual abuse, including dissociative identity disorder. The book gives suggestions for effective ways to deal with the legal and social problems that can result from this severe form of abuse. A new diagnosis "Cult and ritual trauma disorder" is proposed in this edition. Cult and ritual abuse was first published in 1995 with a revised edition in 2000. [1]
The book was co-authored by James Randall Noblitt, a clinical psychologist and the executive director of a professional organization dedicated to treating survivors of cult and ritual abuse.[1] Noblitt is a professor and Director of the Psychology program at Alliant International University.
Contents
* 1 Comments and critiques
* 2 References
* 3 Articles and Books
* 4 External links
Comments and critiques
Kenneth E. Fletcher in a Psychiatric services review, discusses evidence of ritual abuse from the book and states that parts of the book are interesting and intriguing with uneven writing at times. Fletcher concludes that those interested in the topic of cult and ritual abuse will find it a worthwhile read.[2]
An article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy stated that "Whether or not one believes in MPD and/or Ritual Abuse, this book provides one with what is probably the most comprehensive and reasonable review of the subject that has appeared up to now." [3]
References
1.Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P. Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (2000) Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 269 ISBN 027596664X http://books.google.com/books?id=zJkTTpfyJ-8C
2. Fletcher, K., July 2001 Cult and ritual abuse: Its history, anthropology, and recent discovery in contemporary America, revised edition Psychiatric services Volume 52 p. 978-979 http://www.psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/52/7/978
3. Coomaraswamy, R. Summer 1996 Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America American Journal of Psychotherapy 50, 3 p. 383 http://www.ajp.org/
Articles and Books
* Noblitt, J.R. (1995). "Psychometric measures of trauma among psychiatric patients reporting ritual abuse". Psychological Reports 77(3):743-747. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8559911
* Noblitt, R.; Perskin, P. Ritual abuse in the Twenty First Century (2008) Reed Publishers, Bandon, OR p. 552 ISBN 1-934759-12-0 http://www.rdrpublishers.com/catalog/item/6339393/5820690.htm
External links
* An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/an-empirical-look-at-the-ritual-abuse-controversy-randy-noblitt-phd/
* Ritual Abuse articles
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/studies/satanic-ritual-abuse-evidence-with-information-on-the-mcmartin-preschool-case/
* Ritual Abuse Cases
http://www.ra-info.org/resources/ra_cases.shtml
* Extreme Abuse Survey
http://extreme-abuse-survey.net/
* http://www.ritualabusetorture.org/
* http://www.ra-info.org
* http://www.survivorship.org
* http://web.archive.org/web/20071218103952/http://www.aches-mc.org/
Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century
Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century contains articles from two dozen international authors who write about the psychological, forensic, social and political consequences and ramifications of ritual abuse in modern times.
The book explores cross-cultural reports of abusive ritual life-threatening ordeals. It includes information on diagnosis, controversy, cult brainwashing, satanic abuse, police and media handling, prayer, inner healing, patterns in mind control, and therapy. Its chapters discuss current issues including ritually based crime and civil suits involving allegations of ritual abuse. Ritual trauma for diagnostic and treatment applications are also discussed. [1]
References
1. Noblitt, R.; Perskin, P. Ritual abuse in the Twenty First Century (2008) Reed Publishers, Bandon, OR p. 552 ISBN 1-934759-12-0 http://www.rdrpublishers.com/catalog/item/6339393/5820690.htm
Books and Articles
* Noblitt, J.R.; Perskin, P. Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (2000) Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 269 ISBN 027596664X http://books.google.com/books?id=zJkTTpfyJ-8C
* Noblitt, J.R. (1995). "Psychometric measures of trauma among psychiatric patients reporting ritual abuse". Psychological Reports 77(3):743-747. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8559911
Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse
Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse: Recognizing and Recovering from the Hidden Trauma was written about satanic cult ritual abuse. It describes what it is, what its signs are, how survivors can recover from it, and work being done to fight this problem.[1] The book discusses mind control, torture and ritual abuse.[2]
Ryder was a Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor and Licensed Social Worker who had worked with ritual abuse victims for many years. He stated that he had been an abuse victim in childhood and wanted to bring the reality of this abuse before the public.[1]
The book was reviewed in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.[3] The reviewer wrote "the book is worth owning."
References
1. Ryder, CCDC, LSW, D. Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse: Recognizing and Recovering from the Hidden Trauma Compcare Pubs. Minneapolis 1992 p. 265 ISBN 0-89638-258-3
2. Excerpts from: Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse - Recognizing and Recovering From the Hidden Trauma
http://mcrais.googlepages.com/ryder.htm
3. Riley, E.A. (1992) Breaking the circle of satanic ritual abuse: Recognizing and recovering from the hidden trauma Journal of Traumatic Stress 6(3) "Those of us who work with satanic ritual abuse (SRA) are grateful for any treatment oriented materials on the subject. There is so little available and a majority of those most experienced fail to speak frankly and openly for a variety of reasons. In this instance, since the author (not his real name) is both a survivor and a mental health professional, the expectations of insightful revelations are perhaps greater than they should be. He interviews a number of clinicians and quotes them liberally as to their own experience with SRA survivors. As a result, embedded throughout, are little gems of clinical technique and activity....In summary, the book is worth owning..." http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112447634/abstract
External Links
Satanic Ritual Abuse: the Evidence Surfaces by Daniel Ryder, CCDC, LSW "my research shows it does exist. And indications are we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of a social phenomenon that, when totally exposed, will rock the core of societal beliefs."
http://web.archive.org/web/20080125051057/http://home.mchsi.com/~ftio/ra-evidence-surfaces.htm
has information on extreme abuse
Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder
The book Forensic aspects of dissociative identity disorder looks at the role of crime in the lives of people that suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is a collection of essays written by several international researchers. It explores the legal, moral, ethical and clinical questions that psychotherapists and other professionals face while working with those suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Authors that have contributed to the book come from the fields of psychotherapy, counseling, psychology, medicine, law, police, psychoanalysis and social work. Chapters include discussions on ritual abuse, dissociative identity disorder, mind control, extreme abuse, survivor accounts and criminal convictions.[1]
References
1. Sachs, A. ; Galton, G. (Eds). (2008) Forensic Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder Karnac Books. ISBN 10 : 1855755963 http://www.karnacbooks.com/product.php?PID=25876
Bibliography
* Baer, Richard A. (2007). Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities. [New York]: Crown. ISBN 0307382664.
* Braun, B.G. (1989). Dissociation: Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 066-069: Iatrophilia and Iatrophobia in the diagnosis and treatment of MPD (PDF). http://hdl.handle.net/1794/1425
* Brown, D; Frischholz E, Scheflin A. (1999). "Iatrogenic dissociative identity disorder - an evaluation of the scientific evidence". The Journal of Psychiatry and Law XXVII No. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1999): 549–637.
* Gleaves, D. (July 1996). The sociocognitive model of dissociative identity disorder: a reexamination of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin 120 (1): 42–59. DOI:10.1037/0033-2909.120.1.42. PMID 8711016. http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=1996-01403-003
* Goettmann, B. A.; Greaves, B. G.; Coons M. P. (1994).Multiple personality and dissociation, 1791-1992: a complete bibliography. Lutherville, MD: The Sidran Press, 85. ISBN 0-9629164-5-5.
http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/diss&CISOPTR=38
* Kluft, R.P. (1989). Iatrogenic creation of new alter personalities (PDF). Dissociation 2 (2): 83–91.
http://hdl.handle.net/1794/1428
* Underwood, Anne. Identity Crisis - What is it like to live with 17 alternate selves? A survivor of multiple personality disorder discusses the disease and the painful integration process that made her whole. Newsweek, October 22, 2007. http://www.newsweek.com/id/57861
* Rhoades, G. F.; Sar, V. (Eds) Trauma And Dissociation in a Cross-cultural Perspective: Not Just a North American Phenomenon Routledge (2006) ISBN-13: 978-0789034076
External links
* United States of Tara - Learn More About D.I.D. - Showtime supports the awareness for Dissociative Identity Disorder http://www.sho.com/site/video/brightcove/series/title.do?bcpid=1847322218&bclid=5253538001&bctid=6803420001
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Memory disturbances and dissociative amnesia in Holocaust survivors
The following articles provide compelling scientific evidence in support of the phenomena of dissociation and recovered memory in Holocaust survivors. In addition to supporting the phenomenon in general, these articles also counter the argument that recovered memory is (a) no more than a recent cultural “fad” and (b) specific to false accusers of sexual abuse.
DeWind, E. (1968). The confrontation with death. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 49, 302-305.
Excerpt: “Most former inmates of Nazi concentration camps could not remember anything of the first days of imprisonment because perception of reality was so overwhelming that it would lead to a mental chaos which implies a certain death.”....
Yehuda, R., Schmeidler, J., Siever, L. J., Binder-Brynes, K., & Elkin, A. (1997). Individual differences in posttraumatic stress disorder symptom profiles in Holocaust survivors in concentration camps or in hiding. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 10, 453-465.
46% of 100 survivors report amnesia on PTSD measures.....
Jaffe, R. (1968). Dissociative phenomena in former concentration camp inmates. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 49(2), 310-312.
Case descriptions include amnesia for traumatic events and subsequent twilight states in which events would be relived without conscious awareness. Excerpt: “The dissociative phenomena described here turn out not to be rare, once one is on the look out for them.”
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/scholarly-resources/holocaust/
Friday, February 4, 2011
Featured Post: The Incredible Distortion of Johnson v. Rogers Memorial Hospital
Featured Post: The Incredible Distortion of Johnson v. Rogers Memorial Hospital
reprinted with permission
February 4, 2011
In an unusual and highly controversial lawsuit by Charles and Karen Johnson against the therapists who treated their adult daughter, a jury in Wisconsin recently awarded the parents $1 million. Their daughter Charlotte was not party to the suit, and her lawyer successfully moved to quash a subpoena that would have forced her to testify at trial.[1] Three therapists were named in the suit; the jury found one non-negligent, and they apportioned liability between the other two on a 70-30 percent basis. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation has cast the case as a victory against therapists who, according to Executive Director, Pamela Freyd, ”use a variety of dubious techniques, including hypnosis, to try to excavate supposedly repressed memories.”
But that is an incredible distortion of the case. The case did not involve hypnosis—even though the parents used the spectre of hypnosis as an argument to obtain access to their daughter’s confidential medical records. Indeed, the case did not involve any of the other “techniques” mentioned by Pamela Freyd. Hollida Wakefield, the primary expert for the Johnsons, admitted that the therapists “didn’t actively try to get her to recover memories,” that they did not use hypnosis, that there was no “digging for memories,” and that there was no evidence that the therapists planted any memories of abuse.[2] In short, there was no evidence that the memories in this case were caused or created by therapy.
Wakefield also blamed the book The Courage to Heal, listing it first on her list of “Sources of Suggestion that came into play with Charlotte.”[3] But, as Wakefield admitted under oath, there was no evidence that The Courage to Heal was actually part of Charlotte’s therapy or that anyone at Rogers Memorial ever suggested that she read it.[4] How did the book “come into play”? Charlotte owned it and recommended it, on her own, to her mother.
So, what was this case actually about? The plaintiffs claimed that the therapists should have “disabused” Charlotte of her of memories, even her most plausible memories of abuse. The plaintiffs also claimed that the therapists should have investigated Charlotte’s claims, even though she explicitly prohibited them from talking to her parents. That is leaving aside the fact that therapists cannot possibly be private investigators.
If this verdict stands, it is unclear how therapists can provide treatment to someone with memories of childhood sexual abuse without fear of an intrusive and inappropriate third-party lawsuit. That is why Mertz and Bowman argued, in an important 1996 Harvard Law Review article, that such lawsuits should not be allowed. It is also why Justice Ann Walsh Bradely, in a dissenting opinion at the Wisconsin Supreme Court, concluded that the Johnson case represents an unwarranted expansion to modalities of therapeutic treatment far beyond issues of recovered-memory therapy, and that it ”undermines the confidentiality that is essential to the patient-therapist relationship.”[5] The jury verdict in this case bears out those concerns in full.
The question that remains is, why is the False Memory Syndrome Foundation misrepresenting this case as being about “recovered-memory therapy,” when the facts of the case clearly demonstrate that it was not?
Footnotes
[1]. The Johnsons have tried to portray this lawsuit as an effort to, as their lawyer said in this article, let their daughter know that they love her and “want her to come home.” That explanation is inconsistent with their dogged effort to force her to testify against her will. Faced with medical assessments that forcing her to tesify at trial could cause their daughter to become suicidal, the Johnsons continued to press the issue. It took an order from the trial judge, who agreed that Charlotte’s health was at risk, to quash their subpoena. The jury was not informed of these facts.
[2]. Wakefield deposition (January 20-21, 2010), pp. 172-174, 217, and 233.
[3]. Exhibit 6, Wakefield deposition (January 20, 2010).
[4]. Asked what proof she had that The Courage to Heal was part of the therapy at Rogers Hospital, Wakefield testified: “I don’t know whether it was discussed or not.” In other words, even though she reviewed all of the therapy records, she had no actual evidence for this claim. (Wakefield deposition, p. 239.)
[5]. Johnson v. Rogers Memorial Hospital, 283 Wis. 2d 384 (2005) at 448.
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2011/02/04/featured-post-the-incredible-distortion-of-johnson-v-rogers-memorial-hospital/
reprinted with permission
February 4, 2011
In an unusual and highly controversial lawsuit by Charles and Karen Johnson against the therapists who treated their adult daughter, a jury in Wisconsin recently awarded the parents $1 million. Their daughter Charlotte was not party to the suit, and her lawyer successfully moved to quash a subpoena that would have forced her to testify at trial.[1] Three therapists were named in the suit; the jury found one non-negligent, and they apportioned liability between the other two on a 70-30 percent basis. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation has cast the case as a victory against therapists who, according to Executive Director, Pamela Freyd, ”use a variety of dubious techniques, including hypnosis, to try to excavate supposedly repressed memories.”
But that is an incredible distortion of the case. The case did not involve hypnosis—even though the parents used the spectre of hypnosis as an argument to obtain access to their daughter’s confidential medical records. Indeed, the case did not involve any of the other “techniques” mentioned by Pamela Freyd. Hollida Wakefield, the primary expert for the Johnsons, admitted that the therapists “didn’t actively try to get her to recover memories,” that they did not use hypnosis, that there was no “digging for memories,” and that there was no evidence that the therapists planted any memories of abuse.[2] In short, there was no evidence that the memories in this case were caused or created by therapy.
Wakefield also blamed the book The Courage to Heal, listing it first on her list of “Sources of Suggestion that came into play with Charlotte.”[3] But, as Wakefield admitted under oath, there was no evidence that The Courage to Heal was actually part of Charlotte’s therapy or that anyone at Rogers Memorial ever suggested that she read it.[4] How did the book “come into play”? Charlotte owned it and recommended it, on her own, to her mother.
So, what was this case actually about? The plaintiffs claimed that the therapists should have “disabused” Charlotte of her of memories, even her most plausible memories of abuse. The plaintiffs also claimed that the therapists should have investigated Charlotte’s claims, even though she explicitly prohibited them from talking to her parents. That is leaving aside the fact that therapists cannot possibly be private investigators.
If this verdict stands, it is unclear how therapists can provide treatment to someone with memories of childhood sexual abuse without fear of an intrusive and inappropriate third-party lawsuit. That is why Mertz and Bowman argued, in an important 1996 Harvard Law Review article, that such lawsuits should not be allowed. It is also why Justice Ann Walsh Bradely, in a dissenting opinion at the Wisconsin Supreme Court, concluded that the Johnson case represents an unwarranted expansion to modalities of therapeutic treatment far beyond issues of recovered-memory therapy, and that it ”undermines the confidentiality that is essential to the patient-therapist relationship.”[5] The jury verdict in this case bears out those concerns in full.
The question that remains is, why is the False Memory Syndrome Foundation misrepresenting this case as being about “recovered-memory therapy,” when the facts of the case clearly demonstrate that it was not?
Footnotes
[1]. The Johnsons have tried to portray this lawsuit as an effort to, as their lawyer said in this article, let their daughter know that they love her and “want her to come home.” That explanation is inconsistent with their dogged effort to force her to testify against her will. Faced with medical assessments that forcing her to tesify at trial could cause their daughter to become suicidal, the Johnsons continued to press the issue. It took an order from the trial judge, who agreed that Charlotte’s health was at risk, to quash their subpoena. The jury was not informed of these facts.
[2]. Wakefield deposition (January 20-21, 2010), pp. 172-174, 217, and 233.
[3]. Exhibit 6, Wakefield deposition (January 20, 2010).
[4]. Asked what proof she had that The Courage to Heal was part of the therapy at Rogers Hospital, Wakefield testified: “I don’t know whether it was discussed or not.” In other words, even though she reviewed all of the therapy records, she had no actual evidence for this claim. (Wakefield deposition, p. 239.)
[5]. Johnson v. Rogers Memorial Hospital, 283 Wis. 2d 384 (2005) at 448.
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2011/02/04/featured-post-the-incredible-distortion-of-johnson-v-rogers-memorial-hospital/
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Clergy abuse in Delaware: Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, survivors settle suits
Clergy abuse in Delaware: Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, survivors settle suits - Framework would set aside $77.4M to pay abuse claims By SEAN O'SULLIVAN The News Journal February 3, 2011
WILMINGTON -- Attorneys representing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and survivors of priest abuse reached a $77.4 million lawsuit settlement Wednesday night following a marathon negotiating session.
Some details are yet to be worked out, but both sides announced around 9 p.m. that a general framework that sets aside $77,425,000 in a trust to pay survivor claims was hammered out along with a number of non-monetary conditions, including the release of files related to abusive priests.
Wilmington Bishop W. Francis Malooly and some survivors of priest sexual abuse were part of the lengthy negotiations.
"After a seven-year fight, we are on our way to a fair compensation for survivors. This is an average payment of $530,000 for each survivor," said attorney Thomas Neuberger, who represents the majority of the approximately 150 plaintiffs with claims against either the diocese or one of its parishes....
"Due to our long court battle, there has now been more public exposure of church child abuse, misdeeds and evil practices here in Delaware than in any other state," Neuberger said. "Due to the public release of secret church archives, which the Official Committee [of survivors] demanded, these records now will permanently see the light of day."
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110203/NEWS01/102030346/Diocese--survivors-settle-suit
WILMINGTON -- Attorneys representing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and survivors of priest abuse reached a $77.4 million lawsuit settlement Wednesday night following a marathon negotiating session.
Some details are yet to be worked out, but both sides announced around 9 p.m. that a general framework that sets aside $77,425,000 in a trust to pay survivor claims was hammered out along with a number of non-monetary conditions, including the release of files related to abusive priests.
Wilmington Bishop W. Francis Malooly and some survivors of priest sexual abuse were part of the lengthy negotiations.
"After a seven-year fight, we are on our way to a fair compensation for survivors. This is an average payment of $530,000 for each survivor," said attorney Thomas Neuberger, who represents the majority of the approximately 150 plaintiffs with claims against either the diocese or one of its parishes....
"Due to our long court battle, there has now been more public exposure of church child abuse, misdeeds and evil practices here in Delaware than in any other state," Neuberger said. "Due to the public release of secret church archives, which the Official Committee [of survivors] demanded, these records now will permanently see the light of day."
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110203/NEWS01/102030346/Diocese--survivors-settle-suit
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