Information about Alison Miller and Her Work
Dr. Alison Miller has a Ph.D. from the University
of British Columbia and is a retired psychologist who worked in private
practice in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She worked with
survivors of ritual abuse and mind control from 1991 to 2017. She was
named a fellow of the ISST-D (International Society for the Study of
Trauma & Dissociation) in 2013, and was given the ISST-D President’s
Award in 2021. She was the 2009 and 2017 Chair and the 2021 Secretary
of the Organized and Extreme Abuse Special Interest Group of the ISST-D,
and has been a member of the Board of Directors of Survivorship. Her
books include: Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse (for survivors), and Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control (for therapists). She has contributed chapters on ritual abuse and mind control to Noblitt & Noblitt’s Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century (2008), Breitenbach’s Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise (2015), Sinason & van der Merwe’s Shattered: Multiple Selves, Multiple Voices – speaking on behalf of silenced survivors (2016), and (with Heather Gingrich) Gingrich & Gingrich’s Treating Trauma in Christian Counselling (2017).
Focus on ISSTD History
An Interview with Alison Miller
This interview with Alison Miller forms part of ISSTD News’ Focus on
History Series. In this series we interview people who have played an
important and influential role in the formation and development of
ISSTD, or the wider complex trauma and dissociative disorders field. We
are delighted in this latest installment of Focus on History to
interview Alison Miller, who has been working as a counsellor and
psychologist since the 1960’s and is one of ISSTD’s retired members. She
has been involved in the development of the Ritual Abuse and Mind
Control Special Interest Group, which has grown and evolved over the
years to become our Organized and Extreme Abuse SIG. She is also a past
Chair and current Secretary of the SIG. She is well known to many for
her conference presentations, workshops, journal articles and her books.
“These first DID clients were all members of the local Satanic cult.
KATE: I guess some mental health professionals, hearing
stories of extreme abuse, may be tempted to think it is all made up or
delusional, but you didn’t get a chance to disbelieve, as your situation
was a little unique.
ALISON: Yes. I had these four clients, all abused
by the same cult. They unknowingly corroborated each other – they had
information about events and abuse… and it was still going on, these
were current events … I was followed by these abusers…. I had all kinds
of corroboration and evidence. I tried to work with the police, but it
didn’t work out the way it should have.”
“KATE: And those who think that children must have been
making it up, that these atrocities could not happen, because humans
could not do that to each other, must now face the fact that police
officers are literally looking at online material and studying it as
evidence. The police know these things did happen to children as they
see photos and videos of it.
ALISON: I think the production of materials is an
important issue. Pretty much all my clients have been involved with
that. There was a studio in Toronto (3000 miles away) which three of my
clients had been involved with, one of them as a photographer … and this
was a long time before all these things came out in the media, in the
public. It is a horrible thing, but it is good that it is being
discovered and the world is becoming aware that it does exist.” https://news.isst-d.org/an-interview-with-alison-miller/
Dr. Miller’s Online Videos
Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2017 –
Survivors may want to use caution while watching these
presentations. These videos are not meant as therapy or to take the
place of therapy.
Survivors of abuse by ritualistic organized perpetrator groups
report numerous experiences designed to destroy their spiritual
integrity and leave them believing that they are so evil that no one
but the perpetrators will accept them. These experiences include
simulation of religious figures such as God, Jesus, and Satan, and the
afterlife including heaven and hell; designation of certain internal
parts of the victim to be demons or have “demonic attachments,” and most
chillingly, forced childhood participation in rape and murder followed
by systematic shaming of the victim as “evil.” Many parts of each
survivor believe the perpetrators’ lies about how evil he or she must
be. These experiences raise existential questions for survivors, such as
why such things happen, why there is no divine intervention, and why
such groups continue to exist without being stopped. We shall look at
various ways of making meaning of such experiences, and whether these
ways deal effectively with the horror of spiritual abuse.
Working Through Your Traumatic Memories and Destroying the Mind Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5CS_3GqeVU
In the second stage of therapy, survivors of organized abuse involving
mind control have to confront the traumatic memories which caused their
dissociation. Because such survivors usually have a structured
personality system, work with the traumatic memories can be pursued in a
systematic way. This workshop covers such issues as: deciding whether
and when to pursue memories, dealing with flashbacks, choosing memories
to work with, planning memory work, finding alters who hide parts of
memories, involving all alters who have parts of a memory, dealing with
emotions and bodily sensations during memory work, getting the story
clear, and cognitive processing of what has been discovered when a
memory has been reconstituted.
Alison Miller’s reply to Evan Anderson, Grey Faction Director of The Satanic Temple (TST)’s Grey Faction
In 2019, Evan Anderson of the Satanic Temple sent a formal complaint
letter to Dr. Miller’s licensing board, saying that in her online
videos and her book Healing the Unimaginable, she described
behaviors by organized abuser groups which could not possibly be true.
Shortly after that, Dr. Miller, whose membership with the licensing
board was already in the non-practising category, ended her membership.
The Satanic Temple claimed online that it was because of their
complaint.
“The reason I discontinued my membership in the College of
Psychologists has nothing to do with the Grey Faction’s harassing
complaint about my writings and online videos. I left the College
because I am 78 years old. I retired two years ago.” – Alison Miller
“That is why I resigned, not because I was about to be found guilty
of promoting unscientific conspiracy theories. Anderson has posted his
complaint and the College’s response, distorting the story by omitting
the College’s letter to me and my response to it. As for not being
allowed to call myself a “psychologist,” that is the situation for every
retired psychologist. It is similar for other health professions, and
it does not indicate that the work I did was inferior or that I was
found guilty of unethical behavior.” – Alison Miller
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/alison-millers-reply-to-evan-anderson-grey-faction-director-of-the-satanic-temple-tsts-grey-faction/
Here is information on the Grey Faction:
Books by Dr. Miller
Miller, Alison (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control is
a practical, task-oriented, instructional manual designed to help
therapists provide effective treatment for survivors of these most
extreme forms of child abuse and mental manipulation. Paperback: 978 1
85575 882 7 Publisher: Karnac Books https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/
Miller, Alison (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. In
contrast to the author’s previous book, Healing the Unimaginable:
Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control, which was for therapists, this
book is designed for survivors of these abuses. It takes the survivor
systematically through understanding the abuses and how his or her
symptoms may be consequences of these abuses, and gives practical advice
regarding how a survivor can achieve stability and manage the life
issues with which he or she may have difficulty. The book also teaches
the survivor how to work with his or her complex personality system and
with the traumatic memories, to heal the wounds created by the abuse.
A unique feature of this book is that it addresses the reader as if he
or she is dissociative, and directs some information and exercises
towards the internal leaders of the personality system, teaching them
how to build a cooperative and healing inner community within which
information is shared, each part’s needs are met, and traumatic memories
can be worked through successfully. https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/becoming-yourself-overcoming-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/34803/
From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
By Wendy Hoffman and Alison Miller
Though desiring retirement, psychologist Alison Miller offered help to
the respected mind control and ritual abuse victim Wendy Hoffman.
Through Wendy’s internal investigations, they discovered how Illuminati
and Nazi programming works, its international goals, as well as finding
out new ways to uncover the hidden, and to heal. Their goal was to gain
clarity about Wendy’s cult personas, and to learn how to integrate a
complicated, tortured brain.https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/from-the-trenches-a-victim-and-therapist-talk-about-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/40435/
Dr. Miller’s Conference Presentations
The 2019 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference
Sophisticated organized abuser groups use torture to deliberately
split a child’s mind into different parts, train all parts to obey, and
indoctrinate and train each part to do a specific job assigned by the
abusers. Drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and films are
used to deceive and control the children and prevent them from
remembering or speaking out about their abuse, even in adulthood, so
that the abusers can continue perpetrating this abuse without being
caught. Abusers’ power over victims depends on their victims believing
their lies, and that power can be diminished when victims see through
the lies told to their young parts. It is important for therapists to
use critical thinking to discern the deceptions, and to help their
mind-controlled clients do the same.
If you are a survivor of abuse by a mind-controlling abuser group,
you have parts who have been trained to obey abusers because they
believe lies your abusers told you. The abusers deceived you in
childhood, using drugs, acted-out scenarios, stage magic, stories and
films to control your child parts and prevent you from speaking out
about the abuse. Their power over you depends on your young parts
believing the abusers’ lies. If you learn to recognize when your
emotions and behavior are influenced by these deceptions, and to
discover the ways in which you were deceived, you can increase your
freedom from the abuser group.
Internal Keys to Safety by Alison Miller – Survivorship Conference 2016
Presented at the Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Child Abuse 2016 Conference – Stop Mind Control and Programs in Oakland, CA
Internal Keys to Safety
Survivors’ safety is endangered both externally by parts who maintain
ongoing contact with perpetrators and respond to cues, and internally by
parts trained to punish the person for forbidden behavior such as
disclosures. She gave practical suggestions for survivors to achieve and
maintain safety both externally and internally. https://survivorship.org/internal-keys-to-safety-by-alison-miller-survivorship-conference-2016/
Articles and Books on Parenting and Spouse Abuse
The Parent Child Connection book for parents and professionals
Published in 2008, “The Parent-Child Connection” is the second of our
original two LIFE (Living in Families Effectively) books. It’s based on
the course of the same name. It contains everything you need to know
about the parent-child relationship, including developing a healthy bond
with your children, communicating effectively, establishing and
respecting boundaries in the family, handling your own and your
children’s emotions, and developing their and your self-esteem.
Sidestepping the Power Struggle book for parents and professionals
LIFE Seminars first book published in 2007 and entitled “Sidestepping
the Power Struggle” contains everything you need to know about your
children’s individual temperaments, their stage of development, behavior
at each age, and what events can trigger difficult child behaviors. It
teaches you how to help children take responsibility for their own lives
as they mature, and how to help them mature into ethical and competent
human beings. It discusses effective and ineffective discipline
techniques. If you read and practice everything recommended in this
book, it will not only empower you to become a more effective parent,
but also enrich the lives of those who matter most.
The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse
by Alison Miller, PhD
Abstract
Cyclical spouse abusers, whether male or female, appear to suffer from a
specific type of dissociative disorder that is related to a disturbance
of attachment. This disorder is sufficiently common to be designated as
a dissociative disorder in its own right. The partner of the spouse
abuser appears to develop a parallel dissociative process, developing
chains of state-dependent memory for the different phases of the
domestic abuse cycle. This dissociative process helps both partners stay
in the relationship, while leaving might be the best course of action.
This “dissociative dance” facilitates the formation of dissociative
splits in their children, enhancing the likelihood that they will be
either victims or perpetrators of domestic violence
http://www.academia.edu/4594732/Dissociative_Dance_of_Spouse_Abuse
Publications
Miller, A. (2019). Therapeutic neutrality, ritual abuse and maladaptive daydreaming. Frontiers in the Psychotherapy of Trauma and Dissociation, 1(3).
Hoffman, W. & Miller, A. (2018). From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.
Miller, A. & Gingrich, H.D. (2018). The treatment of ritual abuse and mind control. In Gingrich, H.D. & Gingrich, F.C. Treating trauma in Christian counselling. Inter-Varsity Press.
Miller, A. (2017). Dissociation in families experiencing intimate partner violence. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 18 (3), The Abused and the Abuser: Victim-Perpetrator Dynamics, 427-440.
Miller, A. (2016). What’s different about ritual abuse and mind
control? Chapter 10, pp. 221-232 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A.
P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London: Karnac.
Miller, A. (2016).Reflections on having my name used. Pp. 24-29 in Sinason, V. & Van der Merwe, A. P. Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony. London:Karnac.
Miller, A. (2015). Foreword to Breitenbach, G. Inside Views from the Dissociated Worlds of Extreme Violence: Human Beings as Merchandise.London: Karnac (translated from German).
Miller, A. (2014). Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac.
Miller, A. (2012). Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. London: Karnac.
Miller, A. (2012). Dialogue with the higher-ups. Pp. 111-132 in Vogt, R. & Vogt, I. (Eds.) Perpetrator Introjects: Psychotherapeutic Diagnostics and Treatment Models. Kroning: Asanger Verlag.
Miller, A. (2008). Recognizing and treating survivors of abuse by
organized criminal groups. Chapter 17, pp. 479-490 in Noblitt, R.
& Noblitt, P. P. (Eds.) Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers.
Miller, A. (1998). Treatment of a Young Female Pedophilic Offender with Dissociative Identity Disorder, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (2), 15-23.
Miller, A. (2006). The Role of Dissociation in Spouse Abuse. In Jackson, N.A. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence. New York: Routledge.
Miller, A. (1998). The Dissociative Dance of Spouse Abuse, Treating Abuse Today, 8 (3), 9-18.
Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2008.) The Parent-Child Connection: A Manual for Effective Family Living. Victoria, B.C.: LIFE Seminars Press.
Miller, A. & Rees, A. (2007.) Sidestepping the Power Struggle: A Manual for Effective Parenting. Victoria, B.C.: LIFE Seminars Press.
Information about Wendy Hoffman and her publications
Survivors may want to use caution while watching this presentation.
None of this video is meant as therapy or to take the place of therapy.
Wendy Hoffman Dirty Therapy
We know that satanic cult perpetrator groups infiltrate the very
professions and organizations that survivors turn to for help. Survivors
in general often look for therapeutic assistance. Consequently, these
criminal groups have set up some of their members to become therapists
and to lead therapy groups. Even when we think that we are in a safe
environment, what we sometimes find are people re-programming us and
closing us down. There are still many safe and competent therapists
working in the field of mind control. In this presentation, I will talk
about some of the professionals I was sent to, how I was ordered to go
and what they did to re-assert barriers in my mind. Being aware of these
dangers helps survivors to elude them. The underlying issue of betrayal
will also be considered. Audience participation is encouraged.
Wendy Hoffman somehow survived various forms of high level secret
mind control. She tried all her life to get free and has finally
succeeded. Now she wants to help and support other survivors in their
quest for freedom. She has been a licensed clinical social worker with
decades of experience and is the author of The Enslaved Queen, a Memoir about Electricity and Mind Control, published in 2014, White Witch in a Black Robe, a True Story about Criminal Mind Control, 2015, as well as her book of poetry, Forceps, 2016, all published by Karnac Books, London. Aeon Books reissued her two memoirs. The Enslaved Queen has been translated into German. From the Trenches, co-authored with Dr. Alison Miller, and her third memoir, A Brain of My Own, have recently been published.
Books:
The Enslaved Queen, a Memoir about Mind Control and Electricity
By Wendy Hoffman
Written by a survivor of mind control and ritual abuse who is also a
therapist, this memoir exposes the existence and practices of organized
criminal groups who abuse children, helps survivors of those abuses,
and provides important information for professionals about the
dissociative brain. The author’s poetic prose contrasts with the horror
of the subject matter. The adult journeys back to give voice to infant
and child parts of her, describing her handlers’ early interventions to
destroy bonding and create dissociation, the foundation of
reverse-Kabbalah suicide and pathway programming, and the installation
of mind control. Scenes from ordinary life are interspersed throughout
the memoir. Nazi post-war recruitment of American subjects during the
1940s and 50s (including the infamous Dr. Mengele), children used for
prostitution, pornography and the drug trade along with the workings of
the Illuminati leadership and their international Feast of the Beast
rituals are all included. https://www.amazon.com/Enslaved-Queen-Electricity-Control-Fiction/dp/1782201483/
White Witch in a Black Robe By Wendy Hoffman
White Witch in a Black Robe is a memoir about how secret
high-level mind control is performed throughout victims’ lives and the
ways heads of governments and religious organizations participate in
this, as well as the healing process and how the mind becomes whole
again. The memoir begins with the author’s childhood in a
multi-generational cult family, her ordinary life in the normal world
and her simultaneous secret tortuous world. She describes her world
travels as a satanic cult queen and prophet, encountering well-known and
influential people. The final section portrays the process of weaving
the pieces of her mind back together with the help of a therapist, and
adjusting to life with a whole mind. https://www.amazon.com/White-Witch-Black-Robe-Criminal/dp/1782203664
Forceps: Poems about the Birth of the Self By Wendy Hoffman
The search for my true past came in distinct waves. This collection
of poems includes some from the long period when I knew something was
drastically wrong but didn’t consciously know what that was and some
from the breakthrough when I discovered my never-bloomed self. The poems
cover the outskirts of my awakening, my plowing through and arrival in
the middle of awareness. When dissociated memories and emotions exploded
inside, eventually they filtered into a poem. The horror transmuted
itself. These poems are that record. I have regained a real, not
imposed, self. https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/forceps-poems-about-the-birth-of-the-self/38047/
From the Trenches: A Victim and Therapist Talk about Mind Control and Ritual Abuse
By Wendy Hoffman and Alison Miller
Though desiring retirement, psychologist Alison Miller offered help
to the respected mind control and ritual abuse victim Wendy Hoffman.
Through Wendy’s internal investigations, they discovered how Illuminati
and Nazi programming works, its international goals, as well as finding
out new ways to uncover the hidden, and to heal. Their goal was to gain
clarity about Wendy’s cult personas, and to learn how to integrate a
complicated, tortured brain.
https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/from-the-trenches-a-victim-and-therapist-talk-about-mind-control-and-ritual-abuse/40435/
A BRAIN OF MY OWN, A memoir about dissociation dissolved
By Wendy Hoffman
A Brain of My Own is about slavery, about brains stolen in
childhood and before; brains that have been intruded upon, stopped,
shrunk, paralyzed. We know about the history of people whose bodies were
enslaved; but we know barely anything about the victims who appear free
but whose brains are invisibly chained. Nor do we know about the
international collusion, silence, and apathy that surround this kind of
slavery.
In A Brain of My Own, Wendy Hoffman describes her final years
of attempting escape from the criminal mind control cult into which she
had the misfortune of being born. This is her third memoir, and
chronicles the final years of reclaiming her brain, including the
ongoing abuse and torture during her recovery process. Hoffman describes
the ways in which perpetrators manipulate the brain to create amnesiac
barriers, methods held secret for generations. She exposes the duplicity
of perpetrators functioning as normal people in the ordinary world and
what is under their masks. She gives advice about how to spot seemingly
helpful people who are actually out to destroy victims of mind control.
The book includes an Afterword by Dr. Alison Miller.
This kind of dissociation is difficult to overcome, but the path back to full humanity is possible and happening.
Presentation:
Self-Esteem Loosens Mind Control by Wendy Hoffman – Survivorship Conference 2016
Mind control roots in people’s minds even though it does not benefit
them in any way. Why? One reason is that strong feelings hold the
mandates in place. Where do these feelings come from? From the
perpetrators, not their victims. The perpetrators begin manipulating in
these feelings during infancy and before the infants and children even
know who they are. This workshop presentation will discuss the kinds of
feelings the mind controllers place in their victims to secure that they
will not try to break free of their poisonous commands, and how
improving self-esteem can help loosen mind control. But people can break
free. They can and are and have. Right now.
This workshop discussed:
1. Explore these early emotional states
2. Understand the distortions and lies told to children
3. Help loosen programming through improved self-esteem.
Integration will also be discussed.
Transcript of Wendy’s Presentation:
https://survivorship.org/self-esteem-loosens-mind-control-by-wendy-hoffman-survivorship-conference-2016/
Essays:
“On writing a scary memoir and using my own name,” in Shattered but Unbroken: Voices of Triumph and Testimony
Editor : Amelia van der Merwe, Editor : Valerie Sinason
https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-but-Unbroken-Triumph-Testimony/dp/1782203494
#Wendy_Hoffman #WendyHoffman WendyHoffman
Michael Salter
Organised abuse has been reported by child victims, adult survivors and a range of professionals for over thirty years. However, organised abuse remains poorly understood.
This website has been developed by criminologist Scientia Associate
Professor Michael Salter who specialises in the study of organised abuse
and complex trauma. The aim of the website is to disseminate reliable
information about organised abuse to professionals, victims and
survivors.
https://www.organisedabuse.com/
Scientia Associate Professor Michael Salter
I am the Scientia Associate Professor in Criminology at the University
of New South Wales, Australia. I specialise in the study of organised
sexual abuse. In addition to my work on complex trauma, I have
researched and published widely on violence against women and children.
I sit on the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of
the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. I
am an Associate Editor of Child Abuse Review, the peer-reviewed journal
of the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse
and Neglect, and I sit on the editorial board of the Journal of Trauma
and Dissociation.
I act as a consultant and trainer to a range of non-government
organisations and government departments at the state and national
level. I am an expert advisor to the Australian Office of the eSafety
Commissioner and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
https://www.organisedabuse.com/michael-salter
Salter, M. and Hanson, E. (2021) “I need you all to
understand how pervasive this issue is”: User efforts to regulate child
sexual offending on social media. In Baily, J., Flynn, A. and
Henry, N. The Emerald International Handbook of Technology-facilitated
Violence and Abuse. Emerald Publishing.
Salter, M. (2018) Child sexual abuse, in Rennison,
C.M., Dekeseredy, W. S., Hall-Sanchez, A. (Eds), Routledge International
Handbook of Violence Studies, London and New York: Routledge
Salter, M. (2018) Finding a new narrative: Meaningful responses to ‘false memory’ disinformation, in Sinason, V. Memory in Dispute, Karnac: London.
Salter, M. (2018) Child sexual abuse. In Dekeseredy, W. and Dragiewicz, M. (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology, Routledge: London and New York.
Salter, M. (2016) Organised child sexual abuse in the media. In Pontel, H. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Oxford University Press: Oxford and London.
Salter, M. (2008) Out of the shadows: Re-envisioning the debate on ritual abuse.
In: Perskin. P. and Noblitt. R. (eds) Ritual abuse in the twenty-first
century: Psychological, forensic, social and political considerations.
Robert D. Reed: Brandon, OR.
https://www.organisedabuse.com/resources/
Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse: Examining our History and Looking Forward
Michael Salter, PhD
I was a teenager when ritual abuse was first reported in Australia. A
series of newspaper articles in the mid-1990s claimed that women were
entering psychotherapy only to ‘recover’ memories of grotesque and
improbable abuse.
The general thrust of coverage was that the movement against child
abuse had gone too far, and that therapists and social workers were
encouraging, and sometimes forcing, children and women to imagine abuse
that had never happened. I was entirely unprepared when, only a few
years after the publication of those articles, a friend began disclosing
ritual abuse in the context of a paedophile ring. These disclosures
occurred without facilitation or encouragement by a mental health
professional, and they did not conform to mass media warnings about
‘false’ and ‘recovered’ memories. She had never ‘forgotten’ her abuse
and she was reporting attacks in the present that left behind undeniable
marks and injuries. Her disclosures set me on the path to a career as a
criminologist specializing in the study of organized child sexual
abuse. I now chair the Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse
Special Interest Group (RAMCOA) which is full of people just like me:
people who unexpectedly encountered survivors of extreme abuse and have
sought to understand and address their particular needs. The SIG
includes an important cohort of therapists who are also survivors,
driven by personal experience and professional commitment to provide
care for others who share their history. Over the last few years,
there’ve been moves afoot within the ISSTD to revisit and come to grips
with the fractious legacies of the ‘memory wars’, including
controversies over ritual abuse and mind control. I listened with great
interest at the national ISSTD conference in Chicago this year as a
number of ‘veterans’ of those wars shared their reflections on that
time.
https://news.isst-d.org/ritual-abuse-mind-control-and-organized-abuse-examining-our-history-and-looking-forward/
Michael Salter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Criminology and Scientia Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales
https://violenceresearch.wvu.edu/executive-board/research-associates/michael-salter
Dr. Michael Salter is an Associate Professor of Criminology and Scientia
Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at UNSW. Michael applies
critical and feminist theory to the study of child sexual exploitation,
gendered violence and complex trauma. He is leading two national
studies: one on multi-sectorial constructions on complex trauma, and the
second on the role of parents in the production of child exploitation
material. Other current research projects include an analysis of
perpetrator interventions in gendered violence and the role of
technology in domestic violence. Michael sits on the Board of Directors
of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation,
and he is Associate Editor of Child Abuse Review.
Dr. Salter’s recent publications include:
Salter, M. (2020). Improved accountability: The role of perpetrator intervention systems.
Salter, M. (2020). “A deep wound under my heart”: Constructions of
complex trauma and implications for women’s wellbeing and safety from
violence.
Salter, M., Robinson, K., Ullman, J., Denson, N., Ovenden, G., Noonan,
K., & Bansel, P. (2019). Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Men’s Attitudes
and Understandings of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Assault.
Journal of Interpersonal Violence. DOI: 10.1177/0886260519898433.
McPhillips, K., Salter, M., Roberts-Pedersen, E., & Kezelman, C.
(2019). Understanding trauma as a system of psycho-social harm:
Contributions from the Australian royal commission into child sex abuse.
Child abuse & neglect, 99. DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104232.
Salter, M. (2019). The transitional space of public inquiries: The case
of the Royal Commission into Institutional Forms of Child Sexual Abuse.
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. DOI:
10.1177/0004865819886634.
Salter, M. (2019). Online Justice in the Circuit of Capital: #MeToo,
Marketization and the Deformation of Sexual Ethics. DOI:
10.1007/978-3-030-15213-0_20.
Dragiewicz, M., Harris, B., Woodlock, D., & Salter, M. (2019).
Domestic violence and communication technology: Survivor experiences of
intrusion, surveillance, and identity crime.
Michael Salter
UNSW Sydney | UNSW · School of Social Sciences
My research is focused on violence against women, child abuse,
primary prevention and complex forms of victimisation, including
organised abuse and technologically-facilitated abuse.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Salter7
Organised Sexual Abuse
By Michael Salter
Copyright Year 2013 1st Edition
ISBN 9781138789159
Organised Sexual Abuse offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary
investigation of this phenomenon. Since the early 1980s, social workers
and mental health professionals around the globe have encountered
clients reporting sexual abuse by organized groups or networks. These
allegations have been amongst the most controversial in debates over
child sexual abuse, raising many unanswered questions. Are reports of
organized abuse factual or the product of moral panic and false
memories? If these reports are true, what is the appropriate response?
The fields of child protection and psychotherapy have been polarised
over the issue. And, although cases of organized abuse continue to be
uncovered, a reasoned and evidence-based analysis of the subject is long
overdue.
Examining the existing evidence, and supplementing it with further
qualitative research, in this book Michael Salter addresses: the
relationship between sexual abuse and organized abuse; questions over
the veracity of testimony; the gap between the policing response to
sexual abuse and the realities of child sexual exploitation; the
contexts in which sexually abusive groups develop and operate; the role
of religion and ritual in subcultures of multi-perpetrator sexual abuse;
as well as the experience of adults and children with histories of
organized abuse in the criminal justice system and health system.
Organized Sexual Abuse thus provides a definitive analysis that will be
of immense value to those with professional and academic interests in
this area.
https://www.routledge.com/Organised-Sexual-Abuse/Salter/p/book/9781138789159
“A deep wound under my heart”: Constructions of complex trauma and implications for women’s wellbeing and safety from violence May 2020 Michael Salter
Responses to women who have experienced complex trauma need to be
sensitive, coordinated and consistent between services and agencies to
ensure women’s wellbeing and safety from violence. However, the
development of shared frameworks of practice for addressing complex
trauma has been forestalled by a lack of professional consensus and
understanding…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341667576_A_deep_wound_under_my_heart_Constructions_of_complex_trauma_and_implications_for_women’s_wellbeing_and_safety_from_violence
Organized Sexual Abuse. Dr. Michael Salter
Today on the podcast, Michael Salter.
Michael is an Associate Professor in Criminology at Western Sydney
University, Australia and specializes in the study of organized sexual
abuse.
In addition to his work on complex trauma, Michael Salter has researched
and published widely on violence against women and children.
Michael sits on the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Board of
Directors of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and
Dissociation and is an associate editor of Child Abuse Review, the
peer-reviewed journal of the British Association for the Study and
Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
https://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/organized-sexual-abuse-dr-michael-salter/
Malignant trauma and the invisibility of ritual abuse
June 2019 DOI: 10.33212/att.v13n1.2019.16
Authors: Michael Salter UNSW Sydney
Abstract
This article draws on psychoanalytic theories of malignant trauma to
explain the invisibility of ritual abuse. Ritual abuse refers to the
misuse of rituals in the organised sexual abuse of children. Despite
expanded recognition of the varieties of child maltreatment, ritual
abuse remains largely invisible outside the trauma and dissociation
field as a specific form of sexual exploitation. Presenting qualitative
data from interview research with ritual abuse survivors and mental
health specialists, this article argues that the trauma of ritual abuse
and its invisibility are co-constitutive. The perpetration and denial of
ritual abuse occur within a relational matrix of perpetrators, victims,
and bystanders structured by the presymbolic dread of vulnerability and
dependency. The simultaneity of perpetration and disavowal creates the
conditions for the malignancy of ritual abuse, including the
invisibility of victims and the intergenerational transmission of
extreme abuse. The article examines how the provision of care to ritual
abuse survivors can become contingent on its erasure, and reflects on
the role of therapists and others in interrupting the metastases of
malignant trauma and crafting cultural and moral frameworks to transform
the dread at the core of ritual abuse.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337804310_Malignant_trauma_and_the_invisibility_of_ritual_abuse
Cultures of Abuse: ‘Sex Grooming’, Organised Abuse and Race in Rochdale, UK
June 2015 International Journal for Crime Justice and Social Democracy 4(2)
DOI: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i2.211
Authors: Michael Salter UNSW Sydney Selda Dagistanli Western Sydney University
Revelations of organised abuse by men of Asian heritage in the United
Kingdom have become a recurrent feature of international media coverage
of sexual abuse in recent years. This paper reflects on the similarities
between the highly publicised ‘sex grooming’ prosecutions in Rochdale
in 2012 and the allegations of organised abuse in Rochdale that emerged
in 1990, when twenty children were taken into care after describing
sadistic abuse by their parents and others. While these two cases differ
in important aspects, this paper highlights the prominence of colonial
ideologies of civilisation and barbarism in the investigation and media
coverage of the two cases and the sublimation of the issue of child
welfare. There are important cultural and normative antecedents to
sexual violence but these have been misrepresented in debates over
organised abuse as racial issues and attributed to ethnic minority
communities. In contrast, the colonialist trope promulgating the
fictional figure of the rational European has resulted in the denial of
the cultural and normative dimensions of organised abuse in ethnic
majority communities by attributing sexual violence to aberrant and
sexually deviant individuals whose behaviours transgress the boundaries
of accepted cultural norms. This paper emphasises how the implicit or
explicit focus on race has served to obscure the power dynamics
underlying both cases and the continuity of vulnerability that places
children at risk of sexual and organised abuse.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281229060_Cultures_of_Abuse_’Sex_Grooming’_Organised_Abuse_and_Race_in_Rochdale_UK
Reducing Shame, Promoting Dignity: A Model for the Primary Prevention of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Recommended citation: Salter, M. & Hall, H. (2021) Reducing Shame,
Promoting Dignity: A Model for the Primary Prevention of Complex
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma Violence Abuse, forthcoming.
The recent inclusion of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)
into the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 11th revision is
the culmination of over twenty five years of research and clinical
practice. Since the early 1990s, it has been proposed that a complex
variant of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be differentiated
from classical PTSD by alterations in affect and behavioral regulation,
interpersonal problems, dissociative symptoms, and somatizations
(Herman, 1992). As clinical scholarship and research into CPTSD has
developed, it has been linked to concepts of developmental and
attachment trauma, recognizing the aetiological role of early onset
abuse and neglect, and associated disruptions in the child-caregiver
bond (Farina, Liotti, & Imperatori, 2019). Parallel scholarship into
adverse childhood experiences links child-onset trauma to major social
and public health challenges, including common mental and physical
illnesses, entrenched poverty and criminality (Lambert, Meza, Martin,
Fearey, & McLaughlin, 2017). In light of the evidence of the public
health burden of CPSTD, Ford (2015) argues for population-level
interventions to reduce the prevalence of CPTSD, otherwise “vulnerable
individuals and entire populations are at risk for becoming trapped in
intergenerational vicious cycles escalating danger, disadvantage, and
dysregulation” (p 3).
https://www.academia.edu/44436007/Reducing_Shame_Promoting_Dignity_A_Model_for_the_Primary_Prevention_of_Complex_Post_Traumatic_Stress_Disorder
Perspective
Speaking out about child sexual abuse within the family
As France continues to grapple with how a top academic who allegedly
sexually abused his stepson for years was able to act with impunity, we
speak to Michael Salter, Associate Professor of Criminology at the
University of New South Wales in Sydney. He says coercive sexual
relationships with children were “the dark side of the sexual
revolution” and that it’s vital to understand that sexual abuse of
minors happens across all sectors of society. “Child sexual abuse is a
public health crisis,” he tells us.
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20210201-speaking-out-about-child-sexual-abuse-within-the-family
https://twitter.com/mike_salter
Michael Salter
@mike_salter
“Recovered memory therapy” does not refer to an actual therapy.
It’s a pejorative term invented by “false memory” advocate Richard Ofshe
in 1993. Nobody has ever trained in or practiced RMT because it doesn’t
exist, except in the fevered imaginations of false memory advocates.