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Michael Salter
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.
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