Common Forms of Misinformation and Tactics of Disinformation about
Psychotherapy for Trauma Originating in Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
By Ellen Lacter, Ph.D., December 18, 2012.
Please note: This article and page is strictly the opinion of the article author and not necessarily the opinion of this website. All accusations are alleged. This article was copied with permission from
http://endritualabuse.org/activism/misinfo/
This page on my website seeks to expose a number of common forms of
misinformation and tactics of disinformation about psychotherapy for
trauma originating in ritual abuse and mind control. Disinformation is
distinguished from misinformation in that it is intentionally
fraudulent.
Misinformation and disinformation about ritual abuse and mind control
trauma and psychotherapy to treat such trauma appear in both paper and
electronic media, but are particularly abundant on the Internet on
websites of individuals and organizations, bookseller reviews, blogs,
newsletters, online encyclopedias, social networking sites, and e-group
listservs.
Disclaimer: This page neither cites, quotes, names, nor alludes to
any specific paper or electronic articles or statements by individual.
Any similarity between examples of misinformation or disinformation used
herein and actual articles or other statements is purely coincidental.
The following are common forms of misinformation and tactics of
disinformation concerning the treatment of trauma originating in ritual
abuse and mind control:
1. Allegations of Malpractice Can Be Circulated Unopposed
When allegations of malpractice are made or when lawsuits are brought
against psychotherapists or institutions for (a) inducing or implanting
false memories of ritual abuse or mind control in clients, (b) inducing
or implanting false memories of ritual abuse by family members that
then alienated clients from these family members, (c) inaccurate
reporting of ritual abuse to child abuse or law enforcement authorities,
or (d) the suicide of a client based in therapists treating the
client’s psychological problems as originating in a history of ritual
abuse or mind control, etc., inaccurate, exaggerated, or malicious
information about these therapists and institutions can be circulated
unopposed.
This is because treating therapists and institutions cannot legally
or ethically reveal anything related to a client’s psychotherapy as it
is protected by confidentiality and psychotherapist-patient privilege.
Therapists and institutions are further restricted in cases involved in litigation because:
a) their attorneys usually advise against any discussion of the matter
b) their malpractice carriers often prohibit any discussion
c) in some cases, judges’ gag orders may prohibit discussion
Allegations that a client’s suicide was based in therapy addressing
ritual abuse or mind control trauma is a particularly hostile form of
causal reductionism. Any combination of factors may have been at play
and can never be fully known. Also, it is not realistic to expect that
all highly suicidal clients can be helped, no matter how skilled and
properly focused the treatment.
2. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists’ Credentials, Professional Qualifications, and Personal Characteristics
Non-professionals who oppose that ritual abuse and mind control exist
can readily, usually without consequence, publicly misrepresent the
credentials, professional education, qualifications, and experience of
psychotherapists who provide educational materials about ritual abuse
and mind control or who treat trauma originating in ritual abuse or mind
control.
Non-professionals can also exaggerate or fabricate their own
credentials, professional education, qualifications, and experience,
generally without consequence.
In contrast, credentialed psychotherapists are ethically and legally
required to be accurate in how they represent their credentials,
qualifications, etc., and can suffer grave consequences for
misrepresenting these. The upshot of these conflicting standards is that
psychotherapists treating trauma for ritual abuse and mind control can
be misrepresented as having non-credible qualifications while their
opponents can misrepresent themselves with exaggerated credentials.
Non-professionals can also misrepresent the personal characteristics,
religious beliefs, and appearance, of these therapists, can name-call
and otherwise mock them, and can attribute false agendas to them, such
as assigning religious motives to secular therapists working with ritual
abuse or mind control survivors.
For example, there is little to prevent someone from claiming on his
or her own website that a psychotherapist is a fundamentalist Christian
zealot at war with Satan, when that therapist might be an atheist, Jew,
Buddhist, etc., who places no stock in the existence of Satan. But such a
claim, when spoken as if it is fact, accomplishes its intended purpose
of maligning that therapist.
3. Exploitation of the Constraints on Communication by Credentialed Psychotherapists
Psychotherapists are legally and ethically mandated to maintain high
professional standards of scientific caution, integrity, honesty, and
respectful treatment of other people. Non-therapists are free of such
strict mandates. This creates an uneven playing field.
Non-professionals can make unsupported claims and put forth
disinformation about research on ritual abuse or mind control and about
therapy for ritual abuse or mind control trauma that therapists cannot
refute without substantial basis for their assertions, such as citing
published research addressing each specific issue, a very tall order.
Non-professionals can also misrepresent the therapy approaches of
specific therapists, build false arguments about their therapy
practices, and employ sarcasm, ridicule, provocation, ad hominem
attacks, fear-mongering, hate-mongering, and all assortment of verbal
manipulation, that psychotherapists can only respond to with great
reserve and caution.
So, therapists who seek to respond to such accusations and
manipulations can appear relatively powerless and passive, as they are
corralled into dodging verbal abuse, rather than having any hope of
engaging in any reasonable or productive discourse.
And if they do not respond, which is often the most judicious option, the faulty assumption can be made that they are defeated.
4. Stacking the Deck: Omission of Information Contrary to the Position that Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Exist
Psychotherapists are obligated to be scientific and objective about
what they report. They cannot ethically present one side of a matter,
knowingly omitting or failing to review the literature or legal evidence
on the other side. This standard does not exist for non-professionals.
Therefore, non-professionals can, usually without consequence, stack
the deck in their Internet publications about ritual abuse to portray it
as non-existent, disregarding the legal and psychological evidence of
its existence (see next section on Straw Man Arguments).
5. Straw Man Arguments
When substantial evidence of ritual abuse is provided, such as
criminal convictions for ritual abuse (see endnotes 1 and 2), criminal
convictions for crimes with ritual abuse components (see endnotes 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, and 8), and research on ritual abuse (see endnote 9),
individuals who oppose that ritual abuse and mind control exist often
respond by shifting the focus to exaggerated or caricatured
representations of ritual abuse, e.g., “This fails to prove the
existence of large-scale, hierarchical, international,
multi-generational, baby-breeding, baby-sacrificing, satanic cults,”
when no such claims were put forward. This grouping of words carries a
tone of sarcasm and derision even when limited to the written word.
There are a great many faults with such caricatures. I believe, as do
many of my colleagues who also treat clients with ritual abuse or mind
control trauma, that ritually abusive groups have a multitude of
agendas, including a variety of spiritual agendas, of which Satanism is
only one.
And it is my impression that therapists who treat clients with ritual
abuse or mind control trauma believe that there are many different
levels of organization and scale among abusers who employ
ritualistically abusive practices, including:
(a) small-scale ritual abuse, confined to an individual abuser or nuclear or extended family
(b) localized abusive cults larger than one extended family
(c) localized groups that coordinate their abuse and other criminal
activity with other localized groups for specific purposes, such as
facilitation of the production and distribution of filmed child sexual
abuse and torture and to unite for specific abusive rituals
(d) localized groups that interface with abusers in other regions with some level of hierarchical organization
(e) groups that interface internationally in organized criminal efforts,
e.g., to enable distribution of filmed child sexual abuse and torture
in other countries where, if these films were confiscated, victims would
be less able to be identified by law enforcement
There is ample evidence of widespread organized crime among purveyors
of filmed child sexual abuse and torture (for a recent case, see
endnote 10). Why would anyone wish to discount that some of these
criminals might employ ritualistic torture, terror-tactics, and
practices to further their ends? For example, there is ample evidence of
the Mexican drug trade’s use of ritual sacrifice to attempt to shield
itself from law enforcement (endnote 11).
It is true that there is a paucity of criminal convictions specific
to ritual abuse relative to other crimes. But this has many causes,
including the following:
(a) The victims are generally terrified
and usually have extreme posttraumatic stress disorder and dissociative
disorders, which reduces their ability to disclose their crimes and
diminish their credibility as witnesses.
(b) Even when there is substantial evidence of ritual practices within
crimes, that evidence is generally omitted from criminal charges as, in
most states and countries, there are no laws on the books specifically
prohibiting ritual abuse, and,
(c) When prosecutors have alleged ritual practices in legal actions in
the past. defense attorneys have often used straw man tactics to muddy
the waters with allegations of religious persecution or agenda, so
prosecutors have since generally not introduced such material.
Given these considerations, it is a logical fallacy to claim that a
relatively low conviction rate proves that ritual abuse and mind control
do not exist, or that organized ritual abuse does not exist, especially
when we consider proven cases of organized child abuse and cover-up,
such as the well-publicized cover-up of child abuse within the Catholic
church and the well-documented cover-up of a pedophile network in The
Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal
(Bryant, 2009).
6. Use of Ridicule and Emotionally-loaded Language to Discredit the
Issue of Ritual Abuse and Psychotherapists Treating Related Trauma
Opponents of the position that ritual abuse exists frequently use
phrases such as “baby-breeding, baby-sacrificing cult,” “satanic panic,”
and “bizarre rituals” to refer to reports and claims made about ritual
abuse by therapists, educators and researchers.
Through the devices of alliteration, rhyme, buzz words, sarcasm, and
ridicule, and conjuring up excessively repulsive imagery, such phrases
inflame, cause people to recoil in disdain and disbelief, and the
capacity to critically evaluate the possibility of the phenomenon goes
out the window.
Psychotherapists generally use objective language when reporting the atrocities described by their clients, such as:
(a) “Survivor A reported being impregnated in a ritual.”
(b) “Survivor B reported that her abusers induced early labor to have a fetus to ritually sacrifice.”
(c) “Survivor C reported that a homeless man was abducted by her abuser group and sacrificed.”
Such examples are often accompanied by explanations for the normal
questions that arise, such as, “Survivor C reported that a mortician
with a crematorium was a member of the abuser group.” This kind of
descriptive language is a far cry from the phrasing used by people who
employ straw man tactics.
Researchers on ritual abuse and mind control use even more cautious
and scientific language to describe their findings, as required by their
professional ethical codes, and as exemplified in this excerpt from a
book chapter (Lacter & Lehman, 2008) co-authored by this writer:
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/studies/ritual-abuse-diagnosis-research-2/.
7. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists as Witch-hunters, Satan-hunters, Zealots, and Religious Crusaders
Psychotherapists who publicly state that they treat trauma for ritual
abuse or mind control or who educate on the subject are often depicted
as religious zealots hunting down witches or Satan himself, are charged
with fostering moral panic, urban legends, and mass hysteria, and are
accused of trying to find histories of ritual abuse and mind control in
all of their psychotherapy clients. These kinds of misrepresentations
are so ubiquitous on the Internet that they can easily be mistaken as
fact.
It is my experience that psychotherapists who treat clients reporting
such trauma are generally very cautious about what they say about
ritual abuse or mind control and that many psychotherapists who
previously publicly shared their opinions that these forms of abuse
exist are now silent on these issues.
This is largely because of the effective use of the kinds of
disinformation tactics described on this webpage to ridicule such
beliefs, to slander therapists who profess them, and to sway public
opinion, etc., and the sharp rise in lawsuits against psychotherapists
alleging induction or implantation of false memories of abuse in the
1990s.
Of the many therapists I know who have treated clients with ritual
abuse or mind control trauma, all of these therapists, including
pastoral counselors and Christian therapists, deeply hope that their
clients have never suffered these devastating kinds of abuse. These
forms of abuse leave clients with stores of pain that are hard for most
people to imagine, and that emotionally grieve anyone who bears witness
to accounts of them, including therapists.
Victims and survivors of these atrocities are also among the most
challenging clients to treat, because they are often highly suicidal,
terrified, may still be suffering the abuse, require more crisis
intervention and out-of-therapy contact than other clients, often have
little or no funding for therapy, and usually require long-term
treatment.
Yet, the hope that clients did not suffer these abuses does not
justify a clinical failure to correctly assess and treat trauma
originating in ritual abuse or mind control, no matter how harshly
therapists may be criticized for this. The costs of such errors include:
(a) lack of treatment for this trauma,
causing people to believe themselves defiled and evil at their core
rather than understanding that these feelings and beliefs originated in
their ritual abuse and mind control
(b) reinforcement of victims’ fears that they are hopelessly crazy and untreatable
(c) mis-diagnosis, often for Schizophrenia or Delusional Disorder, that
often leads to incorrect and excessive use of medications and possible
long-term hospitalization or involuntary hospital commitment
8. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists as Inducing or Implanting False Memories of Child Abuse and “False Memory Syndrome”
On the Internet, it is relatively effortless to portray psychotherapy
as the primary source of clients’ memories of child abuse with
absolutely no scientific basis.
It is also common to designate specific therapists, especially those
who state that they treat clients with trauma originating in ritual
abuse or mind control, as “recovered memory therapists” who are then
alleged to chase down memories of child abuse in their clients, to
thereby induce or implant false memories of abuse, and to thus cause
their clients to suffer “False Memory Syndrome.”
It is well-documented that “False Memory Syndrome” is a
pseudo-psychiatric disorder contrived by the False Memory Syndrome
Foundation (FMSF), an organization widely known to have been “formed to
provide legal and emotional support to those accused of sexual abuse”
(Murphy, 1997, p. 57). It is possible that most of the misinformation
and disinformation circulating about child abuse, ritual abuse, mind
control, dissociative disorders (see below, #10: Misrepresentation of
Psychotherapists as Inducing Dissociative Identity Disorder), and
recovered memories of child abuse originate in the efforts of the FMSF
and its affiliates.
Evidence of misrepresentation of information by the FMSF is
documented in the book, Misinformation Concerning Child Sexual Abuse and
Adult Survivors (Whitfield, Silberg, & Fink, 2002).
“Recovered memory therapy” is as contrived a concept as “False Memory
Syndrome.” Psychotherapy has the goal of helping clients to deal with
whatever psychological issues are troubling them, not of searching for
memories of abuse.
Of course, there are cases of therapists prematurely jumping to
conclusions that a client may have been abused and even of suggesting
this to a client, including findings of malpractice in this regard in
lawsuits and by professional licensing boards. But it is a dishonest to
tar all therapists with the same brush and to represent such errors as
common practice.
In an unusual case of a psychotherapist defending herself against
claims of irresponsibility in this regard, in 1992, psychologist Neomi
Mattis sued University of Utah psychology professor David Raskin for
defamation after he criticized Dr. Mattis, co-leader of a Utah task
force on ritual abuse at the time, and other therapists who treat
patients with purportedly recovered memories of child-sexual abuse in
his speech to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in Provo, Utah. The
Deseret Times of Salt Lake City, Utah, (See endnote 12) states:
He said those practitioners ‘do not know the scientific literature’
and ‘have no reality orientation.’ Raskin said Mattis lacked the
credentials to be a graduate student, let alone a professor in the
school’s psychology department.
In April, 1995, the defamation suit was settled for an undisclosed amount of money.
Misrepresentations about psychotherapy and memory for abuse ignore the vast body of literature substantiating that:
(a) trauma memories recovered in therapy
represent a small proportion of total recovered memory reports (Elliott,
1997; Wilsnack, Wonderlich, Kristjanson, Vogeltanz-Holm, &
Wilsnack, 2002)
(b) recovered memories of abuse are often accurate (Dalenberg, 1996)
(c) memory for verified abuse is often forgotten or dissociated (Williams, 1994)
Accurate information on the issue of recovered memory can be found at: The Recovered Memory Project:
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/.
9. Misrepresentation of Research to Minimize the Effects of Child
Abuse and to Represent the Traumatic Effects as the Result of the
Reactions of Psychotherapists and Other Adults
It is hard to believe that anyone would seek to misrepresent and
minimize the damaging effects of child abuse and to blame
psychotherapists for victims feeling traumatized, but this is just the
case in Susan Clancy’s 2010 book, The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the
Sexual Abuse of Children– and its Aftermath.
In this book, Clancy uses circular reasoning to misrepresent child
sexual abuse as non-traumatic when it occurs and to posit that it is
adult interpretations, especially those of psychotherapists, that cause
people to experience their child sexual abuse as traumatic.
Clancy’s book is based in part on an article she co-authored with
Richard J. McNally, titled, “Who Needs Repression? Normal Memory
Processes Can Explain ‘Forgetting’ of Childhood Sexual Abuse,” published
in The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice (2005/2006).
In this study, Clancy asked 27 adults who reported sexual abuse as
children to rate their levels of trauma at the time of their abuse on a
10-point scale, with #10 to indicate “extremely traumatic” and #1 to
indicate “not traumatic at all.” The average rating was 7.5.
Any logical person would consider 7.5 on a 10-point scale to be quite
high. Yet Susan Clancy concludes that their child sexual abuse
“experiences were unpleasant, distressing, or confusing, but not
traumatic (e.g., terrifying) at the time they occurred” (p. 70).
This is clearly a misrepresentation of her own data. Clancy justifies
this conclusion by limiting her definition of “trauma” to abuse that
was “overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening” (p.
67). Then she determined that only two of her subjects perceived that
level of threat, and parenthetically dismissed one of these subjects’
reports as “bizarre” and “questionable” (p. 68). Then, she discounted
all lesser levels of distress as nontraumatic, essentially re-rating
them all as #1 on her 10-point trauma scale.
It is academically dishonest to ask these 27 adults to rate their levels of trauma and to then ignore this data.
Clancy considered the following reports of two of her subjects as
lacking in trauma: “I went from confused to bewildered to scared . . .
it culminated in me feeling somewhat angry and betrayed,” and “I didn’t
think of it as sex, I just thought of it as disgusting . . .”
To further make her case, she wrote that two men
…while reporting that the [rape] was painful, did not describe it as
traumatic [apparently relying on her definition of trauma as:
“overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening”]. In the
words of one of the victims, “He would always say if you love me you’ll
do it. It hurt, and after a while I knew it was wrong, but not at the
beginning.” The other victim of penetration reported, “I didn’t like it–
I knew it was wrong– but it was better than having to go back to DYS
[Department of Youth Services custody].”
So, Clancy dismisses painful rape of a child as nontraumatic simply
because the victims did not describe the abuse as “overwhelmingly
terrifying or perceived as life threatening”.
Clancy also dismissed as nontraumatic all other painful emotional states described by her 27 subjects, including:
(a) “definitely feeling dirty.”
(b) “I couldn’t breathe.”
(c) “I was shocked at what was happening, and I think I was afraid, there was a lot of weirdness, insecurity, a lot of anger.”
(d) “I thought it was my fault.”
Clancy categorizes all such psychological reactions as, “unpleasant, distressing, or confusing, but not traumatic.”
Clancy acknowledges that: “All of our subjects (1) had either
symptoms or diagnoses of PTSD [posttraumatic stress disorder] and (2)
reported negative life effects from the abuse” (p. 71). Yet, this does
not influence Clancy to consider that they might have suffered trauma at
the time of their abuse.
Instead, she states that since child sexual abuse is, “not
necessarily traumatic at the time it occurs,” “it may be the
retrospective interpretation of the event, rather than the event itself,
that mediates its subsequent impact” (p. 72). In her words, the later
PTSD is the result of, “an understandable tendency to project our adult
fears, repulsion, and horror onto child victims.”
Thus, Clancy argues that it is adults, especially therapists, who
cause the trauma in sexual abuse victims, ignoring the reports of her
own subjects of contemporaneous fear, repulsion, and horror. And then
she titles her book, “The Trauma Myth”, categorically painting sexual
abuse as nontraumatic with one sweeping brush stroke.
Clancy has no objective basis to dismiss as a myth her subjects’
experiences of having been traumatized by their sexual abuse, simply
because their reports did not meet her overly-restrictive criteria of
overwhelming terror or having feared for their lives.
Clancy’s book also oddly neglects to adequately incorporate the vast
body of psychological research documenting the myriad short-term
damaging effects of sexual abuse on children. It is standard for
psychologists to first conduct an unbiased review of the literature on a
subject and to include that review in our books and papers. Clancy
failed to conduct such a review. Instead, she selectively cites only a
few studies that support her position. This approach exposes that Clancy
has a biased agenda rather than an objective of honestly representing
the work in the field. This raises questions of potential bias in her
research methods, her interviews of victims, and her interpretation of
her results.
As a psychologist for 24 years, I have treated hundreds of abused
children and adults abused as children. Cases of children experiencing
only “confusion” (her thesis) during the time period of their abuse are
very rare. In most cases, abused children and adults abused as children
report that during the time in which they were abused, in addition to
confusion of various types, they experienced a combination of many of
the following:
(a) Physical pain, in some cases extreme
(b) Disgust for the sexual acts, abuser genitalia and emissions
(c) Terror in cases of extreme force, restraint, or restriction of the child’s breathing, gagging, etc.
(d) Terror based in threats to self, loved one, pets, etc., to ensure compliance and/or to prevent disclosure
(e) Fear based in the abuser over-riding their attempts to escape, ignoring their pleas for the abuser to stop, etc.
(f) Fear, shame, and guilt, based in an awareness that private parts
should be covered and not bothered (molested), and an awareness that the
abuser was making great efforts to hide the abuse, to keep it secret,
and to ensure that they kept it secret, causing the child to understand
that these acts were harmful and morally wrong, as in hitting someone,
stealing, lying, etc.
(g) Betrayal and hurt in cases of abuse by loved ones, based in an
awareness that the abuser was engaging them in harmful and immoral acts,
and in many cases, that family members were allowing the abuse to
continue
(h) Guilt and shame for not escaping or physically fighting off the
abuser (The truth is that children usually understand in the moment that
they will be overpowered or assaulted for resisting.)
(i) Feeling like an “accomplice” based in receiving gifts and special
privileges from the abuser. Clancy portrays these “gifts” as “benefits”
that the child derives from sexual abuse. This equates child victims
with prostitutes who trade money and goods for sex. But, children cannot
enter “contracts” to be sexually exploited. Sexual abuse is imposed on
children against their will and with little or no knowledge of the
meaning of sexuality. Abusers then use gifts and favors to further
manipulate and entrap children.
(j) Anxiety-producing sexual arousal during the abuse, in cases in which
the abuser took precautions to prevent or minimize the perception of
pain
(k) Residual sexual feelings and responses that caused great anxiety,
crying, tantrums, pleas to caregivers to, “Make it [the sexual response]
stop,” etc.
(l) Rage at the abuser for inflicting the above
m) Social, behavioral, and cognitive (including academic) problems driven by the above
(n) Physical damage, including damage to internal organs, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, and in some cases, death
In addition, when children first disclose their abuse, the supportive
caregivers in their life typically are devastated to have discovered
the true basis for their children’s recent psychological and physical
problems, such as separation anxiety, nightmares and night terrors,
frequent crying, assorted fears, defiance, temper tantrums, academic
problems, urinary and bowel “accidents,” etc. All of these are clear
indicators that the sexual abuse was damaging to the child prior to his
or her disclosure of the abuse.
I do not discount the rare cases of children feeling only “confused”
during the period of their sexual abuse. However, this reaction usually
occurs only in cases that do not involve pain, coercion, and threats,
that involve more “mild” sexual acts, that are very short-term, and in
younger children.
It is significant to note that Susan Clancy is a member of the
International Committee of Social, Psychiatric, Psychological, Cognitive
Science, Neuroscience, and Neurological Scientists, a group that
submitted an amicus brief in on behalf of Roman Catholic priest Paul M.
Shanley in his appeal of his 2005 conviction of child sexual abuse.
Shanley’s sexual assault convictions were upheld on appeal in January,
2010.
It is also important to note that the McNally-Clancy article was
published in the journal, “The Scientific Review of Mental Health
Practice,” which claims to be peer-reviewed and endorsed by, The
Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH). Scott
Lilienfeld is founder and editor of this journal and of the CSMMH. Many
of the coordinating committee and fellows of the CSMMH have a long
history of affiliation with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and of
advocating on behalf of accused sex abuse offenders in legal actions.
These fellows include Elizabeth Loftus, Paul McHugh, and Harrison Pope. I
believe it is necessary to question the degree of scientific
objectivity of the peer-review process of this article by Clancy and
McNally.
10. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists as Inducing Dissociative Identity Disorder
Similar to misrepresenting child sexual abuse as non-traumatic, the
Internet is replete with assertions that Dissociative Identity Disorder
(DID) is not an actual psychiatric disorder based in histories of child
abuse and other psychological trauma (e.g., significant loss, medical
trauma), but is primarily an artifact of psychotherapy or specific
therapists inducing its formation, suggestible individuals being exposed
to material about child abuse or the concept of DID, and/or
fantasy-proneness in particular individuals.
These assertions ignore the abundance of research that substantiates
that DID is a valid, vs. rare or factitious, psychiatric disorder
usually based in childhood trauma, although this documentation is
readily available (see endnote 13).
Why would parties that oppose that ritual abuse and mind control exist be so motivated to misrepresent DID as a non-disorder?
Psychotherapists commonly diagnose DID in clients who report
histories of ritual abuse and mind control. And these clients commonly
report that their abusers used torture, hypnosis and conditioning to
intentionally induce their psyches to form dissociated self-states that
their abusers could then exploit for nefarious purposes. For a full
treatise on this thesis, see my chapter, “Torture-based mind control:
Psychological mechanisms and psychotherapeutic approaches to overcoming
mind control” in the book, Ritual Abuse and Mind Control: the
Manipulation of Attachment Needs (2011).
We also have a historical record of manipulation of amnestic and
dissociative states for purposes of mind control to serve espionage and
military purposes. The declassified documents of Cold War MKULTRA
program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) expose a
program that included experiments conducted by psychiatrists to create
amnesia, new dissociated identities, new memories, and responses to
hypnotic access codes (again, see Lacter, 2011).
Colin Ross, in his book, Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple
Personality by Psychiatrists (2000), cites a May 13, 1968, article in
the Providence Evening Bulletin, that states that George Estabrooks, who
is described as a former consultant for the FBI and CIA, is quoted to
have stated, “the key to creating an effective spy or assassin rests in
splitting a man’s personality, or creating multipersonality” (Ross,
2000, p. 162). Multiple Personality Disorder is precursor designation
for what we now call Dissociative Identity Disorder.
It is important to note that The False Memory Syndrome Foundation and
its affiliates have a long history of representing DID as a
pseudo-psychiatric disorder and as an artifact of psychotherapy.
In the context of this history, it is significant to note the
following citation related to funding by the United States Office of
Naval Research (citation provided by Colin Ross, 2000):
On December 11, 1996, in a posting on the internet list
WITCHNT@MITVAMA.MIT.EDU, Dr. Peter Freyd, husband of the Executive
Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, wrote:
“Since we all want to be open about any money we might have received
from military-related sources, let me confess. I, too must go on record.
Starting in 1988, I’ve been getting a lot of money from the U.S. Office
of Naval Research.” (p. 154)
Colin Ross (2000) succinctly helps us to connect the dots between
disinformation on DID and the United States CIA Cold War mind control
projects:
“If clinical multiple personality is buried and forgotten, then the
Manchurian Candidate Programs will be safe from public scrutiny.” ( p.
141)
11. Use of Aliases to Inflate Statistics
Individuals can use as many aliases as they wish on many websites,
e.g., sites that permit book reviews, to artificially inflate the number
of people who appear to support their positions, to vote multiple times
to endorse particular comments, etc.
12. Blitzkrieg Tactics
Opponents of the position that ritual abuse and mind control exist
can readily lodge voluminous, repetitious, and vehement accusations on
the Internet against psychotherapists who provide therapy or education
for ritual abuse or mind control trauma. These attacks sometimes amount
to harassment.
Psychotherapists, researchers, and educators cannot feasibly respond
to this kind of barrage of accusations and still have time to fulfill
their professional functions. This strategy also carries psychological
costs, including personal stress, professional humiliation, as well as
potentially frightening the clients of the therapists being attacked,
and steering potential clients away from these therapists, objectives
that may be part of the aim of some accusers.
There is often no venue to respond to accusations on the website
where the accusations are lodged. And if a venue to respond is
available, attempts to engage in rational discourse with people who use
Blitzkrieg tactics are likely to be futile.
In Conclusion
As we consider these common forms of misinformation and tactics of
disinformation used to discredit psychotherapy for trauma originating in
ritual abuse and mind control, we are obliged to ask: Who would be
motivated to launch such a vehement and deceitful attack against these
therapists? Who stands to lose if these therapists do this work?
If the bulk of these attacks came from clients who claimed that their
therapists induced or implanted false memories in them, we might find
an answer to our question. But, this does not seem to be the case.
Instead, these attacks appear to usually come from parties who do not
disclose the basis of their interest in this issue, and from
organizations, and members and affiliates of such organizations, that
directly advocate for people accused of crimes against children and from
organizations that appear to share that agenda if one scratches just
beneath the surface.
Such organizations include:
(a) The False Memory Syndrome Foundation
“formed to provide legal and emotional support to those accused of
sexual abuse” (Murphy, 1997)
(c) The International Committee of
Social, Psychiatric, Psychological, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and
Neurological Scientists, which submitted an amicus brief on behalf of
Roman Catholic priest Paul M. Shanley in his appeal of his conviction of
child sexual abuse (Shanley’s sexual assault convictions were upheld on
appeal)
(d) The National Association for Consumer
Protection in Mental Health Practices, that states that it was “founded
in 1994, due to the alarming number of False Memory cases” (see:
http://www.hermanohme.com)
(e)
http://www.hermanohme.com/),The
Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (the sister
organization of “d” (above) which has the stated goal to “call for the
reform of the mental health system, restricting it to those mental
health treatments proven reasonably safe and effective by reliable
scientific methods” (the last two organizations share a website here:
http://www.hermanohme.com/)
Therefore, the Internet serves as something of an unregulated court
of public opinion, where, to a large degree, allegedly falsely accused
perpetrators of child abuse and their advocates and alleged victims of
child abuse and their therapists and advocates, argue about:
(a) whether child abuse is in itself traumatic
(b) the existence of ritual abuse and mind control
(c) the validity of recovered memories of abuse
(d) the validity of dissociative disorders, especially DID
(e) the practice of psychotherapy in relation to all of the above
All of this occurs with no rules of order, no penalties for perjury,
and an uneven playing field that causes psychotherapists and psychology
researchers to have to pull their punches.
I believe that this fight is being waged, in great part, to prevent
child abuse survivors, especially survivors of ritual abuse and mind
control, from receiving the help and support that they need to heal from
their abuse, from receiving any sense of validation about their abuse,
from recalling any dissociated parts of their abuse, from reporting
their abusers to the authorities, from suing their abusers, from
activism against child abuse, ritual abuse, and mind control, and in
some cases, from even breaking away from their abusers.
It is my opinion that most victims of ritual abuse and mind control
need the support of another person to recover from these kinds of abuse.
This is normally a psychotherapist. It may also include clergy,
friends, significant others, and other survivors. For some
survivor-therapists, it is a colleague. But rarely can a survivor of
these abuses bear to process this trauma alone. It is usually too
painful, frightening, and disorienting to face without an external
anchor for support.
Psychotherapy may be the most common and effective means of breaking
the bonds of ritual abuse and mind control. I believe this is a large
basis for the war being waged against it.
Furthermore, it is a lot less vulgar and cruel to attack therapists
of victims and survivors than to attack the victims directly. For
example, legal defenses for those accused of child abuse focus on
painting the therapist of the child or adult as inducing or implanting
“false memories” of abuse rather than painting the alleged victim as a
liar.
It follows that psychotherapists receive the brunt of the attacks in
the battle to discredit the realities of ritual abuse and mind control,
as a group, and often as individuals.
It is my pleasure to expose these forms of misinformation and tactics
of disinformation about ritual abuse and mind control trauma and about
psychotherapy to treat such trauma.
I do so on the 25th anniversary of the death of my father, a man of
great ethics and integrity, who taught me to stand up for the oppressed
and to fight fairly.
Endnotes:
1. In 2011, Colin Batley was convicted of for leading a “satanic” sex cult in of West Wales, UK (see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/09/paedophile-satanic-cult-batley-kidwelly and:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/11/sex-cult-leader-colin-batley-sentenced).
2. In 2006, Gerald Robinson was convicted for the murder of Sister
Margaret Ann Pahl in Ohio, USA. Significant evidence suggests the murder
may have been a ritual sacrifice (see:
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/071203,
for a chapter from, Sin, Shame, and Secrets: The Murder of a Nun, the
Conviction of a Priest, and Cover-up in the Catholic Church,” by David
Yonke, 2006,
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2006/05/12/Priest-found-guilty-cleric-gets-15-years-to-life-in-nun-s-murder.html, and
http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2004/04/27/Area-authorities-no-strangers-to-cult-ritual-probes.html).
3. In December, 2012, in Cornwall, England, Peter Petrauske and Jack
Kemp were convicted of carrying out ritualistic sex abuse on young
girls. (See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/14/cornish-white-witches-guilty-ritual-abuse
and:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/28/witches-sex-abuse-allegations-children-court).
4. In April 2005, Pastor Louis D. Lamonica of the Hosanna Church in
Louisiana, USA, walked into the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office and
allegedly confessed to abusing children and animals in a Satanic ritual,
although he later recanted his confession (see:
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/4626/LA/US/).
Austin “Trey” Bernard, III, of the same church confessed to ritual
elements within his abuse of children to FBI Special Agents Lisa Marie
Freitas and Joseph Edwards (see:
http://wallsofsilence.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=196) Both men were convicted of child rape, Bernard in 2007 and Lamonica 2008 (
http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2007/12/03/top_stories/9453.txt). Also see:
http://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com/2008/10/ex-pastor-gets-concurrent-life-terms-in.html,
http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2007/12/18/top_stories/9455.txt, and
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2007/11_12/2007_12_04_KATC_FirstCharged.htm)
5. In June, 1993, in London, a man aged 67, his daughter, aged 29,
and his two sons- in-law, aged 41 and 31, were imprisoned for between 18
months and life for the sexual abuse of seven children of the same
extended family over an eleven-year period (see:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/four-people-in-one-family-are-jailed-for-child-sex-1494769.html)
The 10-year-old daughter of the 41-year-old man “described being taken
late at night by her father and others to a ‘devil church’ where she was
stripped, tied up, had knives held in front of her face and was abused
by adults in black cloaks and balaclavas” (see:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/girl-10-tells-of-sexual-abuse-in-devil-church-child-accuses-relatives-in-video-shown-to-jury-1490468.html and
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/girl-was-abused-in-churchyard-1490250.html)
6. In 1991, in Perth, Australia, Scott Brian Gozenton was convicted
on 22 charges of indecent assault and dealing and of evil intent. The
head of Western Australia’s child sex abuse unit, Detective-Sergeant
Roger Smart, said the conviction demonstrated a link between organized
child sex abuse and devil worship (see:
http://ra-watch.livejournal.com/4950.html)
7. In 1982, following guilty pleas to a series of serious sexual
offences against young children, Malcolm and Susan Smith, and Albert and
Carole Hickman, of Telford, England, were jailed, Malcolm Smith for 14
years, Albert Hickman for ten years, Carole Hickman for five years,
and Susan Smith for two years. The ritualistic and satanic elements of
their crimes are discussed briefly here: rituals.
http://usminc.org/crime3.html and by Tim Tate in Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse, edited by Valerie Sinason (1994) on page 191.
8. A conviction list of cases with elements of ritual abuse was
archived in 1997 by Michael Newton of Believe the Children. (See:
http://ra-info.org/for-researchers/bibliographies/conviction-list-ritual-child-abuse/cases-that-have-resulted-in-convictions/)
There have been significant developments in some of these cases since
this was published. E.g., in 1994, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley of
West Memphis, Tennessee, USA, were convicted in the cult murders of
three boys, but in 2011, they were released from prison on an Alford
plea (see:
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/west-memphis-three-freed-alford-plea-public-hearing-live-stream-2827425.html)
In an Alford plea, “the criminal defendant does not admit the act, but
admits that the prosecution could likely prove the charge” (definition
from:
http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/alford-plea/)
9. A good deal of the research about ritual abuse is summarized in an
article by Randy Noblitt, PhD.: “An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse
Controversy,” by (See:
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/articles/an-empirical-look-at-the-ritual-abuse-controversy-randy-noblitt-phd/).
10. A news piece of 12/8/2012 in the National Post (
nationalpost.com),
documents an international ring engaged in distribution of filmed child
sexual abuse: “Spain arrests 28 people suspected of links to
Toronto-based child porn ring,” states, “The investigation began when
Interpol told Spanish police in April about a network headquartered in
Toronto, dedicated to the sale of child pornography videos. Spain’s
Interior Ministry said Saturday that the videos were created by abusing
minors in Ukraine, Romania and Germany” (see:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/08/spain-arrests-28-people-suspected-of-links-to-toronto-based-child-porn-ring/).
11. See: Buried Secrets: A True Story of Drug Running, Black Magic,
and Human Sacrifice (1991), by Edward Humes, and Cauldron of Blood: The
Matamoros Cult Killings (1989), by Jim Schutze.
12. See: “Defamation Case Settled for an Undisclosed Sum,” April 23, 1995, in The Deseret Times of Salt Lake City, Utah:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/417014/DEFAMATION-CASE-SETTLED-FOR-AN-UNDISCLOSED-SUM.html?pg=all
13. Accurate information on DID can be found in the Guidelines for
Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision (2011)
of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation
(see:
http://www.isst-d.org/jtd/GUIDELINES_REVISED2011.pdf)
and in this 2012 comprehensive review by Dalenberg et al.: Evaluation
of the Evidence for the Trauma and Fantasy Models of Dissociation (see:
http://goo.gl/RERhc; click the box that says “view” to the right, then scroll down)
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