The Survivorship Trafficking and Extreme Abuse Online Conference 2026

 

Survivor Conference - Saturday and Sunday May 16 - 17, 2026

Clinician's Conference - Friday May 15, 2026

Low Prices until April 25, 2026. Low Income Prices are available. Prices as low as $50.

Please write info@survivorship.org if you are interested in attending our May 2026 conference. Conference information is at https://survivorship.org/the-survivorship-trafficking-and-extreme-abuse-online-conference-2026/

For over three decades, Survivorship has provided vital support and community for survivors of extreme abuse, including ritual abuse and trafficking, offering specialized resources and education. https://survivorship.org

Survivorship is proud to announce the Survivorship Trafficking and Extreme Abuse Online Conference 2026 featuring specialized presentations for both survivors and clinicians. https://survivorship.org/the-survivorship-trafficking-and-extreme-abuse-online-conference-2026/

 

Weekend Conference - Saturday and Sunday May 16 - 17, 2026

Clinician's Conference - Friday May 15, 2026

Presentations (full descriptions are at our conference website page): 

Ritual Abuse as Mind Control - Wendy Hoffman Wendy has published four memoirs, three books of poetry and a co-authored book of essays. She does consultations for therapists working in the field of dissociative disorders and presentations on mind control internationally. https://ritualabuse.us/smart/wendy-hoffman/

Approaches to Becoming Conscious of Dissociated Identities and Psychological Manipulation of Dissociated Identities in Systematic Abuse - Ellen Lacter, Ph.D. Ellen is a clinical psychologist and specializes in the treatment of dissociative disorders and trauma from ritualistic abuse, torture-based mind control and child trafficking. https://endritualabuse.org

Remembering Wholeness: Trauma-Informed Writing in Support of Voice, Safety, and Self-Trust - deJoly LaBrier  deJoly is a Life and Writing Coach, public speaker, and survivor of extreme abuse whose work focuses on trauma-informed writing practices for women impacted by trafficking, ritual abuse, and complex trauma.

Traces of Western Practices of Ritual Abuse in Mary Daly’s

Gyn/Ecology and Other Texts - Lynn Brunet  Lynn is an Australian art historian whose research examines the coupling of trauma and ritual in modern and contemporary western art and literature. https://independent.academia.edu/LynnBrunet1

Unraveling the Tangled Mind: Psychotherapy with Survivors of Mind Control - Faige Flakser, LCSW Faige is a trauma therapist, consultant, and educator with a clinical focus on trauma, dissociation, Organized and Extreme Abuse (OEA), including mind control and coercive systems.

An Introduction to Neurofeedback for Trauma - Joshua Moore MA, LMHC, BCN Joshua is a licensed mental health counselor who uses talk therapy, EMDR, QEEG brain mapping, family systems work, and neurofeedback treatments.

Intergenerational Occult Families, and One Father’s Fight for His Abducted Daughter - Iain Bryson Iain has published an evidence-based, documentary style memoir of his daughter’s abduction. He continues to fight for his daughter, and for other survivors of ritual abuse.

Discussion Groups: “How Ethics and History Effect Present Practice” and challenges in therapy, self-help ideas and support groups.

Ritual Abuse Evidence https://survivorship.org/ritual-abuse-evidence/

Child Abuse Wiki - Ritual Abuse 

http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse

We recommend that survivors bring a safe support person to the online conference who is familiar with the issues ritual abuse survivors may need help with.

None of the material on this page, on linked pages or at the conference is meant as therapy, or to take the place of therapy.

The conference is co-sponsored by S.M.A.R.T., a newsletter that examines the possible connections between ritual abuse and secretive organizations. SMARTNEWS@aol.com http://ritualabuse.us/

 

Survivorship May Online Conference for Trauma Survivors and Clinicians

 

Survivorship May Online Conference for Trauma Survivors and Clinicians                    

Survivorship is now accepting conference registrations for their May 15 - 17, 2026 online conferences. They are extending their low prices until March 29th. CEs are available for the Friday conference. Conference topics include PTSD, trauma, dissociation, neurofeedback, DID, ritual abuse and mind control. More information is below. 

Please write info@survivorship.org if you are interested in attending their conference. Conference information is at https://survivorship.org/the-survivorship-trafficking-and-extreme-abuse-online-conference-2026/

 

Conference Speakers

Ritual Abuse as Mind Control - Wendy Hoffman

Rituals are common practice in satanic culture. This presentation explores how every moment of a ritual is used for mind control. Its purpose is to capture the minds of its victims and enforce its programs. Traumatic emotions are also an important part of mind control, and they will be discussed.

 

Wendy Hoffman has published four memoirs, two books of poetry and a co-authored book of essays. She does consultations for therapists working in the field of dissociative disorders and presentations on mind control internationally. https://ritualabuse.us/smart/wendy-hoffman/ 

 

Traces of Western Practices of Ritual Abuse in Mary Daly’s

Gyn/Ecology and Other Texts - Lynn Brunet

Mary Daly (1928-2010), born in Schenectady, New York, was a philosopher and theologian and described herself as a radical lesbian feminist, intent on exposing the extent to which the patriarchy exploits women and working towards changing this. This paper will not get into the politics surrounding radical feminism, which is multi-faceted and extensive, but instead will examine one of her key texts, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978). In this text there are multiple references to the experience of spinning. She describes the book as “an invitation to the Wild Witch in all women who long to spin” (Daly 1978, xv).

 

This talk will explore Daly’s use of language throughout Gyn/Ecology to suggest that concealed/revealed in her writing may be traces of western practices of ritual abuse, practices that only began to come to public attention in the mid-1980s. It will suggest that the author’s search for the most extreme examples of ritual torture of women across cultures, coupled with the idiosyncratic metaphorical language of ecstatic spiral journeying used in Gyn/Ecology and other texts, may have been a means of expressing a deeply internalised and repressed experience of childhood ritual abuse. As the following discussion will outline, hidden cultic practices of a Druidic nature appear to have been exported to the United States alongside conservative religious practices amongst migrant groups such as the Irish, the culture that Mary Daly celebrates as her own heritage.

 

Lynn Brunet (PhD) is an Australian art historian whose research examines the coupling of trauma and ritual in modern and contemporary western art and literature. In particular, it traces the connection between Masonic and other fraternal initiation rites and complex trauma in the work of various artists and writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. https://independent.academia.edu/LynnBrunet1 

 

Remembering Wholeness: Trauma-Informed Writing in Support of Voice, Safety, and Self-Trust - deJoly LaBrier

As both a survivor of extreme abuse and a Life and Writing Coach, her work is informed by lived experience as well as years of supporting women on their healing journeys. In this presentation, she shares how trauma-informed writing practices can support survivors in reclaiming voice, coherence, and a sense of inner authorship after experiences that fracture identity and distort self-perception.

 

Rather than asking survivors to revisit traumatic material, this approach honors personal boundaries and nervous system readiness. Writing becomes a relational practice—one that allows meaning to emerge slowly, safely, and on the survivor’s own terms. This work reflects a deep belief that survivors are not broken, but adaptive—and that wholeness is not something to be earned, but remembered. This presentation recognizes dissociation and multiplicity as adaptive survival responses and offers trauma-informed writing practices that support safety, voice, and self-trust without requiring integration or disclosure.

 

deJoly LaBrier is a Life and Writing Coach, public speaker, and survivor of extreme abuse whose work focuses on trauma-informed writing practices for women impacted by trafficking, ritual abuse, and complex trauma. Drawing from lived experience as well as years of coaching, facilitation, and public speaking, she supports survivors in reclaiming voice, agency, and a sense of wholeness after experiences that fracture identity and distort self-perception. https://dejoly.com/shop 

 

Unraveling the Tangled Mind: Psychotherapy with Survivors of Mind Control - Faige Flakser, LCSW

This presentation offers a clinical roadmap for psychotherapy with survivors of Organized and Extreme Abuse (OEA), including cultic abuse, ritual abuse, trafficking, and other coercive systems. It describes how this work frequently presents with complex trauma and dissociation, with dissociative parts and self-states, often including DID. Participants will be oriented to the core psychological binds created by mind control: confrontation with profound human cruelty and the systematic destabilizing of reality-testing through confusion, coercion, and terror-based conditioning. The presentation highlights three predictable trust ruptures that shape treatment from the first contact: mistrust of helpers, including realistic fears that perpetrators may pose as helpers; mistrust within family systems where grooming and recruitment have often occurred; and mistrust of one’s own mind in the aftermath of sustained manipulation. These ruptures complicate the formation of a therapeutic alliance and require a paced, relational approach that honors the protective functions of doubt, vigilance, and withdrawal.

 

Faige Flakser, LCSW, is a trauma therapist, consultant, and educator with a clinical focus on trauma, dissociation, and DID, as well as Organized and Extreme Abuse (OEA), including mind control and coercive systems. She holds leadership roles within the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), where she is the former Chair of the OEA Special Interest Group and has presented at ISSTD conferences. She is Director of the Trauma Division at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy (ICP).

An Introduction to Neurofeedback for Trauma - Joshua Moore MA, LMHC, BCN

Neurofeedback is a non-invasive, evidence-based therapeutic modality that helps individuals to self-regulate brain activity through real-time biofeedback of brainwave patterns, often referred to as EEG entrainment. In the treatment of trauma, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), neurofeedback targets key neurophysiological features such as hyperarousal, emotional dysregulation, and altered brain connectivity resulting from traumatic experiences. By identifying specific neuro-markers associated with PTSD, practitioners can transform the often intangible nature of psychological trauma into visible representations on a computer screen or printout, facilitating targeted training to normalize brain function.

This approach serves as a promising adjunct to traditional trauma therapies, effectively reducing core PTSD symptoms—including intrusive thoughts, avoidance behaviors, and heightened arousal—without necessitating direct exposure to traumatic memories, which many clients find aversive. Recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses indicate moderate beneficial effects on PTSD symptoms, with neurofeedback demonstrating clinically meaningful improvements in symptom severity. Neurofeedback is also discussed for its potential utility in Bessel van der Kolk's book, The Body Keeps the Score, which highlights innovative, body-oriented interventions for trauma recovery (van der Kolk, 2014). In this lecture, key research and outcomes will be reviewed, alongside clinical principles and skills, emerging protocols, practical resources for locating practitioners, and training to become a certified neurofeedback practitioner.

 

Joshua Moore is a licensed mental health counselor who incorporates a variety of treatments, including talk therapy, EMDR, QEEG brain mapping, family systems work, and neurofeedback. Joshua is passionate about making evidence-based quality neurofeedback more available to the community. Joshua provides neurofeedback mentorship to several clinics and creates online workshops for beginners and advanced clinicians in the field of healthcare. Clinically, he works with difficult cases, including dissociative identity disorder, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and complex or unclear diagnoses. Joshua holds a Master’s degree in Counseling from Multnomah University and a Bachelor’s degree in Theology, and he is board-certified in neurofeedback through the Biofeedback International Certification Alliance (BCIA).

 

Intergenerational Occult Families, and One Father’s Fight for His Abducted Daughter - Iain Bryson

Iain Bryson’s daughter was taken fifteen years ago by his first wife and her family after his first wife told him that her family is a “cult,” and that she would be taking their daughter back to them because of “mind control.” Iain had no idea what ritual abuse and trauma-based-mind-control were until his daughter was taken. He had to reconcile that fact with what his wife had warned and the signs that his mind had refused to see. Iain tried to get help from local authorities and international authorities. Despite the fact that his daughter is a United States citizen, the only advice given by the Embassy was to re-abduct his daughter given that Poland is out of the Embassy’s jurisdiction. Having to take matters into his own hands, Iain ended up in the Polish criminal justice system. He was incarcerated for fifty months in Poland because of his attempts to make the system aware on his daughter. Iain was released in 2015.

In 2024, Iain Bryson published an evidence-based, documentary style memoir of his daughter’s abduction. He continues to fight for his daughter, and for other survivors of the horrendous atrocity we know as ritual abuse.

Clinical Discussion Group - How Ethics and History Effect Present Practice

The Survivorship Board Members will moderate a discussion on how ethics and history in the field of psychology effect present practice. The discussion will include historical events in the field of psychology, allegations of ethical lapses that happened in different psychotherapeutic settings and how historical misconceptions of the field and different diagnoses may effect present practice.

None of the material on this page, on linked pages or at the conference is meant as therapy, or to take the place of therapy.

 

 

What It’s Like to Live With One of Psychiatry’s Most Misunderstood Diagnoses - Dissociative Identity Disorder

 

What It’s Like to Live With One of Psychiatry’s Most Misunderstood Diagnoses - Dissociative Identity Disorder

 

- What It’s Like to Live With One of Psychiatry’s Most Misunderstood

- Diagnoses- A Randomized Controlled Trial Assists Individuals With Complex       Trauma and Dissociation in Finding Solid Ground 

- Finding Solid Ground program

 

 

What It’s Like to Live With One of Psychiatry’s Most Misunderstood Diagnoses - Spurred by her past struggles with dissociative identity disorder, she has devoted her professional life to studying it. By Maggie Jones

Maggie Jones interviewed more than two dozen people who have been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder along with nearly 20 experts.  Jan. 30, 2026.... Experts in trauma have long argued that D.I.D. is an ingenious survival tool born in childhood. It typically begins by the time a child is 5 or 6 as a response to repeated abuse, often by a caregiver. Before about 6 years old, children generally have not yet formed a coherent sense of self. They may have imaginary friends or displace their own thoughts or feelings onto stuffed animals. (“My bunny is sad. He hates school.”) They may believe they will become a princess or Superman. It’s all psychologically typical, and over time, most children develop a unified self.

But for a small subset of abused children who have a capacity to dissociate — which experts theorize is in part genetic — developing a unified self becomes disrupted. To endure the physical and emotional pain, their mind makes it seem as if it is not happening to them but to someone else, someone inside them. “When it’s too overwhelming to feel such fear, too dangerous to feel what is happening to their body, they feel like that’s not me,” Kaufman says, noting that the phrase “me, not me” captures a core feeling for people living with D.I.D. And because children frequently don’t tell anyone about the abuse, the feeling of having inside people can be soothing.

Often people with D.I.D. unconsciously create an angry “part” as a protective mechanism, which tries to silence other parts that bring up traumatic memories. Many girls create boy parts, explains Richard Chefetz, a psychiatrist who treats people with complex post-trauma and dissociative disorder, because they believe if they were male, the abuse would not have happened. Other parts — like Kaufman’s nice lady who helped her speak in class — have certain skills that keep children engaged in school and in the larger world and help them experience humor, joy, hope.

That’s the adaptable aspect. But the flip side is that if a child has D.I.D. their mind doesn’t follow the usual developmental pathway to form a coherent self. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, where the pieces have never fully been put together,” explains Richard Loewenstein, a pioneer in dissociative research and treatment and the founder of the trauma program at Sheppard Pratt, a psychiatric medical center in Baltimore. While we all have self-states — a work state, a social state, a family state and so on — “most people who are well integrated can move among their different parts” without feeling unstable, says Frank Putnam, an expert on child abuse and dissociative disorders and a professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Most people, too, experience some dissociation — when they drive from the grocery store to home with little memory of how they got there, or they lose track of time while immersed in a video game. But for those with dissociative disorders, the experiences are more pervasive, intense and disruptive. They may regularly feel disconnected from their thoughts, feelings or bodily sensations, a psychological phenomenon known as depersonalization. They may also experience derealization, in which the world seems blurry, dreamlike or unreal.

People with D.I.D. have both, along with fragmented self-states, which often cause them distress and can make daily functioning difficult: Among other things, one self-state can be unaware of actions taken by another state....

But in contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, neuroscientists now have more clues about how severe dissociation appears in the brain. In the late 1990s, Ruth Lanius, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who is the director of the PTSD research unit at the University of Western Ontario, was running a PTSD study using a standard approach for measuring responses to trauma memories: A person narrates a memory, which is recorded and then played back during an fMRI scan. Typically, the subject’s heart rate, blood pressure and activity in their amygdala — which facilitates the fear response — increases.

One subject had been so horrifically abused as a child that Lanius expected the narrated memory would trigger a flashback and the woman would feel as if she were reliving her trauma, causing her heart rate to spike. Instead, to Lanius’s surprise, as the woman lay in the scanner, her heart rate dropped. Lanius had her listen to her trauma narrative two more times with the same result. When she interviewed the woman afterward, the subject said she felt numb and completely disconnected from her body. In further studies, Lanius was able to pinpoint areas of the brain that suggest subjects like her have a dissociative subtype of PTSD. In response to trauma, their brains — unlike classic PTSD patients’ — blunt arousal: Activity in their amygdala decreases, while processing in a part of the frontal lobe, where emotions are controlled, increases..... 

 

More recently, Simone Reinders, a neuroscientist at King’s College in London, has published multiple imaging studies about D.I.D., including those in which actors were told to mimic different dissociative states. The actors could not match the neural responses of those diagnosed with D.I.D....
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/magazine/dissociative-identity-disorder-mental-health.html?smid=url-share

A Randomized Controlled Trial Assists Individuals With Complex Trauma and Dissociation in Finding Solid Ground - Brand, B. L., Schielke, H. J., Putnam, K., Pierorazio, N. A., Nester, M. S., Robertson, J., Myrick, A. C., Loewenstein, R. J., Putnam, F. W., Steele, K., Boon, S., & Lanius, R. A. (2025). A randomized controlled trial assists individuals with complex trauma and dissociation in Finding Solid Ground.Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 17(8), 1717–1727. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001871

Objective: Evidence-based treatments are urgently needed for individuals with trauma-related dissociation (TRD), including severe dissociative disorders, the dissociative posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) subtype, and complex PTSD (International Classification of Diseases-10). TRD is strongly associated with severe trauma, a more refractory treatment course, and high suicidality and nonsuicidal self-injury. We evaluated changes in symptoms and adaptive capacities in individuals with high TRD through participation in an adjunctive online program based on the Finding Solid Ground (FSG) psychoeducational program. Method: We provide an interim report on an ongoing, randomized controlled trial of FSG on an international sample of 291 outpatients with dissociative identity disorder, dissociative PTSD, other specified dissociative disorders, complex PTSD, or dissociative disorder, unspecified (International Classification of Diseases-10). Outpatient therapists continued to provide psychotherapy. Participants were randomly assigned to either receive immediate access to FSG or be on a 6-month waitlist before accessing FSG. We did not exclude for suicidality, nonsuicidal self-injury, recent or concurrent hospitalization, or substance abuse. Results: Although initially comparable on outcome measures, at 6 months into the study, the Immediate FSG group showed significant improvement in emotion regulation, PTSD symptoms, self-compassion, and adaptive capacities in comparison to the Waitlist group. At 12 months, the Immediate group showed large effect size changes in these areas compared to study entry (tra_17_8_1717_math1.gif s = 0.95–1.32). The Waitlist group showed comparable improvements after accessing the FSG program for 6 months. Conclusions: This randomized controlled trial demonstrates that adding FSG to psychotherapy of individuals with TRD results in improvements in emotion regulation, PTSD symptoms, self-compassion, and adaptive functioning.

Prospective and retrospective cross-cultural studies in clinical and general population samples of children, adolescents, and adults find that dissociation is a partially genetically mediated, transdiagnostic psychobiological process related to trauma (American Psychiatric Association, 2022; Loewenstein, 2018). Studies demonstrate that high levels of dissociation are linked to multiple types of severe trauma, most commonly childhood maltreatment and/or neglect. Dissociation is associated with earlier age of onset, greater severity, and longer duration of maltreatment and, particularly, maltreatment by primary attachment figures (Dutra et al., 2009; Lyssenko et al., 2018; Vonderlin et al., 2018). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, text revision dissociative disorders (DDs) are strongly linked to antecedent trauma, particularly the most symptomatically severe and complex DDs (CDDs), dissociative identity disorder (DID), and other specified dissociative disorders....

These findings indicate that FSG offers an evidence-based method to assist dissociative patients and the therapists that work with them. Such materials may also be of particular help to clinicians learning how to better serve these populations (Kumar et al., 2022; Nester, Hawkins, & Brand, 2022). A major strength of FSG is its systematically structured, sequential approach to psychoeducation and skill-building that emphasizes individualized pacing. This program allows for repeated access to educational materials and appears to help both patients and therapists to conceptualize and work systematically on basic goals of trauma treatment: stabilization of severe symptoms and development of safety and recovery-based ways to self-regulate. This is the antithesis of the approach proposed by researchers who advocate rapid, intensive focus on trauma processing (e.g., van Minnen & Tibben, 2021) and who aver that stabilization is unnecessary for trauma treatment. In our model, stabilization is defined as developing recovery-oriented self-regulation that reduces reliance on high-risk behaviors, including NSSI and substance abuse. These behaviors drive treatment at more restrictive levels of care and may disrupt therapy; increase treatment costs; and reinforce a sense of failure, shame, and demoralization.
Stabilization of dissociative symptoms is another defining aspect of stabilization. Dissociation declined over time for participants in both groups....

This RCT shows that FSG is an evidence-based stabilization-focused program for individuals demonstrating high levels of trauma-related dissociation and substantial comorbidities. The effect sizes were large for symptom improvements after 1 year of FSG. In view of the challenges and high health care costs associated with trauma and dissociation, it is promising that this program is associated with amelioration of severe symptoms, adaptive capacities, and self-compassion. The inclusion of patients irrespective of the severity of their symptoms, safety issues, or other comorbid conditions suggests broad applicability of this program.  https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2025-86664-001.html

EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND SUMMARY: FINDING SOLID GROUND PROGRAM
What is the Finding Solid Ground program, and how is it unique?

Finding Solid Ground is a program that Ruth Lanius co-developed with Bethany Brand and Hygge Schielke, and they co-authored the book for clinicians and workbook for clients on this innovative approach for helping people with dissociative disorders. Finding Solid Ground is the first research-backed program for trauma-related dissociative disorders.  Finding Solid Ground is a program that Ruth Lanius co-developed with Bethany Brand and Hygge Schielke, and they co-authored the book for clinicians and workbook for clients on this innovative approach for helping people with dissociative disorders. Finding Solid Ground is the first research-backed program for trauma-related dissociative disorders.
Unlike trauma treatments that focus solely on narrative or exposure-based work, Finding Solid Ground begins by helping clients build the foundational skills needed for emotional and relational safety. The book and workbook guide therapists and clients through the program, which provides an evidence-informed, practical, and accessible approach for the stabilization and treatment of patients with complex trauma and dissociation. You can learn more about the book and workbook on our Books page.

The Finding Solid Ground program teaches 4 crucial skills:
    Grounding
    Separating past from present
    Healthy ways of regulating emotions
    Getting healthy needs met safely

Complex trauma refers to repeated and prolonged exposure to traumatic events - often during childhood, and at the hands of parents and/or other early attachment figures.  Dissociative disorders, including the dissociative subtype of PTSD, involve feelings of significant disconnection, including disconnection from one’s body, emotions, memories, surroundings, and/or personal identity.  Typically, this type of disconnection begins as a way to endure terrifying events when physical escape is not possible, for example during physical abuse, military combat, or a horrific car accident.

At its core, dissociation is a survival response, and one that can become automatic whenever a threat, or perceived threat, is present or approaching.  While this response can help someone get through horrible experiences, it is difficult to “turn off”, even after the person is safe and the threat is long gone.  Dissociation can really disrupt people’s lives by interfering with their ability to emotionally connect with family and friends, to notice sensations in their own body (hunger, pain, etc.), to know who they are/what they want, and to navigate their environment, to name just a few examples.  For this reason, it is important for us to find an effective treatment for dissociative disorders.  https://www.ruthlanius.com/finding-solid-ground-summaries

 

SMART Ritual Abuse Newsletter - November 2023

 

S.M.A.R.T.
(Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today)
P. O Box 1295, Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 USA E-mail: SMARTNEWS@aol.com
Home page: https://ritualabuse.us/

Issue 173 – November 2023

The purpose of this newsletter is to help stop secretive organizations and groups from abusing others and to help those who allege they have been abused by such organizations and groups. This newsletter is not a substitute for other ways of recovering from ritual abuse. Readers should use caution while reading this newsletter. If necessary, make sure other support systems are available during and after reading this newsletter.

Important:
The resources mentioned in this newsletter are for educational value only. Reading the books cited may or may not help your recovery process, so use caution when reading any book or contacting any resource mentioned in this newsletter. Some may have a religious or other agenda that may be separate from your own recovery process. Others may have valuable information on secretive organizations, but have triggers or be somewhat sympathetic to those organizations. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the views expressed in this newsletter constitute expressions of opinion, and readers are cautioned to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions by consulting a variety of sources, including this newsletter. Resources listed, quoted and individual articles, etc. and their writers do not necessarily support all or any of the views mentioned in this newsletter. Also, the views, facts and opinions mentioned in this newsletter are solely the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily the opinions of this newsletter or its editor.

Copyright 2023 – All rights reserved. No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.

Information in this issue includes: Ritual Abuse Sex Trafficking and Mind Control, Neil Brick, suggestive techniques, legal cases, Extreme Abuse Survivors Survey, cults, mental health diagnoses, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, torture, sexual abuse, mind control techniques, BELONGING three generations – poems, Wendy Hoffman, Alison Miller, Ritual Abuse and Sacrifice in Africa, Subcommittee Hearing, Chrystine Oksana in Safe Passage to Healing, programmed parts, satanic child abuse ring, rape and sexual assault charges, Human Trafficking Data Collection Activities, human trafficking offenses, human trafficking, slavery, forced labor, 50 Voices – Ritual Abuse is Real, Testimonies of survivors of Ritual Abuse, child prostitution, fighting child pornography, torture, clergy abuse survivors, Vatican, abusive priests

Ritual Abuse, Sex Trafficking and Mind Control Transcript and Video
September 20, 2023 Neil Brick
This presentation will explain how ritual abuse, mind control, and different suggestive techniques work to control sex trafficking survivors (Karriker, 2008). The presenter will describe different historical examples of how mind control and ritual abuse have been used. Legal cases will also be discussed from various parts of the world (McGonigle, 1999; New York Times, 1988). Research studies, like the Extreme Abuse Survivors Survey, will be presented, as well as examples of different cults and their techniques (Hassan, 2018). Mental health diagnoses, like Dissociative Identity Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and their origins in sex trafficking survivors will be explained. The presenter will discuss his personal experiences of being in a cult as a child experiencing torture, sexual abuse, and mind control techniques. The forced development of these diagnoses and their symptoms will be connected to how they are used to control sex trafficking survivors. Ways to expose and prevent ritual abuse, mind control, and sex trafficking will be discussed. Finally, there will be a discussion of the future of advocacy efforts to stop ritual abuse, sex trafficking, and mind control.
Trigger Warning: This presentation contains information (written, spoken, or visual) that may be triggering or (re)traumatizing to attendees.

Presentation Objectives
Discuss techniques used to control sex trafficking survivors
Describe research studies that show how these techniques work
Explain how different mental health diagnoses symptoms are used to help sex trafficking survivors
Discuss ways people can educate others to help stop future occurrences of ritual abuse, sex trafficking, and mind control
https://ritualabuse.us/mindcontrol/ritual-abuse-sex-trafficking-and-mind-control/

BELONGING three generations – poems by Wendy Hoffman poems Kelsay Books, $20 One person’s cooking can keep a clashing family together. Poems in Wendy Hoffman’s Belonging describe recipes and cooked-from-scratch food carried in the grandmother’s memory from the Old Country to the New Land. Love baked into this heritage-food keeps this generational mind controlled family holding on. The poems weave their way through the women’s ordinary days with hints and whispers of another realm of abuses within its characters. Three generations of women: grandmother, mother and daughter-poet each try to come to terms with her past, present and future. The maternal grandmother was an immigrant from Belarus, the mother was born in America and formed during the Depression, the younger daughter distances but still feels genetic connection and buried longing. The poems encompass the surface of the women’s everyday lives and also the contradictory truth of their traumatic hidden ones. The poems mix imagery, prose, allusion and metaphor with frankness to achieve gripping and fleeing moments that are hard to hold onto but stick. About the author: Wendy Hoffman is the author of four published memoirs about dissociation and mind control—one has been translated and published in Germany, a co-authored book of essays with Alison Miller, and a first book of poetry. https://kelsaybooks.com/products/belonging-three-generations https://ritualabuse.us/smart/wendy-hoffman

Efforts to Address Ritual Abuse and Sacrifice in Africa Subcommittee Hearing
09.19.2023 10:00am 2200 RHOB Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBgLaL-ByL8&t=3s
https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/ efforts-to-address-ritual-abuse-and-sacrifice-in-africa/

Dissociation
Unmasking Ritual Abuse, DID, and the Threat of Suicide
On Dissociative Identity Disorder and suicide awareness.
Adrian A. Fletcher Psy.D., M.A. Keeping It Real and Resilient
Updated September 27, 2023

Key points
Ritual abuse is a seldom-discussed and deeply unsettling topic.
Dissociative Identity Disorder is highly stigmatized, and denying the existence of DID is of global concern.
Secrecy perpetuates ritual abuse, and awareness is essential for prevention….
Defining Ritual Abuse (RA)
Ritual abuse fuses the concept of a ritual—a structured procedure to attain a transformation—with the malevolent nature of abuse, which encompasses any act that harms an individual’s physical, emotional, sexual, mental, or spiritual development. It’s crucial to grasp that ritual abuse is systematic and engineered to break a person’s will.

Chrystine Oksana, in Safe Passage to Healing: A Guide for Survivors of Ritual Abuse (2001), elucidates that ritual abuse manifests in diverse forms, driven by various motivations such as religion, preoccupation with the supernatural, power, financial gain, or sadomasochistic drives. Disturbingly, it often intertwines with the underworld of prostitution, pornography, and trafficking. I, too, fell victim to ritual abuse as a result of my father’s involvement in organized crime.
Programming in the Alters/Parts of a DID System That Has Endured RA
One disturbing facet of my ordeal was the “programming” of certain parts of my identity, compelling them to perform specific actions based on the rituals imposed upon me. This included programming parts to contemplate suicide for “telling” or breaking the code of silence.

The Role of Clinicians
For clinicians working with DID clients, especially when the abuse history is concealed initially, it’s imperative to acknowledge that survivors may harbor parts programmed to return to abusers or inflict self-harm. This heartbreaking reality underscores the necessity for all practitioners claiming to be “trauma-informed” to possess a deep understanding of Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Awareness and Validation
To combat ritual abuse, we must first acknowledge its existence. Like incest, ritual abuse thrives in secrecy, and survivors can only heal when society grants them recognition and validation. Similarly, the denial of DID’s existence leaves countless people suffering and, in some cases, facing the specter of suicide.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/keeping-it-real-and-resilient/202309/unmasking-ritual-abuse-did-and-the-threat-of-suicide

 

may be triggering
Girl ‘raped while satanic child abuse ring that held seances and used ouija boards clapped and cheered’ One girl was chased by people wearing devil masks, hung by her clothing from a nail on the wall and shut in a microwave and fridge, court heard Amy-Clare Martin Crime Correspondent Tuesday 05 September 2023

 

Children were forced to take part in witchcraft and seances, and were sexually assaulted while members of a satanic child abuse ring watched, a court has heard.
Eleven people are standing trial at Glasgow High Court, accused of a string of crimes, with a number facing rape and sexual assault charges, while five are accused of attempted murder.
Iain Owens, 45, Elaine Lannery, 39, Lesley Williams, 41, Paul Brannan, 41, Marianne Gallagher, 38, Scott Forbes, 50, Barry Watson, 47, Mark Carr, 49, Richard Gachagan, 45, Leona Laing, 50, and John Clark, 46, deny all the charges, involving four children.
All eleven are accused of forcing children to participate in seances and use an ouija board or similar object to “call on spirits and demons”, at various addresses in the Glasgow area.

The children were also allegedly made to participate in classes involving witchcraft, spells and wands which made them believe that they had “metamorphosed into animals”, court documents show.
One girl was chased by people wearing devil masks, hung by her clothing from a nail on the wall, shut in a microwave, an oven, a fridge, a freezer and cupboards, the court heard.
Owens, Lannery, Williams, Brannan, Clark are also charged with attempting to murder the girl, who was also allegedly made to act like a dog and eat dog food.

 

The group, which is also charged with stabbing and abusing dogs, also made one child dress in lingerie and “dance in a sexualised manner” on various occasions between 1 October 2018 and 19 June 2019, the indictment claims, before she was raped by male members of the group.
The women are accused of watching, with the indictment adding that they did “clap, cheer and verbally encourage” the abuse, with some filming the attack.

 

Children were also allegedly forced to repeatedly sexually abuse each other with household items.
On two occasions between 1 January 2019 and 23 March 2019, the group is alleged to have forced a boy to masturbate in front of them and then forced him to have sex with some of the women, while the men watched.
In one horrifying charge, a young child was restrained in her cot as men raped her, while others cheered and took video recordings, the court heard….
Jurors were told on Tuesday that the case, which has a 10-page indictment featuring 32 charges over a 10-year period from 2010 to 2020, could last more than six weeks. Https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/child-abuse-rape-satanic-witchcraft-glasgow-b2404939.html

 

Human Trafficking Data Collection Activities, 2023 NCJ Number 307345
Date Published October 2023 Publication Series Human Trafficking Data Collection Activities Description
This report details ongoing and completed efforts to measure and analyze the nationwide incidence of human trafficking, to describe characteristics of human trafficking victims and offenders, and to describe criminal justice responses to human trafficking offenses. The report provides information on human trafficking suspects referred to and prosecuted by U.S. attorneys, human trafficking defendants convicted and sentenced to federal prison, and admissions to state prison for human trafficking.

Highlights

A total of 2,027 persons were referred to U.S. attorneys for human trafficking offenses in fiscal year 2021, a 49% increase from the 1,360 persons referred in 2011.
The number of persons prosecuted for human trafficking more than doubled from 2011 to 2021 (from 729 persons to 1,672 persons, respectively).
Of the 1,197 defendants charged in federal court for human trafficking offenses in fiscal year 2021, 92% were male and 60% were white. Of the 201 defendants charged with peonage, slavery, forced labor, and sex trafficking in fiscal year 2021, 77% were male and 58% were black.
At year end 2021, 1,657 persons were in the custody of a state prison serving a sentence for a human trafficking offense.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/human-trafficking-data-collection-activities-2023

 

50 Voices – Ritual Abuse is Real
https://www.50voices.org/ en/start-en/

Testimonies of survivors of Ritual Abuse
Since the 1980s, therapists have been working with patients who report extreme experiences of violence in the context of occult structures.
Over the years, the voices of ritual abuse survivors became more numerous and louder. Likewise, therapists began to network, organize professional conferences, and write professional books. Finally, the public began to take notice of this phenomenon.

Typical experiences include: Sexual abuse, child prostitution and child pornography, torture, snuff film productions, participation in ritual acts including human sacrifice, cannibalism, and highly complex methods of mind splitting and conditioning (“mind control”). Victims are born into family structures that have practiced Satanism or similar occult beliefs for generations, or they are sold into these perpetrator circles as children. This specific form of organized crime has been called ritual abuse by therapists.

 

Motivation https://www.50voices.org/en/motivation-en/
“It is the agenda of our programmers to control global society. We are just one of many slaves prepared with individualized, extreme, ongoing programming while global society is being processed on a mass scale, society at large being subject to mind control as well.”
Elisa E: Our Life Beyond MKUltra. Then and Now, p. 189

 

Since the 1980s, therapists have been working with patients who report extreme experiences of violence in the context of occult structures. Typical experiences include: sexual abuse, child prostitution and child pornography, torture, snuff film productions, participation in ritual acts including human sacrifice, cannibalism, and highly complex methods of mind splitting and conditioning (“mind control“). Victims are born into family structures that have practiced Satanism or similar occult beliefs for generations, or they are sold into these perpetrator circles as children. This specific form of organized crime has been called ritual abuse by therapists. Over the years, the voices of ritual abuse survivors became more numerous and louder. Likewise, therapists began to network, organize professional conferences, and write professional books. Finally, the public began to take notice of this phenomenon.

 

Perpetrator groups responded to these developments in the 1990s with an effective campaign by U.S. media defaming survivors and their therapists as propagators of a “Satanic Panic” narrative. Patients’ accounts of traumatic childhood experiences were also portrayed as “false memories” that had been talked into them by their therapists. Although the Satanic Panic propaganda represented a serious setback for the survivors and their therapists, disclosure continued slowly but irreversible. In other countries around the world, victims and trauma therapists also found the courage to speak out about ritual abuse and to network internationally. More survivor reports and professional publications followed, as did data surveys to quantify the phenomenon. Now, in the year 2022/23, the perpetrator network is again trying – this time starting from Switzerland – to manipulate the public opinion and to make the victims of these violent crimes untrustworthy with the well-known method of Satanic-Panic-/false-memory-propaganda.
The project “50 Voices of Ritual Abuse” pursues the goal of eradicating the basis of this perpetrator propaganda. For the first time, the global public learns firsthand from 50 survivors that ritual abuse and mind control are real. Their testimonies not only reveal the common patterns behind the experiences of violence, but they also reveal that it is a global phenomenon (USA, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, England, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy as well as other crime scenes are mentioned).
In August 2023, the project started with publishing 5 of 50 testimonies of survivors. Since then, two more testimonies are disclosed every week through various channels (Website, YouTube, Telegram, Odysee, etc.). Please help spread the truth.

 

Mission Statement
The project “50 Voices of Ritual Abuse” aims to draw public attention to the phenomenon of ritual abuse and to initiate a social discussion. From the perspective of those affected, there is an urgent need for action as follows:
Improvement of therapy offerings and specific training of trauma therapists in the areas of ritual abuse, DID, and recognition and deletion of destructive programs.
Protection and exit support for survivors (including safe houses with associated therapeutic care)
Training of law enforcement institutions (police, prosecutors, judges) and support/care facilities
Objective reporting/education in the media.
Everyone can contribute to achieving these goals. This can be done by, among other things:
Disseminating reputable information about ritual abuse/mind control in the private sphere
Addressing politicians/party representatives at the local level
Addressing editors and other media representatives and commenting on/complaining about Satanic Panic/false memory propaganda in the media.

Clergy abuse survivors propose ‘zero tolerance’ law following Vatican appointment – Clergy sexual abuse survivors have unveiled a proposed new church law calling for the permanent removal of abusive priests and superiors who covered for them By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press October 2, 2023

ROME — Clergy sexual abuse survivors on Monday unveiled a proposed new church law calling for the permanent removal of abusive priests and superiors who covered for them, as they stepped up their outrage over Pope Francis’ choice to head the Vatican office that investigates sex crimes.
The global advocacy group End Clergy Abuse unveiled the draft law at a press conference following days of protests around the Vatican, and before taking their complaints to the U.N. in Geneva. They are seeking to draw attention to the ongoing scandal in the Catholic Church and the failure of Francis and the hierarchy to make good on years of pledges of “zero tolerance” for abuse.
Specifically, the survivors have expressed astonishment at Francis’ nomination of an old friend and theologian, Cardinal Victor Fernandez, to take over as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, given Fernandez’s record handling cases as bishop in his native Argentina.

When Fernández was bishop of La Plata, Argentina, he refused to promptly remove one of his priests, Eduardo Lorenzo, who was repeatedly accused of abusing teens. Ten years after a victim first came forward, and hours after learning that an Argentine judge had ordered his arrest, Lorenzo was found dead in 2019 in what was ruled a suicide. Fernandez had stood by Lorenzo and officiated at his funeral.
The Vatican office that Fernandez now heads has processed priest abuse cases globally since 2001, meting out church punishments that are never more severe than being defrocked, or “reduced” back to being a layman. After bullish years under the late Pope Benedict XVI, who defrocked nearly 850 priests in a decade, the office in recent years appears to have taken a more lenient approach as cases poured in from around the globe.

Francis himself had a big learning curve on abuse, arriving at the Vatican in 2013 claiming to have never handled a case and then botching a big scandal in Chile in 2018. He did an about-face, vowed “zero tolerance” for abuse and marshalled through a new church law holding bishops accountable when they cover up cases.
But recently, the momentum appears to have waned, transparency has remained elusive and victims have sensed a backsliding — perhaps none more so than in Francis’ nomination of Fernandez to head the Vatican’s sex abuse office….
Fernandez acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year that he made mistakes in the Lorenzo case, saying he should have removed him from ministry earlier and treated his victims better. He blamed his own inexperience and what he said were unclear church procedures.

The online resource BishopAccountability.org has documented two other cases that it said showed Fernandez stood by his priests rather than their alleged victims…. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/clergy-abuse-survivors-propose-new-zero-tolerance-law-103658900

Ritual Abuse Survivors’ Perspectives on Research Participation: An Exploratory Mixed Methods Online Study

Ritual Abuse Survivors’ Perspectives on Research Participation: An Exploratory Mixed Methods Online Study
Laurie Matthew & Ian Barron - Journal of Child Sexual Abuse
09 May 2023

 

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study sought a deeper understanding of the perspectives of self-defined ritual abuse (RA) survivors, who had experienced sexual victimization, on participation in research. A mixed-methods qualitative design involving online survey and follow-up virtual interviews included 68 adults across eight countries. Content and thematic analysis of responses indicated that RA survivors were keen to be involved in a range of research activities to share their experience, knowledge, and support for other survivors. Having a voice, gaining knowledge, and feeling empowered were reported as advantages of participation, while concerns included exploitation, researcher ignorance, and emotional dysregulation caused by content discussed. To enable their engagement in the future research, RA survivors identified participative research designs, anonymity, and increased opportunities for inclusion in decision-making.

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/VIVGQKKJ4MPFPUMCH9D5/full?target=10.1080/10538712.2023.2211578 

 

Matthew, L. & Barron, I. (2015). Participatory Action research on help-seeking behaviors of self-defined ritual abuse survivors: a brief report. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 24(4):429-43.

 

The existence of ritual abuse is the subject of much debate. Ritual abuse survivor perceptions of seeking help have not been explored, and studies have yet to utilize self-defined survivors as collaborative researchers. This study addresses both issues. Participatory action research was utilized to design a survey and semistructured interview to investigate ritual abuse survivor experience of seeking help.

Sixty-eight participants completed the survey, and 22 were interviewed. A group approach to thematic analysis aided validity and reliability. Participants reported experiencing disbelief and a lack of ritual abuse awareness and help from support services. In contrast, participatory action research was reported by participants as educative and emancipatory. Future research should explore the benefits of participatory action research for survivors of different forms of oppression.

 

In the 1990s, a modest number of research articles (Faller, 1994) and clinical guides were published on ritual abuse. Moreover, a considerable number of clinicians reported encountering ritual abuse (RA) cases in their practices, about 10% in a study of members of the American Psychological Association (Bottoms, Shaver, & Goodman, 1991). Media hysteria, the rise of the False Memory Foundation (Salter, 2008), and the failure of feminism to fit RA into dominant paradigms of sexual abuse led to many professionals becoming wary of RA (Scott, 2001). For practitioners, investigators, and journalists, it was reassuring and convenient to redefine RA as a nonphenomenon. However, it is likely, this left individuals who self-defined as RA survivors
more isolated and disbelieved....

 

DISBELIEF
Fear of disbelief was a prevalent theme across participants’ responses (n = 12). During interviews, participants explored the reasons behind this as well as consequences for survivors. Many tried to understand the reasons behind this lack of belief. “We face denial and disbelief on a scale that beggars belief. They can’t handle our abuse at all but they don’t have to, they just have to
listen, but they don’t.” Others felt angry, particularly when speaking about their experiences of not being believed in childhood. Some expressed child protection concerns. “How can we safeguard children from something that is not known about or recognized?”

 

Issues of mental illness and vulnerability were reflected in experiences of participants when seeking help. “I was given ECT [electroconvulsive therapy] . . . at the age of 13. They diagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder, at 16 a counsellor diagnosed False Memory Syndrome” and “when I started with my new therapist and started to remember ritual abuse she didn’t believe me.
I was devastated. It is hard enough trying to cope with some of these very extreme memories without having professionals disbelieve.”....

 

Conclusions
The current study found survivors appeared to suffer from the continued polarized discourse around belief, memory, and mental illness. The researchers discovered that survivors reported low awareness of RA issues among professionals, which in turn resulted in services being perceived as
poor. As a consequence, participants reported they were reluctant to reveal histories of RA due to anticipated negative reactions. The authors suggest there is a need for survivor agencies to raise awareness of issues for RA survivors, share the experiences of survivors, and encourage development of survivor-sensitive services.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278044326_Participatory_Action_Research_on_Help-Seeking_Behaviors_of_Self-Defined_Ritual_Abuse_Survivors_A_Brief_Report 

Organised Sexual Abuse - Michael Salter

 
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.  https://www.amazon.com/Organised-Sexual-Abuse-Michael-Salter/dp/0415689775

Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse: Examining our History and Looking Forward
Michael Salter, PhD
....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.
https://news.isst-d.org/ritual-abuse-mind-control-and-organized-abuse-examining-our-history-and-looking-forward/

 


Michael Salter
Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organised Abuse Research
https://ritualabuse.us/smart/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/

Organised abuse and the politics of disbelief
Michael Salter
https://www.academia.edu/2042170/Organised_abuse_and_the_politics_of_disbelief

Out of the shadows: Re-envisioning the debate on ritual abuse
2008 Michael Salter
https://www.academia.edu/2046900/Out_of_the_shadows_Re_envisioning_the_debate_on_ritual_abuse

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/

Organized abuse in adulthood: Survivor and professional perspectives
October 2019
DOI: 10.4324/9781351213981-13
In book: The Abused and the Abuser (pp.199-211)
Authors: Michael Salter UNSW Sydney
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338868934_Organized_abuse_in_adulthood_Survivor_and_professional_perspectives

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.