False Memory Syndrome: A False Construct
Research
The term False Memory Syndrome was created in 1992. Research has shown that most delayed memories of childhood abuse are true. In general, it has been shown that false allegations of childhood sexual abuse are rare, with some studies showing rates as low as one percent and some studies showing slightly higher rates. It has been found that children tend to understate rather than overstate the extent of any abuse experienced. http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=False_Memory_Syndrome
http://goo.gl/t1oTue
Dallam, S. J. (2002). Crisis or Creation: A systematic examination of false memory claims. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse,9 (3/4), 9-36. "A review of the relevant literature demonstrates that the existence of such a syndrome lacks general acceptance in the mental health field, and that the construct is based on a series of faulty assumptions, many of which have been scientifically disproven. There is a similar lack of empirical validation for claims of a "false memory" epidemic." http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/dallam/6.html
Memory, Abuse, and Science: Questioning Claims about the False Memory Syndrome Epidemic
Kenneth S. Pope http://www.kspope.com/memory/memory.php
False Memory Syndrome Facts Website http://fmsf.com/media.html
Memory & FMS https://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/
Recovered Memory Data https://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/recovered-memory-data/
Hall, J., Kondora, L. (2005) “True” and “False” Child Sexual Abuse Memories and Casey’s Phenomenological View of Remembering American Behavioral Scientist, 48, 10 p. 1339-1359 DOI: 10.1177/0002764205277012 "The notion of false accusation is often raised in cases where physical evidence is not available and a period of time has passed or when there has been a delay in recall of the events by a survivor of child sexual abuse. This is not to imply that false memories are not possible. This article outlines how rare they must be, however, based on historical factors and a phenomenological analysis of memory itself....Most scientists investigating traumatic memory doubt that memories of abuse could be planted."
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/48/10/1339.full.pdf+html
"The hypothesis that false memories can easily be implanted in psychotherapy...seriously overstates the available data. Since no studies have been conducted on suggested effects in psychotherapy per se, the idea of iatrogenic suggestion of false memories remains an untested hypothesis. Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (1998).” Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law” (W. W. Norton) ISBN 0-393-70254-5
False Memory Syndrome : A False Construct by Juliette Cutler Page “The concept of “recovered memory”, that is, memory of a traumatic event that had been forgotten for some period of time, has been variously explained by such mechanisms as repression, amnesia, and dissociation. However, there are over 100 years of reports and descriptions of recovered memory in the literature, including instances from times of war, torture, bereavement, natural disasters, and concentration camp imprisonment. (HOROWITZ) Many corroborated cases have been documented in instances of recovered memory of sexual abuse…”
Legal Information
Ground Lost: The False Memory/Recovered Memory Therapy Debate, by Alan Scheflin, Psychiatric Times 11/99, Vol. XVI Issue 11, “The appearance in the DSM-IV indicates that the concept of repressed memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. This satisfies courts following the Frye v United States, 293 F.1013 (1923) or Daubert v Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical, 113 S. Ct. 2786 (1993) rules regarding the admissibility of scientific testimony into evidence in court.” And “Although the science is limited on this issue, the only three relevant studies conclude that repressed memories are no more and no less accurate than continuous memories (Dalenberg, 1996; Widom and Morris, 1997; Williams, 1995). Thus, courts and therapists should consider repressed memories no differently than they consider ordinary memories.” At http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p991137.html
The "False Memory" Defense: Using Disinformation and Junk Science in and out of Court
Charles L. Whitfield, M.D., F.A.S.A.M. "This article describes a seemingly sophisticated, but mostly contrived and often erroneous "false memory" defense, and compares it in a brief review to what the science says about the effect of trauma on memory. Child sexual abuse is widespread and dissociative/traumatic amnesia for it is common." http://web.archive.org/web/20070914163211/http://childabuse.georgiacenter.uga.edu/both/whitfield/whitfield1.phtml
Commonwealth vs. Paul Shanley.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, decided Jan. 15, 2010
The Leadership Council submitted an amicus brief in to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court advising the court on scientific knowledge regarding dissociative memory loss. On February 7, 2005, Paul Shanley was convicted of sexually abusing a child. The abuse occurred between 1983 and 1989 when the victim was attending classes at the church where the defendant served as a Catholic priest. Shanley appealed his conviction saying that it was based on recovered memory. His defense team contended that “…'repressed memory' is a pernicious, unreliable, junk science notion without scientific verification.”
The LC submitted a brief explaining why this position regarding scientific acceptance of dissociative memory loss is inaccurate, and why the Court's determination that testimony on dissociative memory loss and recovery is admissible was correct. The Court affirmed the conviction and held that " the judge's finding that the lack of scientific testing did not make unreliable the theory that an individual may experience dissociative amnesia was supported in the record, not only by expert testimony but by a wide collection of clinical observations and a survey of academic literature."
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/docs/ShanleyBrief.pdf
Silencing the Victim: The Politics of Discrediting Child Abuse Survivors
As a victim of child abuse who proved my claims in a landmark civil suit, there have been many attempts to silence and discredit me. This article provides an overview of my court case and its effects.
DOI: 10.1207/s15327019eb0802_3 Jennifer Hoult pages 125-140
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a918444285
http://www.fmsf.com/ethics.shtml
Ralph Underwager...Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Anna Salter, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees., 22 F.3d 730 (7th Cir. 1994) http://vlex.com/vid/36092881
Media and Information
Originally published in Moving Forward, Volume 3, No. 3, pp 1, 12-21, 1995. The Highly Misleading Truth and Responsibility in Mental Health Practices Act: The “False Memory” Movement’s Remedy for a Nonexistent Problem by Judith M. Simon “Over the past few years, the “false memory” movement has manifested primarily as a media presence that discounts sexual abuse survivors as first-hand witnesses to their own experiences.” http://web.archive.org/web/20050906011329/http://members.aol.com/conch8/antiTRMP1.html
False memory syndrome proponents tactics – False memory syndrome proponents have done the following to try and ensure that only their point of view is in the public view. Harassing debate opponents, misrepresenting the data in the field and controlling the media.
http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/false-memory-syndrome-proponents-tactics/
U-Turn on Memory Lane by Mike Stanton – Columbia Journalism Review – July/August 1997
“Rarely has such a strange and little-understood organization had such a profound effect on media coverage of such a controversial matter." http://web.archive.org/web/20071216011151/http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/97/4/memory.asp
Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter DOI: 10.1207/s15327019eb0802_2 Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 , pages 115 – 124
http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/confessions-of-a-whistle-blower-lessons-learned/
Calof, D.L. (1998). Notes from a practice under siege: Harassment, defamation, and intimidation in the name of science, Ethics and Behavior, 8(2) pp. 161-187. http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/notes-from-a-practice-under-siege/
http://goo.gl/vvNq6f
Battle Tactics
http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/historymatters/papers/NoelPackard.pdf
Disinformation and DID: the Politics of Memory Brian Moss, MA, MFT
https://ritualabuse.us/research/did/disinformation-and-did-the-politics-of-memory
Showing posts with label childhood abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childhood abuse. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Survivors of abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland asked to come forward, Honoring the Truth: A Response to the Backlash from The Courage to Heal
Survivors of abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland asked to come forward
Inquiry into child abuse over 74-year period seeks survivors now living in the United States
By JANE WALSH, IrishCentral Staff Writer Sunday, August 11, 2013
A major inquiry into historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland is launching an international appeal for victims and survivors to come forward. The inquiry seeks to investigate child abuse which occurred in residential institutions in Northern Ireland over a 74-year period, from 1922 up to 1995.
The Inquiry recognizes that there has been considerable migration from Northern Ireland to various parts of the United States and is anxious to encourage any survivors who suffered childhood abuse in Northern Ireland institutions but who now live overseas to get in touch....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Survivors-of-abuse-in-residential-institutions-in-Northern-Ireland-asked-to-come-forward-218869881.html
HONORING THE TRUTH: A RESPONSE TO THE BACKLASH
by ELLEN BASS and LAURA DAVIS
from THE COURAGE TO HEAL: A GUIDE FOR WOMEN SURVIVORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE THIRD EDITION, 1994 published by HarperCollins
“Honoring the Truth” is a response to the current backlash against adult survivors of child sexual abuse. If you’ve watched TV, listened to the radio, or read newspapers or magazines in the past two years, it’s likely that you’ve heard about the “false memory syndrome” and have witnessed attacks on survivors’ memories and credibility. It is these attacks we are responding to here.
As in the rest of The Courage to Heal, we have included
the experiences of survivors as well as practical self-help information. Unlike the rest of the book, however, we also incorporate here the work of therapists, researchers, and other experts—and more than a hundred footnotes—to place this backlash in a historical and political perspective....
A LITTLE HISTORY
Since 1860, child abuse has been discovered and then discredited every 35 years by the most visionary clinicians of the day, each faced with the alternative of denouncing the discovery or succumbing to scorn and
disgrace. 6 —Roland Summit
This is not the first time survivors of child sexual abuse have been told they were lying, misguided, vindictive, imagining it, wanting it, or just plain crazy.
Early in his career, Sigmund Freud identified child sexual abuse as the cause of much mental and emotional illness in adulthood. By listening to his patients (a revolutionary idea in itself), he learned that many of the women and men he was treating had been sexually traumatized. 7
Many had initial amnesia for the trauma, but when they were able to recall the events and talk about them, their contemporary symptoms subsided. When he put forth this discovery, Freud was criticized and ridiculed by his colleagues. Ultimately he recanted, and proposed instead that his patients had either fantasized the sex or had desired it. 8 Thus scientific knowledge was put on a fast train backwards, and sexually abused children—and the adults they grew up to be—were left bereft. 9....
In 1870 Josephine Butler campaigned against child prostitution, comparing the traffic in young girls to the slave trade. She was harassed by the London police and assaulted by the owners of brothels. Although her cause was supported by other prominent crusaders in Europe and in the Un ited States, it wasn’t until 1910 that the U.S.
Congress passed the Mann Act, forbidding the transport of women and children across state lines for sexual exploitation.1....
In 1937 Loretta Bender and Adam Blau wrote, “These children undoubtedly do not deserve completely the cloak of innocence with which they have been endowed by moralists, social reformers and legislators.” Referring to the children’s “unusually charming and attractive . . . personalities,” they went on to conclude that “the child might have been the actual seducer rather than the one innocently seduced.”1....
And in 1953, Alfred Kinsey and his fellow researchers documented the prevalence of child sexual abuse but minimized its impact. In a sample of over one thousand women, one in four reported sexual abuse. Eighty percent of these said they had been frightened by the encounters, but Kinsey and his colleagues discounted their accounts, writing, “It is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched.” They went on to express their belief that penalties for perpetrators were overly harsh: “In many instances the law, in the course of punishing the offender, does more damage to more persons than was ever done by the individual in his illicit sexual activity.”1....
As late as the 1970s many clinicians were still taught that incest was extremely rare, affecting only one in a million children.20....
The advances of the past twenty years are a direct outgrowth of the women’s liberation movement that gained force in the 1970s. Women courageously spoke out about rape and battering, wrote books analyzing the ways in which our society condoned such violence, and worked to establish battered women’s shelters and rape crisis centers.
Simultaneously, a few pioneering clinicians and researchers, both men and women, were beginning to study child sexual abuse and set up models for treatment. It was from this visionary thinking—and grassroots activism—that the curren t movement to end child sexual abuse was built.
21
We began to insist that children be protected, survivors be supported, and perpetrators be held responsible for their acts. This monumental advance in our willingness to be aware, to care, and to respond has come about only in the past two decades—most visibly in the past decade. This
is the first time in history that children and adults who were sexually abused have been listened to, respected, and believed....
The current backlash is in direct response to the activism of survivors. It was not until survivors started challenging and changing the laws regarding the accountability of perpetrators—and suing their abusers—that claims of “false memory syndrome” started
to appear....
Why do so many journalists present one-sided, erroneous accounts? The subject is dramatic and controversial. It sells papers, improves ratings, makes great sound bites. It grabs the attention of even the most jaded reader.
The appeal of these stories, however, goes far beyond our national obsession with sex, violence, and broken families. Anti-survivor propaganda has found a receptive audience with the public at large. People read about the “false memory syndrome” and are readily convinced. Why? Because denying the reality of child sexual abuse appeals to a basic human need: the need to distance ourselves from human cruelty....
http://www.fsa-cc.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HONORING-THE-TRUTH.pdf
Websites with information on programming and survivor issues. https://survivorship.org/programming/
Inquiry into child abuse over 74-year period seeks survivors now living in the United States
By JANE WALSH, IrishCentral Staff Writer Sunday, August 11, 2013
A major inquiry into historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland is launching an international appeal for victims and survivors to come forward. The inquiry seeks to investigate child abuse which occurred in residential institutions in Northern Ireland over a 74-year period, from 1922 up to 1995.
The Inquiry recognizes that there has been considerable migration from Northern Ireland to various parts of the United States and is anxious to encourage any survivors who suffered childhood abuse in Northern Ireland institutions but who now live overseas to get in touch....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Survivors-of-abuse-in-residential-institutions-in-Northern-Ireland-asked-to-come-forward-218869881.html
HONORING THE TRUTH: A RESPONSE TO THE BACKLASH
by ELLEN BASS and LAURA DAVIS
from THE COURAGE TO HEAL: A GUIDE FOR WOMEN SURVIVORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE THIRD EDITION, 1994 published by HarperCollins
“Honoring the Truth” is a response to the current backlash against adult survivors of child sexual abuse. If you’ve watched TV, listened to the radio, or read newspapers or magazines in the past two years, it’s likely that you’ve heard about the “false memory syndrome” and have witnessed attacks on survivors’ memories and credibility. It is these attacks we are responding to here.
As in the rest of The Courage to Heal, we have included
the experiences of survivors as well as practical self-help information. Unlike the rest of the book, however, we also incorporate here the work of therapists, researchers, and other experts—and more than a hundred footnotes—to place this backlash in a historical and political perspective....
A LITTLE HISTORY
Since 1860, child abuse has been discovered and then discredited every 35 years by the most visionary clinicians of the day, each faced with the alternative of denouncing the discovery or succumbing to scorn and
disgrace. 6 —Roland Summit
This is not the first time survivors of child sexual abuse have been told they were lying, misguided, vindictive, imagining it, wanting it, or just plain crazy.
Early in his career, Sigmund Freud identified child sexual abuse as the cause of much mental and emotional illness in adulthood. By listening to his patients (a revolutionary idea in itself), he learned that many of the women and men he was treating had been sexually traumatized. 7
Many had initial amnesia for the trauma, but when they were able to recall the events and talk about them, their contemporary symptoms subsided. When he put forth this discovery, Freud was criticized and ridiculed by his colleagues. Ultimately he recanted, and proposed instead that his patients had either fantasized the sex or had desired it. 8 Thus scientific knowledge was put on a fast train backwards, and sexually abused children—and the adults they grew up to be—were left bereft. 9....
In 1870 Josephine Butler campaigned against child prostitution, comparing the traffic in young girls to the slave trade. She was harassed by the London police and assaulted by the owners of brothels. Although her cause was supported by other prominent crusaders in Europe and in the Un ited States, it wasn’t until 1910 that the U.S.
Congress passed the Mann Act, forbidding the transport of women and children across state lines for sexual exploitation.1....
In 1937 Loretta Bender and Adam Blau wrote, “These children undoubtedly do not deserve completely the cloak of innocence with which they have been endowed by moralists, social reformers and legislators.” Referring to the children’s “unusually charming and attractive . . . personalities,” they went on to conclude that “the child might have been the actual seducer rather than the one innocently seduced.”1....
And in 1953, Alfred Kinsey and his fellow researchers documented the prevalence of child sexual abuse but minimized its impact. In a sample of over one thousand women, one in four reported sexual abuse. Eighty percent of these said they had been frightened by the encounters, but Kinsey and his colleagues discounted their accounts, writing, “It is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched.” They went on to express their belief that penalties for perpetrators were overly harsh: “In many instances the law, in the course of punishing the offender, does more damage to more persons than was ever done by the individual in his illicit sexual activity.”1....
As late as the 1970s many clinicians were still taught that incest was extremely rare, affecting only one in a million children.20....
The advances of the past twenty years are a direct outgrowth of the women’s liberation movement that gained force in the 1970s. Women courageously spoke out about rape and battering, wrote books analyzing the ways in which our society condoned such violence, and worked to establish battered women’s shelters and rape crisis centers.
Simultaneously, a few pioneering clinicians and researchers, both men and women, were beginning to study child sexual abuse and set up models for treatment. It was from this visionary thinking—and grassroots activism—that the curren t movement to end child sexual abuse was built.
21
We began to insist that children be protected, survivors be supported, and perpetrators be held responsible for their acts. This monumental advance in our willingness to be aware, to care, and to respond has come about only in the past two decades—most visibly in the past decade. This
is the first time in history that children and adults who were sexually abused have been listened to, respected, and believed....
The current backlash is in direct response to the activism of survivors. It was not until survivors started challenging and changing the laws regarding the accountability of perpetrators—and suing their abusers—that claims of “false memory syndrome” started
to appear....
Why do so many journalists present one-sided, erroneous accounts? The subject is dramatic and controversial. It sells papers, improves ratings, makes great sound bites. It grabs the attention of even the most jaded reader.
The appeal of these stories, however, goes far beyond our national obsession with sex, violence, and broken families. Anti-survivor propaganda has found a receptive audience with the public at large. People read about the “false memory syndrome” and are readily convinced. Why? Because denying the reality of child sexual abuse appeals to a basic human need: the need to distance ourselves from human cruelty....
http://www.fsa-cc.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HONORING-THE-TRUTH.pdf
Websites with information on programming and survivor issues. https://survivorship.org/programming/
Monday, July 30, 2012
Researchers Find Link Between Childhood Abuse and Age at Menarche
Researchers Find Link Between Childhood Abuse and Age at Menarche
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2012) — Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found an association between childhood physical and sexual abuse and age at menarche. The findings are published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Researchers led by corresponding author, Renée Boynton-Jarrett, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM, found a 49 percent increase in risk for early onset menarche (menstrual periods prior to age 11 years) among women who reported childhood sexual abuse compared to those who were not abused. In addition, there was a 50 percent increase in risk for late onset menarche (menstrual periods after age 15 years) among women who reported severe physical abuse in childhood. The participants in the study included 68,505 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II, a prospective cohort study.
"In our study child abuse was associated with both accelerated and delayed age at menarche and importantly, these associations vary by type of abuse, which suggest that child abuse does not have a homogenous effect on health outcomes," said Boynton-Jarrett. http://goo.gl/CX1Bf http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120727121413.htm
Renée Boynton-Jarrett, Rosalind J. Wright, Frank W. Putnam, Eileen Lividoti Hibert, Karin B. Michels, Michele R. Forman, Janet Rich-Edwards. Childhood Abuse and Age at Menarche. Journal of Adolescent Health, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.06.006
....Results
Fifty-seven percent of respondents reported some form of physical or sexual abuse in childhood. We found a positive dose–response association between severity of sexual abuse in childhood and risk for early menarche. Compared with women who reported no childhood sexual abuse, the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) for early menarche in women who reported childhood sexual abuse was 1.20 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.10, 1.37) for sexual touching and 1.49 (95% CI: 1.34, 1.66) for forced sexual activity. Severe physical abuse predicted early menarche (AOR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.37). Childhood physical abuse had a dose–response association with late age at menarche: AOR 1.17 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.32) for mild, 1.20 (95% CI: 1.08, 1.33) for moderate, and 1.50 (95% CI: 1.27, 1.77) for severe physical abuse. Sexual abuse was not associated with late menarche.
Conclusions
Childhood abuse was prevalent in this large cohort of U.S. women. Severity of childhood sexual abuse was associated with risk for early onset of menarche, and physical abuse was associated with both early and late onset of menarche. http://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X%2812%2900227-3/abstract
ScienceDaily (July 27, 2012) — Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found an association between childhood physical and sexual abuse and age at menarche. The findings are published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Researchers led by corresponding author, Renée Boynton-Jarrett, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM, found a 49 percent increase in risk for early onset menarche (menstrual periods prior to age 11 years) among women who reported childhood sexual abuse compared to those who were not abused. In addition, there was a 50 percent increase in risk for late onset menarche (menstrual periods after age 15 years) among women who reported severe physical abuse in childhood. The participants in the study included 68,505 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II, a prospective cohort study.
"In our study child abuse was associated with both accelerated and delayed age at menarche and importantly, these associations vary by type of abuse, which suggest that child abuse does not have a homogenous effect on health outcomes," said Boynton-Jarrett. http://goo.gl/CX1Bf http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120727121413.htm
Renée Boynton-Jarrett, Rosalind J. Wright, Frank W. Putnam, Eileen Lividoti Hibert, Karin B. Michels, Michele R. Forman, Janet Rich-Edwards. Childhood Abuse and Age at Menarche. Journal of Adolescent Health, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.06.006
....Results
Fifty-seven percent of respondents reported some form of physical or sexual abuse in childhood. We found a positive dose–response association between severity of sexual abuse in childhood and risk for early menarche. Compared with women who reported no childhood sexual abuse, the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) for early menarche in women who reported childhood sexual abuse was 1.20 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.10, 1.37) for sexual touching and 1.49 (95% CI: 1.34, 1.66) for forced sexual activity. Severe physical abuse predicted early menarche (AOR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.37). Childhood physical abuse had a dose–response association with late age at menarche: AOR 1.17 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.32) for mild, 1.20 (95% CI: 1.08, 1.33) for moderate, and 1.50 (95% CI: 1.27, 1.77) for severe physical abuse. Sexual abuse was not associated with late menarche.
Conclusions
Childhood abuse was prevalent in this large cohort of U.S. women. Severity of childhood sexual abuse was associated with risk for early onset of menarche, and physical abuse was associated with both early and late onset of menarche. http://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X%2812%2900227-3/abstract
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Convicted Serial Killer Anthony Sowell - child abuse victim
Sentencing day 6: Anthony Sowell trial
08/08/2011 by Jen Steer, newsnet5.com
A Cuyahoga County jury will continue to hear from witnesses in the sentencing phase for convicted killer of 11 Anthony Sowell.
Last month, that same jury found the 51-year-old guilty on 82 of 83 counts, including aggravated murder. Now, jurors must determine if Sowell gets life in prison or the death penalty.
"It's not normal for an 11 year old to have sex with 10-year-old niece," social worker Lori James-Townes said. "There were high levels of promiscuity that are also red flags." She also indicated that Sowell grew up in a house full of drug use, sexual abuse, incest and physical abuse....
"Essentially, he has indications of brain dysfunction," said Dr. Watson, a forensic neuropsychologist. Dr. Woods, who is a forensic psychiatrist, said Sowell suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and psychosis....
Sowell is on the witness stand, answering questions from his defense attorney John Parker. He will not be cross-examined by the prosecution.
"She sexually abused me," Sowell said, after an much older relative. "No, I don't want to talk about that… There was a lot of sexual activity going on there."
..."And it's because of this abuse and this miserable, sad life he murdered 11 women?" assistant prosecutor Pinkey Carr said.
"That's not just the only reason… There are multiple reasons," James Townes said. She continues to emphasis the need for context, saying that abuse was just one of the factors over the course of Anthony Sowell's life that resulted in murder. She points to sexual abuse, a strained relationship with his mother and witnessing other children being abused among the cause. The sexual abuse in the home reportedly started when some of the children were just 10 or 11 years old.
"It's extremely underreported, I can't say that enough," James-Townes said. "The children were afraid. The children, the ones who did tell were beaten."
..."When children are growing up in this type of situation, it impacts them in a variety of ways," Lori James-Townes said. "It makes him susceptible to violence later in life."
"There should be an assessment made when you see certain risk factors," she said, referring to Anthony Sowell's school records....
"Childhood abuse is the biggest red flag for adult criminal behavior," James-Townes said. "The sad thing about this is trauma is extremely treatable… The problem comes in when they don't get treated." She said that telling the story is one of the most helpful ways to treat someone who has suffered trauma.
"We know that most people in prison, men or women, has suffered some sort of abuse," she said. According to James- Townes, there is no therapy in prison, but they focus on reprogramming the individuals....
According to James-Townes, research shows that child abuse is severely underreported and that it's not uncommon for people to not talk about the abuse until they are adults. She said she used a genogram to help explain the risk factors in Sowell's childhood. A genogram is a visual depiction and a snapshot of a person's family.
While pointing to the chart, James-Townes explains that Sowell's paternal side of the family had a history of substance abuse and heart disease. The genogram goes back four or five generations, which James-Townes said is very uncommon to find those kinds of records.
On his mother's side, the chart shows that Anthony Sowell was 17 years younger than his sister, Patricia. She said there were pregnancies when female family members when they were 12 and 15. Other risk factors include epilepsy, sexual abuse and mental problems....
James-Townes said that they need to pay particular attention to the trauma and abuse he suffered growing up, and the the abuse that people around him went through. Based on interviews with family, she said that Sowell kept to himself as a child and was isolated, despite going to school nearly everyday.
"It's not normal for an 11 year old to have sex with 10-year-old niece," she said. "There were high levels of promiscuity that are also red flags."
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/crime/bodies_found/Sentencing-day-6-Anthony-Sowell-trial
08/08/2011 by Jen Steer, newsnet5.com
A Cuyahoga County jury will continue to hear from witnesses in the sentencing phase for convicted killer of 11 Anthony Sowell.
Last month, that same jury found the 51-year-old guilty on 82 of 83 counts, including aggravated murder. Now, jurors must determine if Sowell gets life in prison or the death penalty.
"It's not normal for an 11 year old to have sex with 10-year-old niece," social worker Lori James-Townes said. "There were high levels of promiscuity that are also red flags." She also indicated that Sowell grew up in a house full of drug use, sexual abuse, incest and physical abuse....
"Essentially, he has indications of brain dysfunction," said Dr. Watson, a forensic neuropsychologist. Dr. Woods, who is a forensic psychiatrist, said Sowell suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and psychosis....
Sowell is on the witness stand, answering questions from his defense attorney John Parker. He will not be cross-examined by the prosecution.
"She sexually abused me," Sowell said, after an much older relative. "No, I don't want to talk about that… There was a lot of sexual activity going on there."
..."And it's because of this abuse and this miserable, sad life he murdered 11 women?" assistant prosecutor Pinkey Carr said.
"That's not just the only reason… There are multiple reasons," James Townes said. She continues to emphasis the need for context, saying that abuse was just one of the factors over the course of Anthony Sowell's life that resulted in murder. She points to sexual abuse, a strained relationship with his mother and witnessing other children being abused among the cause. The sexual abuse in the home reportedly started when some of the children were just 10 or 11 years old.
"It's extremely underreported, I can't say that enough," James-Townes said. "The children were afraid. The children, the ones who did tell were beaten."
..."When children are growing up in this type of situation, it impacts them in a variety of ways," Lori James-Townes said. "It makes him susceptible to violence later in life."
"There should be an assessment made when you see certain risk factors," she said, referring to Anthony Sowell's school records....
"Childhood abuse is the biggest red flag for adult criminal behavior," James-Townes said. "The sad thing about this is trauma is extremely treatable… The problem comes in when they don't get treated." She said that telling the story is one of the most helpful ways to treat someone who has suffered trauma.
"We know that most people in prison, men or women, has suffered some sort of abuse," she said. According to James- Townes, there is no therapy in prison, but they focus on reprogramming the individuals....
According to James-Townes, research shows that child abuse is severely underreported and that it's not uncommon for people to not talk about the abuse until they are adults. She said she used a genogram to help explain the risk factors in Sowell's childhood. A genogram is a visual depiction and a snapshot of a person's family.
While pointing to the chart, James-Townes explains that Sowell's paternal side of the family had a history of substance abuse and heart disease. The genogram goes back four or five generations, which James-Townes said is very uncommon to find those kinds of records.
On his mother's side, the chart shows that Anthony Sowell was 17 years younger than his sister, Patricia. She said there were pregnancies when female family members when they were 12 and 15. Other risk factors include epilepsy, sexual abuse and mental problems....
James-Townes said that they need to pay particular attention to the trauma and abuse he suffered growing up, and the the abuse that people around him went through. Based on interviews with family, she said that Sowell kept to himself as a child and was isolated, despite going to school nearly everyday.
"It's not normal for an 11 year old to have sex with 10-year-old niece," she said. "There were high levels of promiscuity that are also red flags."
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/crime/bodies_found/Sentencing-day-6-Anthony-Sowell-trial
Sunday, July 31, 2011
WI lawmakers look to pass "Caylee's Law", Trauma and Dissociation in China
"There is virtually no popular or professional knowledge of dissociative identity disorder in China, and therefore professional and popular contamination cannot exist."
"Dissociative disorders were diagnosed in 24 respondents by structured interview, and 15 respondents fell into the dissociative taxon on the Dissociative Experiences Scale."
Trauma and Dissociation in China
Zeping Xiao, M.D., Heqin Yan, Zhen Wang, M.D., Zheng Zou, M.D., Yong Xu, M.D., Jue Chen, M.D., Haiyin Zhang, M.D., Colin A. Ross, M.D., and Benjamin B. Keyes, Ph.D.
Am J Psychiatry 163:1388-1391, August 2006
doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.163.8.1388
2006 American Psychiatric Association
OBJECTIVE: In order to determine whether pathological dissociation occurs in China, the authors conducted a survey among psychiatric inpatients, outpatients, and the general population in Shanghai, China. There is virtually no popular or professional knowledge of dissociative identity disorder in China, and therefore professional and popular contamination cannot exist.
METHOD: Chinese versions of the Dissociative Experiences Scale and the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule were administered to 423 inpatients, 304 outpatients, and 618 factory workers in Shanghai by Chinese psychiatrists working at the Shanghai Mental Health Center.
RESULTS: Dissociative disorders were diagnosed in 24 respondents by structured interview, and 15 respondents fell into the dissociative taxon on the Dissociative Experiences Scale. The outpatients reported the highest rates of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse and of pathological dissociation.
ONCLUSIONS: Pathological dissociation can be detected readily among psychiatric outpatients in China but is much less common in the general population. Pathological dissociation is more frequent in more traumatized subsamples of the Chinese population. The findings are not consistent with the sociocognitive, contamination, or iatrogenic models of dissociative identity disorder.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/163/8/1388
Trauma and Dissociation in China
Zeping Xiao, M.D., Heqin Yan, Zhen Wang, M.D., Zheng Zou, M.D., Yong Xu, M.D., Jue Chen, M.D., Haiyin Zhang, M.D., Colin A. Ross, M.D., and Benjamin B. Keyes, Ph.D.
Am J Psychiatry 163:1388-1391, August 2006
doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.163.8.1388
2006 American Psychiatric Association
quotes:
"China is a country in which there is little public or cultural
awareness of dissociative identity disorder or other forms of chronic, complex, pathological dissociation. We are not familiar with any representation of the disorder on television, in film, in novels or plays, or in popular folklore. The trauma model of dissociation is not taught at medical schools in China, and dissociative disorders are very rarely
diagnosed by mental health professionals. China, therefore, is virtually free of cultural or professional contamination concerning dissociative disorders."
"The results of our study support the epidemiological
prediction of the trauma model of dissociation and are not
consistent with the sociocognitive model. Pathological dissociation was reported by Chinese respondents, despite the lack of contamination, role demands, and iatrogenic suggestion in China."
"As shown in Table 1, there are hints in the secondary features of dissociative identity disorder that full or partial forms of dissociative identity disorder could affect more than 2.3% of the Chinese outpatient sample (the sum of the frequencies of these two diagnoses on the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule). For instance, 3.6% of the Chinese outpatients said that they have another person inside of them.
The outpatients reported more childhood trauma than the other two groups. The outpatients had more dissociative disorders on the Dissociative Disorders Interview
Schedule, more members of the dissociative taxon on the Dissociative Experiences Scale, higher average scores on the Dissociative Experiences Scale, and more secondary features of dissociative identity disorder on the Dissociative
Disorders Interview Schedule. Thus, the outpatients were more dissociative than the other two groups on four different ways of assessing dissociation. The fact that they
also reported more childhood abuse is consistent with the trauma model of pathological dissociation."
"China provides an example of a culture largely uncontaminated by popular or professional knowledge of dissociative identity disorder and therefore is suitable for testing the epidemiological predictions of the trauma and sociocognitive models."
full text at http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/163/8/1388.pdf
WI lawmakers look to pass "Caylee's Law"
Jul 31, 2011 By Megan Wiebold
Eau Claire (WQOW) - After the acquittal of Casey Anthony in the death of her daughter, Caylee, many lawmakers clamored to create a law that would punish parents for failing to alert police when their son or daughter is missing. Wisconsin is just one of nearly two dozen states that are looking into creating a measure that would be called "Caylee's Law".
2-year-old Caylee Anthony had been missing for 31 days before police knew about her disappearance. Wisconsin lawmakers say they've gotten hundreds of e-mails and phone calls about creating a law to punish parents who do not report their child missing.
....There are currently no laws in Wisconsin that punish parents for failing to report a missing child. Lawmakers say it's an issue that's been discussed for years.
....Currently, there are two versions of the law being drafted.
http://www.wqow.com/story/15182706/wi-lawmakers-look-to-pass-caylees-law
"Dissociative disorders were diagnosed in 24 respondents by structured interview, and 15 respondents fell into the dissociative taxon on the Dissociative Experiences Scale."
Trauma and Dissociation in China
Zeping Xiao, M.D., Heqin Yan, Zhen Wang, M.D., Zheng Zou, M.D., Yong Xu, M.D., Jue Chen, M.D., Haiyin Zhang, M.D., Colin A. Ross, M.D., and Benjamin B. Keyes, Ph.D.
Am J Psychiatry 163:1388-1391, August 2006
doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.163.8.1388
2006 American Psychiatric Association
OBJECTIVE: In order to determine whether pathological dissociation occurs in China, the authors conducted a survey among psychiatric inpatients, outpatients, and the general population in Shanghai, China. There is virtually no popular or professional knowledge of dissociative identity disorder in China, and therefore professional and popular contamination cannot exist.
METHOD: Chinese versions of the Dissociative Experiences Scale and the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule were administered to 423 inpatients, 304 outpatients, and 618 factory workers in Shanghai by Chinese psychiatrists working at the Shanghai Mental Health Center.
RESULTS: Dissociative disorders were diagnosed in 24 respondents by structured interview, and 15 respondents fell into the dissociative taxon on the Dissociative Experiences Scale. The outpatients reported the highest rates of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse and of pathological dissociation.
ONCLUSIONS: Pathological dissociation can be detected readily among psychiatric outpatients in China but is much less common in the general population. Pathological dissociation is more frequent in more traumatized subsamples of the Chinese population. The findings are not consistent with the sociocognitive, contamination, or iatrogenic models of dissociative identity disorder.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/163/8/1388
Trauma and Dissociation in China
Zeping Xiao, M.D., Heqin Yan, Zhen Wang, M.D., Zheng Zou, M.D., Yong Xu, M.D., Jue Chen, M.D., Haiyin Zhang, M.D., Colin A. Ross, M.D., and Benjamin B. Keyes, Ph.D.
Am J Psychiatry 163:1388-1391, August 2006
doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.163.8.1388
2006 American Psychiatric Association
quotes:
"China is a country in which there is little public or cultural
awareness of dissociative identity disorder or other forms of chronic, complex, pathological dissociation. We are not familiar with any representation of the disorder on television, in film, in novels or plays, or in popular folklore. The trauma model of dissociation is not taught at medical schools in China, and dissociative disorders are very rarely
diagnosed by mental health professionals. China, therefore, is virtually free of cultural or professional contamination concerning dissociative disorders."
"The results of our study support the epidemiological
prediction of the trauma model of dissociation and are not
consistent with the sociocognitive model. Pathological dissociation was reported by Chinese respondents, despite the lack of contamination, role demands, and iatrogenic suggestion in China."
"As shown in Table 1, there are hints in the secondary features of dissociative identity disorder that full or partial forms of dissociative identity disorder could affect more than 2.3% of the Chinese outpatient sample (the sum of the frequencies of these two diagnoses on the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule). For instance, 3.6% of the Chinese outpatients said that they have another person inside of them.
The outpatients reported more childhood trauma than the other two groups. The outpatients had more dissociative disorders on the Dissociative Disorders Interview
Schedule, more members of the dissociative taxon on the Dissociative Experiences Scale, higher average scores on the Dissociative Experiences Scale, and more secondary features of dissociative identity disorder on the Dissociative
Disorders Interview Schedule. Thus, the outpatients were more dissociative than the other two groups on four different ways of assessing dissociation. The fact that they
also reported more childhood abuse is consistent with the trauma model of pathological dissociation."
"China provides an example of a culture largely uncontaminated by popular or professional knowledge of dissociative identity disorder and therefore is suitable for testing the epidemiological predictions of the trauma and sociocognitive models."
full text at http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/163/8/1388.pdf
WI lawmakers look to pass "Caylee's Law"
Jul 31, 2011 By Megan Wiebold
Eau Claire (WQOW) - After the acquittal of Casey Anthony in the death of her daughter, Caylee, many lawmakers clamored to create a law that would punish parents for failing to alert police when their son or daughter is missing. Wisconsin is just one of nearly two dozen states that are looking into creating a measure that would be called "Caylee's Law".
2-year-old Caylee Anthony had been missing for 31 days before police knew about her disappearance. Wisconsin lawmakers say they've gotten hundreds of e-mails and phone calls about creating a law to punish parents who do not report their child missing.
....There are currently no laws in Wisconsin that punish parents for failing to report a missing child. Lawmakers say it's an issue that's been discussed for years.
....Currently, there are two versions of the law being drafted.
http://www.wqow.com/story/15182706/wi-lawmakers-look-to-pass-caylees-law
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Biological Links Found Between Childhood Abuse and Adolescent Depression
Biological Links Found Between Childhood Abuse and Adolescent Depression - ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2011)
Kate Harkness has found that a history of physical, sexual or emotional abuse in childhood substantially increases the risk of depression in adolescence by altering a person's neuroendocrine response to stress. Adolescents with a history of maltreatment and a mild level of depression were found to release much more of the stress hormone cortisol than is normal in response to psychological stressors such as giving a speech or solving a difficult arithmetic test.
"This kind of reaction is a problem because cortisol kills cells in areas of the brain that control memory and emotion regulation," explains Dr. Harkness, a professor in the Department of Psychology and an expert in the role of stress and trauma in adolescent depression. "Over time cortisol levels can build up and increase a person's risk for more severe endocrine impairment and more severe depression."....
Dr. Harkness recently presented her findings at the International Society for Affective Disorders Conference in Toronto. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110420125506.htm
Kate Harkness has found that a history of physical, sexual or emotional abuse in childhood substantially increases the risk of depression in adolescence by altering a person's neuroendocrine response to stress. Adolescents with a history of maltreatment and a mild level of depression were found to release much more of the stress hormone cortisol than is normal in response to psychological stressors such as giving a speech or solving a difficult arithmetic test.
"This kind of reaction is a problem because cortisol kills cells in areas of the brain that control memory and emotion regulation," explains Dr. Harkness, a professor in the Department of Psychology and an expert in the role of stress and trauma in adolescent depression. "Over time cortisol levels can build up and increase a person's risk for more severe endocrine impairment and more severe depression."....
Dr. Harkness recently presented her findings at the International Society for Affective Disorders Conference in Toronto. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110420125506.htm
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Trauma: How We've Created a Nation Addicted, FMS Misrepresentation, CIA
articles:
Trauma: How We've Created a Nation Addicted to Shopping, Work, Drugs and Sex -
"The hardcore drug addicts that I treat, are, without exception, people who have had extraordinarily difficult lives. And the commonality is childhood abuse."
The Misrepresentation of the Case of Billy Banks
Cryptome Exposes CIA Hypnosis Programs
Democracy Now! By Amy Goodman
Trauma: How We've Created a Nation Addicted to Shopping, Work, Drugs and Sex - Post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed the conditions required for healthy childhood development. December 26, 2010
AMY GOODMAN: From disease to addiction, parenting to attention deficit disorder, Canadian physician and bestselling author Gabor Maté’s work focuses on the centrality of early childhood experiences to the development of the brain, and how those experiences can impact everything from behavioral patterns to physical and mental illness. While the relationship between emotional stress and disease, and mental and physical health more broadly, is often considered controversial within medical orthodoxy, Dr. Maté argues too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption, that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness, addictions and disorders, and in their healing....
DR. GABOR MATÉ: The hardcore drug addicts that I treat, are, without exception, people who have had extraordinarily difficult lives. And the commonality is childhood abuse. In other words, these people all enter life under extremely adverse circumstances. Not only did they not get what they need for healthy development, they actually got negative circumstances of neglect. I don’t have a single female patient in the Downtown Eastside who wasn’t sexually abused, for example, as were many of the men, or abused, neglected and abandoned serially, over and over again.
And that’s what sets up the brain biology of addiction. In other words, the addiction is related both psychologically, in terms of emotional pain relief, and neurobiological development to early adversity....
And what I mean by that is, is that most people who try most drugs never become addicted to them. And so, there has to be susceptibility there. And the susceptible people are the ones with these impaired brain circuits, and the impairment is caused by early adversity, rather than by genetics....
DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, the first point to get there is that if people who become severe addicts, as shown by all the studies, were for the most part abused children, then we realize that the war on drugs is actually waged against people that were abused from the moment they were born, or from an early age on. In other words, we’re punishing people for having been abused.
http://www.alternet.org/story/149325/
Featured Post: The Misrepresentation of the Case of Billy Banks
October 31, 2010 The False Memory Syndrome Foundation claims to condemn the sexual abuse of children. In their words, “Child sexual abuse is a reprehensible crime….Every effort should be made to help victims of sexual abuse and to create a social climate in which such mistreatment does not continue to take place.” So why did they sympathize with Billy Banks, a serial child molester?
This is the first in a series of occasional posts that will highlight and document cases in which the FMSF has taken the side of someone charged with child sexual abuse without apparent regard for the evidence of guilt.
The Case against Billy Banks - Billy Banks was convicted in 2005 on 10 counts of sexual battery on a child under 12 years of age. (Three counts were overturned on appeal—two on double jeopardy, and one was outside the statute.) The charges included acts of rape, forced oral sex, and fondling of his daughter and his adoptive niece from 1965 to 1970. Banks was also facing two charges of lewd, lascivious or indecent acts on a child under 16 for sexually abusing his two granddaughters 20 years later, in 1990-1. After being convicted on the first counts, Banks pled no contest to one of these later counts. He was sentenced to life on the sexual battery charges and three and a half years for the charge to which he pled no contest.
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2010/10/31/the-misrepresentation-of-the-case-of-billy-banks/
Cryptome Exposes CIA Hypnosis Programs
By Adam Weinstein Dec. 28, 2010....here's a pair of memos, posted to the intelligence-secrets website, that show the CIA was all up in that Inception-type business in the Cold War: using deep hypnosis to create unwitting double agents and implant secret communications in their brains, where they can't be intercepted....No surprises here to those who are well-acquainted both with science fiction and the CIA's fondness for far-out mind experiments. Ackerman reminds us about Project MKULTRA and the crazy acid tests that comprised America's war on commies until the '70s, when Congress' Church Commission put the kibosh on all that cloak-and-doctor intrigue. Even so, these two docs, dated from 1954 and 1955, are worth a good read.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/12/cryptome-exposes-cia-hypnosis-programs
CIA Hypnotism 1954 document
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45949511/CIA-Hypnotism-1954
Trauma: How We've Created a Nation Addicted to Shopping, Work, Drugs and Sex -
"The hardcore drug addicts that I treat, are, without exception, people who have had extraordinarily difficult lives. And the commonality is childhood abuse."
The Misrepresentation of the Case of Billy Banks
Cryptome Exposes CIA Hypnosis Programs
Democracy Now! By Amy Goodman
Trauma: How We've Created a Nation Addicted to Shopping, Work, Drugs and Sex - Post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed the conditions required for healthy childhood development. December 26, 2010
AMY GOODMAN: From disease to addiction, parenting to attention deficit disorder, Canadian physician and bestselling author Gabor Maté’s work focuses on the centrality of early childhood experiences to the development of the brain, and how those experiences can impact everything from behavioral patterns to physical and mental illness. While the relationship between emotional stress and disease, and mental and physical health more broadly, is often considered controversial within medical orthodoxy, Dr. Maté argues too many doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption, that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness, addictions and disorders, and in their healing....
DR. GABOR MATÉ: The hardcore drug addicts that I treat, are, without exception, people who have had extraordinarily difficult lives. And the commonality is childhood abuse. In other words, these people all enter life under extremely adverse circumstances. Not only did they not get what they need for healthy development, they actually got negative circumstances of neglect. I don’t have a single female patient in the Downtown Eastside who wasn’t sexually abused, for example, as were many of the men, or abused, neglected and abandoned serially, over and over again.
And that’s what sets up the brain biology of addiction. In other words, the addiction is related both psychologically, in terms of emotional pain relief, and neurobiological development to early adversity....
And what I mean by that is, is that most people who try most drugs never become addicted to them. And so, there has to be susceptibility there. And the susceptible people are the ones with these impaired brain circuits, and the impairment is caused by early adversity, rather than by genetics....
DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, the first point to get there is that if people who become severe addicts, as shown by all the studies, were for the most part abused children, then we realize that the war on drugs is actually waged against people that were abused from the moment they were born, or from an early age on. In other words, we’re punishing people for having been abused.
http://www.alternet.org/story/149325/
Featured Post: The Misrepresentation of the Case of Billy Banks
October 31, 2010 The False Memory Syndrome Foundation claims to condemn the sexual abuse of children. In their words, “Child sexual abuse is a reprehensible crime….Every effort should be made to help victims of sexual abuse and to create a social climate in which such mistreatment does not continue to take place.” So why did they sympathize with Billy Banks, a serial child molester?
This is the first in a series of occasional posts that will highlight and document cases in which the FMSF has taken the side of someone charged with child sexual abuse without apparent regard for the evidence of guilt.
The Case against Billy Banks - Billy Banks was convicted in 2005 on 10 counts of sexual battery on a child under 12 years of age. (Three counts were overturned on appeal—two on double jeopardy, and one was outside the statute.) The charges included acts of rape, forced oral sex, and fondling of his daughter and his adoptive niece from 1965 to 1970. Banks was also facing two charges of lewd, lascivious or indecent acts on a child under 16 for sexually abusing his two granddaughters 20 years later, in 1990-1. After being convicted on the first counts, Banks pled no contest to one of these later counts. He was sentenced to life on the sexual battery charges and three and a half years for the charge to which he pled no contest.
http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2010/10/31/the-misrepresentation-of-the-case-of-billy-banks/
Cryptome Exposes CIA Hypnosis Programs
By Adam Weinstein Dec. 28, 2010....here's a pair of memos, posted to the intelligence-secrets website, that show the CIA was all up in that Inception-type business in the Cold War: using deep hypnosis to create unwitting double agents and implant secret communications in their brains, where they can't be intercepted....No surprises here to those who are well-acquainted both with science fiction and the CIA's fondness for far-out mind experiments. Ackerman reminds us about Project MKULTRA and the crazy acid tests that comprised America's war on commies until the '70s, when Congress' Church Commission put the kibosh on all that cloak-and-doctor intrigue. Even so, these two docs, dated from 1954 and 1955, are worth a good read.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/12/cryptome-exposes-cia-hypnosis-programs
CIA Hypnotism 1954 document
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45949511/CIA-Hypnotism-1954
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