NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby bks » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:44 am

Wow, thanks for alerting us to Salter's book, PW. Sounds like it could be an excellent addition to the discourse. Please check your pm.
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Wed Oct 17, 2012 11:20 pm

It was time...

Michael's book was officially published today, and Nick has recently come under fire from a, how shall I say this, not entirely careful yet very activist survivor. Published on DIDiva.com, links in original:

Among My Heroes, Part 1

Oct 18th 2012

This is Part 1 because I have many heroes today, despite the fact that only a few years ago I would have scoffed at the term. It would have been highly unfair for me to do so. A number of individuals throughout the Diva’s life have behaved towards her and others in very heroic, and compassionate and giving ways, personally, and professionally. What can I say except that I prevailed through a period of very high cynicism.

Part 1 is dedicated to a couple of fellows. They are both extremely courageous advocates, brilliant researchers, and writers. These men have put their lives on the line for survivors of extreme abuse, of whom many, if not most, have DID.

Nick Bryant

First I want to mention, especially since I may not yet have done so in these pages, is one Nick Bryant. Mr. Bryant is the author of The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal, the seminal volume on the affair, published in 2009. The Franklin case began with the investigation of a failed savings and loan in the 1980’s. Inquiries initiated by the Nebraska State Senate eventually led to the exposure of a criminal network involved in child pornography, prostitution, and human experimentation with ties to some of the highest ranking members of the Republican Party and the White House. Nick Bryant, an extremely ethical and dedicated journalist, invested 7 years of his life gathering evidence and testimony from a number of sources and witnesses. His book is an unassailable work of journalism that puts together the proofs of the very worst about Franklin, which is probably why you haven’t heard about it, if you haven’t.

If you are a survivor of child trafficking, or organized or extreme abuse, read this book. It is validation from page 1, not only for the survivors of the Franklin associated rings, but for any of us who have gone through what most of the general public views as incredible. You can also see Nick on video and listen to many of his recent interviews linked on his website. Mr. Bryant is currently working on a documentary based on his book. Just as he describes it while he was initially researching and trying to get his book published, he is hitting some roadblocks placed in front of him by some powerful folks who have opposing vested interests, and others who are just fearful. You can contribute to the documentary project here.

Michael Salter

I should say rather, Dr . Michael Salter, as he has completed his PhD, and if I am not mistaken, did so with a thesis on organized child abuse. For several years, I had the pleasure of interacting with Michael while he was matriculating, as well as facing a number of serious challenges in his personal life that led him to his current focus on, and advocacy for survivors of organized abuse. We were acquainted in a very special online forum that is generally hospitable to survivors and people with DID. I have saved some of his writings on that forum, as they are marked not only by his brilliant insights into the plight of survivors, but his passion for justice.

Mr. Salter has published his very first book, today, entitled, Organised Sexual Abuse. Congratulations Michael! He tells me a more affordable paper version may be forthcoming. I can’t wait to read it, and I will post a review here when I do. Michael has also published a number of articles, including a recent one on the same topic that is a short, general review of what current peer review material tells us about organized abuse, and how survivors are under served. Its title is Organized Abuse: A Neglected Category of Sexual Abuse with Significant Lifetime Mental Healthcare Sequelae, Michael Salter & Juliet Richters. Here is the abstract.

    Background: Organised abuse (where multiple adults conspire to sexually abuse multiple children) has been one of the most controversial issues in debates over mental health practice with survivors of child sexual abuse. Aims: The aim of this paper is to summarise and analyse the available prevalence data pertinent to organised abuse and to identify the challenges that organised abuse poses for mental health policy and practice. Methods: Prevalence studies of sexual abuse based on community and clinical samples were reviewed for findings pertinent to organised abuse. Key indicators of organised abuse were selected and summarised on the basis of their association with the known characteristics of organised abuse. The literature regarding the health impacts of these indicators was also reviewed. Results: A minority of people reporting contact sexual abuse in the community report experiences indicative of organised abuse. These indicators are elevated in particular settings and they are associated with poor mental and physical health. Conclusions: Organised abuse is rare but it is associated with poor mental and physical health outcomes. There is currently no source of integrated care for adults with histories of organised abuse. Many survivors end up in prison or homeless, chronically disabled by illness, or dead.

I hope I’ve provided some positive feelings by highlighting the work of these two fine men. If you can, send them some encouragement, in whatever form you deem appropriate.
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:20 pm

Ritual Abuse: International Clinical Perspectives -CLASS IS FULL
Price: $30.00
Friday, October 19, 2012 ~ 9:00am-4:00pm (6 CE credit hours) THIS CLASS IS FULL! email ce@alliant.edu to be added to the waitlist.
Alliant International University - Los Angeles campus
1000 South Fremont Ave
Alhambra, CA 91803

Free for Alliant faculty, students and staff on a space-available basis.

This day-long workshop provides training for mental health practitioners on the topic of ritual abuse. The presenters are all clinicians with clinical and forensic experience as well as previous and ongoing scholarly work in this area.

Presentations:
Valerie Sinason, PhD, Clinic for Dissociative Studies, London, United Kingdom:
"When Confidential Work is in the Public Eye: The Socio-Political Problems of Psychoanalytically Oriented Work with Ritual Abuse Survivors”

Adah Sachs, MA, London, United Kingdom:
“Still Being Hurt: The Vicious Cycle of Dissociation, Attachment and Ritual Abuse”

Alison Miller, PhD, Victoria, BC, Canada:
“Dialogue with the Higher-Ups”

Randy Noblitt, PhD, Alliant International University, Los Angeles, USA:
“Accessing Dissociated Mental States”
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby LilyPatToo » Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:56 pm

Oh, do I wish I was there today! What a dream line-up of talks about things I'm dying to understand better...<sigh>

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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Wed Nov 14, 2012 1:35 am

Michael is on a roll. :bigsmile

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/car.2215/abstract

The Role of Ritual in the Organised Abuse of Children
Michael Salter
Article first published online: 13 NOV 2012

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, allegations of ritual child sexual abuse have emerged from child protection cases and legal proceedings and from adults and children in psychotherapy. These allegations have been met with disbelief from many practitioners and academics. Children and adults disclosing ritual abuse continue to present in a range of circumstances and recent substantiations of ritual abuse allegations call for a grounded analysis of their claims. This paper is based on qualitative interviews with 16 adults who described experiencing ritual abuse in childhood. They described the ways in which sexually abusive groups generated shared rationales of religious or mythological justifications for organised abuse. Participants were forced to internalise these rationales in degrading and dehumanising ordeals, whereupon they became active in facilitating their own abuse and/or the abuse of others. Ritual abuse can therefore be conceptualised as a device or strategy that enjoins the participation of victims in organised abuse whilst simultaneously accomplishing exculpation for perpetrators. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Sun Dec 02, 2012 4:09 pm

Hmmmm, what to do about the unauthorized use of my artwork and video in France? I mean, they're supportive, but shouldn't they have at least asked?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xutkms_lynn-shirmer-abus-rituel-et-programmation-mentale-didiva-the-mad-machines_news
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:06 pm

[url]Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/health/Richm ... z2E2oDBPK2[/url]

Richmond homemaker was innocent victim of CIA brainwashing experiments
By Kent Spencer, The Province December 2, 2012

Fifty years ago Richmond homemaker Gina Blasbalg was a victim of physical and psychological torture and unethical experiments. As a teen she was part of a CIA-sponsored program into mind control at the Allan Psychiatric Institute in Montreal. Today, times are happier, but Ralph and Gina Blasbalg still have a favourite bench to sit on at Garry Point Park in Richmond. Gina was an unsuspecting patient in the CIA-sponsored brainwashing program in Montreal, a young Ralph Blasbalg rescued Gina from daily rounds of pills she was being coerced to take. While she was withdrawing from the medication, they had a place they would walk to at night in Montreal. They called it their "crying bench."

Gina Blasbalg was brainwashed by the CIA. The Richmond homemaker was a victim of physical and psychological torture and unethical experiments.
The “medical misadventure” took place in Canada more than 50 years ago at the Allan Institute in Montreal.
Although traumatized by the experience, her story is one of triumph, and today her life is about giving back to young people.
Our story begins in Richmond, where Gina and her husband Ralph fuss over their four homestay students.

There are two kinds of meat loaf — sweet and savoury — on Gina Blasbalg’s dinner table. The “main” comes with mashed yams and potatoes, mushrooms and peas, caramelized onions, rice and soup with matzoballs. Lisa, Yvette, Jessica and Chris, homestay students from China and South Korea aged 12 to 18, tuck into their food with relish.
The teenagers have spent another day in Canada, living with the Blasbalgs who have created a home, far from home.

“They are not picky eaters. Yvette likes everything and Lisa is on a diet,” says mother-figure Gina, who fusses over them constantly.

“We feel they have to eat. The little guy [Chris] is growing,” she says.

Like many dinnertime conversations involving young people, the chatter is spotty until Chris lights up about his volleyball game. Suddenly he’s animated, and the excitement is infectious. It was a thrilling match. He spiked the ball several times. They played a rousing game against one of the best schools in the league. “We call him our Ninja warrior,” says Ralph.

After dinner, Gina keeps track of the children’s’ activities. “These kids need attention,” she says. “They are coming from a different culture.

“I know what it’s like to be away from a mother and a family.”

Orphaned

Gina Rossi was a wild kid in postwar Montreal who pounded nails into walls to get attention.

“I must have been a parent’s nightmare,” she says. Her rebellious ways didn’t matter to her kindly father, an Italian-immigrant who bought her ice cream at the park.

Her mother was a different story. Gina says she was “physically and emotionally abusive.” She was just 10 years old in 1952 when her father died unexpectedly.

“My world crumbled and my life shattered,” she says.

Her mother did not want to have Gina and her sister around anymore. They were placed in an orphanage. Gina’s vulnerable life as a ward of the state was setting her up for an even bigger trial. During the late 1950s and early ‘60s, fears spread that the Chinese had learned to ‘program’ the minds of Western prisoners during the Korean War. New theories about drugs, electric shock and LSD were showing up and institutions wanted to test them.

Gina’s helpless condition made her a prime victim for the revolutionary experiments being performed in Montreal. The timing was perfect when Gina, a 16-year-old emotional wreck, arrived at Royal Victoria Hospital with infectious hepatitis.

“Being an orphan played hell with a child’s mind. I couldn’t stop crying,” she says.

When doctors diagnosed depression, they sent her to a gothic 19th century mansion called Ravenscrag, also known as the Allan Memorial Psychiatric Institute.

House of Horrors

The Allan Psychiatric Institute has been called a “House of Horrors” for good reason. The so-called treatment of the teenaged Gina consisted of ingesting twice daily doses of 16 pills, under a nurse’s strict supervision. The drug types varied widely and often had opposing effects. In no particular classification, they included uppers and downers, depressants and anti-depressants, tranquillizers, barbiturates and truth serum. The capsules came in a rainbow of colours: blue and brown, turquoise, yellow and red, azure, salmon, pink and white.

“We had to take our medication. If I didn’t I was told I would be put in the insane asylum,” she says.

The effects left her very weak.

“I was a zombie. I wanted to sleep.”

In additon to the pills there was physical and psychological torture. She says one the worst things done to her was drug-induced contortions which twisted her muscles into unnatural forms.

“It was extremely painful and traumatizing. They wanted to measure the effect of the contortions so they could add it to their research,” she says.

The nitrous oxide given to her, called laughing gas, was anything but funny.

“I felt like I was spinning forever. I didn’t know if I’d ever come out of it. I dreaded it. I remember thinking, is this what it’s like to die?”

She was also given mind-altering LSD.

“I had a dream that I was flying continuously into a massive sticky spider’s web. I was screaming and somebody held me down.”

After long periods of artificially-prolonged sleep, doctors posed questions while she was hypnotized under a truth serum.

“They were able to penetrate my thoughts.,” says Gina.

She was one of hundreds of unsuspecting patients who never gave their informed consent to be used as guinea pigs. And there was no way to dispute medical orders. “Welfare patients could not sue doctors,” she says. She feels fortunate not to have received massive doses of electric shocks to the brain which many received at the Allan.

The CIA and Dr. Strangelove

At the top of the Allan’s chain of command was an enigmatic man called Dr. Ewen Cameron. He was an imposing, Scottish-born figure who was later dubbed “Dr. Strangelove.” “The chief,” as he was known, had made his mark as a member of a select team which studied Nazi leader Rudolph Hess in Germany after the Second World War. He was a giant of international medicine who was the first president of the World Psychiatric Association. Cameron wanted to delve into the inner depths of the human psyche and receive international acclaim — perhaps a Nobel Prize — for his work.

He thought the mind could be deprogrammed through extra-large doses of electric shock, sensory deprivation, drug concoctions and long periods of induced sleep. Once the mental slate was wiped clean, he believed that minds could be reprogrammed by playing reassuring taped comments through pillows as patients slept. The messages — things such as ‘You are a good wife and people appreciate you’ — were played over and over each day for hours at a time, and repeated for weeks on end.

“He wasn’t liked by the patients,” says Gina. “They were terrified of him. They tried to run away. I heard people begging for no more treatments.”

During a climate of fear engendered by the Cold War, the CIA gave him money to find out how to control the human mind. It took two decades for it to be made public that the CIA and the Canadian government secretly contributed more than $500,000 to the now discredited program. Cameron’s actions have been widely criticized since news of his work surfaced during the 1980s. A 1986 Department of Justice report concluded that his therapeutic techniques were a “medical misadventure.” The report’s author said it was an unjustifiable form of assault on the human brain. He recommended the government award victims $100,000; 77 people have collected. Montreal lawyer Alan Stein, who has successfully sued on victims’ behalf, says many patients didn’t qualify for the compensation, Gina among them. Their records were lost (Gina was told her records couldn’t be found) or they didn’t meet the standard of mistreatment that was set.

Victims had to prove that they had been “put in a childlike state.”

Enter Ralph

Gina was caught in an endless round of failed treatments which made her worse. After two years of “treatment”, at the age 18, she was temporarily staying at a non-profit home for young women while receiving outpatient treatments at the Allan. Her treatments continued because the doctors coerced and manipulated her, she says, into believing she needed to stay in the program to regain her physical and mental health. She was still alone and unprotected. Enter Ralph Blasbalg, a streetwise kid of 19 who repaired TVs. The two were alike in many ways. He was given up by his family at an early age and left to fend for himself.

“I related to her. I saw the look that abandoned children have,” he says.

Ralph was at the group residence to repair a TV. It was late. The basement canteen was almost empty — just Gina. She was trying to follow a murder mystery called Beware My Lovely as Ralph adjusted the set. It seems hilarious now, but both of them happened to be looking away when the most important scene occurred — a body dropped out of the closet. When they discovered neither knew what had happened, not much else was said. It was Valentine’s Day, 1960. It turned out Gina and Ralph had mutual friends. When they met a few days later, Ralph saw a “terribly thin, gaunt and beautiful” woman.

“Her eyes were amazing. She never lost the sparkle. That’s what told me somebody was awake inside,” he says.

“I saw how they wrecked this beautiful girl. She didn’t know what was going on. I call it psychological dissection.”

Gina was now responsible for picking up her own pills at a pharmacy.

“I cannot tell you how angry I was with Cameron,” says Ralph of the doctor in charge at the Allan.

“I was committed to her,” says Ralph.

He secretly weaned Gina off the pills by removing them one at a time over a number of weeks. Some nights Gina and Ralph would walk off the withdrawal symptoms by hiking over Mount Royal to Pratt Park. They huddled at a special bench to keep warm.

“We called it our crying bench,” Ralph says. “We would walk all night. We would sing and embrace each other so she could get rid of the drugs’ effects.”

Finally, the treatments were brought to a close. Gina simply walked away after her last session finished in 1962.

“They always kept threatening that if I didn’t come back, they would send the police after me,” she says.

Ralph retorted: “Over my dead body.”

The pair were free. They married shortly after Gina left the Allan for the last time. The couple still has a special bench, now at Garry Point Park in Richmond. She won More than 50 years on, after raising a family of four, Gina, a diminutive and attractive-looking 70, has survived. Years of state-sponsored psychological and physical abuse have left their mark, but she has come through.

“It has taken me a long time to trust people,” she says. “I am healthy. I’m thankful I’m still alive. What have I got to complain about?”

Her 2011 book, Disposable Minds, Expendable People, is a personal memoir of the frightening days in the Allan as a helpless teenager. She wrote the memoir to expunge the bad memories and tell people what happened to her. Gina has never received any compensation for her abuse.

“I’m not holding anyone accountable. That was then. The times were different.”

Ralph is not so accommodating.

“I don’t have the same forgiving bone as my wife. What she went through was hell.

“I don’t know how people who do these things can sleep at night. The victims were disposable. These people fell through the cracks of the system.

“This was really the chamber of horrors. It’s a sordid part of the country’s past.

What’s remarkable is Gina’s ability to survive it all. The loving care she gives to those around her, including the strangers, the homestay students she invites into her home. Loving care she never received.

“I was afraid when I first arrived from South Korea. I didn’t know them,” says a 15-year-old Lisa.

As she stayed longer, the student says the Blasbalg’s place became home. This is how her husband explains Gina’s remarkable nature: “She taught me tolerance. She calmed me down. Some people just have this inner strength which pulls them through.

“It’s a real human triumph. She won.”


Book:
http://www.amazon.com/Disposable-Minds-Expendable-People-Rossi/dp/1426970366
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby blankly » Wed Dec 05, 2012 9:25 am

I think you should have been asked Project Willow before your work was used.

Did anyone get to the conference/class in LA?
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby LilyPatToo » Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:05 pm

blankly wrote:I think you should have been asked Project Willow before your work was used.

I agree and would have said so sooner, were I not of two minds (not unusual with me :wink ) due to the fact that the "borrower" did spread an important message to a non-English-speaking audience who most likely would never otherwise have heard it. But they didn't ask, which I find just plain wrong, not to mention really strange. I've found Facebook pages where all of the photos and artwork posted is unapologetically unattributed. I make a point of posting to ask why that is and what makes the poster think it's OK to just take things that don't belong to them. Every reply I've gotten expresses outrage that I would question their character when they were only "doing a favor" to the artist--!!! :roll: Which always makes me feel like I'm on an alien planet :shrug:

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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Wed Dec 05, 2012 12:56 pm

I've decided to contact her, but I'm not exactly sure how to approach it yet, and then there's the translation issue.

blankly wrote:Did anyone get to the conference/class in LA?


A survivor acquaintance attended. She's writing an article, and I will post it here if I get permission. We've been debating a comment by Valarie Sinason, paraphrased here by my friend as, "Dr. Sinason shared her belief that we will see a global paradigm shift accepting the reality of ritual abuse in our midst when “The Survivor Movement” assumes the primary role in telling its first-hand truth." Many survivors responded that they'd face too much danger if they spoke out. I'm concerned that not enough of us are in a position to form a movement per se, and that relying on us to do so, given the circumstances, isn't fair. What we need are more advocates and researchers, people who can present cases as neutral observers, and add to the existing empirical data without putting themselves or others at risk.
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby LilyPatToo » Wed Dec 05, 2012 1:16 pm

Project Willow wrote:I've decided to contact her, but I'm not exactly sure how to approach it yet, and then there's the translation issue.

blankly wrote:Did anyone get to the conference/class in LA?


A survivor acquaintance attended. She's writing an article, and I will post it here if I get permission. We've been debating a comment by Valarie Sinason, paraphrased here by my friend as, "Dr. Sinason shared her belief that we will see a global paradigm shift accepting the reality of ritual abuse in our midst when “The Survivor Movement” assumes the primary role in telling its first-hand truth." Many survivors responded that they'd face too much danger if they spoke out. I'm concerned that not enough of us are in a position to form a movement per se, and that relying on us to do so, given the circumstances, isn't fair. What we need are more advocates and researchers, people who can present cases as neutral observers, and add to the existing empirical data without putting themselves or others at risk.

Yes. This needs to be made clear, since so many survivors are legitimately terrified of retribution. Years ago, when I first spoke out online about what had been done to me, I was incredibly ignorant about consequences. The almost instant RW payback shocked me and then made me so angry that I got louder and more specific. But that's not a common sense choice for most people who have dependents or for anyone within easy reach of their perps.

And then there's the hatchet job on survivors of systemic abuse that's been done in the media for so long that at this point when a survivor speaks out they're most likely to be met with scorn and disgust. I strongly believe that we need those impartial researchers' and advocates' voices to begin to level the playing field and counter all the disinformation that's been spread so liberally before we'll be heard at all. And to risk reprisal when there's a low chance of being believed makes little sense to me. This movement has had too many martyrs already.

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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby blankly » Wed Dec 05, 2012 1:53 pm

Like LP2 I think that the fact that the video is available to french speakers is positive, but that as a principle copyright of artists should be respected.
I don't know what to think about Valerie S's hope. I think she must be pretty aware of how many people have directly and through third party supporters tried to open up the issue to a wider public and with what results. Everything from blatant reprisals, career threats, personal trashing, and commonly mockery. I'm feeling very confused and angry with conflicting thoughts about this today, on the one hand I can see that there are a few chinks appearing in the perp armour, and a wider awareness, but on the other I am thinking how much too late this is for so many people, and how there is a danger of a sort of blasé, world weary cynicism replacing the outright denial and ridiculing. Those psychiatrists who have been active on the right side have not been all that successful in getting their views and experience accepted within their own professional group I feel.
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:03 pm

Those of you who are members of Survivorship, watch your mailboxes for a special issue of the Journal. It's edited by Janet Thomas and designed by yours truly. There's one of the most important articles I've ever read about RA/MC in it, and a story by Janet about the clit show. I'll post the RA/MC article here as soon as I've got permission.

Below is a new article by Ellen Lacter, it's long, so I'll bold some snippets.

http://endritualabuse.org/activism/common-forms-of-misinformation-and-tactics-of-disinformation-about-psychotherapy-for-trauma-originating-in-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control/

Common Forms of Misinformation and Tactics of Disinformation about Psychotherapy for Trauma Originating in Ritual Abuse and Mind Control
By Ellen Lacter, Ph.D., December 18, 2012.

This page on my website seeks to expose a number of common forms of misinformation and tactics of disinformation about psychotherapy for trauma originating in ritual abuse and mind control. Disinformation is distinguished from misinformation in that it is intentionally fraudulent.

Misinformation and disinformation about ritual abuse and mind control trauma and psychotherapy to treat such trauma appear in both paper and electronic media, but are particularly abundant on the Internet on websites of individuals and organizations, bookseller reviews, blogs, newsletters, online encyclopedias, social networking sites, and e-group listservs.

Disclaimer: This page neither cites, quotes, names, nor alludes to any specific paper or electronic articles or statements by individual. Any similarity between examples of misinformation or disinformation used herein and actual articles or other statements is purely coincidental.

The following are common forms of misinformation and tactics of disinformation concerning the treatment of trauma originating in ritual abuse and mind control:
1. Allegations of Malpractice Can Be Circulated Unopposed

When allegations of malpractice are made or when lawsuits are brought against psychotherapists or institutions for (a) inducing or implanting false memories of ritual abuse or mind control in clients, (b) inducing or implanting false memories of ritual abuse by family members that then alienated clients from these family members, (c) inaccurate reporting of ritual abuse to child abuse or law enforcement authorities, or (d) the suicide of a client based in therapists treating the client’s psychological problems as originating in a history of ritual abuse or mind control, etc., inaccurate, exaggerated, or malicious information about these therapists and institutions can be circulated unopposed.

This is because treating therapists and institutions cannot legally or ethically reveal anything related to a client’s psychotherapy as it is protected by confidentiality and psychotherapist-patient privilege.

Therapists and institutions are further restricted in cases involved in litigation because:

a) their attorneys usually advise against any discussion of the matter
b) their malpractice carriers often prohibit any discussion
c) in some cases, judges’ gag orders may prohibit discussion

Allegations that a client’s suicide was based in therapy addressing ritual abuse or mind control trauma is a particularly hostile form of causal reductionism. Any combination of factors may have been at play and can never be fully known. Also, it is not realistic to expect that all highly suicidal clients can be helped, no matter how skilled and properly focused the treatment.


2. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists’ Credentials, Professional Qualifications, and Personal Characteristics

Non-professionals who oppose that ritual abuse and mind control exist can readily, usually without consequence, publicly misrepresent the credentials, professional education, qualifications, and experience of psychotherapists who provide educational materials about ritual abuse and mind control or who treat trauma originating in ritual abuse or mind control.

Non-professionals can also exaggerate or fabricate their own credentials, professional education, qualifications, and experience, generally without consequence.

In contrast, credentialed psychotherapists are ethically and legally required to be accurate in how they represent their credentials, qualifications, etc., and can suffer grave consequences for misrepresenting these. The upshot of these conflicting standards is that psychotherapists treating trauma for ritual abuse and mind control can be misrepresented as having non-credible qualifications while their opponents can misrepresent themselves with exaggerated credentials.

Non-professionals can also misrepresent the personal characteristics, religious beliefs, and appearance, of these therapists, can name-call and otherwise mock them, and can attribute false agendas to them, such as assigning religious motives to secular therapists working with ritual abuse or mind control survivors.

For example, there is little to prevent someone from claiming on his or her own website that a psychotherapist is a fundamentalist Christian zealot at war with Satan, when that therapist might be an atheist, Jew, Buddhist, etc., who places no stock in the existence of Satan. But such a claim, when spoken as if it is fact, accomplishes its intended purpose of maligning that therapist.


3. Exploitation of the Constraints on Communication by Credentialed Psychotherapists

Psychotherapists are legally and ethically mandated to maintain high professional standards of scientific caution, integrity, honesty, and respectful treatment of other people. Non-therapists are free of such strict mandates. This creates an uneven playing field.

Non-professionals can make unsupported claims and put forth disinformation about research on ritual abuse or mind control and about therapy for ritual abuse or mind control trauma that therapists cannot refute without substantial basis for their assertions, such as citing published research addressing each specific issue, a very tall order.

Non-professionals can also misrepresent the therapy approaches of specific therapists, build false arguments about their therapy practices, and employ sarcasm, ridicule, provocation, ad hominem attacks, fear-mongering, hate-mongering, and all assortment of verbal manipulation, that psychotherapists can only respond to with great reserve and caution.

So, therapists who seek to respond to such accusations and manipulations can appear relatively powerless and passive, as they are corralled into dodging verbal abuse, rather than having any hope of engaging in any reasonable or productive discourse.

And if they do not respond, which is often the most judicious option, the faulty assumption can be made that they are defeated.


4. Stacking the Deck: Omission of Information Contrary to the Position that Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Exist

Psychotherapists are obligated to be scientific and objective about what they report. They cannot ethically present one side of a matter, knowingly omitting or failing to review the literature or legal evidence on the other side. This standard does not exist for non-professionals.

Therefore, non-professionals can, usually without consequence, stack the deck in their Internet publications about ritual abuse to portray it as non-existent, disregarding the legal and psychological evidence of its existence (see next section on Straw Man Arguments).


5. Straw Man Arguments

When substantial evidence of ritual abuse is provided, such as criminal convictions for ritual abuse (see endnotes 1 and 2), criminal convictions for crimes with ritual abuse components (see endnotes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8), and research on ritual abuse (see endnote 9), individuals who oppose that ritual abuse and mind control exist often respond by shifting the focus to exaggerated or caricatured representations of ritual abuse, e.g., “This fails to prove the existence of large-scale, hierarchical, international, multi-generational, baby-breeding, baby-sacrificing, satanic cults,” when no such claims were put forward. This grouping of words carries a tone of sarcasm and derision even when limited to the written word.

There are a great many faults with such caricatures. I believe, as do many of my colleagues who also treat clients with ritual abuse or mind control trauma, that ritually abusive groups have a multitude of agendas, including a variety of spiritual agendas, of which Satanism is only one.

And it is my impression that therapists who treat clients with ritual abuse or mind control trauma believe that there are many different levels of organization and scale among abusers who employ ritualistically abusive practices, including:

(a) small-scale ritual abuse, confined to an individual abuser or nuclear or extended family
(b) localized abusive cults larger than one extended family
(c) localized groups that coordinate their abuse and other criminal activity with other localized groups for specific purposes, such as facilitation of the production and distribution of filmed child sexual abuse and torture and to unite for specific abusive rituals
(d) localized groups that interface with abusers in other regions with some level of hierarchical organization
(e) groups that interface internationally in organized criminal efforts, e.g., to enable distribution of filmed child sexual abuse and torture in other countries where, if these films were confiscated, victims would be less able to be identified by law enforcement

There is ample evidence of widespread organized crime among purveyors of filmed child sexual abuse and torture (for a recent case, see endnote 10). Why would anyone wish to discount that some of these criminals might employ ritualistic torture, terror-tactics, and practices to further their ends? For example, there is ample evidence of the Mexican drug trade’s use of ritual sacrifice to attempt to shield itself from law enforcement (endnote 11).

It is true that there is a paucity of criminal convictions specific to ritual abuse relative to other crimes. But this has many causes, including the following:

(a) The victims are generally terrified and usually have extreme posttraumatic stress disorder and dissociative disorders, which reduces their ability to disclose their crimes and diminish their credibility as witnesses.
(b) Even when there is substantial evidence of ritual practices within crimes, that evidence is generally omitted from criminal charges as, in most states and countries, there are no laws on the books specifically prohibiting ritual abuse, and,
(c) When prosecutors have alleged ritual practices in legal actions in the past. defense attorneys have often used straw man tactics to muddy the waters with allegations of religious persecution or agenda, so prosecutors have since generally not introduced such material.

Given these considerations, it is a logical fallacy to claim that a relatively low conviction rate proves that ritual abuse and mind control do not exist, or that organized ritual abuse does not exist, especially when we consider proven cases of organized child abuse and cover-up, such as the well-publicized cover-up of child abuse within the Catholic church and the well-documented cover-up of a pedophile network in The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal (Bryant, 2009).


6. Use of Ridicule and Emotionally-loaded Language to Discredit the Issue of Ritual Abuse and Psychotherapists Treating Related Trauma

Opponents of the position that ritual abuse exists frequently use phrases such as “baby-breeding, baby-sacrificing cult,” “satanic panic,” and “bizarre rituals” to refer to reports and claims made about ritual abuse by therapists, educators and researchers.

Through the devices of alliteration, rhyme, buzz words, sarcasm, and ridicule, and conjuring up excessively repulsive imagery, such phrases inflame, cause people to recoil in disdain and disbelief, and the capacity to critically evaluate the possibility of the phenomenon goes out the window.

Psychotherapists generally use objective language when reporting the atrocities described by their clients, such as:

(a) “Survivor A reported being impregnated in a ritual.”
(b) “Survivor B reported that her abusers induced early labor to have a fetus to ritually sacrifice.”
(c) “Survivor C reported that a homeless man was abducted by her abuser group and sacrificed.”

Such examples are often accompanied by explanations for the normal questions that arise, such as, “Survivor C reported that a mortician with a crematorium was a member of the abuser group.” This kind of descriptive language is a far cry from the phrasing used by people who employ straw man tactics.

Researchers on ritual abuse and mind control use even more cautious and scientific language to describe their findings, as required by their professional ethical codes, and as exemplified in this excerpt from a book chapter (Lacter & Lehman, 2008) co-authored by this writer: http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/studi ... esearch-2/.


7. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists as Witch-hunters, Satan-hunters, Zealots, and Religious Crusaders

Psychotherapists who publicly state that they treat trauma for ritual abuse or mind control or who educate on the subject are often depicted as religious zealots hunting down witches or Satan himself, are charged with fostering moral panic, urban legends, and mass hysteria, and are accused of trying to find histories of ritual abuse and mind control in all of their psychotherapy clients. These kinds of misrepresentations are so ubiquitous on the Internet that they can easily be mistaken as fact.

It is my experience that psychotherapists who treat clients reporting such trauma are generally very cautious about what they say about ritual abuse or mind control and that many psychotherapists who previously publicly shared their opinions that these forms of abuse exist are now silent on these issues.

This is largely because of the effective use of the kinds of disinformation tactics described on this webpage to ridicule such beliefs, to slander therapists who profess them, and to sway public opinion, etc., and the sharp rise in lawsuits against psychotherapists alleging induction or implantation of false memories of abuse in the 1990s.

Of the many therapists I know who have treated clients with ritual abuse or mind control trauma, all of these therapists, including pastoral counselors and Christian therapists, deeply hope that their clients have never suffered these devastating kinds of abuse. These forms of abuse leave clients with stores of pain that are hard for most people to imagine, and that emotionally grieve anyone who bears witness to accounts of them, including therapists.

Victims and survivors of these atrocities are also among the most challenging clients to treat, because they are often highly suicidal, terrified, may still be suffering the abuse, require more crisis intervention and out-of-therapy contact than other clients, often have little or no funding for therapy, and usually require long-term treatment.

Yet, the hope that clients did not suffer these abuses does not justify a clinical failure to correctly assess and treat trauma originating in ritual abuse or mind control, no matter how harshly therapists may be criticized for this. The costs of such errors include:

(a) lack of treatment for this trauma, causing people to believe themselves defiled and evil at their core rather than understanding that these feelings and beliefs originated in their ritual abuse and mind control
(b) reinforcement of victims’ fears that they are hopelessly crazy and untreatable
(c) mis-diagnosis, often for Schizophrenia or Delusional Disorder, that often leads to incorrect and excessive use of medications and possible long-term hospitalization or involuntary hospital commitment


8. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists as Inducing or Implanting False Memories of Child Abuse and “False Memory Syndrome”

On the Internet, it is relatively effortless to portray psychotherapy as the primary source of clients’ memories of child abuse with absolutely no scientific basis.

It is also common to designate specific therapists, especially those who state that they treat clients with trauma originating in ritual abuse or mind control, as “recovered memory therapists” who are then alleged to chase down memories of child abuse in their clients, to thereby induce or implant false memories of abuse, and to thus cause their clients to suffer “False Memory Syndrome.”
It is well-documented that “False Memory Syndrome” is a pseudo-psychiatric disorder contrived by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), an organization widely known to have been “formed to provide legal and emotional support to those accused of sexual abuse” (Murphy, 1997, p. 57). It is possible that most of the misinformation and disinformation circulating about child abuse, ritual abuse, mind control, dissociative disorders (see below, #10: Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists as Inducing Dissociative Identity Disorder), and recovered memories of child abuse originate in the efforts of the FMSF and its affiliates.

Evidence of misrepresentation of information by the FMSF is documented in the book, Misinformation Concerning Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Survivors (Whitfield, Silberg, & Fink, 2002).

“Recovered memory therapy” is as contrived a concept as “False Memory Syndrome.” Psychotherapy has the goal of helping clients to deal with whatever psychological issues are troubling them, not of searching for memories of abuse.

Of course, there are cases of therapists prematurely jumping to conclusions that a client may have been abused and even of suggesting this to a client, including findings of malpractice in this regard in lawsuits and by professional licensing boards. But it is a dishonest to tar all therapists with the same brush and to represent such errors as common practice.

In an unusual case of a psychotherapist defending herself against claims of irresponsibility in this regard, in 1992, psychologist Neomi Mattis sued University of Utah psychology professor David Raskin for defamation after he criticized Dr. Mattis, co-leader of a Utah task force on ritual abuse at the time, and other therapists who treat patients with purportedly recovered memories of child-sexual abuse in his speech to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in Provo, Utah. The Deseret Times of Salt Lake City, Utah, (See endnote 12) states:

He said those practitioners ‘do not know the scientific literature’ and ‘have no reality orientation.’ Raskin said Mattis lacked the credentials to be a graduate student, let alone a professor in the school’s psychology department.

In April, 1995, the defamation suit was settled for an undisclosed amount of money.

Misrepresentations about psychotherapy and memory for abuse ignore the vast body of literature substantiating that:

(a) trauma memories recovered in therapy represent a small proportion of total recovered memory reports (Elliott, 1997; Wilsnack, Wonderlich, Kristjanson, Vogeltanz-Holm, & Wilsnack, 2002)
(b) recovered memories of abuse are often accurate (Dalenberg, 1996)
(c) memory for verified abuse is often forgotten or dissociated (Williams, 1994)

Accurate information on the issue of recovered memory can be found at: The Recovered Memory Project: http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/.


9. Misrepresentation of Research to Minimize the Effects of Child Abuse and to Represent the Traumatic Effects as the Result of the Reactions of Psychotherapists and Other Adults

It is hard to believe that anyone would seek to misrepresent and minimize the damaging effects of child abuse and to blame psychotherapists for victims feeling traumatized, but this is just the case in Susan Clancy’s 2010 book, The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children– and its Aftermath.

In this book, Clancy uses circular reasoning to misrepresent child sexual abuse as non-traumatic when it occurs and to posit that it is adult interpretations, especially those of psychotherapists, that cause people to experience their child sexual abuse as traumatic.

Clancy’s book is based in part on an article she co-authored with Richard J. McNally, titled, “Who Needs Repression? Normal Memory Processes Can Explain ‘Forgetting’ of Childhood Sexual Abuse,” published in The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice (2005/2006).

In this study, Clancy asked 27 adults who reported sexual abuse as children to rate their levels of trauma at the time of their abuse on a 10-point scale, with #10 to indicate “extremely traumatic” and #1 to indicate “not traumatic at all.” The average rating was 7.5.

Any logical person would consider 7.5 on a 10-point scale to be quite high. Yet Susan Clancy concludes that their child sexual abuse “experiences were unpleasant, distressing, or confusing, but not traumatic (e.g., terrifying) at the time they occurred” (p. 70).

This is clearly a misrepresentation of her own data. Clancy justifies this conclusion by limiting her definition of “trauma” to abuse that was “overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening” (p. 67). Then she determined that only two of her subjects perceived that level of threat, and parenthetically dismissed one of these subjects’ reports as “bizarre” and “questionable” (p. 68). Then, she discounted all lesser levels of distress as nontraumatic, essentially re-rating them all as #1 on her 10-point trauma scale.

It is academically dishonest to ask these 27 adults to rate their levels of trauma and to then ignore this data.

Clancy considered the following reports of two of her subjects as lacking in trauma: “I went from confused to bewildered to scared . . . it culminated in me feeling somewhat angry and betrayed,” and “I didn’t think of it as sex, I just thought of it as disgusting . . .”

To further make her case, she wrote that two men

…while reporting that the [rape] was painful, did not describe it as traumatic [apparently relying on her definition of trauma as: “overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening”]. In the words of one of the victims, “He would always say if you love me you’ll do it. It hurt, and after a while I knew it was wrong, but not at the beginning.” The other victim of penetration reported, “I didn’t like it– I knew it was wrong– but it was better than having to go back to DYS [Department of Youth Services custody].”

So, Clancy dismisses painful rape of a child as nontraumatic simply because the victims did not describe the abuse as “overwhelmingly terrifying or perceived as life threatening”.

Clancy also dismissed as nontraumatic all other painful emotional states described by her 27 subjects, including:

(a) “definitely feeling dirty.”
(b) “I couldn’t breathe.”
(c) “I was shocked at what was happening, and I think I was afraid, there was a lot of weirdness, insecurity, a lot of anger.”
(d) “I thought it was my fault.”

Clancy categorizes all such psychological reactions as, “unpleasant, distressing, or confusing, but not traumatic.”

Clancy acknowledges that: “All of our subjects (1) had either symptoms or diagnoses of PTSD [posttraumatic stress disorder] and (2) reported negative life effects from the abuse” (p. 71). Yet, this does not influence Clancy to consider that they might have suffered trauma at the time of their abuse.

Instead, she states that since child sexual abuse is, “not necessarily traumatic at the time it occurs,” “it may be the retrospective interpretation of the event, rather than the event itself, that mediates its subsequent impact” (p. 72). In her words, the later PTSD is the result of, “an understandable tendency to project our adult fears, repulsion, and horror onto child victims.”

Thus, Clancy argues that it is adults, especially therapists, who cause the trauma in sexual abuse victims, ignoring the reports of her own subjects of contemporaneous fear, repulsion, and horror. And then she titles her book, “The Trauma Myth”, categorically painting sexual abuse as nontraumatic with one sweeping brush stroke.

Clancy has no objective basis to dismiss as a myth her subjects’ experiences of having been traumatized by their sexual abuse, simply because their reports did not meet her overly-restrictive criteria of overwhelming terror or having feared for their lives.

Clancy’s book also oddly neglects to adequately incorporate the vast body of psychological research documenting the myriad short-term damaging effects of sexual abuse on children. It is standard for psychologists to first conduct an unbiased review of the literature on a subject and to include that review in our books and papers. Clancy failed to conduct such a review. Instead, she selectively cites only a few studies that support her position. This approach exposes that Clancy has a biased agenda rather than an objective of honestly representing the work in the field. This raises questions of potential bias in her research methods, her interviews of victims, and her interpretation of her results.

As a psychologist for 24 years, I have treated hundreds of abused children and adults abused as children. Cases of children experiencing only “confusion” (her thesis) during the time period of their abuse are very rare. In most cases, abused children and adults abused as children report that during the time in which they were abused, in addition to confusion of various types, they experienced a combination of many of the following:

(a) Physical pain, in some cases extreme
(b) Disgust for the sexual acts, abuser genitalia and emissions
(c) Terror in cases of extreme force, restraint, or restriction of the child’s breathing, gagging, etc.
(d) Terror based in threats to self, loved one, pets, etc., to ensure compliance and/or to prevent disclosure
(e) Fear based in the abuser over-riding their attempts to escape, ignoring their pleas for the abuser to stop, etc.
(f) Fear, shame, and guilt, based in an awareness that private parts should be covered and not bothered (molested), and an awareness that the abuser was making great efforts to hide the abuse, to keep it secret, and to ensure that they kept it secret, causing the child to understand that these acts were harmful and morally wrong, as in hitting someone, stealing, lying, etc.
(g) Betrayal and hurt in cases of abuse by loved ones, based in an awareness that the abuser was engaging them in harmful and immoral acts, and in many cases, that family members were allowing the abuse to continue
(h) Guilt and shame for not escaping or physically fighting off the abuser (The truth is that children usually understand in the moment that they will be overpowered or assaulted for resisting.)
(i) Feeling like an “accomplice” based in receiving gifts and special privileges from the abuser. Clancy portrays these “gifts” as “benefits” that the child derives from sexual abuse. This equates child victims with prostitutes who trade money and goods for sex. But, children cannot enter “contracts” to be sexually exploited. Sexual abuse is imposed on children against their will and with little or no knowledge of the meaning of sexuality. Abusers then use gifts and favors to further manipulate and entrap children.
(j) Anxiety-producing sexual arousal during the abuse, in cases in which the abuser took precautions to prevent or minimize the perception of pain
(k) Residual sexual feelings and responses that caused great anxiety, crying, tantrums, pleas to caregivers to, “Make it [the sexual response] stop,” etc.
(l) Rage at the abuser for inflicting the above
m) Social, behavioral, and cognitive (including academic) problems driven by the above
(n) Physical damage, including damage to internal organs, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, and in some cases, death

In addition, when children first disclose their abuse, the supportive caregivers in their life typically are devastated to have discovered the true basis for their children’s recent psychological and physical problems, such as separation anxiety, nightmares and night terrors, frequent crying, assorted fears, defiance, temper tantrums, academic problems, urinary and bowel “accidents,” etc. All of these are clear indicators that the sexual abuse was damaging to the child prior to his or her disclosure of the abuse.

I do not discount the rare cases of children feeling only “confused” during the period of their sexual abuse. However, this reaction usually occurs only in cases that do not involve pain, coercion, and threats, that involve more “mild” sexual acts, that are very short-term, and in younger children.

It is significant to note that Susan Clancy is a member of the International Committee of Social, Psychiatric, Psychological, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Neurological Scientists, a group that submitted an amicus brief in on behalf of Roman Catholic priest Paul M. Shanley in his appeal of his 2005 conviction of child sexual abuse. Shanley’s sexual assault convictions were upheld on appeal in January, 2010.

It is also important to note that the McNally-Clancy article was published in the journal, “The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice,” which claims to be peer-reviewed and endorsed by, The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH). Scott Lilienfeld is founder and editor of this journal and of the CSMMH. Many of the coordinating committee and fellows of the CSMMH have a long history of affiliation with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and of advocating on behalf of accused sex abuse offenders in legal actions. These fellows include Elizabeth Loftus, Paul McHugh, and Harrison Pope. I believe it is necessary to question the degree of scientific objectivity of the peer-review process of this article by Clancy and McNally.


10. Misrepresentation of Psychotherapists as Inducing Dissociative Identity Disorder

Similar to misrepresenting child sexual abuse as non-traumatic, the Internet is replete with assertions that Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is not an actual psychiatric disorder based in histories of child abuse and other psychological trauma (e.g., significant loss, medical trauma), but is primarily an artifact of psychotherapy or specific therapists inducing its formation, suggestible individuals being exposed to material about child abuse or the concept of DID, and/or fantasy-proneness in particular individuals.

These assertions ignore the abundance of research that substantiates that DID is a valid, vs. rare or factitious, psychiatric disorder usually based in childhood trauma, although this documentation is readily available (see endnote 13).

Why would parties that oppose that ritual abuse and mind control exist be so motivated to misrepresent DID as a non-disorder?

Psychotherapists commonly diagnose DID in clients who report histories of ritual abuse and mind control. And these clients commonly report that their abusers used torture, hypnosis and conditioning to intentionally induce their psyches to form dissociated self-states that their abusers could then exploit for nefarious purposes. For a full treatise on this thesis, see my chapter, “Torture-based mind control: Psychological mechanisms and psychotherapeutic approaches to overcoming mind control” in the book, Ritual Abuse and Mind Control: the Manipulation of Attachment Needs (2011).

We also have a historical record of manipulation of amnestic and dissociative states for purposes of mind control to serve espionage and military purposes. The declassified documents of Cold War MKULTRA program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) expose a program that included experiments conducted by psychiatrists to create amnesia, new dissociated identities, new memories, and responses to hypnotic access codes (again, see Lacter, 2011).

Colin Ross, in his book, Bluebird: Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists (2000), cites a May 13, 1968, article in the Providence Evening Bulletin, that states that George Estabrooks, who is described as a former consultant for the FBI and CIA, is quoted to have stated, “the key to creating an effective spy or assassin rests in splitting a man’s personality, or creating multipersonality” (Ross, 2000, p. 162). Multiple Personality Disorder is precursor designation for what we now call Dissociative Identity Disorder.

It is important to note that The False Memory Syndrome Foundation and its affiliates have a long history of representing DID as a pseudo-psychiatric disorder and as an artifact of psychotherapy.

In the context of this history, it is significant to note the following citation related to funding by the United States Office of Naval Research (citation provided by Colin Ross, 2000):

On December 11, 1996, in a posting on the internet list WITCHNT@MITVAMA.MIT.EDU, Dr. Peter Freyd, husband of the Executive Director of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, wrote:

“Since we all want to be open about any money we might have received from military-related sources, let me confess. I, too must go on record. Starting in 1988, I’ve been getting a lot of money from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.” (p. 154)

Colin Ross (2000) succinctly helps us to connect the dots between disinformation on DID and the United States CIA Cold War mind control projects:

“If clinical multiple personality is buried and forgotten, then the Manchurian Candidate Programs will be safe from public scrutiny.” ( p. 141)


11. Use of Aliases to Inflate Statistics

Individuals can use as many aliases as they wish on many websites, e.g., sites that permit book reviews, to artificially inflate the number of people who appear to support their positions, to vote multiple times to endorse particular comments, etc.


12. Blitzkrieg Tactics

Opponents of the position that ritual abuse and mind control exist can readily lodge voluminous, repetitious, and vehement accusations on the Internet against psychotherapists who provide therapy or education for ritual abuse or mind control trauma. These attacks sometimes amount to harassment.

Psychotherapists, researchers, and educators cannot feasibly respond to this kind of barrage of accusations and still have time to fulfill their professional functions. This strategy also carries psychological costs, including personal stress, professional humiliation, as well as potentially frightening the clients of the therapists being attacked, and steering potential clients away from these therapists, objectives that may be part of the aim of some accusers.

There is often no venue to respond to accusations on the website where the accusations are lodged. And if a venue to respond is available, attempts to engage in rational discourse with people who use Blitzkrieg tactics are likely to be futile.


In Conclusion

As we consider these common forms of misinformation and tactics of disinformation used to discredit psychotherapy for trauma originating in ritual abuse and mind control, we are obliged to ask: Who would be motivated to launch such a vehement and deceitful attack against these therapists? Who stands to lose if these therapists do this work?

If the bulk of these attacks came from clients who claimed that their therapists induced or implanted false memories in them, we might find an answer to our question. But, this does not seem to be the case.

Instead, these attacks appear to usually come from parties who do not disclose the basis of their interest in this issue, and from organizations, and members and affiliates of such organizations, that directly advocate for people accused of crimes against children and from organizations that appear to share that agenda if one scratches just beneath the surface.

Such organizations include:

(a) The False Memory Syndrome Foundation “formed to provide legal and emotional support to those accused of sexual abuse” (Murphy, 1997)

(b) The National Center for Reason and Justice, that states that it “supports people who are falsely accused or convicted of crimes against children” (see: http://ncrj.org/ and its resources listed here: http://ncrj.org/resources/bibliography/)

(c) The International Committee of Social, Psychiatric, Psychological, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Neurological Scientists, which submitted an amicus brief on behalf of Roman Catholic priest Paul M. Shanley in his appeal of his conviction of child sexual abuse (Shanley’s sexual assault convictions were upheld on appeal)

(d) The National Association for Consumer Protection in Mental Health Practices, that states that it was “founded in 1994, due to the alarming number of False Memory cases” (see: http://www.hermanohme.com)

(e) http://www.hermanohme.com/),The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (the sister organization of “d” (above) which has the stated goal to “call for the reform of the mental health system, restricting it to those mental health treatments proven reasonably safe and effective by reliable scientific methods” (the last two organizations share a website here: http://www.hermanohme.com/)


Therefore, the Internet serves as something of an unregulated court of public opinion, where, to a large degree, allegedly falsely accused perpetrators of child abuse and their advocates and alleged victims of child abuse and their therapists and advocates, argue about:

(a) whether child abuse is in itself traumatic
(b) the existence of ritual abuse and mind control
(c) the validity of recovered memories of abuse
(d) the validity of dissociative disorders, especially DID
(e) the practice of psychotherapy in relation to all of the above

All of this occurs with no rules of order, no penalties for perjury, and an uneven playing field that causes psychotherapists and psychology researchers to have to pull their punches.

I believe that this fight is being waged, in great part, to prevent child abuse survivors, especially survivors of ritual abuse and mind control, from receiving the help and support that they need to heal from their abuse, from receiving any sense of validation about their abuse, from recalling any dissociated parts of their abuse, from reporting their abusers to the authorities, from suing their abusers, from activism against child abuse, ritual abuse, and mind control, and in some cases, from even breaking away from their abusers.

It is my opinion that most victims of ritual abuse and mind control need the support of another person to recover from these kinds of abuse. This is normally a psychotherapist. It may also include clergy, friends, significant others, and other survivors. For some survivor-therapists, it is a colleague. But rarely can a survivor of these abuses bear to process this trauma alone. It is usually too painful, frightening, and disorienting to face without an external anchor for support.

Psychotherapy may be the most common and effective means of breaking the bonds of ritual abuse and mind control. I believe this is a large basis for the war being waged against it.

Furthermore, it is a lot less vulgar and cruel to attack therapists of victims and survivors than to attack the victims directly. For example, legal defenses for those accused of child abuse focus on painting the therapist of the child or adult as inducing or implanting “false memories” of abuse rather than painting the alleged victim as a liar.

It follows that psychotherapists receive the brunt of the attacks in the battle to discredit the realities of ritual abuse and mind control, as a group, and often as individuals.

It is my pleasure to expose these forms of misinformation and tactics of disinformation about ritual abuse and mind control trauma and about psychotherapy to treat such trauma.

I do so on the 25th anniversary of the death of my father, a man of great ethics and integrity, who taught me to stand up for the oppressed and to fight fairly.


Endnotes:

1. In 2011, Colin Batley was convicted of for leading a “satanic” sex cult in of West Wales, UK (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/0 ... y-kidwelly and: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/1 ... -sentenced).

2. In 2006, Gerald Robinson was convicted for the murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in Ohio, USA. Significant evidence suggests the murder may have been a ritual sacrifice (see: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/071203, for a chapter from, Sin, Shame, and Secrets: The Murder of a Nun, the Conviction of a Priest, and Cover-up in the Catholic Church,” by David Yonke, 2006, http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2006/0 ... urder.html, and http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/ ... robes.html).

3. In December, 2012, in Cornwall, England, Peter Petrauske and Jack Kemp were convicted of carrying out ritualistic sex abuse on young girls. (See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/1 ... tual-abuse
and: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/2 ... dren-court).

4. In April 2005, Pastor Louis D. Lamonica of the Hosanna Church in Louisiana, USA, walked into the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office and allegedly confessed to abusing children and animals in a Satanic ritual, although he later recanted his confession (see: http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/4626/LA/US/). Austin “Trey” Bernard, III, of the same church confessed to ritual elements within his abuse of children to FBI Special Agents Lisa Marie Freitas and Joseph Edwards (see: http://wallsofsilence.com/forum2/viewto ... ?f=7&t=196) Both men were convicted of child rape, Bernard in 2007 and Lamonica 2008 (http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/200 ... s/9453.txt). Also see: http://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com ... ms-in.html,
http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/200 ... s/9455.txt, and
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ne ... harged.htm)

5. In June, 1993, in London, a man aged 67, his daughter, aged 29, and his two sons- in-law, aged 41 and 31, were imprisoned for between 18 months and life for the sexual abuse of seven children of the same extended family over an eleven-year period (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/fo ... 94769.html)
The 10-year-old daughter of the 41-year-old man “described being taken late at night by her father and others to a ‘devil church’ where she was stripped, tied up, had knives held in front of her face and was abused by adults in black cloaks and balaclavas” (see:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/gi ... 90468.html and http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/gi ... 90250.html)

6. In 1991, in Perth, Australia, Scott Brian Gozenton was convicted on 22 charges of indecent assault and dealing and of evil intent. The head of Western Australia’s child sex abuse unit, Detective-Sergeant Roger Smart, said the conviction demonstrated a link between organized child sex abuse and devil worship (see: http://ra-watch.livejournal.com/4950.html)

7. In 1982, following guilty pleas to a series of serious sexual offences against young children, Malcolm and Susan Smith, and Albert and Carole Hickman, of Telford, England, were jailed, Malcolm Smith for 14 years, Albert Hickman for ten years, Carole Hickman for five years, and Susan Smith for two years. The ritualistic and satanic elements of their crimes are discussed briefly here: rituals. http://usminc.org/crime3.html and by Tim Tate in Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse, edited by Valerie Sinason (1994) on page 191.

8. A conviction list of cases with elements of ritual abuse was archived in 1997 by Michael Newton of Believe the Children. (See: http://ra-info.org/for-researchers/bibl ... nvictions/) There have been significant developments in some of these cases since this was published. E.g., in 1994, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley of West Memphis, Tennessee, USA, were convicted in the cult murders of three boys, but in 2011, they were released from prison on an Alford plea (see: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/west-mem ... 27425.html)
In an Alford plea, “the criminal defendant does not admit the act, but admits that the prosecution could likely prove the charge” (definition from: http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/alford-plea/)

9. A good deal of the research about ritual abuse is summarized in an article by Randy Noblitt, PhD.: “An Empirical Look at the Ritual Abuse Controversy,” by (See: http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/artic ... blitt-phd/).

10. A news piece of 12/8/2012 in the National Post (nationalpost.com), documents an international ring engaged in distribution of filmed child sexual abuse: “Spain arrests 28 people suspected of links to Toronto-based child porn ring,” states, “The investigation began when Interpol told Spanish police in April about a network headquartered in Toronto, dedicated to the sale of child pornography videos. Spain’s Interior Ministry said Saturday that the videos were created by abusing minors in Ukraine, Romania and Germany” (see: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/08 ... porn-ring/).

11. See: Buried Secrets: A True Story of Drug Running, Black Magic, and Human Sacrifice (1991), by Edward Humes, and Cauldron of Blood: The Matamoros Cult Killings (1989), by Jim Schutze.

12. See: “Defamation Case Settled for an Undisclosed Sum,” April 23, 1995, in The Deseret Times of Salt Lake City, Utah:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/4170 ... tml?pg=all

13. Accurate information on DID can be found in the Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision (2011) of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (see: http://www.isst-d.org/jtd/GUIDELINES_REVISED2011.pdf) and in this 2012 comprehensive review by Dalenberg et al.: Evaluation of the Evidence for the Trauma and Fantasy Models of Dissociation (see: http://goo.gl/RERhc; click the box that says “view” to the right, then scroll down)

References:

Bryant, N. (2009). The Franklin scandal: A story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal. TrineDay.

Clancy, S. A. (2010). The Trauma myth: The truth about the sexual abuse of children–and its aftermath. Basic Books.

Clancy, S.A. & McNally, R.J. (2005/2006). Who Needs Repression? Normal Memory Processes Can Explain “Forgetting” of Childhood Sexual Abuse. The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice (2005/2006, Fall/Winter 4(2).

Dalenberg, C. J. (1996). Accuracy, timing and circumstances of disclosure in therapy of recovered and continuous memories of abuse. Journal of Psychiatry & Law, 24, 229-275.

Dalenberg, C.J; Brand, B.; Gleaves, D.D.; Dorahy, M. J.; Loewenstein, R.J.; Cardeña, E.; Frewen, P.A.; Carlson, E. B.; and Spiegel, D. (2012) Evaluation of the Evidence for the Trauma and Fantasy Models of Dissociation. Psychological Bulletin, 03/2012; 138(3):550-88. DOI:10.1037/a0027447

Elliott, D. M. (1997). Traumatic events: Prevalence and delayed recall in the general population. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.65.5.811

Lacter, E. (2011). Torture-based mind control: Psychological mechanisms and psychotherapeutic approaches to overcoming mind control. In O.B. Epstein, J. Schwartz, & R. Wingfield (Eds.) Ritual abuse and mind control: The Manipulation of Attachment Needs, pp. 57-141. London: Karnac.

Lacter, E. & Lehman, K. (2008). Guidelines to Differential Diagnosis between Schizophrenia and Ritual Abuse/Mind Control Traumatic Stress. In J.R. Noblitt & P. Perskin (Eds.), Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations, pp. 85-154. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers.

Murphy, W. (1997, November). Debunking “false memory” myths in sexual abuse cases. Trial, 54-60.

Ross, C. A. (2000). Bluebird: Deliberate creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists. Richardson, TX: Manitou Communications.

Whitfield, Silberg, & Fink (2002). Misinformation concerning Child Sexual Abuse and Adult Survivors. Haworth Maltreatment & Trauma Press.

Williams, L. M. (1994). Recall of childhood trauma: A prospective study of women’s memories of child sexual abuse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62, 1167-1176.

Wilsnack, S. C., Wonderlich, S. A., Kristjanson, A. F., Vogeltanz-Holm, N. D., & Wilsnack, H. W. (2002). Self-reports of forgetting and remembering childhood sexual abuse in a nationally representative sample of US women. Child Abuse & Neglect, 26, 139–147. doi:10.1016/S0145-2134(01)00313-1
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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby LilyPatToo » Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:29 pm

Thank you for posting that, PW. It's damned impressive. I'll get a copy from Survivorship, but it should be much more widely read. I am so thankful to Ellen Lacter for all the facts she's assembled. In future encounters with the naysayers, I'll feel a lot more confident. Of course, those critters come in several flavors and the ones working for the perps will be impervious to accurate info, but many of the garden variety ones, who've reached their conclusion thanks to the mainstream media, will hopefully take another look at the subject.

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Re: NST, RA(T), & MC Survivor Advocacy & News

Postby Project Willow » Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:54 pm

:shrug:

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