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         MindNet Journal - Vol. 1, No. 19
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         V E R I C O M M / MindNet         "Quid veritas est?"
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    Notes:

    The following is reproduced here with the express permission of
    the author.

    Permission is given to reproduce and redistribute, for
    non-commercial purposes only, provided this information and the
    copy remain intact and unedited.

    The views and opinions expressed below are not necessarily the
    views and opinions of VERICOMM, MindNet, or the editors unless
    otherwise noted.

    Editor: Mike Coyle

    Contributing Editors: Walter Bowart
                          Alex Constantine

    Assistant Editor: Rick Lawler

    Research: Darrell Bross

    Editor's Note:

    The following was written by an author who wishes to remain
    anonymous.

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    April 11, 1993

    The California Therapist,
    3465 Camino del Rio South
    San Diego, Ca. 92108-3989

    Dear Editors,

    You have published several articles regarding the phenomenon of
    recovered memories of ritual abuse (COMMON "PROGRAMS" OBSERVED IN
    SURVIVORS OF SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE by David W. Neswald, M.A. in
    collaboration with Catherine Gould, Ph.D and Vicki
    Graham-Costain, Ph.D., September/October 1991 and most recently
    THE THERAPEUTIC DENIAL OF RITUAL ABUSE by Roger Melton, M.A.
    March/April 1993) These articles have appeared in the
    "Professional Exchange" column and to my knowledge have not
    received any published response that presents a viewpoint
    contrary to that of the authors. I am left with an impression
    that the arguments of these authors reflect your publication's
    own position on this topic. At least I am unaware of any
    editorial disclaimers.

    I am responding to these articles as a victim of the therapeutic
    process that your authors both defend and promote. I belong to a
    family that has been devastated by the accusations accompanying
    my sister's treatment by licensed practitioners who share the
    theory and practice of your contributing writers and perhaps your
    publication as well. I am not alone in this condition. I have met
    members of several dozen families from just one part of
    California whose story echoes my own. I am aware of similar
    stories now numbering many thousand coming from all parts of the
    United states, Canada, England, New Zealand and Australia.
    Virtually every case involves a practicing psychotherapeutic
    professional and/or group whose specialty is the recovery of
    memory of intra-familial abuse. This phenomenon presents a
    special challenge to anyone concerned with the current state of
    psychotherapy. As a journal dedicated to that profession, I would
    expect the California Therapist to attend carefully to the
    details of this controversy. But the issue goes beyond a threat
    to the publicly perceived legitimacy of specialized practice or
    even that of the psychotherapeutic industry as a whole. It is of
    even graver consequence than the wholesale shattering of families
    and individuals accused in an area that offers them no defense.
    This is a matter that will directly affect those who have
    genuinely suffered abuse and whose voice may be drowned by a tide
    of false claims. this predictable tragedy motivates me as much as
    personal pain to address my story and argument to your editorial
    staff, your publishers and the authors named above.

    I come from a family of five children whose parents celebrated
    fifty years of marriage several years ago. My eldest sister has
    been in therapy with a specialist in recovering memories of abuse
    since 1988. In the course of this therapy she issued a series of
    accusations that progressed chronologically from sexual
    mismanagement by my father to an indictment of our entire family
    as members of a conspiracy dedicated to the will of Satan. She
    detailed specific instances of ritual abuse involving ceremonial
    infanticide, cannabism, rapes and murder that she claimed had
    emerged from her stored memory with the help of her therapist. It
    was this particular letter that shook my own sincere if tentative
    support for her therapeutic process. It propelled me and my
    brother into an intense investigation of literature and reporting
    associated with psychology, hypnotism, memory, theories
    concerning child abuse as well as historical accounts of
    witchcraft and satanism. We became aware of the response from law
    enforcement, legislation, trends in education and the
    organizations and individuals concerned with issues of ritual
    child abuse. I remained close to my sister with the same respect
    conferred by childhood status as a youngest brother and an adult
    role confidant and supporter. During the previous ten years I had
    regular contact as a fond uncle to her children. I had
    transmitted to the rest of my family critical stages of her
    recovered memories. She frequently advised me to "get off the
    fence" as I indeed had become a sort of family diplomat. Once I
    declared informed doubt to her and her therapists, I was
    dismissed along with the rest of my family as being "in denial."
    Without apology for being on a "side of the fence" opposite to
    both my sister and the prevailing viewpoint published in your
    magazine, I would like to offer the following rebuttal to Mr.
    Roger Melton's article in the March 1993 issue of California
    Therapist.

    Mr. Melton spends the first part of his article practicing a
    technique familiar to successful salesman of insurance polices.
    An effective pitch involves gaining a prospect's attention by
    exhorting them to picture "your home burning and your family
    menaced by flames" and allowing their imagination to pave the way
    toward buying your policy. His example of the Holocaust is well
    worn by specialists in the memory recovery field. My sister and
    countless other "survivors" have compared themselves to victims
    of Nazi concentration camps. It should be noted perhaps that he
    actual victims of Nazi programs are rarely amnesic of their
    suffering. On the other hand Melton advises that those victims
    treated by the therapists he consults almost invariably exhibit
    amnesia, dissociation or multiple personality.

    Given the comparison to a dupe of Nazi policy, who could possibly
    admit professional doubt to the veracity of a client's narrative,
    however exaggerated and bizarre? Given the currency of published
    professional opinion and the content of educational seminars
    within the psychotherapeutic community, how could a concerned
    practitioner do anything but nurture a client's expressed
    victimization? Besides, a therapist has little to lose in
    accepting a client's narrative and validating it as genuine
    experience. As the BBSE informed me, there is no course of action
    on the part of those who may consider themselves secondary
    victims of a form of therapeutic abuse, such as a family ruined
    by accusation. Nor is the care-giver required to substantiate in
    any objective way the client's memory. On the other hand the
    specialist has much to gain; a dedicated and grateful client
    whose treatment may need to continue "ad impecunium", a heroic
    role in a popularly perceived struggle between good and evil, and
    the opportunity to join the ranks of best selling authors and a
    lively lecture circuit.

    This brings me to the argument which leads off the second part of
    Mr. Melton's piece. he makes the same case applying to therapists
    that the author's of THE COURAGE TO HEAL offer as a prevailing
    condition among the general public; a tendency to avoid or deny
    the truly horrific aspects of the world. If such a condition
    actually applies to the public, it contradicts an observed
    popular obsession if every manner of such horror.

    Geraldo Rivera's expose of Satanic Ritual Abuse, for example,
    garnered television's highest ratings ever. The most active
    shelves in our nation's bookstores are lined with volumes
    focusing on the intimate details of that horror. At the very
    least I could note that two of the books thrust upon me by my
    sister MICHELLE REMEMBERS and THE COURAGE TO HEAL exhibit sales
    beyond a publisher's dreams of avarice. What would make
    therapists inhabit a special set of the population that is
    particularly cowed by humanity's dark and unpleasant face? I
    would expect those entering a profession dedicated to healing the
    soul to be especially well equipped to expect and handle
    perversity. I might even hope that those so equipped would not be
    tempted to exaggerate and perhaps compound their clients' darker
    aspect.

    Mr. Melton does not name his opponents or repeat their specific
    arguments countering the theory of widespread, organized ritual
    abuse as the principal etiological factor in the growing
    phenomena of recovered memories. In fact he alludes to that
    theory rather than commit to describing it. So I must risk
    inferring from his implications that he subscribes to belief in a
    putative Satanic Conspiracy encompassing all levels of society,
    existing internationally and maintained through generations. The
    motivations of this conspiracy are to manifest the will of Satan
    on earth and the methods are a program of ritual abuse of
    children among other offenses such as murder, cannibalism,
    infanticide and vampirism. this is the paradigm offered by my
    sister and others to provide context for their recovered
    memories. It is repeated in literature and seminars and has even
    been described in a manual issued by the California Justice
    Department. I must assume that those doubtful clinical and
    academic psychologists who have published opinions Mr. Melton
    calls "fancy theoretical tailspinning" include, among others
    George Ganaway, M.D. of the Ridgeview Center for Dissociative
    Disorders in Atlanta, Paul McHugh, who directs the Psychiatry
    Department at John Hopkins School of Medicine, Richard Ofshe of
    U.C. Berkeley Psychology Department, or Richard Gardner, M.D. of
    Columbia University. He may even be referring to the writings of
    social scientists such as Elizabeth Loftus or Sherril Mulhern.
    Taken as a whole their published findings tend to affirm my own
    opinion that the etiology of most recovered memories is
    "iatrogenic." This opinion finds additional support in the
    published research of law enforcement specialists such as Robert
    Hicks or Kenneth Lanning of the F.B.I.'s Behavioral Science Unit.
    Despite Mr. Melton's curt dismissal, I would recommend you take
    look at these findings in the interest of balanced journalism if
    nothing else.

    Within the subtext of Melton's argument is an assertion I have
    often stumbled on in debating this issue. The challenge is;
    "ritual abuse exists, believe it." I'm stuck with denying a
    reasonable fact because I understand admission to a particular
    instance will validate a set of assumptions I would not
    personally leap to. I recall the same problem when a racist would
    try to force me to admit that there undoubtably are instances of
    lazy Blacks, avaricious Jews, retentive Chinese etc. Or the
    sexist who supports his general theory citing examples of
    manipulative women. Likewise, when reason and observation require
    me to admit that ritual abuse and an entire unspeakable realm of
    child abuse does exist. I must forcefully add that this admission
    does not reinforce the intended conclusion Mr. Melton, my sister
    or the host of others wish to draw.

    The next set of arguments in this article are also very familiar
    to me; "why would anyone fabricate memories about torture, group
    rape and extreme physical pain inflicted upon their own person?"
    Had this question not been posed by psychotherapists, I would
    have referred it to that very profession. But my own lay
    observations refute Mr. Melton's assertions regarding the
    difficulty survivors face in exposing their horrific experience.
    I refer not just to broadcast forums such as talk shows on radio
    and television, or even printed media. Has a month gone by in
    five years in which survivors have failed to tell that media's
    attentive audience vivid details of their personal horror
    stories? A more direct attention proliferates throughout this
    country and abroad in support groups which focus on members'
    reported suffering. If the theoretical construct of Narcissism
    Mr. Melton cites as an established motivation applies generally,
    might it serve to explain the rewards of being not merely a
    victim, but a heroic survivor of evil beyond imagination? What of
    intellectual and cognitive motivations such as the urge to create
    singular, inclusive theoretical constructs that "explain"
    observed or experienced symptoms and anomalies? The literature of
    psychology is replete with descriptions of such a force
    motivating cases of paranoia. A patently mundane motivation,
    money, may deserve at least some attention. Lawsuits arising
    against the parents of adult children in therapy have become
    something one lawyer describes as deserving a Stock Exchange
    listing as a growth industry.

    Finally Mr. Melton conjures a vision of the future in which his
    perceived demonic substructure is generally recognized and those
    present day doubters harshly judged. I respect his sincere
    commitment both as a professional and an individual. I also
    believe that both he and fellow adherents to his cause share a
    noble motivation with the historical judges and executioners of
    witches and others who feel outside popular consensus. It would
    be naive of me to think our modern society immune to the
    psychological forces that fueled historical witchhunts. The harm
    I have experienced and observed I attribute to a flourishing
    trend within the very institutions that secular society relies on
    for guidance; psychotherapy and law enforcement. What is taking
    shape as a result of this trend closely resembles history's
    account of a time ruled by fear of spectral malevolence.
    therefore I can easily share Mr. Melton's vision of the future,
    although from a less delighted perspective.

    It is beyond my ability to predict the future. But I can project
    a scenario very different from your author's. Imagine a society
    in which the justice system has lost all public confidence. An
    entire legal apparatus has been compromised in the wake of a mass
    hysteria that has ensnared and convicted innumerable innocent
    individuals. Picture a community in which average citizens fear
    and detest such agencies as the Child Protective Service as an
    additional threat to their family's well-being. Envision the
    mental health profession an object of public scorn and ridicule;
    a system utterly discredited for its' inability to define
    objectives and omit dangerous practice. Now take a close look at
    the saddest feature of this landscape; a genuinely abused child.
    Those who would most effectively respond to this child's plight
    have been deafened by a howling storm of false accusation. The
    unthinking fervor of professionals, whose calling and duty it is
    to protect, has served to compound and perpetuate the tragedy of
    this child.

    I realize have employed the same techniques I criticized Mr.
    Roger Melton, M.A. for using in his article. But my warning may
    not be mere hyperbole. What is being currently reported indeed
    indicates a backlash gathering significant momentum. While I
    sympathize with the emotion that powers this backlash, I
    sincerely feel the subject of child abuse requires a far more
    refined response than either the rhetorical bombast of writers
    like Melton or the furious reaction from people in situations
    like my own. I actually hope that your won organization, The
    California Association of Marriage and Family Counselors, could
    produce from its ranks individuals with the moral courage and
    capacity of critical thought to address this issue in an
    effective and mediative way. That is unlikely unless you provide
    your readership with some variety of viewpoints on the subject. I
    will happily supply a detailed bibliography and even addresses of
    authors in the mental health field who articulate challenging
    opinions. It could only show respect for your subscriber's
    judgement to publish something from their perspective. It may
    help slow the spread of what I believe is a virulent
    "psychiatrogenic" epidemic. this plague serves your profession as
    poorly as it does families like my own, who number among its'
    growing list of victims.

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