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Original poster

Let's talk about sects baby! Psychotherapy, all the good things and the bad things that can be

104 replies

hoodathunkit · 22/07/2020 10:51

Let's talk about it!

Apologies for not posting yesterday.

I got so caught up in posting on Monday that it has left me very behind with a number of tasks and quite exhausted.

There is so much to be written about dodgy psychotherapy and its links to satanic panic hoaxes and also to real dangerous cults that it will take a very long time to sort it all out.

I am very busy today, but would like to start by providing evidence to support my claims about Bessel van der Kolk, claims that were disputed by various posters in the thread about Jacqui Dillon and MAPs.

It will take a while for me to post all the evidential links and screen shots, so please bear with me, this will take some time. I will not be able to finish this task today as there is just so much information.

I would like to initially explore Bessel van der Kolk’s many connections to neo-tantric sex cults, this will take a few posts and I am not sure whether I will have more time today so please bear with me.

Firstly let us examine the activities of Bessel's wife Betta van der Kolk aka Betta de Boer van der Kolk

here is a photo of Bessel and Betta together that I harvested from a facebook account (I think it was Bessel’s account to be honest I am not entirely sure, but the photo shows they are a couple and the text accompanying the photo on the fb page confirmed this.) The facebook account is no longer available to me, others may be able to see it? However readers will be able to see from the photo that Bessel and Betta are a couple and will also be able to identify the women in the photo, Betta, as the same woman in my links below

photo here

Now, let us examine Betta van der Kolk’s work as a “tantric” healer and educator

Here is a link to an internet radio show titled "Tantra and Sexual Healing with Bette de Boer van der Kolk “ in which the following text appears
"This interview features body psychotherapist Betta de Boer van der Kolk about Tantra as a way to heal from sexual abuse. Betta describes Tantra as an exchange of energy that brings presence, connection, safety and play into sexuality. She leads the listener in a technique for couples to harmonize their breathing in order to give to each other through their bodies. She also describes ways that a woman can receive sexual healing through Tantric massage, and men can learn to dissociate orgasm from ejaculation, in order to experience ejaculatory control.”

source:
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200722074139/safespaceradio.com/tantra/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200722074139/safespaceradio.com/tantra/

I have linked via the archive for safety and for archiving purposes. Readers interested listening to the audio can access it not using the archive using an internet cafe, library or some anonymous place if possible.

The below link is also informative and includes the following text:

"Betta de Boer-van der Kolk – a gifted expert on Tantra and Trauma who came all the way from Amsterdam to be with us. Betta and Dan demonstrated the ‘love dance’ (a completely clothed demonstration of positions for lovemaking), sharing the multitude of ways to share physical love, staying connected with body, energy and heart. It was one of the highlights of the weekend to experience!"

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200722080117/blog.sourcetantra.com/tantra-hawaii-judith-davis/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200722080117/blog.sourcetantra.com/tantra-hawaii-judith-davis/

Another link if significant interest

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150513033724/www.meetup.com/Source-School-of-Tantra-Yoga-Boston/members/34601892/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20150513033724/www.meetup.com/Source-School-of-Tantra-Yoga-Boston/members/34601892/

as is this link via the archive
archive.is/u4bGo

Readers interested to learn the kind of activities performed by Tantra Educators from the Source School of Tantra may wish to read the following 1st person account of a yoni massage performed on a vulnerable female by a man called Sturm, a Tantra Educator from the Source School of Tantra in Maui, Hawaii

"I Got a Yoni Massage For Journalism"
The tantric healing modality is supposed to release tension through your vagina. But it was more like getting finger-banged by a stranger.

BY JESSIE SCHIEWE
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200503204854/www.okwhatever.org/topics/naughty/i-got-a-yoni-massage-weird-news" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200503204854/www.okwhatever.org/topics/naughty/i-got-a-yoni-massage-weird-news

I will post again as soon as I can

Let's talk about sects baby! Psychotherapy, all the good things and the bad things that can be
OP posts:
QuentinWinters · 22/07/2020 14:32

*yoni massage

QuentinWinters · 22/07/2020 14:32

He's a doctor specialising in psychiatry, but felt psychiatry was too narrow as it uses drugs to treat trauma.
Like many on the other thread I've found his book very useful. He does posit that trauma affects a person physiologically as well as psychologically but backs that up with medical and psychological research. I'm not sure why you think that's cultish?

His wife is not him. Not all people who practice yoga practice tantra. Not all people who practice tantra practice tonight massage. You are making a leap from the abusive tantric practitioner to Van Der Kolk being a quack and I think it's unjustified.

It's like suggesting I might be a paedophile because my husband is catholic and his priest went to seminary with a priest who was convicted of child abuse.

I'm with you that there are some cults who prey on vulnerable people out there, but you need to watch out for conspiracy theories too.

Original poster
hoodathunkit · 22/07/2020 14:24

Bessel van der Kolk is a “trauma specialist” with multiple connections to controversial neo-tantric organisations and psychotherapy networks (e.g. the ISSTD) that many people would describe as “cults”.

You may be correct that he does not call himself a psychotherapist, yet he has offered a service called “therapy” to patients for some years

source:
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130428025801/besselvanderkolk.com/Patients.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20130428025801/besselvanderkolk.com/Patients.html

Here is his current bio from his website
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200627015730/www.besselvanderkolk.com/about/biography" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200627015730/www.besselvanderkolk.com/about/biography

It has no mention of any qualifications that I can see other than the letters “MD” after his name.

Maybe he has qualifications but is modest about sharing them?

As for his links to cults, Van der Kolk’s primary connections to the neo-tantric organisations (to my knowledge) are via his wife Betta’s involvement in the Source School of Tantra and his business associate Marc Gafni, a disgraced former Rabbi who also promotes his own brand of “tantra”. There are additional network connections to extremely controversial yoga schools (including “tantric” yoga schools that feature prominently in the archives and message boards of the Cult Information Centre) via Van der Kolk’s promotion of something called “Trauma Sensitive Yoga” - of which more later.

It is not really my place to say that, for example, the Source School of Tantra is or is not a cult. Certainly many people have referred to it in this way. The Source School of Tantra teaches courses in “tantra” that include teaching students “yoni” and “lingam” (genital) massage as well as “sacred spot” (G spot for women) massage.

There are many allegations on the internet that there has been a coverup of rapes and sexual assaults at the Source School of Tantra. To my knowledge the main focus for complaints of sexual impropriety is a Source School of Tantra yoga teacher named TJ Bartel. There are also allegations that the school staff covered up the complaints.

These allegations are disturbing to read for a number of reasons. Obviously it can be disturbing and distressing to read about rapes and sexual assaults. I find the accounts even more disturbing because the complainants are women who consented to various sexual acts as part of a tantric healing session but who felt violated when their boundaries were not respected and when further acts that they had not consented to took place.

The thing I find extremely disturbing is not the concept that a person can consent to some things but not others, this is well understood by any rational person; it is the fact that so many vulnerable women are buying into the idea that yoni massage is a healing / therapeutic modality, especially for healing sexual trauma.

Interested readers can read some of the (extremely disturbing) allegations via this link
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200722114057/gurumag.com/source-tantra-continues-working-with-tj-bartel-despite-sex-abuse-allegations/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200722114057/gurumag.com/source-tantra-continues-working-with-tj-bartel-despite-sex-abuse-allegations/

I cannot vouch for their accuracy but these allegations are extremely disturbing and worthy of proper investigation by the police.

Interested readers can view a video of TJ Bartel and Charles Muir (founder of the Source School of Tantra Yoga) here:

(note the use of a “yoni puppet” - puppets and puppetry abound in the networks I research - not sure why)

The below video in which the founder of the Source School of Tantra Yoga, Charles Muir, describes how “sacred spot” massage “banishes the ghosts of husband past” may also be of interest.

The poster who stated that the book The Body Keeps the Score is not a book about body psychotherapy is correct. It is not a book about body psychotherapy.

It is a book that claims that trauma that has happened in the past affects both the brain and the body long after the event has happened and that trauma can be manifested in body and in the movements of the body and in aches and pains.

Van der Kolk, like many of his SRA conspiracy promoting colleagues at the ISSTD and ESTD, believes that a "trauma informed" therapist can detect trauma manifesting in the body by observing a person’s gait as they walk. For example, he describes traumatised soldiers walking with a shuffle that indicates trauma manifesting in the body.

I have a copy of this book but due to moving home and then lockdown my books are scattered over several locations. I do not have my copy of the book to hand however if anyone doubts that Bessel van der Kolk promotes these ideas and also promotes body psychotherapy (which can take many forms of which more later) I would suggest that readers check out the various audio and video presentations available online (there are many) in which Bessel van der Kolk opines about his beliefs in this respect.

just 2 examples below

archive.org/details/436-brain-mind-and-body-in-the-healing-of-trauma-with-bessel-van-der-kolk-md?q=bessel+ven+der+kolk

archive.org/details/False_Memory_Syndrome_Foundation_Vol_15_No_01_2006_janfeb?q=bessel+ven+der+kolk

OP posts:
QuentinWinters · 22/07/2020 11:39

Bessel Van Der Kolk is not a psychotherapist.
I'm reading his book at the moment and its clear he is a very knowledgeable and experienced doctor with compassion for traumatised people and well thought through and evidenced treatment options. I don't think hes part of a cult.
Also you should be careful what you say on the internet. Libel law still applies.