False Memory Syndrome Foundation is disbanded.

[Gingerkittykat]

Link here

A foundation which led to the discrediting of survivors of non recent abuse has been disbanded. Let's hope that the damage to the credibility of abuse survivors is undone and they are believed and taken seriously.

I think the contrast between the measured, factual, experiential contributors on this thread who are describing their experiences of forgotten trauma and the slightly rabid, tangenital conspiracy theory contributors supporting the FMS serve really well to highlight the strength of arguments of the two sides of the debate.

I think the contrast between the measured, factual, experiential contributors on this thread who are describing their experiences of forgotten trauma and the slightly rabid, tangenital conspiracy theory contributors supporting the FMS serve really well to highlight the strength of arguments of the two sides of the debate.

Are you suggesting that my bitter, first hand experience of abuse at the hands of SRA true believer mental health professionals is “rabid”?

Are you accusing me of being a conspiracy theorist?

Do you believe that the various dubious “professionals” associated with the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, the ISSTD and the ESTD who promote insane conspiracy theories about multi-generational satanic families who sacrifice babies, eat foetuses, commit murder and infiltrate the highest levels of society are credible?

guineapigsinblankets

You describe a situation in which you have a continuous memory, pre therapy, of being abused by your brother.

You said

I eventually told my parents about the abuse and - rather than reflect on the environment they had created for their children to grow up in - they decided that I had been seeing a dodgy therapist who had 'planted' the memories and that I had definitely not been abused by my brother.

I can relate to this. A similar thing happened in my family. My father accused me and my brother of having false memories of CSA.

you said

I am expecting my parents to take me to court soon to try to gain access to my children, I suppose 'False Memory Syndrome' will be their argument as to why I am not in my 'right mind’.

I do not anticipate my family taking me to court, however, if what you say is true you have nothing whatsoever to fear from the people at the False Memory Society.

I simply showed the evidence of my father’s abuse and of my sister’s scheming and scamming to BFMS and they supported me.

This depicting of the various False Memory societies as being pro-paedophile is just a layer of gaslighting to hide the nefarious activities of various quacks and charlatans who are using highly dangerous and unproven models of psychotherapy to manipulate vulnerable people via a process of false memories.

What was helpful for me is that the mental health professionals who abused me are from the same network of “professionals” who abused Carol Felstead. As you may know the current Head of Communications at the BFMS is Carol Felstead’s brother Dr Kevin Felstead, who has given me much support over the years and become a good friend.

The appalling abuses against Carol Felstead by Valerie Sinason, Vera Diamond, Fleur Fisher and their associates have been well documented in the mainstream media.

The highly reputable, anti-corruption, satirical magazine Private Eye magazine has a long running Satanic Panic section in which the bizarre activities of Sinason and her cronies are well documented.

In one of the many conversations I have had recently with Kevin Felstead I expressed my gratitude for his support over my situation. What has happened to me is appalling and unbelievable. If I try to tell someone about my experiences it sounds so completely batshit that I risk being considered insane or deluded. The fact that Kevin and the Felstead family have received significant media coverage for the abuses against Carol means that Kevin can at least tell his story without being accused of being “rabid” or a conspiracy theorist.

The fact that, after all the abuses I suffered, that True Believers feel that they can post here and gaslight me is a significant warning to readers here.

I don't know about Salter, but regarding 'satanic ritual abuse' I always was under the impression that the point of it is to put the children in such an extraordinary environment that their descriptions are not credible (like wearing a Mickey Mouse mask during the abuse), no? Or is the point here that groups of people who abuse children don't actually exist and it is always done by one single perpetrator? (Genuine questions.)

Nobody is saying that groups of people who abuse children do not exist. What a ridiculous straw man argument.

I would never even say that satanic ritual abuse does not exist as it is impossible to prove a negative. I would suggest extreme caution about people claiming to have remembered SRA related abuses for a number of reasons.

If we look at actual evidence based on facts and science we can demonstrate the following as true

1. There is a network of mental health “experts” who claim to specialise in emotional trauma and who believe that satanic cults are trying to take over the world.

1. The “experts” typically have connections to the ISSTD, the ESTD and their various subsidiary organisations, of which there are many

1. The conspiracy theories they promote are also promoted by the likes of David Icke and Alex Jones and not infrequently contain sinister antisemitic themes relating to “elite paedophile rings” trying to take over the world. In fact recent incidents of antisemitic graffiti in London were located in Hampstead, the location of a long running, cruel, SRA related hoax promoted by a range of antisemitic, flat-earthers and 9/11 truthers. Anyone who does not understand the connections between SRA allegations and the Blood Libel and antisemitic conspiracy theories has not been paying attention to the activities of Sinason et al.

1. The “experts" promote the controversial diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder, a disorder many skeptical and rational mental health professionals believe to be iatrogenic. DID/MPD diagnoses have long been associated with recovered memories of SRA. In fact the people at the ISSTD are working on creating whole new categories of dissociative disorders as I write.

1. The “experts" have managed to weasel their way into training police, social workers, NHS staff and people of influence and are influencing policy in a way that mirrors the spread of influence of the extreme end of the transgender rights movements

1. There is significant overlapping of categories between the SRA promoting “experts” and the “experts” promoting the extreme end of the transgender rights movement, in fact the ISSTD has form in this respect, e.g. archive.is/LLRLk

1. Prof. Jean La Fontaine conducted an exhaustive investigation into multiple allegations of SRA in the UK and found that there was absolutely no evidence to indicate the existence of SRA. Report available here www.amazon.co.uk/Speak-Devil-Satanic-Contemporary-England/dp/0521629349?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

1. Anyone who has attempted to discuss SRA in a rational, skeptical manner with a True Believer will appreciate that it is absolutely impossible to convince them that they may be mistaken. If you point out that there is no evidence of SRA they say that this is because the police are all involved in covering it up, so the lack of evidence proves that SRA exists. If I say that I have no memory of being abused by a satanic cult this is perceived as evidence of the extent to which I have been programmed by my satanic handlers to forget what happened to me. Of course when people suffer from delusional disorder their delusions are “unshakable”, this is unremarkable as the unshakable aspect is a defining feature of delusions. What is remarkable is the way in which a network of deluded people have risen to prominence and positions of power and authority.

There is so much more I could write but i have a very busy day. I got up early just to write this before breakfast.

I just want to end this post by saying that I think that Ralph Underwager published an excellent review of Sinason’s batshit insane book Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. That aside, Underwager is an incredibly dodgy person. It is disingenuous to attempt to condemn the various False Memory support groups because of Underwager.

The BFMS in the UK has absolutely nothing to do with Underwager and when I discussed him with Kevin Felstead Kevin was adamant that the BFMS wanted nothing to do with him.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that predators and dubious persons are / were involved in various campaigning and support groups that aim to support the vulnerable and abused.

Our current mental health services, especially for traumatised people, are massively infiltrated by quacks and charlatans all peddling their own dodgy therapies and lining their pockets with revenue streams that should be directed torwards proper care of mentally vulnerable people.

Our NHS, law enforcement, social services and judiciary have been infiltrated by various batshit insane actors promoting all kinds of nonsense and irrational theories. But then we all know that anyway yes?

Back to Underwager, I have no problem with people criticising him, I will happily join in. However I do not understand how the very same people who rightfully criticise Underwager will promote Bessel Van Der Kolk given his demonstrable history of misogyny and bullying, his long time and continuing friendship and business association with disgraced former rabbi paedophile Marc Gafni and his connection to a sinister sex cult (Source School of Tantra - SSOT) via his wife Betta De Boer Van der Kolk who works as a trainer for SSOT.

You can see her profiles below

This first one is in relation to Internal Family Systems - a highly controversial model of therapy that was at the centre of multiple lawsuits related to the Castlewood Treatment Centre, where vulnerable patients with eating disorders were allegedly brainwashed by IFS therapists into believing that they and their families were cannibalistic satanists

text as follows:
BETTA DE BOER - VAN DER KOLK

General information
First Name: BETTA
Last Name: DE BOER - VAN DER KOLK
Business Phone:
Phone Consultations: Yes
E-mail: [email protected]

Practice
Certifications: CRS (Certified Rubenfeld Synergist); ACTE (Advanced Certified Tantra Educator); IFS
Focus: Individuals/Couples; Sexuality; Trauma; Somatic issues; Auto-immune Diseases
Insurance: Medicare
Credentials: LICSW; EMDR

source (via the archive)
archive.is/bF9LW

Here is another, this one from the Source School of Tantra website

text reads

Betta de Boer-van der K.
Co-Founding Organizer
Location:
Watertown, MA
Member since:
January 8, 2012

What has been your experience with Tantra?

After a friend of mine gave me the book "Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving" by Charles and Caroline Muir I knew that I wanted to learn more about Tantra Buddhism and Yoga. Shortly after I got that book Charles Muir and Leah Alchin were teaching the first Source School of Tantra Yoga Beginner's Workshop on the East Coast. I then took the three levels of teacher training. It has changed my life. I have always been interested in living a life of introspective questioning. While I had done a fair amount of physical and psychological healing, these trainings have given me the opportunity to do even more healing both sexually and spiritually. I am a body-psychotherapist and have studied the Rubenfeld Synergy Method. I am also a student of a psychological and spiritual method called Internal Family Systems which overlaps with Buddhist philosophy. Tantra Yoga and the sexual healing practices taught by the Source School of Tantra were an automatic next step from all that I had learned so far.

What would you most like to learn?

I want to learn more deeply how to pass on the knowledge that I have acquired in my life to all of you students who want to learn more. In my role s a teacher I would also like to be students together. I want to continue to explore how to help people be more present and aware, including how to be in their bodies.

What would you like to share about yourself?

I deeply believe that the body has the capacity to heal itself. How do we access that? I think Tantra Yoga is one way in which we can help the body do that. I love to learn and study. I invite you all to join me on this journey of inquiry. I love to cook, hike, be in nature, read and create sacred space. In a partner/lover I look among others for the love of Tantra, cooking, growing food, the outdoors, especially swimming in clear Vermont ponds, reading and learning. I love Vermont. I consider my body a temple.

Introduction

After many years of physical and psychological personal work I began exploring Tantra about 6 years ago. As a body-psychotherapist­ I am extremely interested in how people change and heal. The Tantra teacher trainings have given me new ways to heal.

source (via archive)
archive.is/rsyJY#selection-989.0-1017.249

please note also that Betta Van der Kolk (she sometimes changes the spelling to VanderKolk) is also a member of the Cuddle Party Boston meetup. Interested readers may wish to check out the mumsnet thread on naked cuddle parties to obtain further information about these kinds of meetups.

One thing that readers need to know about Betta De Boer van Der Kolk and her husband Bessel is that they share a belief that the body stores traumatic memories of rape and sexual assault that can be recovered and processed via “body psychotherapy”. In fact Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score is evidence of this.

There is absolutely no published evidence in the literature that demonstrates that the body stores traumatic memories. None.

The very idea that body psychotherapy (anything from EMDR, Rubenfeld Synergy, Emotional Freedom Technique, Somatic Experiencing, Lomi, Rolfing, Deep Bodywork, Postural Integration, Pelvic Heart Integration, Somatic Trauma Therapy and various other models of energy and body therapies) can allow forgotten memories to be remembered accurately is extremely dangerous.

Van Der Kolk became a best selling author with his crackpot theories simply because there is a significant market of vulnerable people who want to believe that his theories are true.

Van der Kolk was even disciplined for falsifying research.

evidential link via the archive
archive.org/stream/BesselVanDerKolkScientificDishonestyTheMysteriousDisappearing/VanDerKolk_djvu.txt

I am just wondering what the posters here think about the Van Der Kolk’s beliefs in memories trapped within the body? As they seem to love his book so much should I assume that they share these beliefs?

What do they make of the fact that his wife Betta, with whom he works professionally,
evidential link via the archive
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110322032623/www.traumacenter.org/announcements/2009TraumaConf_Final.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20110322032623/www.traumacenter.org/announcements/2009TraumaConf_Final.pdf
works as a trainer for an organisation, Source School of Tantra, that trains people how to heal from sexual abuse by a process of genital massage?

If Bessel van der Kolk or Betta de Boer van der Kolk are reading this I would encourage them to post here so I can engage in a conversation with them about the dubious practices that they promote and their very interesting associates including Marc Gafni and various persons at the Source School of Tantra.

I would suggest extreme caution about people claiming to have remembered SRA related abuses for a number of reasons.

Which would make it the safest way to abuse a child to light some candles, draw up some pentagrams in the room of the crime and tell the victim some gruesome stories of devil's worship, I guess.

Anyone who does not understand the connections between SRA allegations and the Blood Libel and antisemitic conspiracy theories has not been paying attention to the activities of Sinason et al.

Not sure how antisemitism comes into play in this. I never delved into this but from what I remember, people accused of this kind of over the top stuff included personalities so diverse as Hillary Clinton, the West Memphis Three (US white trash kids), British nobility and middle class communities/families (Germany, France...).

I am not denying that this trope is used to vilify anything the Right does not like from political opponents to all kinds of 'misfits'...

At the same time, if you want to be part of the real serious murderous street gangs in the US, you need to e.g. kill someone, so the gang has dirt on you and therefore can 'trust' you. I'm not conviced that this kind of shit is strictly confined to the bottom of society.

(And for the record, no, I do not believe Hillary Clinton ever ate a baby. Nor do I believe the West Memphis 3 killed anyone, heck I celebrated Damien Echols' release. I'm also pretty sure Prince Anthony didn't draw up pentagrams or worship the devil while sexually abusing those underage girls...)

Sorry, make that Prince Andrew. So much for my interest in British Royalty.

Which would make it the safest way to abuse a child to light some candles, draw up some pentagrams in the room of the crime and tell the victim some gruesome stories of devil's worship, I guess.

This is a very fair point actually.

This is what Colin Batley did with his child abuse cult in Kidwelly, Wales.

The news reporting around the case claimed that Batley was a satanist and a follower of Aleister Crowley.

I read the memoir of one of Batley’s victims and the book paints a very different picture to that reported in the press.

In fact, following reading the book The Devil on my Doorstep, it seems to me to be much more likely that Batley was involved in establishing a fairly typical neo-tantric cult in that appropriated elements of other cults / religious movements (in this case Thelema - Crowley’s belief system) and of ancient Egyptian imagery and writings in order to establish a commercial sex business and thus provide revenue streams and sexual entertainment for the cult leader.

The use of various sexual abuses committed in a ritualistic manner (often using the guise of neo-tantra), promises of special, supernatural powers via sexual “initiations", threats of eternal agony should the leader be disobeyed, the sexual abuse of minors, lucrative commercial sex businesses and revenue streams and influence obtained via blackmail are typical futures of many new age sex cults.

What is extremely worrying is that the MO of various cults use various "body psychotherapies”, sometimes including genital massage to “recover memories” of incest and SRA.

The ridiculous, completely unproven, foundation for such “therapies” is a) that the body remembers things that the mind has repressed and b) that the memories can be recovered or retrieved via a variety of “ body therapies” and played back accurately in a similar way to which one might watch a video.

So called body therapies that proponents claim can be used to recover body memories include but are not limited to EMDR, tantric massage, Somatic Experiencing, Lomi, “breathwork” (including holotropic breathwork, Wim Hof method, shamanic breathwork, rebirthing - all basically variations on hyperventilation), entheogens (mind altering drugs), Seymour Matrix, Energy Therapy, Core Energetics, Neo-Reichian massage, Deep Bodywork, Sexological Bodywork, ParaTan Sound Healing, Womb Yoga, Pelvic Heart Integration, frankly the list is endless as new body therapies are being invented on an almost daily basis.

These “memories” are then used to alienate vulnerable people from their families in order to exploit them financially and sexually.

So, to go back to your post, could it be possible that child abusers, paedophiles and traffickers could use cultic / satanic window dressing in order to scare children and vulnerable people into compliance? I would say that not only is it possible but that there is significant evidence that this is the case.

Not only that but it is quite evident that sexual predators routinely use quack therapies to wear down their victims’ boundaries, sexually and otherwise exploit them and often isolate them from their friends, families and support networks by creating false memories of incest and, sometimes, satanic ritual abuse.

I posted about the horrifying case of the psychotherapist Vanessa Clark recently and had my post removed before i could post the evidential links.

So here it is again

In the below PDF file, link via the wayback machine, readers can check out the information in the dark blue section to the right of the top of page 6 titled Willows Workshop Programme at Harnhill Centre of Christian Healing

The text relates to a workshop titled “The Therapeutic Power of Touch” run by Vanessa Clark and Mike Fisher and reads as follows (emphasis mine):

“Willows Workshop Programme at Harnhill Centre of Christian Healing

On Saturday 13th July, Vanessa Clark and Mike Fisher will run a workshop entitled The Therapeutic Place of Touch. This will look at the significant place of touch in our growth and development, and its place in our healing and recovery.

Vanessa has been a psychotherapist for twenty years in London and Oxfordshire.

Mike, Director of Willows and also of Kingsway Consultation Services, has an extensive background in social work.

Both work with survivors of sexual and ritual abuse and with those suffering from the effects of early life trauma and separation from their mothers”

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190730082159/btckstorage.blob.core.windows.net/site1689/Pastoral%20Care%20News/June%202002.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20190730082159/btckstorage.blob.core.windows.net/site1689/Pastoral%20Care%20News/June%202002.pdf

So we have two “experts” in “ritual abuse” who promote the use of touch in psychotherapy, an unusual thing as in all forms of therapy, various “body therapies” aside, the use of touch is discouraged if not completely forbidden due to understandable concerns about boundaries and the potential for abuse.

I can reveal that the ritual abuse expert and body therapy enthusiast Vanessa Clark worked in an extremely abusive and horrifying way with her vulnerable patients.

Clark’s patients were too traumatised and damaged by her “therapy” to report her. Her abuses only came to light when she attempted to impress her lover with accounts of her abuses against and manipulation of vulnerable women and frequent references to rape, murder and torture.

Clark revelled these abuses in a letter which included the following text:

note, in the above link, Clark had confessed her violations to her then lover in a letter that included the text:

“It was entirely deceptive and manipulative. I made them envision extremely violent visualisations of torture.”

and

“When [the victim] wanted to stop I insisted on going on. I gave no thought to her or her vulnerability. I exerted great will and domination over her.”

Clark basically used regression, “body psychotherapy" and recovered memory therapy to coerce her victims into believing that horrific tortures had been committed against them while, at the same time sexuality abusing them herself in vile and disgusting ways.

You can read about her abuses here, please be advised that if a trigger warning was ever needed it is here, these abuses truly are sickening and committed against vulnerable women seeking help for preexisting abuses and violations

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3354501/Christian-cult-leader-psychotherapist-63-told-clients-breastfeed-suckle-mummy-s-milk-jailed-series-bizarre-sexual-assaults-women.html

What I would highlight from this case is that it demonstrates very clearly an example of someone who claims to be an authority on “ritual abuse” who is actually a sadistic sexual predator.

Vanessa Clark is not the only “body psychotherapist” to abuse and exploit vulnerable people in this way.

I have much more to share on this issue.

One of the many mainstream news outlets debunking Valerie Sinason, for those unfamiliar with her particular brand of conspraloonery

The people who believe that Satanists might eat your baby

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3574493/The-people-who-believe-that-Satanists-might-eat-your-baby.html

Dr Fleur Fisher, a long time associate of Valerie Sinason is a fascinating person

If readers would like to hear an audio recording of Dr Fleur Fisher, a consultant in healthcare / medical ethics, anti-surveilance campaigner and former Head of Ethics for the British Medical Association, comitting various types of fraud there is an astonishing recording here

justiceforcarol.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/phonerecording.mp3

In the recording Dr Fisher commits the following fraudulent and outrageous actions:

1.She claims, falsely, to be the next of kin of Carol Felstead (aka Myers) an extremely vulnerable mentally ill woman who had died in mysterious circumstances a few days earlier following lengthy treatment for dissociative identity disorder (DID) by Fleur Fisher, Valerie Sinason, the late Vera Diamond and various other quacks and charlatans who believe in widespread satanic ritual abuse.

1. She persuades Carol's car insurance company to extend Carol's insurance so that she, Fleur Fisher can drive Carol's car to Fisher's home in Plymouth - all the time she is doing this she has hidden Carol's death from Carol's loving family

1. She discusses private and confidential material about Carol's death, in a shockingly casual manner, with the insurance company in contravention of pretty much all and every code of eithics in existence - and Fisher is a consultant in medical ethics. Unbelievable.

1. She claims that Carol was a "survivor of brutal family abuse over many years". This is completely false as demonstrated by a thorough police investigation that concluded that no abuse had taken place. If this outrageous and cruel false allegation had been true it would have been an appalling breach of confidentiality to disclose it.

1. She claims to be the executor of Carol's will. This is a lie and fraud.

1. She attempted to persuade the insurance company to reimburse Carol's excess insurance > £300 to her personal bank account

Fisher also discloses to the call handler that she has disposed of the contents of Carol's flat - this is theft - she had no right to take such hearltess action without the knowledge of Carol's family

If the above recording had not been secured by Carol's family Fleur Fisher would have managed to pull off a the above disgusting actions unnoticed.

Fisher's associates and fellow anti-surveillance activists are interesting also

more to follow

My friend and fellow activist Dr Kevin Felstead attended part of the trial of the paedophile fantasist Carl Beech and has written the below executive summary that I would recommend all readers here familiarise themselves with.

The summary includes an insight into false memories, false claims of abuse by VIP paedophile rings / satanic cults and important information about the contributions and struggles of the recently detransitioned expert on religious crime Professor Richard Hoskins.

Dr Kevin Felstead is the brother of the late Carol Felstead (aka Carol Myers) who died in mysterious circumstances following false memory therapy by a group of quacks and charlatans who persuaded Carol to believe that her family were a murderous, paedophile satanic cult.

I will be writing further about a number of important issues raised in the executive summary in due course

document below:

Call for Written Evidence Executive Summary

Memory does not work like a video recorder.

Any mental health practitioner can unwittingly trigger false memory recall.

The impact of false memory recall can be catastrophic including family breakdown, false allegations and, in the extreme, miscarriages of justice.

1.False memory is the phenomenon in person is convinced a memory is true when it is not.

2.It was first postulated and diagnosed more than a hundred years ago. In particular, it is creating a severe problems in the field of alleged historic child sexual abuse.

3.The BFMS acknowledges and abhors the fact that there are many genuine cases of child abuse that may require the application of the criminal law.

4.However we know from working in this field for over 25 years that a number of people (mostly, but not exclusively, female) are ‘recovering’ memories of having been abused in childhood following counselling, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy or psychiatric illness.

5.Not surprisingly, such ‘memories’, if false, have severe consequences both for the person con- cerned and for his or her family and for the wrongfully accused.

6.It is not uncommon for a whole network of family relationships to be destroyed as a result.

7.The BFMS remains unique in that it is the only registered charity in the United Kingdom working to provide help and support in false-memory-type -allegations.

8.It is vital that we continue to provide support and reassurance to the falsely accused.

9.As the BFMS is only too aware, false memories may lead to miscarriages of justice and wrongful imprisonment.

10.Currently some of our members face the daunting prospect of entering the criminal justice system where they are contesting non recent allegations of child sexual abuse.

11.Typically, their accusers had no memories of ever being abused prior to receiving psychotherapy or hypnotherapy.

12.Our organisation has dealt with around three thousand cases in which our members have claimed that they were falsely accused of sexual abuse following therapy.

13.We operate a robust screening process and frequently reject cases which do not involve false memory ‘flags.’

14.The BFMS has a professional and scientific advisory board comprised of eminent professors of psychology, clinical psychologists and psychi- atrists.

15.A number of our scientific and professional advisory board members appear in Crown Court as expert witnesses for the defence and for the prosecution.

16.In some cases an accusing person can fabricate abuse because of mental illness or for vexatious reasons, but our organisation has focused on those who began to recall and then to believe they were victims of events which never happened after awareness and to educate about the very serious issue of false allegations, based on memories recovered in therapy.

35.We strive to provide support to innocent victims and their families and to reduce the number of miscarriages of justice stemming from false allegations.

36.We want to emphasise that we consider creating parity between mental and physical health and the promotion of the talking therapies by the Government is an excellent initiative.

37.However, given such an initiative, it must be appreciated that we are on the brink of the risks of damage to the public becoming infinitely worse if warnings are not heeded.

38.In psychological medicine a treatment can appear most impressive and convincing to the naive consumer and yet be completely wrong and deeply destructive.

39.Some therapists believe that many problems which present in adult life are a result of re- pressed memories of trauma, usually in the form of sexual abuse.

40.Based on highly controversial principles and diagnoses, this treatment incorporates a range of techniques which can broadly be described as ‘recovered memory therapy’ which is renowned for implanting false memories.

41.Denial of the capability of false memories being created within therapy is widespread.

42.It is claimed by the Government that “recovered memory therapy” is not recommended by NICE.

43.Organisations with an ethical duty to scrutinise practice claim that they do not work within the framework of “recovered memories.”

44.Therapists claim that they do not practice recovered memory therapy, whilst at the same time some of them have been known to use therapeutic practices which have the capability of producing false/recovered memories.

45.The recent conviction of Carl Beech in Newcastle Crown Court is a case in point.

46.This case has exposed the shambolic state of affairs surrounding the investigations of historic allegations of sexual abuse in United Kingdom.

47.Beech was convicted of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and of one count of fraud, after claiming £22,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

48.After the jury returned guilty verdicts, Beech was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment.

49.Excluding the cost of Beech’s 10 week trial in Newcastle Crown Court (estimated by some legal seeing a therapist or a counsellor.

17.The accused have no voice and no process to prove their innocence, other than through the criminal justice system when allegations result in prosecution.

18.The BFMS, with its Scientific and Advisory Board, has copious information on its website (bfms.org.uk) regarding the international scientific research, and findings, into the functioning of human memory.

19.We have previously written to Parliamentarians to inform them about the damage which is woven right through our system and needs recognising if change is to happen.

20.We warned that false-memory-type-allegations pose a threat to society.

21.On 27 October 2014, I wrote to Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions and to Chris Grayling MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.

22.On 13 February 2017, I wrote to Yvette Cooper MP, Chair of the Home affairs Committee and to Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, Chair of the Health Committee.

23.We warned that if serious delusions, particularly of sexual abuse, are not recognised, a phenomenon is created which is similar to a runaway train.

24.Delusions will be confirmed by further therapy whether or not the therapist believes in the abuse.

25.There are no brakes on the train and this can only result in an ultimate crash with the patient, and other individuals, very seriously harmed.

26.And so it has proven with the disastrous police operations named ‘Midland’ and ‘Conifer.’

27.The myth that trauma often causes the brain to block out memory for the event is, sadly, a generally accepted one.

28.The BFMS is working hard to educate the public about false memory.

29.As Director of Communications, I am a visiting lecturer to several UK universities where I have delivered numerous talks on the subject.

30.Therapeutically-induced false memories continue to pose a serious challenge to us as a charity and to society at large.

31.The BFMS continues to acknowledge and empathise with genuine victims of abuse.

32.Just because we are saying that some allegations are false does not mean that we are claiming that all allegations are false.

33.We acknowledge that child abuse is widespread.

34.In equal measure we are determined to raise awareness and to educate about the very serious issue of false allegations, based on memories recovered in therapy.

35.We strive to provide support to innocent victims and their families and to reduce the number of miscarriages of justice stemming from false allegations.

36.We want to emphasise that we consider creating parity between mental and physical health and the promotion of the talking therapies by the Government is an excellent initiative.

37.However, given such an initiative, it must be appreciated that we are on the brink of the risks of damage to the public becoming infinitely worse if warnings are not heeded.

38.In psychological medicine a treatment can appear most impressive and convincing to the naive consumer and yet be completely wrong and deeply destructive.

39.Some therapists believe that many problems which present in adult life are a result of re- pressed memories of trauma, usually in the form of sexual abuse.

40.Based on highly controversial principles and diagnoses, this treatment incorporates a range of techniques which can broadly be described as ‘recovered memory therapy’ which is renowned for implanting false memories.

41.Denial of the capability of false memories being created within therapy is widespread.

42.It is claimed by the Government that “recovered memory therapy” is not recommended by NICE.

43.Organisations with an ethical duty to scrutinise practice claim that they do not work within the framework of “recovered memories.”

44.Therapists claim that they do not practice recovered memory therapy, whilst at the same time some of them have been known to use therapeutic practices which have the capability of producing false/recovered memories.

45.The recent conviction of Carl Beech in Newcastle Crown Court is a case in point.

46.This case has exposed the shambolic state of affairs surrounding the investigations of historic allegations of sexual abuse in United Kingdom.

47.Beech was convicted of 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and of one count of fraud, after claiming £22,000 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

48.After the jury returned guilty verdicts, Beech was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment.

49.Excluding the cost of Beech’s 10 week trial in Newcastle Crown Court (estimated by some legal commentators to be in the region of 1.5 million), Operations Midland and Conifer have cost the taxpayer in excess of £4 million pounds.

50.This is a chronic waste of the public purse. 51.It also completely undermines genuine survi- vors of child abuse who in consequence may now be unwilling to report abuse through fear of not being believed.

52.Beech, also known as ‘Nick’, accused a num- ber of prominent figures including: former Home Secretary Leon Brittan (who died with allegations hanging over him); Lord Bramall (a former head of the army); Lord Janner (a former Labour MP); Harvey Proctor (a former Conservative MP); and former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath (deceased, 2005).

53.Beech also accused, Sir Morris Oldfield, a former head of MI6; Sir Michael Hanley, previously Director of MI5 and Field Marshall Sir Roland Gibbs.

54.Beech accused the men of being part of an organised paedophile network responsible for rape, torture and murder.

55.“I was physically, emotionally and sexually abused by my stepfather and a paedophile ring of 20 men,” alleged Beech.

56.There was not a shred of evidence to support his fantastical claims, yet police stated in a press conference broadcast on ITV news in 2014 that his false allegations “were credible and true.” 57.Carl Beech was in fact a perpetrator.

58.He pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images ‘of the gravest kind.’

59.In his opening speech, Tony Baddenoch QC for the prosecution, said: “This case concerns the making of false allegations of the most serious kind.”

60.“The false allegations include three child murders, multiple rapes, kidnapping and widespread sexual abuse against young boys. It is quite im- possible to conceive of allegations of a worse kind to be made.”

61.Beech claimed that he had suffered physical and sexual abuse, “including oral sex and rape” while young.

62.He told the Metropolitan Police Service that Lord Bramhall raped him repeatedly.

63.Beech accused former heads of MI5 and MI6 whom he claimed “were responsible for abuse and forms of torture” which included “electric shocks and having darts thrown at him.”

64.Beech alleged further that he had been “taken to parties” where he was abused in a variety of locations.

65.These included: Dolphin Square, military barracks, the Elm Guest House, the Carlton Club, Heathrow Airport, London Zoo, Brighton, Edward Heath’s house and on the yacht of the former Prime Minister.

66.The prosecuting barrister, addressing, the court, said that the allegations made by Beech were “a complete fabrication.” They are “incredible and untrue.”

67.Beech claimed to have witnessed the murder of Martin Allen who disappeared in London in 1979, aged 15.

68.Kevin Allen, the brother of Martin, was contacted in 2014 by the Metropolitan Police Service.

69.He was informed that police had received information alleging that his brother had been abducted by a paedophile murder ring.

70.“The source of that false hope to Kevin,” the prosecutor stated, “35 years after his brother went missing, was ultimately the false allegations of this defendant, Carl Beech.”

71.In September 2015 Wilshire Police instructed Dr Rachael Hoskins, a criminologist, to look into the allegations against former Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath.

72.Dr Hoskins concluded that the ‘Heath Inquiry like the Westminster VIP Inquiry, rests with an overactive imagination.’

73.Dr Hoskins was given access to police interviews – which included allegations of murder and Satanic Ritual Abuse and child sacrifice.

74.She later wrote a detailed and comprehensive report and concluded that the allegations were fantasy-prone and based on uncorroborated ‘memories.’

75.Dr Hoskins’ report was reported widely in the press at that time.

76.Dr Hoskins stated: “I told them (the police) the claims were ludicrous. Allegations from Beech and the sisters about Sir Edward Heath and other public figures were the ravings of fantasists and frauds.”

77.‘Worse, I have established that the allegations against at least some of the people caught up in Operations Conifer and Midland are based on no more than two uncorroborated witnesses, whose claims of satanic abuse were made under the influence of controversial psychotherapists specialising in “recovered memories”.’

78.‘At least one of these witnesses was under the influence of hypnosis. I am profoundly disturbed. In 15 years of working as an independent police expert, I have never seen anything like it.’

79.‘My analysis took two months and led to a 40,000 word report, but I soon had profound anxieties.’

80.‘For I could see from the statements in front of me that key amongst those accusing Heath and others was the woman we are calling Lucy X, the woman who had made incredible allegations of satanic abuse described above; a woman whose evidence has been discounted as nonsense when she first presented it to the police in 1989, but had now re-emerged to damage the lives of the living and besmirch the reputations of the dead.’

81.“Carl Beech is the principle reason we have the vast - and I suspect ill-fated-Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.”

82.“He caused the waste of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and ruined the lives and legacies of those he falsely accused, such as former Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, ex-Tory MP Har- vey Proctor and D Day veteran Lord Bramall.”

83.Throughout February 2012 to October 2016, Beech had 121 counselling sessions with Vicki Paterson.

84.Beech sent her an e-mail with a “body map” outlining his alleged injuries at the hands of his abusers. He colour-coded the body map to represent the injuries he said he had sustained.

85.These included: broken bones and wasp stings. He claimed that his abusers had inserted into him “various objects.”

86.Paterson testified that she was profoundly shocked at the coloured drawings, but appears to have made no attempt to authenticate the veracity of Carl Beech’s allegations.

87.Her web site is illuminating:

88.“I will listen in a non-judgmental way under- standing your world from your point of view... The starting point is to build a collaborative and trusting relationship between us which should then allow you to acknowledge and talk about your feelings, however difficult or uncomfortable they are. Working in a supportive way, emotions from the past and present will be allowed to surface and aspects of yourself which may have become hidden move into your consciousness... I believe that you are the only expert in your internal world and the only person who really knows how you feel.”

89.This ‘belief’ is clearly problematic.

90.No evidence came to light that Paterson im- planted false memories however, by accepting the veracity of Beech’s claims uncritically, Paterson was effectively fostering his delusions.

91.The same can be said of the Metropolitan Police Service.

92.In counselling sessions with Paterson, Beech claimed that he was assaulted by a Saudi Prince and, as his delusions cemented, by a “foreign royal family.”

93.Beech also made allegations in therapy ses- sions about Edward Heath, Harvey Proctor and Leon Brittan. When questioned by police why he delayed reporting, Beech responded: “I did not report sooner (the alleged abuse) because the group who abused me were very powerful men ... I have been in fear of my safety since the abuse started.”

94.Northumbria police investigated Beech and immediately ascertained that the factual chronology outlined by Beech did not accord with the facts.

95.The point is this: any mental health, welfare or criminal justice professional can unwittingly collude in reinforcing false allegations of abuse.

96.However the creation of a false memory is correlated strongly with therapists who take a special interest in sexual abuse discovery and treatment.

97.Some therapists take the view that sexual abuse underlies a multitude of diffuse social and psychological problems.

98.They are inclined to interpret unhappiness in adults as an indication of sexual abuse and subtly or inadvertently in some cases convey their beliefs to their clients.

99.Other therapists believe overtly in repressed trauma and seek to ‘recover’ what they believe are repressed memories of abuse.

100.A number of therapists may claim to be recovered memory survivors themselves as a prelude to becoming a therapist in the field, or as a consequence.

101.Unfortunately, many of the books recommended in sexual abuse therapy training advocate using recovered memory techniques.

102.Many of the histories of abuse which act as a template for therapists’ expectations are in fact recovered memory histories.

103.There is a real danger that therapists may operate according to false stereotyping of abuse when interviewing clients.

104.However grotesque and unreal the false claims emanating from recovered memory may be, it would be wrong to underestimate the emotional dynamics of recovered memories which serve as a powerful and cathartic force which convinces those caught up in it of the authenticity of the claims.

105.There needs to be widespread recognition of what can go wrong in therapy.

106.Counselling and psychotherapy practitioners can cause immense harm to patients and families without it impacting at all on the practitioners or their organisations.

107.For example, if serious delusions are not recognised for what they are, the practitioner will not realise that the information being received in the clinical setting may bare little or no relation to what has really happened, or is happening, in outer reality, creating on occasions a most dangerous situation for the patient and other people leading to false-memory-type-allegations.

(Dr) Kevin Felstead

source via the WayBack machine (for archival rather than safety purposes):

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200113082453/bfms.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/BFMS_Newsletter_November_2019.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200113082453/bfms.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/BFMS_Newsletter_November_2019.pdf

Please note that in the above document Richard Hoskins is referred to as Rachael Hoskins (she / her) as, at the time Hoskins was acting as a whisltleblower, he was "transitioning" and using the name Rachael and female pronouns.

Please see the seperate thread on Richard Hoskins and his detransitioning for further information

Wow. Yet another fascinating thread that I've, admittedly, only skimmed through. But I intend to return to read when in a less tense state of mind.

I've always been of the opinion that when a movement such as this happens it is at risk of becoming infiltrated, whether by false victims and/or professionals with an agenda. Muddying the waters as it were. Would be an easy way to discredit any actual victims...

Memories are funny things, as I've aged I try and think back over my childhood and honestly I sometimes find myself wondering about early childhood memories...Did that really happen? Or am I remembering a story that I heard frequently? And those are actually happy/funny/comforting memories. Weird how our minds work.

(Name change for this post to avoid any clues that might lead to identification of individuals concerned.)

Hoodathunkit thank you for all the details and links. I have had direct insight into how things can go horribly wrong when a health care practitioner and "Repressed Memory" advocate mistakes theory for facts - and how HR staff can swallow psycho-babble hook, line and sinker when spouted by an "official expert".

Both these cases involve a highly regarded, high pay grade, qualified clinical psychologist favouring Transactional Analysis at the time of the "Satanic Rituals" mass hysteria.

The first case involves clinical practice and was reported in the local press at the time.

During her first meeting with a young woman, the psychologist decided that the client's interactions with her were "proof" that, as a child, the patient had been sexually abused by her mother - but that her memory of the abuse was so traumatic that she had "repressed" it and it was inaccessible.

There had never been any suggestion until that point that the patient had ever suffered any form of abuse and the patient never went on to "remember" any abuse. However, she was deeply and adversely affected psychologically by the horror of "knowing" (because she had been told) that she had been abused, that the reason she could not "remember" it was because it would terrify her but that. at the same time, she needed to "remember" it in order to "get better".

The mother worked for Social Services and, during the session, the psychologist telephoned Social Services to report the mother for child sex abuse. Immediately after the session she went to the mother's work place, to be present when the mother was suspended with immediate effect and forcibly removed from the premises in front of her clients and colleagues. (I cannot remember if the police were involved at that stage.)

The psychologist continued to work with the patient but, despite her best attempts, the daughter never "recalled" the sexual abuse. The daughter became increasingly distressed over time and alienated from her mother, because she believed that her mother must have abused her because the psychologist knew this "for a fact".

The case was investigated and the mother eventually took the Health Authority to court. The psychologist remained adamant even in court that the sexual abuse must have occurred. Remember that the only "evidence" of childhood sexual abuse by the mother was the psychologist's interpretation of the the patient's interactions with her according to "Transactional Analysis".

The case took well over two years to be "resolved", ie. to the extent that the mother was awarded compensation. I do not know if the daughter, mother and rest of the family ever recovered. The employer had doubled-down and defended the "eminent" psychologist who, I understand, received only a verbal warning - for the fact that she had telephoned Social Services during the session, ie. in the presence of the patient.

This was a typical "corporate" response, in order to deflect from and minimise the actual breach of duty of care and to protect the corporate entity. The fact that the professional benefits is incidental to this purpose.

In the second case, the same psychologist used Transactional Analysis to interpret the conduct and performance of a junior member of staff who she was supervising. Again, the only "evidence" was her interpretation of the staff member's interactions with her.

She decided, on this basis alone and despite all factual evidence to the contrary, that this staff member was mentally unstable, had probably been abused but was in denial and was therefore a danger to her clients. She suspended the member of staff and also communicated the reason to all members of the Dept and further afield in professional networks. For legal reasons, this does not constitute defamation of character although the effect is the same.

The Head of HR was completely taken in by the psychologist's explanation that Transactional Analysis "proved" that the staff member was mentally unstable, a danger to her clients and unfit to practice.

After all, why would they employ an "expert" and then not believe the expert's opinion? They cannot afford to do that even if they had the critical faculties to do so.

(In case that sounds snobbish: the Head of HR had progressed through the ranks from being an Admin Assistant, had no specialist qualifications but had been on a lot of "management courses". Her suitability for the role might be gauged by the fact that she routinely referred to a gay colleague as "that f&cking poofter", made false allegations against him to try to get him sacked and bragged that she took personnel files from across the organisation home to "give herself a good laugh" in the evening. This was all known at the highest management levels. She was never disciplined - she had read all their files.)

This case did not get into the press because the employer offered a "compromise agreement" to avoid being taken to an Employment Tribunal. It enabled the staff member to continue working but with a different supervisor, to have her name cleared with her colleagues, to have the demonstrably high quality of her work recognised and, eventually, to further her career by moving on with a good reference.

The lawyer involved said it was the first bullying case of such severity she had seen where the victim was not utterly destroyed psychologically and reputationally, never able to work in the same profession again.

The "eminent" psychologist was required to apologise in person for her behaviour, which she did with ill grace - still insisting that she was in the right!

What I know from these cases is that some practitioners are so heavily invested in their pet theories that they completely lose touch with reality and the principles of scientific enquiry. Some of them are also dangerously unethical and are capable of appallingly abusive behaviour. They are shielded by HR staff who are bamboozled by esoteric theories and sometimes as venal.

The overriding responsibility of both HR and legal advisers is to protect the corporate entity, not patients and not staff.

Right on topic:

BBC Radio 4 - "The Diagnosis"

"For most of her life, Janice Wilson suffered from strange and terrifying attacks at night. She would wake up, suddenly, feeling as though she was being choked or strangled. The next day, there would be blood on her pillow. Sometimes she’d have up to 50 of these attacks a night. It left her terrified and exhausted. For years, doctors put it down to psychological problems due to a trauma in her past. Then she met a doctor who found the astonishing, true cause. In “The Diagnosis”, Janice and the doctor who diagnosed her come together in a studio, to tell this remarkable story. "

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000cz0y

The organic diagnosis would not have been possible before the availability of PET scans. However, there was also no consideration at any time before this of the possibility of an organic cause for Janice's symptoms: they were automatically attributed to known childhood trauma, which she had no problem recalling.

If she had not been able to recall, or had not mentioned, those traumatic childhood events perhaps at least one doctor of the many she saw over 40 years might have considered something other than a psychological explanation? Or perhaps not.

She had plenty of invasive, inappropriate, distressing treatments over the years based on the theory that it must all be psychological. At one time the diagnosis might have been demonic possession, at another time Satanic Abuse, Repressed Memory Syndrome, Multiple Personality Disorder aka Dissociative Identity Disorder. Today the first port of call seems to be distress due to Gender Dysphoria.

This video by Paul McHugh is good on the rise and fall of the popularity of psychiatric diagnoses over the past century.

The parallels with Multiple Personality Disorder and the current trend are hard not to notice. The descriptions in some cases have distinct echoes of the explanation by the Metropolitan Police that a "gender fluid" PC might swap without notice between "gender identities" depending on the task, environment, etc.

This is all so informative.

I went down a rabbit hole some time ago regarding Facilitated Communication (severely disabled people learning to communicate via spelling out words with guidance from a helper).
In the same way,most of it has been discredited.

What strikes me is the length some people went to - not all of it nefarious.

This is a long but fascinating article on one therapist, Anna Stubblefield.

www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/magazine/the-strange-case-of-anna-stubblefield.html?_r=0

Lots of similarities to Recovered Memory.

I am very grateful for the last couple of posts and I have so much to say, I had to get up really early today just to post but find myself again pushed for time as there is so much to say.

Thanks so much for that video DoubleDeClutch I had not seen it before and, having watched it once, I think it requires repeated careful scrutiny.

Umyeahnah

I have so much to say about facilitated communication, it is a fascinating subject and the misuse of FC has been linked to the murder of an autistic child by his own mother, as you are probably aware.

I posted a link to this old movie before but the old link doesn't work so here it is again

I think you would both find it interesting

At one time the diagnosis might have been demonic possession, at another time Satanic Abuse, Repressed Memory Syndrome, Multiple Personality Disorder aka Dissociative Identity Disorder. Today the first port of call seems to be distress due to Gender Dysphoria.

This. Interesting that guy in your video said these trends tend to last around 30 years then quietly fade away.

hoodathunkit. I discovered FC a couple of years ago thru a severely autistic young woman who gained fame on various social media platforms. It seemed too good to be true. She has gone quiet now. Interestingly her last posts were insinuating her father had been sexually dodgy towards her; it was a familiar claim in these cases.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_abuse_allegations_made_through_facilitated_communication

hoodathunkit and Umyeahnah - an extraordinary coincidence that you are both aware of the parallels with Facilitated Communication. It is something with which I am very familiar.

What you might not be aware of are similarities with the tactics of both trans lobby groups and the Satanic Ritual Abuse "true believers". There is a global network of FC lobbyists, mostly parents associated with FC trainers and institutions, who harass academics, therapists and teachers.

eg. I know an academic in Australia who received a constant stream of vile abuse and threats on social media from multiple sources across the world. These escalated to emails with detailed threats of physical violence that were eventually traced by the police to a university email account in the UK.

This was around the time when the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) issued a position statement warning of the dangers of FC. This statement was challenged by lobby groups who attacked the International Organisation and by individuals who joined "regional branches" in order to push through resolutions that they disagreed with the international statement. Again there were campaigns of vilification against individual academics and practitioners who stood by the science that disproved the validity of FC.

An international organisation comprised mainly of impartial professionals, AAC-users and parents was ill-prepared for this coordinated FC "policy capture" campaign, which was led by "FC business" interests.

There are pockets of FC fanaticism that will not die away because it is a cash cow for certain academics and trainers and a well-spring of false hope for some parents. There are also parents who enjoy vicarious celebrity as "co-authors" of materials apparently produced by their children, some even publish works supposedly produced by their children without disclosing that FC was involved. Most FC practitioners are self-deluded and in denial about the evidence that in the vast majority of cases FC is the equivalent of using another human being as a Ouijah board. Some of them are just charlatans.

FC is sometimes justified for benefits that it brings to practitioners, eg. in terms of job satisfaction, which is on a par with treating other human beings as "therapeutic pets".

Children and adutls with severe autism as well as children and adults with severe learning disabilities are most vulnerable. People with severe speech impairments and physical disabilities in the absence of autism and learning difficulties are somewhat less at risk: they are more likely to protest or refuse to cooperate and, if they are given the opportunity to communicate independently of a "Facilitator", to express their disquiet or anger at being used and misrepresented.

The people who express themselves using FC are often described as being "locked in" but they should NOT be confused with people who have "Locked-In Syndrome". I can vouch from decades of experience that it is not at all difficult for an experienced, impartial assessor to differentiate between someone with Locked-In Syndrome who is capable of autonomous communication, and someone who is only able to comply with being used for Facilitated Communication.

There is a very small number of people who have progressed from FC to become independent communicators and express themselves at a level of sophistication equal to or greater than the level they demonstrated using FC.

It is usually argued, and they often argue this themselves, that they only achieved this level of competence because they started with FC. It is equally plausible that they succeeded despite FC or that FC was irrelevant. If they were "proof" that FC works then many, many more people would progress to the same level - and they do not.

There is ample proof that FC itself constitutes abuse. In some cases, as mentioned above, it has also been used as a tool in order to facilitate further abuse, eg. "facilitated" (false) accusations of abuse by others, "facilitated" (unwitting or unwilling) consent to sexual activity, "facilitated" (false) denial of abuse.

About a year after the Cleveland Misdiagnosis of Child Abuse scandal I was approached by one of the medics who had been involved, asking for advice about FC. I was horrified at the prospect of FC gaining a foothold in the aftermath of that fiasco and wrote a detailed briefing paper that was, thankfully, effective in steering away that danger.

If anyone thinks for a moment that someone might benefit from FC then they would be well advised not to seek advice from someone who specialises in FC or who is familiar only with FC. Only then will they get an impartial opinion. If they see a "miracle" facilitated before their eyes - their eyes are deceived.

There have been many studies debunking FC over the years. FC has also been re-branded as "Supported Typing", in an attempt to avoid people discovering previous debunkings of FC.

If you have not come across it already, this article sums it up:

"It’s time to stop exposing people to the dangers of Facilitated Communication"
Hemsley, Shane, Todd, Schlosser and Lang
May 22, 2018

theconversation.com/its-time-to-stop-exposing-people-to-the-dangers-of-facilitated-communication-95942

Some older articles that I would recommend (nothing has changed in terms of scientific evidence):

"Facilitated Communication & the Power of Belief: How Time magazine got it wrong"
Lawrence Norton, 2006
www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-05-25/

"This Cruel Farce Has To Stop!"
James Randi Educational Foundation, Nov 2009
archive.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/783-this-cruel-farce-has-to-stop.html

"Sound and Fury: When Opposition to Facilitated Communication Functions as Hate Speech"
Anna Stubblefield, 2011
(Stubblefield is ex-Rutgers University Professor of Philosophy convicted in 2015 of the rape of an intellectually and physically disabled man after falsely obtaining his consent for sex via Facilitated Communication)
dsq-sds.org/article/view/1729/1777

"Psychology and Law in the Classroom: How the Use of Clinical Fads in the Classroom may Awaken the Educational Malpractice Claim"
Gorman, Wynne, Morse and Todd, 2011
digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/elj/vol2011/iss1/3/

"Facilitated Communication and the Criminal Justice System"
J. Robert Quillen, 2013
commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1000&context=psychology_honors

"Why debunked autism treatment fads persist"
Carol Clark, 2015
esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2015/02/why-debunked-autism-treatment-fads.html

I have got well over a hundred FC references, most of them research studies rather than magazine articles or blog posts. I was especially careful to look at studies purporting to prove the validity of FC. I dread to think how much time I spent out of necessity looking into FC and it is not something I wish to repeat.

Thanks for the interesting posts. I can't stop thinking about all this in line with trans ideology.
I just watched this, and what is striking is the fact that these professional, dedicated Facilitators were convinced their students were communicating, and we're devestated when proved wrong. No malign intent at all.

From 42 min especially shows just how unlikely FC is. (students staring at ceiling etc while supposedly typing).

In the same way, many in the general public are kneejerk in their reaction to criticism of things trans. it's all 'transphobia'. Even I was like this before becoming GC. Is it as simple as romanticising 'born in the wrong body' to explain a complicated and emotionally fraught subject? Not wanting to explore deeper?

The cult like behaviour of some is familiar too.

Thank so much for the all the important posts and please accept my apologies for not replying sooner. I am extrmely busy with research, writing and trying to take care of some real life challenges.

There is so much I want to share, but one thing that is really important in terms of connecting some dots is this series of podcasts about new age guru / cult leader Teal Swan

I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in the horrible mess the world is in right now

gizmodo.com/internet-spiritual-guru-teal-swan-says-she-isnt-a-cult-1827317795

Teal Swan has been on my radar for years. She promotes "tantra", positive thinking, "shamanism" and new age beliefs about menstruation. She also claims to be a survivor of satanic ritual abuse and her spiritual movement (many say cult) has recruited various professional people including a psychiatrist and a surgeon.

Apologies again for posting and running

Lynn Crook wrote an interesting book which argued abuse can be repressed.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10538712.2024.2320744&ved=2ahUKEwjRqMTUl7WPAxWEVEEAHVNdLOQQFnoECEcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1lzJXlXEW1n6pONJEUd4at

Dissociative Identity Disorder is real though, isn't it? Just it was overdiagnosed a lot?

I don't like the implication in that book that being anti pornography or allying w the right (even anti feminist right) is necessarily wrong. Sometimes needs must, as the trans battle showed, and there are lots of issues w porn.
I see the main point tho

I am convinced my mum had DID but was never diagnosed. (She avoided therapy.) As kids, we called her "mean mum", "logical mum", "crazy mum", etc. When they got to ages 3 -5, every one of her grandchildren said something like "Grandma has three people in her. [pauses a few seconds] At least three people." I don't care if you call it DID. There are people who act like they switch personalities, completely changing in a few seconds.