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

[hoodathunkit]

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

Stripesgalore

I am genuinely very sorry to hear about your situation

One of the reasons I have delayed posting about my concern here is that my policy in most things is to "not poke holes in someone tent unless you have a new tent to give them".

I am very seriously distressed by the appalling state of therapies available for many issues, but I have a special interest in sexual trauma as I am a survior of trafficking and torture, although many years ago.

One of the reasons I am so angry and concenred about these issues is because I have attempted to seek therapy myself and have received invitations to believe that I was abused by a satanic cult.

I genuinely want to protect vulnerable women from abuse.

You are correct that not all EMDR therapists are evil or in cults, I have met some lovely, well meaning EMDR therapists, however the evidence base is lacking and there are some therapists who are not at all kind.

As for IFS please, please don't go there. IFS and other "parts" therapies are extremely dangerous IMO / IME.

I have done a lot of research about this.

I am utterly exhausted right now but would be very happy to share with you what has helped me over the years, of course I cannot guarantee that what has helped me will help you.

I hate the idea of survivors not having access to therapy, but I hate every more the idea of survivors going through the hell I have been through.

I am so sorry to upset you and I am really exhausted.

All I can offer you right now is to tell you that I care, that some things do work and that I will post more tomorrow. I am so sorry to hear what has happened to you and it is to protect women like you that I have spent countless hours researching this stuff so as to try to prevent further abuses.

Not much help right now I know. Will post more tomorrow

Oh no, not that one, again, the ,satanic panic‘ fallacy. Where some paedosadist just need to don some silly masks and light some candles to get away with their sh*t, because, clearly, this kid can‘t tell the truth, satanic panic, false memory syndrome and all...
Has anyone read the blog of Anneke Lucas? Her memories resurfaced when she was 20 or so - no therapy involved. Of gatherings of powerful men abusing her and other children (no mention of satanic costumes, though.) Repeatedly, frequently, for many years. Sounds very credible and ties into similar accounts by Regine Louf - who gave testimony to police in the Dutroux affair. (Even though they do not describe the exact same circles of people. It just looks like the Netherlands had something analogous to the ,Belgian system‘.)
I sure wonder why there is so much effort put into discrediting victims of csa.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3951033/

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an empirically validated treatment for trauma, including such negative life experiences as commonly present in medical practice. The positive therapeutic outcomes rapidly achieved without homework or detailed description of the disturbing event offer the medical community an efficient treatment approach with a wide range of applications.

This is not quackery.

I sure wonder why there is so much effort put into discrediting victims of csa.
And anyone supporting them. You've even thrown mud at Maggie Oliver but no interest in organised grooming gangs.

No time to read this now but commenting to say thank you and to remind myself to read it tomorrow (no kids tomorrow!)

And the title!

Agree with deep.

Plus the use of ‘satanic panic’ and the idea it ‘ruined lots of people’s lives’ is no different t lecturing women on not accusing men of rape because it destroys their lives and reputation.

The idea that because some prosecutions weren’t proven & that some accused sued therapists automatically means the women victims were of course all lying isn’t something that should be acceptable anywhere, let alone ok’d on a feminism board. Will some cases either be caused by good intentioned but mid guided therapists or abusive therapists, sure that’s entirely possible, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to use it in a blanket fashion to discredit victims and silence their voices of their experiences, the same way it’s true that some women (and men) may very well lie about being raped but as we well know the context is that it’s rare and the reality is it’s much more likely that those of us who are victims will never see our rapists prosecuted we don’t suggest women ‘cry rape’ because it harms all women. Shouting satanic panic or false memories is the same as shouting crying rape and how anyone can think it’s ok here is beyond me.

As promised, some more information about the ISSTD. First I would like to invite readers to watch a 1990s documentary highly relevant to this issue.

The below video tells the heartbreaking story of Patty Burgus and her family who were victims of recovered memory therapy, including harmful, experimental drug regimes, by the ISSTD founder Bennett Braun, a notorious charlatan and founder of the ISSTD.

The documentary is gripping and tells the story of Patty Burgus who sought treatment for postpartum depression and, although she had no memories of sexual abuse, was coerced and brainwashed into believing that she was a high priestess of a satanic cult and had, alongside her young children who she believed were also satanists, murdered and eaten babies in satanic rituals. Burgus was so brainwashed that she ended up believing that her parents were paedphile satanists who sexually abused her throughout her childhood. Burgus, a staunch Catholic, was also persuaded by Braun that the Pope was a baby eating satanist.

Fortunately Burgus was eventually able to break free from the monstrous Dr Braun, she went on to recant the false accusations against her family.

There are many fascinating issues raised by this documentary. Readers interested in undue influence placed on vulnerable young people during queer / non-binary LGBTQI(whatever) therapy may be interested in the commentary of Richard Ofshe, a cult expert, at 27 minutes in.

I would also very much like to thank that various posters here who claim that I am a rape apologist, that I am denying the “reality” of satanic ritual abuse and that I am a deranged conspiracy theorist.

I have been in this exact situation many, many times over the past few years. I have been in bizarre situations in which I have been invited to give credence to impossible accounts of recovered memories of baby munching satanic sects and been accused of being a satanist and a paedophile apologist when I have expressed incredulity. My own accounts of real cults have been subjected to a “lalalala I’m not listening!” response, exactly as has happened here.

If I try to describe the distress and trauma I have endured in relation to this gaslighting people very often respond with incredulity.

I have attempted to speak to various people of influence about my concerns that the satanic panic is back and is a significant danger to vulnerable people, to innocent people who may be falsely accused and to our democracy. My claims have been met with disbelief and many find it incredible that people still believe in SRA in the 21st century.

One of the consequences of the bizarre conspiracy theories about SRA is that rational, skeptical persons are likely to be disbelieving about real conspiracies and real cults.

The posts of the “true believers” here demonstrate something that I am painfully aware of, that is that the satanic panic is back with a vengeance. The posters here are just a few people. There are many, many therapists in the UK and worldwide using dangerous, non-evidence based therapies that harm vulnerable people and alienate them from their families.

It is immensely satisfying to be able to demonstrate, in real time, the dynamics of collective delusions of satanic ritual abuse alongside collective denial about real sexually abusive cults. I would like to thank Mumsnet for allowing this thread to continue.

The ISSTD and its various subsidiary organisations are training countless therapists, psychologists, other mental health professionals and even police officers and members of the judiciary about the “reality” of satanic ritual abuse and its closely associated diagnoses of dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder).

New categories of dissociative disorders are being created all the time and new non-evidence based therapies are being created and promoted, many of them are dangerous and risk harming vulnerable clients.

We live in terrifying times in which our democracy is threatened by false allegations of sexual abuse and satanic ritual abuse and when genuine survivors of rape, sexual abuse and non-recent child sexual abuse are at significant risk of harm from cults.

I am very, very pushed for time today and will post more as soon as I am able to

You wish to 'invite readers' to look at and read this that and the other, but here's the thing.
a) who the fuck are you?
b) we are not your readers.
c) if you have so much material and such a fine analysis why don't you write a book or make a film yourself?
I'm sort of vaguely interested (retired body-psychotherapist) but cannot wade through this amount of unstructured stuff. If you have an actual thesis, make it properly and get it published, surely? What on earth do you hope to achieve by this kind of random posting to random mildly curious readers?

The posts of the “true believers” here demonstrate something that I am painfully aware of, that is that the satanic panic is back with a vengeance. The posters here are just a few people
I haven't seen any 'true believers' on here. Like you I am concerned at the tendency of psychology to adopt theories that are toxic and divorced from evidence based practice. In the past we've had R.D. Laing and schizophrenia, the idea autism is caused by 'refrigerator mothers'. I too am suspicious of the way ideas take hold such as 'gender identity'.
What concerns me about your posts is that you focus on attacking a supposed network of individuals as though they are part of a conspiracy instead of questioning the theories.

Personally I'm not aware of Satanic child abuse being an issue in the UK.

I am however very aware of the abuse of children and even babies in ways that could be described as evil. I am also aware that child abuse images on the internet has grown exponentially and that terrifies me.
I am also aware of attempts to normalise or minimise the effects of paedophilia.

When you use this conspiracy theory approach you are playing into the hands of those seeking to minimise the prevalence and seriousness of sexual violence in our society. I remember when domestic violence wasn't spoken of.
The fact that you call anyone who questions you a 'true believer' makes me trust your judgement less.

No one has disputed your experience. No one has doubted that individuals have been manipulated by therapists to believe false memories. No one has doubted that some people practicing as therapists or connected to them can be abusive, or abuse therapeutic processes. No one has doubted there could be cults involved in that somewhere.

Plenty of posters have given you evidence that EMDR and IFS have evidence based peer reviewed research behind them. People DID is a real condition, accepted in dsm. You haven’t addressed this.

People have explained that talking about false memories as a sweeping statement harms victims, silences, enables abusers to continue abuse and is the same as saying women cry rape. You clearly don’t care about the harm you doing that causes to all of us, which is the same as disputing our experiences, despite all of us not doubting your own personal experience. If you don’t like being called out for being a rape apologist don’t be one.

You haven’t read the science on betrayal trauma theory. You haven’t any awareness of the history of the false memory syndrome foundation. Not knowing the facts is the equivalent of trans ideology’s lack of science. If you are arguing a point then the onus is on you to prove that, you can’t even engage with all these valid points yet alone do that. Yet you seem to think a feminism board is a place to turn up with no scientific credibility behind your point and use terms like satanic panic and false memories which is akin to saying women cry rape or calling us t*rfs.

Talking about interesting documentaries, here is one by a BBC-correspondent about the paedophile network that operated in Belgium in the 80's and 90's and for which Dutroux was the fall guy.

And here a documentary of German public broadcasting ZDF about the remarkable series of deaths that killed at least 20 witnesses related to the 'Dutroux affair', deaths that made it possible for authorities to pin all the blame onto only one man, Dutroux.

'Satanic panic', my a**.

I would just like to thank all of the posters who are taking apart hoodathunkits posts.

I had this conversation with this poster a year ago and back then I was on my own.

I've felt massively uncomfortable - as a victim of csa that I largely forgot - seeing hoodathunkit bring every thread they contribute on back to 'quack psychotherapy' and undermining victims accounts.

I'm shocked they have gone unchecked her for so long.

You wish to 'invite readers' to look at and read this that and the other, but here's the thing.

a) who the fuck are you?

I am a survivor of sex trafficking and torture. I am a survivor of attempted recovered memory therapy by a therapist associated with the ISSTD. I am a long term researcher against cults that combine false allegations of child sexual abuse with real disgusting abuses against children and vulnerable adults.

b) we are not your readers.

Your choice to take part in this thread or to leave it. I am not forcing you to read anything.

c) if you have so much material and such a fine analysis why don't you write a book or make a film yourself?

Fair question. I have considered writing a book, making films podcast etc. I may do some or all of those things at some point.

The reason I am posting on this thread is because I have a history here of posting about dangerous, misogynist cults and abuses against children and vulnerable adults that many readers here will be familiar with.

I have enough of a history of posting about very real abuses that it is possible for me to post about real conspiracies (even if they sound incredible) without having the thread taken down (as happened with my first ever post here).

Those familiar with my posts will understand that I am not attempting to educate readers via a didactic model. My aim is to inspire the curiosity of readers to think about the issues I post and to develop the capacity to think about and to research certain issue themselves.

I am not attempting to give readers a fish, rather attempting to teach them how to fish themselves by inspiring curiosity and skeptical, rational thought, something that is under attack due to the extremes of the TRA agenda and also the plethora of insane conspiracy theories surrounding the coronavirus.

So, for example, one reader may post a link stating that EMDR is evidence based. I post a link to various papers in the literature debunking that claim. Readers can access all the relevant links and decide for themselves.

However my skills and abilities lie more in terms of identifying the cultic associations of EMDR and how it is misused by psychotherapy cults to create false memories. This does not mean that all EMDR therapist are in cults. It does not mean that all are using it as a cover for hypnosis or coercive control. However if it can be demonstrated that even some therapists are misusing it, if it can be demonstrated that notorious organisations such as the ISSTD favour and promote EMDR, if it can be demonstrated that mental health professionals who are involved in cultic activity favour and promote EMDR, then we should, out of concern for vulnerable people, take a step back and question whether it should be funded on the NHS or made available via rape crisis centres.

The same is true for “body psychotherapies”. Most people have no idea what body psychotherapy means or entails. Even within the world of psychotherapy and mental health there is widespread ignorance about the history of body psychotherapy, the mechanisms by which it works (according to its properties) and the associated risk of false memories, brainwashing and coercive control.

This ignorance is something I aim to remedy with evidence.

Back to the question of who I am. I am a woman who would love to live in a safe, comfortable, beautiful home where I am not subjected to bullying and risks to my health. I would like my own garden. I would love to wear nice, new clothes and have the opportunity to buy nice things.

If I wrote books or made films or became an online “influencer” maybe I could have lots of nice things and live in a much safer and more comfortable environment than that in which i currently live.

There is limited time and the world is in a situation of crisis.

NHS staff, shop workers, police officers, school teachers, lorry drivers people who work in food production many ordinary hard working people are risking their lives (sometimes for very low pay) to help keep society from falling apart.

it seems to me that this is not a time to prioritise the acquisition of nice things. It is not a time to create a brand for myself as a social influencer, shero or social justice warrior. It is not a time to prioritise my own safety and comfort over the need to expose horrific abuses of children and vulnerable adults.

I have no interest in appearing on red carpets or on TV shows. I have no interest in becoming a celebrity and appearing in pantomimes or on reality TV shows. I do not have and do not wish to have a range of mugs, tee shirts and other merchandise with my brand on it.

It seems to me that we live in interesting times. Fake whistleblowers like Jon Wedger use and abuse the issue of grooming gangs, sex trafficking and CSA/CSE in order to become minor celebrities, beg for money and goods (Wedger has recently been gifted a car and a van and is currently touting fo a property) and to tout a range of merchandise.

Wedger is a long time promoter of the satanic panic and is associated with various far right groups, with the sovereign citizen movement, with anti vaxxers, anti mask movements and with The Crossroads Women’s Centre.

Speaking of Wedger, there is much of interest in Wedger’s below video of 4th July protest in Hyde Park and I could be here all day analysing it but don’t have time right now.

I would like to draw the attention of readers to the appearance of Belinda McKenzie (an SRA promoting conspiracy theorist and child abuse and Iran Aid charity scammer, 9/11 Truther and David Shayler’s former landlady) at 43 minutes in where she claims that BLM = Baal, Lucifer and Moloch.

I think that BLM is a worthy and important cause. Like every other worthy cause it has been astroturfed but this should not detract from the importance of the cause itself. However to claim that BLM is part of a satanic conspiracy is, of course, utterly batshit.

What really fascinates me about Jon Wedger, Shaun Attwood, Belinda McKenzine, the ISSTD, the ESTD and various other promoters of the satanic panic is that they never, ever provide clear, accurate information and evidence about real cultic abuses.

It is my experience that the more people generate revenue streams from making claims about cultic abuses the less credible they are.

On the subject of Internal Family Systems, a "parts therapy" readers may be intersted in a critical news item about the use of IFS at Castlewood Treatment Center

THE MOST DANGEROUS IDEA IN MENTAL HEALTH

The belief that hidden memories can be "recovered" in therapy should have been exorcised years ago, when a rash of false memories dominated the airwaves, tore families apart, and put people on the stand for crimes they didn't commit. But the mental health establishment does not always learn from its mistakes—and families are still paying the price.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200612033019/psmag.com/social-justice/dangerous-idea-mental-health-93325" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200612033019/psmag.com/social-justice/dangerous-idea-mental-health-93325

Apologies, this is all I have time for right now but I have a lot more to post and will do so as soon as I am able

just quickly

Many skeptical persons are concerned about the tendecy for "parts therapies" including IFS to encourage an iatrogenic condition called dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder)

The creator of IFS Richard (aka Dick) Schwartz talks about IFS and parts therapies at a fascinating event called Wisdom 2.0

The Power of Self to Heal Our Parts | Richard Schwartz, Soren Gordhamer | Wisdom 2.0 2017
92,287 views•28 Feb 2017 Wisdom 2.0

Schwartz explains what “parts” and “parts work” are and how IFS works.

In the early 80s he had bulimic clients who described their “parts” and thought they were MPD clients. He describes parts such and an "inner critic" and a “binge". His IFS method works by addressing the parts as if they were separate personalities and entering into a dialogue with them.

It is very easy to see how vulnerable patients could progress from imagining their different "parts" to identifying as someone with DID.

another video of interest here, also featuring Schwartz at the Wisdom 2.0 event

Becoming Whole: Healing the Exiled & Rejected Parts of Ourselves | Richard Schwartz, Soren Gordhamer
4,761 views•23 Apr 2020 Wisdom 2.0

more later

‘ My aim is to inspire the curiosity of readers to think about the issues I post and to develop the capacity to think about and to research certain issue themselves.’

Putting up links to a bunch of random people that people haven’t heard of is not research.

This thread is like one of those scenes in a film where someone sticks up a totally unrelated random bunch of newspaper cuttings and photos then links them together with red string.

Again, you haven’t read or addressed Jennifer Freyds very credible work on betrayal trauma theory that draws together a great deal of evidence that recovered memories are possible, valid and in fact likely if csa is from a child’s primary attachment figures.

DID isn’t something people can ‘identify’ with. It’s a medical diagnosis that’s very difficult to get. All human beings have different parts to who we are, the ideas of inner critic or inner child are very mainstream (and not at all exclusive to IFS), but for most people the parts of who we are are not dissociated from other parts. We all know we have differing sides to who we are, we behave differently at work to how we do our drinking with friends etc. For a person with DID the parts of who they are are dissociated from each other, so they loose time and don’t know what they are doing when other parts are conscious. This isn’t something people can identify their way into, it’s something medical professionals need to witness a great deal of evidence before they will give a diagnosis. This is a mental health condition that comes from extreme abuse when very young, when the child’s sense of self is just building. Not all, in fact not most, of us who experience csa at young ages from primary care givers will develop it, not all of us who experience betrayal trauma will have DID, but a for the few who do it’s a persistent condition not something anyone can develop as an adult from even the most abusive therapist.

And agree you tube links isn’t research. I’ve said where the research is, the research that comes from university studies and is widely accepted. Yet op hasn’t even read the science, so she’s exactly in the TRA position of pushing a non science based narrative.

Fake whistleblowers like Jon Wedger use and abuse the issue of grooming gangs, sex trafficking and CSA/CSE in order to become minor celebrities, beg for money and goods (Wedger has recently been gifted a car and a van and is currently touting fo a property) and to tout a range of merchandise.

I see you have had the good sense not to link Maggie Oliver to Wedger as you did on another thread. You seem far too keen to 'expose' (smear) whistle blowers for my liking.

When I first saw your posts I did consider them seriously but not anymore.

it can be demonstrated that mental health professionals who are involved in cultic activity favour and promote EMDR, then we should, out of concern for vulnerable people, take a step back and question whether it should be funded on the NHS or made available via rape crisis centres.
GPs have been prosecuted for sexually abusing female patients. Shall we fund GPs?
Surgeons have been struck off for mutilating or abusing anaesthised patients. Let's stop funding surgery shall we?

Anywhere with vulnerable people will be attractive to abusers. The answer is safeguarding processes, not banning evidenced based practices that could benefit those vulnerable processes.

Some posters have dismissed my concerns about the Source School of Tantra Yoga formerly the Source School of Tantra by claiming that just because one person is accused of rapes and sexual assaults it doesn’t mean that the whole organisation is dodgy.

The facts are as follows:

One SCoTY teacher, TJ Bartell has been accused by multiple women of sexual violations and rape
Other teachers and staff at the SCoTY have been accused of a coverup of the rapes and sexual assault and of lying about Bartell leaving the SCoTY
Another SCoTY teacher called Sturm is described “finger banging” a woman who submitted to a “yoni massage” for the sake of journalism
The founder and head honcho at the SCoTY is Charles Muir a man who advocates “yoni massage” as a way of exorcising the ghosts of past husbands. He claims to have invented “sacred spot” (G spot) massage as a therapeutic modality. Charles Muir also recommends the services of sexual surrogate Mare Simone to his SCoTY students
A senior educator at the SCoTY is Kamala Devi McClure, who runs a “tantric theatre” company and who was centrally involved in raising funds to defend the Phoenix Goddess Temple and its “sister temple” the Sedona Temple following police raids. The police investigation resulted in numerous convictions relating to prostitution, pandering, controlling prostitution and other charges.

Bessel van der Kolk’s wife Betta de Boer van der Kolk not only works as a trainer for the SCoTY but co-presented a film screening of the film The Sessions (that advocates sexual surrogacy for disabled people) alongside sexual surrogate Mare Simone

Even the new age “seekers” who believe that people’s genitals are infested with invisible psychic parasites, psychic “hooks” or cords linking them to former sexual partners or repressed memories of child sexual abuse, even these people warn other “seekers” about the Source School of Tantra being dodgy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg re the Source School of Tantra.

You cannot dismiss concerns about this organisation by saying that “just because one person is accused of rape….”; there are multiple issues of concern regarding this organisation and it is extremely worrying that Betta de Boer van der Kolk works for the SCoTY as a trainer.

You can say “Bessel van der Kolk is not his wife”.

Of course he is not his wife.

However you have to acknowledge that there is something worrying and disturbing about a situation in which a very prominent and controversial “trauma expert” who is very involved with the ISSTD (notorious for involvement in the satanic panic in which innocent families are accused of being members of satanic cults) is married to a “tantric educator” and trainer for an organisation that openly promotes genital massage as a model of trauma therapy, that has connections to the sex industry and that is at the centre of multiple allegations of sexual abuse.

Then there are Van der Kolk’s professional relationships with the child abuser and serial sexual predator Marc Gafni
and his professional relationship with Mark Schwartz, notorious for the scandal regarding an outbreak of the satanic panic at Castlewood Treatment Center resulting from the abuse of patients using drugs, hypnosis and Internal Family Systems therapy.

This is not all that readers need to know about Bessel van der Kolk

I have not even started on his associations and links to the ISSTD and i have a lot to share about the ISSTD, both in terms of my own bitter personal experience and also thousands of hours of research

Then there is the fact that Van der Kolk was sacked from the Trauma Center in Boston for bullying of female colleagues.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200509011459/www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/03/07/allegations-employee-mistreatment-roil-renowned-trauma-center/sWW13agQDY9B9A1rt9eqnK/story.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200509011459/www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/03/07/allegations-employee-mistreatment-roil-renowned-trauma-center/sWW13agQDY9B9A1rt9eqnK/story.html

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200730095009/pro.psychcentral.com/whats-missing-from-the-metoo-conversation-a-trauma-therapist-responds/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200730095009/pro.psychcentral.com/whats-missing-from-the-metoo-conversation-a-trauma-therapist-responds/

Of course he denied this. Abusers usually deny their activities and culpably regarding their abuse of others.

This feature of bullying is as old as the hills and known to anyone who has been bullied or who has dealt with allegations bulling in a fair and skeptical manner.

In fact was it not Jennifer Freyd who coined the term DARVO to refer to this very well known phenomena?

Is that the same Jennifer Freyd who is centrally involved in the ISSTD?

The same Jennifer Freyd who in 2016 achieved the dubious honour of, alongside Valerie Sinason, being awarded the ISSTD Lifetime Achievement Award?

That same year the notoriously abusive quack Colin Ross was also awarded the Cornelia B Wlibur Award by the ISSTD

source: (scroll down)
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200802072138/news.isst-d.org/the-safety-of-our-field/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200802072138/news.isst-d.org/the-safety-of-our-field/

Is that the same Jennifer Freyd who is described in various news and documentary sources of accusing her parents of child sexual abuse following recovered memory therapy?

While I have not read her book I have some understanding of who she is in terms of being an advocate of recovered memory therapy and her involvement with the ISSTD.

I spent hours watching an archived documentary that featured both Jennifer Freyd and her parents. I will post links to the documentary in subsequent posts. Readers may, if they are so interested, hear from Jennifer Freyd in her own words as well as from her parents.

PBS Frontline Documentary by Ofra Bikel. Originally aired April, 1995.
Part 1: The Hunt for Memories

Divided Memories Part 1: The Hunt for Memories (1)

Divided Memories Part 1: The Hunt for Memories (2)

Divided Memories Part 1: The Hunt for Memories (3)

Divided Memories Part 2 - A House Divided (1).

Divided Memories Part 2 - A House Divided (2)

In the final video readers can see footage of Jennifer Freyd and her parents and make their own minds up

@10.30 Jennifer Freyd’s mother talks about founding the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
@ 15.00 Jennifer Freyd addresses an audience and claims that her memories are of real abuse
@ 17.15 Jennifer describes her first recovered memories of abuse

It is definitely worth watching all of these videos so that the footage of Jennifer Freyd can be viewed in context

Yes. Memories aren't fixed, "true" or "false" things

agreed

They are perspectives and the point of a lot of therapy is to examine alternative perspectives, and revisit childhood memories with an adult experience to make sense of them.

I disagree

Therapy can make sense of feelings, but the minute you start to try to revisit memories you run the risk of creating false memories, even with the best of intentions.

This is because each time you recall a memory you start to change it, a bit like a computer storage drive that gets corrupted over time.

Of course therapy will by its very nature involve talking about memories. This is different to actively hunting for memories and trying to retrieve them and recover them. This is a dangerous and discredited practice as the documentaries I linked to here demonstrate very effecitvely.

Also, everyone knows the experience of "having your memory jogged" and suddenly recalling something in response to being reminded. If you can accept that could happen when talking about the favourite dress you wore to aunt millicent 80th birthday when you were three (as a completely innocuous example), why label the fact someone might suddenly recall being abused in response to therapy as "false memory syndrome"?

Yes!

I have experienced this myself several times.

I was abused by a man as a child "forgot" about it and remembered it when I saw him again as an adult. In fact I had never forgotten ot repressed the memory of the experience, just filed it way in my mind's storage system.

This happens all the time.

If we did not do this we would not be able to function as human beings. Nobody remembers all their experiences all the time, if we did we couldn't think.

There is a vast difference between this experience and the experience of somone who attends therapy because they have medically unexplained symptoms, made a mess of their life or did bad things that they could not explain or excuse and hope to "recover" memories in order to explain their "symtoms".

I have witnessed myself, such people "recovering" memories that their parents sexually abused them every day or that they were the high priestess of a satanic cult since childhood.

Such "memories", horrific as they are, can be comforting to people who have done bad things that they regret of who struggle with life for all kinds of reasons. The "memories" can serve as a kind of redemption narrative.

I have never claimed that people cannot put memories of sexual abuse (or other traumatic experiences) to the back of their minds and sort "forget" them so as to carry on with their life.

I have experienced this myself.

I have also been accused by my father and sisters of having false memories of sexual abuse.

Not only that I have been accused of giving my brother "false memories".

My sisters conspired to use my (false) diagnosis of delusional disorder to help them to get me and my brother left out of my father's will so they could trouser the entire inheritance themselves.

Even though they know very well that he sexually abused us (he abused them too) they decided to pretend that the abuse was not sexual (it was fiddling) but had some other motive in order to get in my father's good books.

Due to attempting to whistlebow about cultists infiltrating the NHS I almost got sectioned, along with some help from my sisters, who would have been quite happy to get rid of me.

It is shocking what greedy people will do to their own blood relatives for money.

The ironic thing is the the local supportive services for survivors of sexual abuse have been completely infiltrated by body pyschotherapists.

The fact that many body therapists are also promoting the extreme ends of the TRA agenda should come as not surprise to anyone here

We have rape cisis centres that are using dangerous body psychotherapies, putting vulnerable women at risk of recruitment into cults and these same services do not even know what a "woman" is.

Fortunately I have proof my father molested me. I have proof of my sisters' disgusting behaviour and all I needed to do was to show this to the British False Memory Society and, thankfully I got some much needed support. Not from Rape Crisis, not from Vcitim Support but from the BFMS.

The world really has gone quite mad

Therapy can make sense of feelings, but the minute you start to try to revisit memories you run the risk of creating false memories, even with the best of intentions.
I don't understand how it's possible to have any kind of therapy without revisiting memories? It's necessary.
I know in my own therapy looking at my remembered childhood experience with adult eyes gave me a very different, and much easier to live with, perspective. At this point I don't have any interest in proving whether my recollections are "true".
I just want to be able to live with them