Inside Karen’s Crowded Mind

I've just ordered this book. I know the truth of extreme abuse and DID. I am a survivor AND a therapist. My memories came forward as I got to know all parts of my self, which led to more enriched, fulfilling life. Just as there are good and bad people, there are therapist that can help you, and there are some who may hurt you. Be selective. Speak to others. Trust your instincts. As do all differrent forms of therapy, hypnosis CAN play a part. For me it had to do with releasing body experience, not retrieving memories. If you have been abuse, you CAN heal. If you have not 'walked a mile in our shoes' then please, stay out of the fire.
Shamai Currim PhD www.hourlgass.net/tritherapy

well said i. Thank you

Wow! what a fascinating array of reactions. just to note, for the benefit of joanastrid, who seems to typologize us:

I am male, not female.
my memories tho displaced, came back of their own accord, not through any hypnotic process
my memories were confirmed, in substantve detail, by my brother prior to his suicide.
I have not become fixated on the trauma of my trauma, but using the "quack therapy" of EMDR, the intense repressed emotions have been released, and the focus of my life is on my relationship, my stepson and his new wife, my successful career, and my hobbies.
in other words, therapy has worked, my life is calmer, my suicidality is now an element of my past, and my current life is quite emotionally rich. Sorry, but therapy works....

i

Thanks Suzy: you are a strong woman and don't need anyone else in your head.
Remember: Being happy and fruitful is still the best revenge and if someone hurt you, (for sure) as I've been hurt by evil relatives, simply don't bother with them anymore. They have to live with their conscience (if they have any), and you can walk away counscience free.
Claudette

Dear Suzy: I would strongly suggest that you see "nothing" but a very good psychiatrist. If you find one that even hints at belief in RMT (Recovered Memory Therapy) or other such discredited therapies - run like hell!
I am not for a minute doubting that you could have been abused, however, and this is where a good medical doctor in the field of psychiatry can determine, could you be suffering from another of so many
psychiatric conditions?
I have a brother who is convinced that my saintly mother (God bless her soul) and one of my sisters had molested him. Also, on the way to visit one of my brothers in another city by motorcycle, he ended up at that city's police station and reported that he had just come from that brother's home where he had been raped by him and his wife! This poor young man never made it to my other brother and sister-in-law's home, however, the police did go there. As you can imagine my normal brother and his wife were dumbfounded and outraged until they found out just how sick the youngest brother of this large family was. Since then, this young man has had good psychiatric care and really good meds that he desperately needed and he now acts as normal as the rest of his family.
One could have one of so many different brain disorders, no different than physical disorders and medical treatment is the only way to nail down what is afflicting you.
If it can be proven with outside evidence that you were in fact molested in any way, then the perpertrators should be held accountable, however, before going that route, make absolutely sure before you hurt someone, that could be a loved one and that never did hurt you.
Words and accusations can cut deeper than a scaple and can hurt for a life time, especially if they are not true. If you've seen a so called therapist already and you're not better, move along to better. Get a family doctor to point the way.

Sincerely: Claudette (another Canadian)

I also live in canada , and would loved to have been on the other side of the room with my presentation...why is it so hard to belive in D.I.D....I do understand that there are bad apples in every field, and in the field of psychatrie...it makes things even worse. But how do you explain people like myselfs who have had to create personas so that we could survive the horrific abuse we recieved as a child from the very same individuals who are suppose to love and protect us..I have had pesonas with their jobs to do long before I ever saw a therpapist or psychatrist.....

Oh dear Joanastrid: I'm so glad I hung in there with this chat place to I could make your acquaintance.
How I would love to speak to you more in private, before we drive a lot of the misquided individuals in this chat forum crazy with logic!
There was a cross country study of our Canadian Health Care System headed by the Honorable Mr. Roy Romanow a few years ago. Mr. Romanow stated, following my presentation, that the mental health care sector of our entire health system is "The neglected child". Indeed this had opened the door to less than professional care givers, the unlicensed and unregulated was a far "cheaper" way to go regarding so many mentally ill, especially street people. In Canada, the second greatest cause of death after smoking is SUICIDE! Speaking in front of an 800 plus audience regarding my case and the rampant practice of RMT,MPD, DID and the ridiculous devil worship/sexual abuse treatments, often paid for with tax dollars, did not intimidate me in the least.
You become absolutely fearless after losing a daughter and grandaughter to malpractice and negligence.

I also brought my case in front of our Provincial (State) Parliament - twice - accompanied with a world renowned Psychiatrist who has dealt with the deadly aftermath of all these quack therapies.
I have made a difference in my Province (State is what you'd call it in the U.S.) and also across our country of Canada regarding all this nonsense because we hardly hear of victims of these practices any longer.
I commend the great Washington State of the U.S. for no longer funding this nonsence any more. Indeed these shisters have apparently dried up there as well!
If I have saved some families and even lives, then my beautiful girls have not died in vain.
Please e-mail Joan
cgrieb@cogeco. ca.
Sincerely: Claudette

Claudette, I'm sorry for your loss and ashamed of the mental health system that still tolerates this malpractice. Yes, it's important to keep shining the light on these rats until we are rid of this scourge. Newsweek embarrassed itself with this story, but I was pleased to see Scientific American publish the experiences of a retractor this month. It is so important to keep describing what really happens in this type of therapy. Even the smallest efforts can yield results....I recently gave the directors of several clinics some suggestions for identifying and weeding out recovered memory therapists on staff and in their application pools. To my surprise, I got a thank you note from one of them, saying that they had already weeded out one new applicant by using the screening questions I suggested.

People still believe in recovered memories because of our careless media and because the true details of the process are concealed from them. They are told that believing uncritically equals compassion. You have to persistently shine the light on the actual recovered memory process so that people understand what we are actually dealing with here. You are right that true compassion means getting rid of these garbage clinicians before they destroy one more life or one more family. Kudos to you for speaking out, especially after suffering such a terrible loss.
----- Original Message -----
From: atlantic5555
To: atlantic5555
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 3:43 PM


Claudette, I'm sorry for your loss and ashamed of the mental health system that allows these quacks to remain in practice. Yes, it's important to keep shining the light on these rats until we are rid of this scourge. Newsweek embarrassed itself with this story, but I was pleased to see Scientific American publish the experiences of a retractor this month. It is so important to keep describing what really happens in this type of therapy. Even the smallest efforts can yield results....I recently gave the directors of several clinics some suggestions for identifying and weeding out recovered memory therapists on staff and in their application pools. To my surprise, I got a thank you note from one of them, saying that they had already weeded out one new applicant by using the screening questions I suggested.

People still believe in recovered memories because of our careless media and because the true details of the process are concealed from them. They are told that believing uncritically equals compassion. You have to persistently shine the light on the actual recovered memory process before people understand what we are actually dealing with here. You are right that true compassion means getting rid of these garbage clinicians before they destroy one more life or one more family. Kudos to you for speaking out, especially after suffering such a terrible loss.

Dear Joanastrid! You go girl! I've read all of those books and sooner or later LOGIC will prevail. Let's go on fighting what's gone so horribly wrong in the mental health community before more families are destroyed or more innocent, individuals - made worse - commit suicide.
Never forget, there have been many who have been falsely accused by their desturbed/brainwashed children that have also committed suicide.
I've chosen to help the weak see the light!
Claudette

"Creating Hysteria" is by Joan Acocella (typo below)

The field of traumatology in this country is steeped in myth and malpractice. Garbage therapies unsupported by science, including EMDR, "thought field therapy," and other bogus energy therapies. Even short of the scandal of MPD/DID, we have growing evidence that techniques used to treat PTSD often make patients worse rather than better. A recent study on grief counseling following disasters revealed that those who were seen by "expert" trauma therapists and counseled to "process" the event after the tragedy had more PTSD symptoms one year later than those who did not receive such "therapy."

Most practitioners of recovered memory therapy are master's level clinicians, often from bogus professional schools where they receive no background whatsoever in research methodology, memory, or neurodevelopment. As a result, they are unable to discriminate between solid, methodologically sound research and the garbage that pretends to support the concepts of repression and dissociation of abuse.

Most well-trained psychologists and psychiatrists do not believe this garbage, but there are too many charlatans still out there. A large percentage of them seem to be "survivors" recovering their own memories, who self-select into the field . Others are simply charlatans who enjoy the intense dependence these clients develop on their therapists, and the financial rewards of making clients into permanent victims who need therapy for years. These charlatans often hide what they actually do from their colleagues, because they are aware of the reputation of recovered memory therapy in mainstream circles. Many also fake insurance codes for their clients for example, diagnosing depression and PTSD rather than DID, because they fear backlash from insurance companies who are no longer willing to pay for this garbage therapy.

If you are interested in learning more about recovered memory therapy and MPD/DID, the following books are excellent:

"Making Monsters" by Ofshe and Watters is a Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of recovered memory therapy and gives an excellent, riveting description of this malpractice in action.

"Creating Hysteria" is a devastating and witty (despite the tragic subject matter) critique of MPD/DID, written by Joan Acocalla.

Both are available inexpensively at Amazon.com

People need to see the process of recovering memories up close in order to truly understand how it happens. I encourage anyone with an interest to spend some time on a board of abuse survivors online if you really want to understand what this condition is. It is the product of suggestion and influence, and I suspect that even those who fervently believe their memories still retain an understanding on some level that they have created the "memories."

Go to any abuse board for "survivors" of abuse and you will see the process in action, over and over again. New folks arrive, having just had a therapist suggest the possibility of repressed or dissociated childhood trauma. New arrivals almost always doubt their memories. The others rush to reassure them that nobody would possibly make such terrible things up. The new arrival is lavished with sympathy and support, and others tell stories of their own abuse and experiences with denial. How telling it is, that DID/MPD is the ONLY disorder in which therapists call denial from the patient a NORMAL part of therapy, that must be dealt with again and again. It never occurs to them that the denials might reflect the client's underlying awareness that her memories are the products of suggestion and imagination. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if psychiatrists treating schizophrenics had to convince them again and again of their symptoms....

People need to understand what happens to women involved in recovered memory therapy. The typical MPD/DID "survivor" becomes involved in a continuous process of recovering memories, and the "memories" tend to become more bizarre and sadistic over time. Being a survivor of severe abuse literally becomes the focus of her life and her identity, and it colors every perception she has. At the same time, she often learns to be quite selective about the details she shares about what she is remembering, probably because she realizes on some level that the stories defy credulity. It is common for "survivors" to sever contact with friends and family who begin to question the bizarre memories or express concern about the direction of therapy.

The details of the recovered memories are shared with sympathetic therapists and other "survivors" who are recovering their own memories. The typical MPD/DID client eventually identifies multiple abusers, often scores of abusers, in her history, often spanning her entire childhood and involving multiple family members, family friends, relatives, teachers, and professionals. Abuse memories often include being raped by robed men in a coven, undergoing "programming" and mind control, being abused by Masonic groups or sadistic groups of child pornographers or pedophiles. The typical survivor will often tell lots of people that she was abused, but she will be selective about disclosing that she believes she was impregnated in a satanic coven and forced to eat her own fetus, or that she was buried alive with snakes, or that she was programmed with electric shocks to be a mind-controlled sex slave, or that she participated in a child prostitution ring and was forced to rape and murder other children. The stories read like pornographic B-movie scripts, and they are just as ludicrous, but they as accepted as gospel within these groups of survivors. I once sat in a group of survivors as they tried to comfort a member of the group. She was distraught, because she had just slept with her boyfriend for the first time and had bled like a virgin. She was terrified that her virginal blood meant that she might have only imagined the stories about being raped in a coven. The other group members reassured her that the blood probably meant that she had unusual scarring and damage inside her as a result of all the abuse she had suffered. Logic gets suspended in these groups, and there is great pressure to believe, even when the stories strain credulity. When the stories are contradicted by reality (e..g, Someone points out that she had yearly pediatric examinations as a child, and the pediatrician never saw any evidence whatsoever of the constant torture and abuse), the stories are elaborated or shifted to account for the inconsistencies. Many survivors conclude that the family doctor was involved in the abuse and helped to hide it.

This discussion highlights many of the difficulties those diagnosed with DID face.

They are told there is no such disorder, that it is nothing but an iatrogenic condition brought on by charlatan, money-grubbing pseudo-professionals in those who are highly suggestible. It is, however, a real psychiatric condition with diagnostic criteria that must be met for diagnosis to occur, and has been left standing in the DSM-IV-TR. Furthermore, one would certainly have to be HIGHLY SUGGESTIBLE to have been diagnosed by a skilled professional in an environment where hypnosis was never employed and no leading questions asked! Not all cases of DID are "found" through hypnosis or use hypnosis in its treatment.

They are told if they would just accept Christ and forgive, and perhaps have an exorcism they will be cured, since the problem is demonic possession, spiritual. However, there are Christians with this disorder, Christ professing, Jesus is my savior, Christians, and it is not biblical that Christians would be possessed. They cannot be possessed. Perhaps different denominations believe differently, but most that I'm aware of believe Christians can be oppressed, but not possessed.

They are told that anything they didn't remember before treatment is a "false memory." Yet, there are many people that have skilled professionals in charge of care that try to check out any memories, "new" or otherwise.

Furthermore, for some who never forgot all, disclosure may be met with disbelief. They may be told they couldn't have survived certain things, or even that such things don't happen.

Then, too, there are those people who don't understand the difference between schizophrenia and DID.

I applaud those who try to help those who suffer with such a misunderstood, highly stigmatized condition, who try to learn, and keep an open mind.

Do I believe there are frauds (malingerers)? Yes. Do I believe there are money-grubbing, charlatan pseudo-professionals who cause an iatrogenic condition in the highly suggestible? Yes. Do I believe there is only one right way to treat this? NO.

But, I DO believe it is a treatable condition, and by definition the person with it CAN BE CURED! Schizophrenia can be "controlled," but it cannot be cured

Dr. Corey Hammond - the poster boy of "specialty and advocate" for the ISSD, MPD, DID, SRA - (just to mention a few.) Someone is spending a great deal of time and effort spouting about how limited false memory therapies or shoddy therapists are - - but that doesn't quite make sense, given the huge volume of people who bought Hammond's entire package of hysteria - hook, line and sinker - returning to their patients to 'save them' with Hammond's remarkable "tools of the trade'. Once again THE GREENBAUM speech - representative of the lunacy and iatrogenic practices. Erlaia - you are so articulate and passionate... yet you seem to have evaded the question. A few isolated 'bad apples' - you need some common sense and a calculator. Truly you do.

Dr. Corey Hammond - the poster boy of "specialty and advocate" for the ISSD, MPD, DID, SRA - (just to mention a few.) Someone is spending a great deal of time and effort spouting about how limited false memory therapies or shoddy therapists are - - but that doesn't quite make sense, given the huge volume of people who bought Hammond's entire package of hysteria - hook, line and sinker - returning to their patients to 'save them' with Hammond's remarkable "tools of the trade'. Once again THE GREENBAUM speech - representative of the lunacy and iatrogenic practices. Erlaia - you are so articulate and passionate... yet you seem to have evaded the question. A few isolated 'bad apples' - you need some common sense and a calculator. Truly you do.

Oh for pete's sake, this is getting ridiculous. People are citing Lenore Terr now? Anyone who wants you to read Terr as an example of scholarly research on DID is illustrating for you the depth of her ignorance about science and research. Lenore Terr is a clinician and not a researcher, and she embarrasses herself with the silly and pathetic arguments she makes, which have no grounding in science.. For god's sake, she is the woman who tries to cite experiments with SEA SLUGS as support for repression of traumatic experiences in human beings. She also was responsible for the imprisonment of George Franklin on murder charges based on the bogus repressed memories of his daughter, induced in therapy by a recovered memory quack. George Franklin was later released from prison after it was discovered that he had an iron-clad alibi for the day of the murder, and after it became clear that his daughter had lied about not being hypnotized by the charlatan who helped her recover her bogus "memories."

The "research" supporting the concept of repression and dissociation of traumatic memories is a small, steaming pile of sewage. There have been several good reviews detailing the serious methodological problems of the studies, which render their conclusions useless. These range from drawing unwarranted conclusions from evidence that means nothing (such as inferring traumatic amnesia in a sea slug) to abominations in study design (e.g., assuming the existence of traumatic amnesia in a child who was too young at the time of the abuse to remember the incident anyway). Studies that claim to provide corroboration of recovered memories have been found to use highly questionable means of corroboration, such as using the testimony of a sister who is ALSO recovering repressed memories as evidence that the memories are true. In other ridiculous studies, the existence of some fragment of the memory apart from the abuse has been accepted as proof that the memory is real (e.g., The tree where the coven ate my baby is still there--therefore my memory is true!").

It is long past time the mental health community purged itself of these charlatans and fools. I cannot believe the irresponsibility of Newsweek, dredging up these ridiculous arguments in 2007.