Inside Karen’s Crowded Mind

oschotherapy was a mis type, it was suppose to be psychotherapy.. no, best friends is not "the latest" as you say. It was my way of trying to explain to you that I had these personas when I was 6 or 7 years old. I used the words "best friend", but also used the word Persona...I guess I didn???t explain myself...yes all kids have imaginary friends, and it is all a natural part of child development. and of course it does not mean there was any abuse...anyone who would think that, does not understand the way a child development. however my personas became part of who I was, there were many of my personas, who would come out when I dissociated...when the abuse was occurring....which has once again been proven by others including the police, be yond a doubt. once again, I ask if at that age I created these parts do deal with the abuse...with out any TV, or ability to read the newspapers or books besides Dick and Jane and Dr Seuss..
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that all the reports of abuse by care givers and parents were not true. Of course they are not. This does not discredit the reports that are true. You are saying that recovered memory Therapy was a sham and thousands of people were hurt by this practice...yes they were...that however does not mean that all therapy is a sham or is harmful. You are saying that there are terrible, evil, un ethical therapists and psychiatrists out there who should never have been able to pratice..once again I agree, but that does not mean they all are. That???s like saying all teachers are having sex with there teachers...when there are teachers convicted of doing just that.

Sorry Guys! I'm a little bit sentimental tonight and find it hard to spell correctly.
I simply have to go back to my former town and place flowers at my girl's grave.
It's almost midnight, and I'm not the least bit excited to bid farewell to my 50's, so I need to go to bed and dream of the wonderful days with my babies by the seashore!
Claudette

There ya go everyone, put that in your pipe and smoke it. Jackie was my beautiful, gorgeous daughter, Dagmar, my angel, my grandbaby, and all I have left is a 31 yr marriage gone done the toilet, and a beautiful son and daughter-in-law, living/working on beautiful caribean island who just sent me a georgous 2 ft. floral boguet for my 60th birthday today. And Life goes on, and the birds will going on singing - even in my girls graveyard!
Claudette

"How 'therapy' becomes
a disguise for abuse"
The Vancouver Sun -
April 19, 2001


Discarded therapies, such as lobotomies and primal scream, clutter Psychology's attic. But there is virtually no record there of the harm such therapies have caused.
"Rebirthing" will be an exception. That's because ten-year old Candace is a damning witness whose testimony is sure to be remembered.

Convinced that she was afflicted with a faddish ailment, her adoptive mother, Jeanne Newmaker, hired two experts in the field to cure her.

Candace thought the therapy was "stupid:" then she had nightmares that she was going to be murdered and, just before suffocating during a session, she called it "torture."

A year ago, on April 18, in Denver Colorado, she lay in a fetal position as therapists, Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder, wrapped her tightly in a blanket, pulled the ends together over her head, and piled pillows around her. They and two assistants, all together weighing 305 kilograms, laid on the 32-kilogram girl to simulate labour contractions.

Instead of wriggling out as if reborn, Candace screamed that she couldn't breathe and pleaded with them not to let her die. They told her: "Go ahead and die!" And when, after she lay still and silent for 30 minutes, they finally unwrapped her, she was cold and blue.

The news of her death met with puzzlement. People asked why the therapists and even the child's mother, who watched the session, had done nothing to save her.

By the time all five had been charged with "child abuse resulting in death," the public's bewilderment had turned to outrage.

The trial of Watkins and Ponder is now drawing to a close. Last week, when the videotape of the lethal session was shown by the prosecution, sympathy swelled for Candace. Despite defence efforts to shift the mood, the smell of a conviction hangs in the air.

Inside and outside the courtroom, mental health professionals have scurried to distance themselves from rebirthing, dismissing the therapists as unlicensed and claiming that such unconventional therapy would never be tolerated by them.

What we should be asking is how many other forms of therapy serve to disguise abuse and torture?

One recent fad that comes to mind is "recovered memory therapy." For years embraced by APA, it caused thousands of patients to relive horrific, and in many cases false, memories of abuse.

Many people, experiencing these events as if they were true, became permanently disabled, made accusations that destroyed their families and some died tragically. One of them, Jackie Grieb, a young mother in Kitchener, Ontario, killed her two-year old daughter before hanging herself.

These therapists never faced criminal charges and no law makes what they did illegal.

I am left wondering if anyone would be challenging Rebirthing or if anyone would even have cared about Candace if she had survived the session.

If a teacher, a lawyer, a minister - anyone other than "a therapist" - had abused a child the way Candace was abused, they would have been pilloried even if the child were still alive.

For some reason, abuse is considered acceptable when committed under the guise of therapy. And even when it becomes murder, we foolishly consider the possibility that it was "just a mistake."

There is something about this word "therapy" that we need to examine. What is it about our society that requires that a patient die during therapy before a therapist is held accountable?
And what will become of us if we continue to believe that any and all therapy is good for us just as long as it doesn't kill us?

by Dr. Tana Dineen, columnist

Tell me what the hell is this Oschotherapy? Please, is this the latest?
As to these "best friends", many children have gone to imaginary friends to accompany them through childhood whether it be for lonliness or a vivid imaginary process. That did not prove that there was any incest or abuse present!
Believe me when I have read and studied both sides of the arguments and how soundly I feel and within agreement of some of the most renowed psychiatic professionals who are shocked on how so many have been abused by (LESS) than truly beneficial psychiatric treatment when it is called for!
Think about it, sweetie, how can you expain that my poor psychizophrenic brother is now doing so much better under the care of good phychiatry? These men/women who have studied way beyond medical degrees, and have given my beloved youngest brother of 11 children a chance in life with good meds and the love of his family, especially me, his oldest sister?
Claudette

how can someone who is 6 or 7 years old, who has no tv, who is reading Dick and Jane, and Dr Suess...know what D.I.D. is when I created these "best friends" personas to deal with the abuse that was happening so I could survive it and try to carry on the best I could. You seem to believe everyone that is D.I.D. has been under hynosis, or R.M. T....they have not . I agree that is any treatment has shown to fail, or hurt the patient should not be used..but trauma based oschotherapy is not hypnosis or R.M.T...thanks for the names of the reports I will read them..at least I am open minded enough to beable to see there is another side of the situation even if I dont agree with it......once again as a young child I dissociated when things got overwhelming and did not read newspapers or have TV..thank you

even though you may find it hard to belive, I do have a wonderful life..thanks...

Part 2:
Professional organizations have also stepped forward to set professional standards and protect the public. See: American Medical Association, Council on Scientific Affairs, "Scientific Status fo Refreshing Recollection by the Use of Hypnosis," Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 253 (April 5, 1985); American Medical Association, House of Delegates. Resolution 504 ??? Misuse of Hypnosis and Other Techniques of "Memory Enhancement/Creation" (June 1993); Amercian Medical Association, Report of the Council on Scientific Affairs, "Memories of Childhood Abuse." CSA Report, 5-A-94 (June 16, 1994); American Psychiatric Association. Statement on Memories of Sexual Abuse (news release, 1993). In 1994, the American Medical Association stated:
"Few cases in which adults make accusations of childhood sexual abuse based on recovered memories can be proved or disproved and it is not yet known how to distinguish true memories from imagined events in these cases. . . . The AMA considers recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse to be of uncertain authenticity, which should be subject to external verification. The use of recovered memories is fraught with problems of potential misapplication." American Medical Association, Report of the Council on Scientific Affairs, "Memories of Childhood Abuse." CSA Report, 5-A-94 (June 16, 1994).
In 1994, I co-authored the first national survey of retractors ??? those who had come to understand their recovered memories as false. Amazingly, 63 percent of those retractors were litigating against their former therapists. Nelson, E.L., and P. Simpson, "First Glimpse: An Initial Examination of Subjects Who Have Rejected Their Recovered Visualization as False Memories,"Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, Vol. 6, 3 (1994), 125. In court, RMT was readily demonstrated as malpractice, and by the mid-'90s, juries were awarding millions to retractors and their families.
RMT advocates protested they were victims of a backlash by a society in denial. Meanwhile, thousands of professionals, accused families and retractors were sounding the alarm about a movement that was out of control, harming clients and their families. By the late 1990s, the more popular aspects of RMT had collapsed, and its proponents had packed up and moved on.
But, I am saddened to say, many Christian practitioners of RMT still ply their trade under the auspices of faith-based practice.
Instances of actual child abuse are all too real in our society. But in final analysis, the RMT movement is not about child abuse ??? or satanic rituals, past lives or space aliens, for that matter. It's about human suggestibility.
The paradigm of RMT allowed its believers black-and-white answers and promised unlimited healing. Under closer examination, it failed to meet the tests of science and Scripture and was revealed as a therapeutic deception that has destroyed thousands of lives

End Results
Washington state, which until recently allowed individuals to receive RMT treatment under the Crime Victims Act, commissioned a study on the therapy's effectiveness. Washington State Department of labor and Industries. The preliminary results are given in the FMS Foundation Newsletter, (May 1, 1996). The findings are compelling.
Once patients began RMT:
Suicide attempts increased by more than 500 percent.
Average age of the earliest recalled abuse was 7 months.
Hospitalizations rose almost 300 percent.
100 percent were estranged from extended family.
Self-mutilation increased by more than 800 percent.
Not a single patient was well after three years of intensive therapy.
Unemployment increased by more than 700 percent.
Nearly half became separated or divorced.
Based on the study's findings, Washington discontinued any further payments for RMT treatments. These results are consistent with what I saw my own RMT patients experience while they were hospitalized in a Christian psychiatric setting. The implications are disturbing: RMT is an expensive therapy (four and a half times higher than traditional therapy) where patients get dramatically worse, with no end or recovery in sight.
Current Standing
Over the last decade, the practice of RMT has fallen into great disrepute, particularly within the secular counseling community. This has occurred primarily through education and litigation.

People remember, rather than repress, traumatic events.

In 1991, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, headquartered in Philadelphia, was formed by professionals, researchers and clinicians from psychiatry, psychology, social work, law and education. The foundation is making great strides in educating the general public, media and courts regarding the dangers of RMT.
Professional organizations have also stepped forward to set professional standards and protect the public.

I'll tell you how this DID stuff gets into the heads of the vulnerable/mentally ill especially when their chemistry is way off and they are suffering dibilitating depression for no other reason than some really bad choices they made in life. Before they start seeing a therapist, BOOKS, Magazines, Movies and especially the influence Radical feminists that truly believe that every 3rd child or woman has been sexually assaulted and probably by a family member. What trash!

Take a walk in a normal neighbourhood full of young families all raising their children in the same manner.
Do these damn feminists really believe that in every third house there is a young mom or dad molesting their own child? That, incest and pedophilia is the primary reason for these young folks working so hard to get a house and have their babies? That's what this stupid hysteria has come to.

The feminist movement was a superb drive to stop the rampant abuse of women and children - yes!
However, they have so gone overboard and made it a money making manufacting of victims - business.
Along the way, many unfortunate mentally ill people and their innocent/supportive families have suffered incredibly.

Where was the old belief of innocent until proven quilty?
When such an accusation is levied, most are quilty until proven innocent and I've seen this happen time and time again even in court rooms.
Example: One woman was so brainwashed by this RMT and DID nonsense that she recently claimed her elderly father in his 80's had snuck into her bedroom (ON THE SECOND FLOOR), often when she was 1 to 5 years of age to rape and sodomize her!
Court documents and photos proved that this house was a bungalow the family of 4 had always lived in and that this oldest of two daughers room was opposite of the parents room and the doors were alway opened when they were babies!
It was also learned that this disturbed daughter had (read) this story in a book before she started going to a quack therapist who had no degrees!
Funny thing the therapist never showed up at court!

This elderly couple are friends of mine and they survived the nazi occupation in their European country.
They told me that war, the bombings, jailings etc. by the nazis was nothing compared to what they have suffered at the hands of their delusional daughter and this therapuke!
Thank God their younger daughter is normal and loving.
Furthermore, how do you explain the horrors of war which included the rape and sodomizing of the very young which happened in my friends village and yet so many of these surviviors have gone on to live normal lives without RMT or DID therapy???????????????????????????????????????

Even this Sybil movie, which launched this money making spoof, has been proven to be a hoax!

Give it up sweetie and live!


Cheers! Claudette

I agree that these so called therapists you are talking about should have been in jail and loss of their liscience to practice for ever....not all therapists are like that. Thank god...not all of them use recovered memeiory therapy or holding therapy..that is all old school stuff.....that does not however mean DID does not exist..not everyone who has DID is dysfunctional as you seem to believe....many people with D.I.D. have very succefull careers, have loving family and friends and a healthy life style and out look on life. Most are highly functioning and a great contribution to their society..

D.I.D. is not a North American phenomena???it is also recorded in Europe, the Netherlands, China, Russia, Britain etc,,,these people have experienced trauma either man mad, or natural disasters???we all dissociate at one time or another..this is natural???when one is faced with a threat on a constant basis???..it is natural to dissociate???.not all of those with dissociative disorders have unique separates like those in the article???

I am very sorry for what happened to your daughter and grand daughter. Why would she have been put in a mental institution if she had survived. Many patients are committed to protect them from harming themselves or others???this does not however mean this is for life.

.....ps..I cant get my spell checker to work..thus the spelling mistakes...also..how can a person have personas who have different jobs to do and memories of the trauma long before seeing a therapist or psychiatrist as your point of view seems to be that those who have D.I.D. have only created these personas after they were in therapy....also do you know the difference between D.I.D. and schizophrenia?..many with paranoid schizophrenia , when of their meds, or not yet diagnosed will claim things have happened to them, and many will attack family members and say they have abused them etc,,,this is not the same as D.I.D.

Dissociative disorder exists alright! After the brainwashing of a patient/client.
Money making dishonorable psychiatrists like this Richard Baer along with numerous others in the medical field should be drummed out of business - forever- due to the harm they inflict.
We've had a couple of these so called "doctors" here in Ontario, Canada that have been rooted out and have been disciplined, their licences revoked.
These two dispicable horny "rats" had their reputations absolutely ruined on the news, and in newspapers for all, including their poor shamed families to see.
The thing they had in common was they treated their vulnerable and mentally ill patients for Multiple Personality Disorder and Recovered Memory Therapy.
Another thing they had in common was to distance their clients from their families so they could have total control
Another thing they had in common was to have sexual affairs with their clients and in one case for over 20 years!
In the one case, even though this one particular doctor never had bodily contact in his office, with this really weird siren of a wacky gal, he did have her masturbate on the floor of his office! In in office, at least, he loved being a voyeur. When he would not leave his wife for her, she turned the tables on him and brought charges against him. Served him right! Sometimes ya bite off more than you can chew!
I have yet to see anyone escaping these brainwashing techniqes unscathed, and indeed, once you get entrenched with this dreadful so called therapy? - it takes years - IF you ever escape and focus on anything else in life. Others are not so lucky. The Washington Study showed that suicidal tendencies rose by 400% and so did self mutilation. I'll post this study on this forum for all to see.
I would also like to post the story of yet another deadly form of so called "therapy" in which a 10 year old was smothered to death with this "Holding Therapy". Those quacks are now serving jail sentences.
In the word's of Schwarzeneggar "I'll be back!"
This is why I get so snarky with anyone trying to justify this crap, especially when the really sick, are misdiagnosed and get sicker, sometimes kill themselves and in the worst of cases take their babies with them. For sure, according to the forensic study in my daughter's case, she was so delusional, had she lived, she would have been found incompetent, and been placed in a mental institution for the rest of her life.
Maybe it's best that she's finally at peace after all the torture they put her through.
I consider them the very worst "Psychological Terrorists" my Bin Ladens and Talibans

Claudette

I'm a bit concerned about posters not fully reading some of the informative posts. The is NO question that some forms of dissociative disorder exist - the middle of this 'debate' is whether DID is naturally occurring or therapist -induced. Your mind and memories are NOT like a 'computer.' All people remember their past in different manners. Forgetting certain times in your life is NOT indicative of trauma or abuse. I urge you to become more informed about how memory works from broad sources - not just those of the ISSTD.

Hey Dataonabuse: outdated and discredited bullshit!
Sorry about your luck!
Sucks to be you!
Claudette

Dissociation as a mediator of psychopathology among sexually abused children and adolescents. Kisiel CL, Lyons JS Am J Psychiatry 2001 Jul;158(7):1034-9 Dissociation may be a critical mediator of psychiatric symptoms and risk-taking behavior among sexually abused children.???

The role of childhood interpersonal trauma in depersonalization disorder. Simeon D, Guralnik O, Schmeidler J, Sirof B, Knutelska M Am J Psychiatry 2001 Jul; 158(7):1027-33 ???Childhood interpersonal trauma as a whole was highly predictive of both a diagnosis of depersonalization disorder and of scores denoting dissociation, pathological dissociation, and depersonalization.

The Spectrum of Dissociative Disorders: An Overview of Diagnosis and Treatment by Joan A. Turkus, M.D. "Researchers and clinicians believe that dissociation is a common, naturally occurring defense against childhood trauma.
www.survivors-treehouse.net/Dissociative%20Spectrum.html

Well, I've been called many things on this sight and have had comments that were very hurtful too, however, I am one tough old broad, had to be or die, so now a days I take all critisms with a grain of salt!
I'm only tender with individuals that have logic and no alterior motives. Being (kind) to those who won't help themselves is a waste of time, they need a firm hand because they're acting like stupid kids.
Anyone for a piece of cheese with their whine?
Claudette

Hi! I have been following this message board and hesitant to write but now feel it is right to do so. I would ask that any doubters of the existence of DID wait until they examine their heart for compassion before blatantly dismissing the disorder or the veracity of it. I have it and I am one of the "fortunate" ones who remembered what happened when I was five, but not until I was 40 yrs of age and able to cope with the effects of the abuse. My abusers have verified what I remembered and in some ways that helps but in some ways it makes it even more difficult to have any relationship with that family member in present day. But I thank God for His healing Hand and my faith throughout all my life and I believe that DID is a gift God gives small children so they can have some semblance of normalcy and happiness in their life. It is how I have chosen to live with it and grow from it and I believe it has made me a better teacher and wife and Mom and Grandmother and friend. I am glad to see discussion. It is healthy. Those of us who have MPD/DID know it and can deal with it and that is what matters most.

Hi! I have been following this message board and hesitant to write but now feel it is right to do so. I would ask that any doubters of the existence of DID wait until they examine their heart for compassion before blatantly dismissing the disorder or the veracity of it. I have it and I am one of the "fortunate" ones who remembered what happened when I was five, but not until I was 40 yrs of age and able to cope with the effects of the abuse. My abusers have verified what I remembered and in some ways that helps but in some ways it makes it even more difficult to have any relationship with that family member in present day. But I thank God for His healing Hand and my faith throughout all my life and I believe that DID is a gift God gives small children so they can have some semblance of normalcy and happiness in their life. It is how I have chosen to live with it and grow from it and I believe it has made me a better teacher and wife and Mom and Grandmother and friend. I am glad to see discussion. It is healthy. Those of us who have MPD/DID know it and can deal with it and that is what matters most.