Introduction: The Purpose of this Article There are many kinds of networks that abuse children and adults. These include ritualistic abusers, clergy abusers, government mind control projects, sex traffickers, and producers of child abuse materials. Perpetrators of these crimes use many methods to maintain long-term control of their victims. These include standard tactics of organized crime, such...
The important autobiographical essay posted below was contributed to this website by a colleague who is both a ritual abuse survivor and a psychologist. My colleague’s hope in writing this in-depth and heart-wrenching essay is to help other survivors who, like herself, have been subjected to unthinkable cruelty and abuse in order to coerce them to harm other victims. Coerced perpetration is a...
Remembering Why I Could Not Tell Victims of child abuse condemn themselves unfairly for so much, for the abuse, for being powerless, for being “weak,” for not escaping, for not fighting off a larger and terrifying perpetrator, and for not having told someone sooner. They forget the impossible odds. They forget how they calculated the consequences if they resisted or fought. Perhaps they fought...
In 1996, Joseph E. LeDoux, Ph.D., neuroscientist at New York University, wrote a seminal book in the field of psychotraumatology: The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. (Simon and Schuster). (Link to purchase on Amazon: ) In this book, LeDoux provides extensive neurological and psychological evidence for two long-term memory systems: An explicit memory system...
The Netflix documentary, The Keepers, documents the 1969 unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnick, a high school English teacher. Jean Wehner, who is featured in The Keepers, was one of Sister Cathy’s students. Jean reports sexual abuse by a number of priests at this school, including the Director of Religious Studies and the School Counselor/Chaplain. Jean Wehner has now authored a book...
The most painful thing in the world is to realize that your parent doesn’t love you.~Anonymous Survivor Victims of child abuse experience complex feelings for the parents, other family members, nannies, clergy, coaches, etc., who abused or neglected them or who enabled or were passive bystanders to their abuse. These feelings often include subjective experiences of “love” and attachment. Other...
To be able to help survivors who have been victimized by coerced perpetration, those of us who support victims – therapists, clergy, loved ones, fellow survivors, etc., first need to develop a deep understanding of how torture-coerced harm works, that torture can make anyone do anything, and the kinds of “breaks” in free agency that happen in the course of torture. We need to understand all...
Note from Ellen Lacter: I am so happy that Anne Redelfs, MD, has contributed this article to my website. Dr. Redelfs is a ritual abuse survivor and retired psychiatrist. She has created a healing ministry where she helps people listen deeply to their hearts and minds as inner guides to health and wholeness. She calls herself a “gardener of the soul.” Her website, anneredelfs.com, offers...
Updated May 2, 2021, with Important Contributions by an Anonymous Survivor-Colleague. Originally published October 6, 2006. Important note: This article includes some very disturbing content. Survivors may want to have a therapist, clergy-person, or other support person review it first and then discuss when it might be the right time to read it and whether to read it together. Introduction Most...
BackgroundThis presentation will discuss the treatment of victims who have done harm to other victims driven by: a) abuser coercion andthreats, b) psychological manipulation by dissociation-savvy abusers, and, c) enactments of sexual and physical abuse in dissociated states. MethodThe author, a PhD qualified Clinical Psychologist, has worked with abuse survivors since 1982 and with victims of...