Brian Moss on DID and Extreme Abuse

January 25, 2013

The following is taken from an article originally published in the Survivorship Journal, Vol. 18, Issue 12, P.4, entitled “Interview with Brian Moss”.

Brian, a therapist who has worked with extreme abuse survivors who have DID for more than 25 years, lays out the finer points of what’s important for both therapists and survivors in navigating a path to healing.

This is, in my opinion, one of the most insightful and important articles on DID and extreme abuse, an invaluable initiation for anyone willing to take a look at the dark side.

[Updated 2/16/2013 to add extended information on the etiology of DID]

PERSONHOOD

TOLERANCE FOR AMBIGUITY
Integrating a trauma narrative, especially if it is the result of sophisticated mind control procedures, is a complex and lengthy process where subjective states (hypnosis, drugs) and manipulated states (electric shock, psychic-driving, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation) are mixed with objective states (veridical memory of ritual/sexual abuse or any other experiences meant to terrorize.)

CAPACITY TO DISSOCIATE
There is a difference between “forgetting” and “forgetting that you forget”; one insulates us temporarily as we metabolize our experience while the other prevents us from fundamentally accessing our experience. The capacity to dissociate in a healthy sense allows us to live our lives in spite of what we know—to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive. There are so many ways to get derailed: cynicism and anger, despair and hopelessness, or the false relief of numbness.

TOLERANCE FOR ISOLATION
All of us, survivors and therapists alike, got to where we are in stages. Painful truths that do not correspond to what we have been told about the world require new understandings that only gradually come into focus. In sharing what we have learned and/or remembered, there is deep frustration that in telling our most urgent truths we are not believed.

AT LEAST ONE TRUE “INTIMATE”
Whether spouse, partner, mentor, friend, find someone that can handle the material and understand the larger and hidden truths of what you are learning. The reality behind DID is a “through the looking glass” experience and is a journey best not taken alone. Therapy is difficult when the client is lacking outside support or dealing with an unsympathetic spouse/partner. Clients that are still embedded in the deviant social networks responsible for their original abuse have an enormous challenge facing them.

A SUBSTANTIAL DEGREE OF DIFFERENTIATION
A significant moment in my early childhood occurred while I was watching the television adaptation of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds. There is a scene in which the creatures have landed and are zapping everyone. A priest comes forth, holds up a bible and is incinerated on the spot. I remember thinking, “Are they allowed to do that?” Differentiation from family, religion, dominant paradigms of any kind including television, mainstream media, and society in general—gives us the ability to think independently and to tolerate the withdrawal of approval or ridicule that is often the reaction to doing so.

INTEREST IN CONTROVERSIAL/FORBIDDEN AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE
Many DIDs have teams of parts that are used to research psychic phenomena. These psychic skills are exploited in a variety of contexts including military and intelligence work. It was eye-opening for me to see the seriousness with which this research is pursued covertly while being overtly ridiculed in conventional academic settings.

ABILITY TO DISCERN DISINFORMATION
Quality disinformation must contain a high degree of truth or it will be rejected outright. The goal of disinformation is to present pieces of the truth in a way that leads to the wrong conclusions. The other purpose is obfuscation in general. There is an overwhelming amount of disinformation on the internet and in our media. Who would have guessed that when Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” finally arrived we would embrace it as “Wikipedia”.

COURAGE TO FOLLOW THE CLIENT’S LEAD
Abandoning their clients’ experience in order to preserve their (the therapist’s) comfortable view of the world is the same dynamic survivors experience at a societal level. Survivors want—and need—to be believed. No-one is afraid of the dark itself, they are afraid of what might be in the dark. Survivors know what
is in the dark. They want to tell their therapists; they want to leave the scenes behind; they want to end the dissociation. They want—and need—to know it is over. It is essential that therapists do not let them down. This takes courage as well as expertise.

APPRECIATION OF LIFE’S ABSURD MOMENTS IN ORDER TO DEFEND AGAINST CYNICISM AND THE NEED TO UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING
One of my teachers had a story that I heard him tell often. It was a true story he read in the newspaper about a man who had given up and climbed a bridge preparing to jump. A crowd formed in anticipation of the spectacle and the police were called who, in their best manner tried to negotiate with and talk the man down. Getting nowhere, running out of ideas and becoming increasingly frustrated, one of the officers pulled his gun and threatened to shoot the man unless he came down. The man climbed down. It is important to understand that not everything can be understood.

ABILITY TO PERSEVERE IN THE FACE OF SOCIETAL DENIAL
Judith Herman named it in Trauma and Recovery: “The study of psychological trauma has repeatedly led into realms of the unthinkable and foundered on fundamental questions of belief.” There will be polarization occurring in society as more and more information comes out and more survivors come forward. There will be attempts to discredit survivors and to misinform and censor content for those seeking information but to no avail. There are too many survivors and they will continue to speak their truth in an ever increasing chorus.

A BELIEF SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS FOR EXISTENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL
Most DID systems contain spiritual guides or transcendents capable of guiding the work of healing. DID survivors benefit from therapists who are comfortable with these realities. The transcendents, by their very nature, are beyond the reach of programming/conditioning and remain untouched by mind control techniques much as the Sun does not cease to exist simply because a cloud moves in front or the earth revolves.

BELIEF THAT LIFE HAS MEANING
In enduring or bearing witness to the desecration of every value the belief that life has meaning frames the ability to go forward rather than fall into despair. What I have noticed both for myself and the therapists I work with is that when we are willing to know, and not turn away from darkness, a corresponding light enters our life to help balance and navigate it.

KNOWLEDGE

UNDERSTANDING OF SYSTEMS THINKING
Systems theory addresses the whole, including the relationships of the parts of the whole to each other. It does not simply focus on the individual parts in isolation. The concept of wholeness, the integrative process, is the essence of all psychological growth—not just Dissociative Identity Disorder alone. The word “therapy” derives from the Greek word therapeia meaning “to heal”; the word “heal” from the Old English word hælan meaning “whole”. “Integrate” derives from Latin, integrare, to make whole, from integer, complete.

UNDERSTANDING OF UNCONSCIOUS PROCESS
In terms of unconscious process there is an important distinction to make between repression and dissociation. Traditionally, therapists received training in which experience not consciously available was seen to be a kind of primitive unconscious regulated largely by primary process thinking and regression. (Repressive model) Contrast this with concealed experience and memory systems (DID) that are coconscious, where parallel states are existing with a variety of levels of development, some more healthy or competent than the presenting personality! Knowing the subtleties of unconscious perception, and how they are named, informs the therapist and empowers the client.

UNDERSTANDING OF SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE
Consciously unacceptable material is camouflaged in symbolism. As it is metabolized, dissociated information will become more representational and less symbolic. When information is transmitted symbolically the degree of symbolism used will depend on the tolerance of the system for the material being depicted. When the information needs to be defended against, the defending alter will either not be present or will filter the 4 information symbolically. As integration takes place there is less need for symbolism and both dreams and artwork become more representational.

UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRUE ETIOLOGY OF DID
Complex DID systems are not simply a response to trauma and stress—even horrific trauma such as ritual abuse, though it does have a role to play. Nor is it caused iatrogenically by well-meaning therapists attempting to treat trauma survivors as Wikipedia would have us believe. DID is mind control, intentionally practiced and requiring a great deal of effort and conditioning over a period of many years. To develop an elaborate DID system is to endure an ongoing medical procedure throughout childhood, one that requires clinical settings with access to extensive equipment and pharmaceuticals.

At the turn of the century there were indeed cases of “split personality.” These cases were observed by Pierre Janet in Paris; Breuer and Freud in Vienna; F.W.H. Myers in London; and Morton Prince in Boston. These initial cases were found to be the result of trauma in childhood but rarely produced more than a few alter states and often just one. Childhood incest does not lead to elaborate DID systems.

Modern DID bears no resemblance to these early, primitive cases but is instead the outcome of a century of covert research on these dissociative states and their successful creation and exploitation.

This statement has caused the most discussion yet is critical in understanding the true causes of present-day Dissociative Identity Disorder. So what is Mind Control Programming? I use the concepts programming and mind control interchangeably. All DID systems are the result of mind control and programming techniques. I want to clarify this statement; it is very important and has serious implications. The mind does indeed dissociate naturally both in normative contexts (selective attention) and in response to trauma—but dissociative states do not self-organize into elaborate systems with the levels of complexity that we are seeing today—that is something that requires interference from without. Modern cases of DID demonstrate hierarchy and are structured to meet a variety of demands. This is never random, or entirely a response to trauma, though trauma is used to create and maintain the compartmentalization in DID. These parallel conscious states, each exhibiting their own conditioning, are what we call alters.

That DID is manufactured in its present form needs to be acknowledged in order to understand features of DID that would not otherwise make sense and also to account for the politics of this diagnosis with its troublesome implications regarding our world. Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), is the result of a century of covert research on these naturally occurring capacities of the mind. This is where our field truly “leads into realms of the unthinkable and founders on fundamental questions of disbelief.”

Throughout history, exploitation and control of some members of society by others is a continual theme. This control can be subtle, as with the manipulation of peoples’ belief systems through propaganda and religious dogma, or more direct and heavy-handed as with threats of persecution or violence. One of the simplest means of control is to maintain the powerlessness that comes with basic poverty/indebtedness or the lack of access to quality education. A key dynamic with the more overt forms of control is that when people are oppressed—they resist. Advanced forms of control address this fundamental dynamic by developing forms of exploitation that remain largely outside of conscious awareness both for selected individuals (DID) and the larger society (control of the public is achieved through propaganda and the manufacture of consent, an increasingly serious threat with the concentration of media).

Mind control evolved from two main foundations:
1. The Soviet discovery of conditioned reflexes (Pavlov 1903) and continued research within the field of behavioral psychology.
2. Advances in understanding the creation of parallel dissociative states with independent memory systems and control mechanisms utilizing research in hypnosis and trauma-based splitting of conscious processes.

UNDERSTANDING THAT EFFORTS TO CREATE DID IN CHILDREN WERE NOT SIMPLY EXCESSES OF THE COLD WAR IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY
Disturbing as it is, we must acknowledge the ongoing nature of these activities. Clients are sensitive to any backing away by the therapist and are reluctant to fully disclose when they fear they won’t be believed. Clearly, people who would torture children, for any perceived agenda, are sociopathic. What they are after is a type of power that is outside legal or ethical constraints and better described as organized crime, no matter the context in which it is framed.

UNDERSTANDING ISSUES RELATING TO ALTERS
Over-identifying with the innocent child alters and avoiding the mean and destructive ones maintains division and conflict within the system. Developing a fascination with certain alters, or with the process of switching itself, is another way to become triangulated into the system; there is no reason to encourage switching— most alter systems can be accessed while keeping a sense of co-consciousness with the normative section. DIDs can parallel process to an extraordinary degree and this ability can be utilized to integrate without losing stability.

AWARENESS OF BLENDING VS. SWITCHING
Many clients and therapists expect a more dramatic presentation (switching with lost time) and miss important system shifts because the client remains co-conscious. When an alter, or programming is behind, alongside or blended with the front system, the changing quality of consciousness may present more subtly. Most alter movement taking place in a therapist’s office (unless the client is severely destabilized) involves blending with no loss of time.

DISCERNMENT REGARDING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STABILITY AND INTEGRATION
The front/normative section is designed to be free from interference and highly functioning as long as the covert aspects of the system remain unknown and there is compliance with the demands of the programmers/handlers. Programming is designed to maintain stability through compartmentalization. Paradoxically, it is the more effective therapists, who begin to make inroads into the deeper structures, who find themselves inadvertently destabilizing their clients. This “success” can trigger programming. (Dissociated trauma scenes and conditioned self-destructive behavior.) Overt stability is not the same as integration.

UNDERSTANDING OF DEEPER STRUCTURES OF DID
While allowing for some variation, most programming follows standard protocols. The front/normative section is designed to be free from interference and highly functioning as long as the covert aspects of the system remain unknown and there is compliance with the demands of the programmers/handlers. Many therapists deal with leaking or triggered trauma scenes related to sexual abuse and ritual abuse without ever getting to the deeper structures and teams involved in covert activities or the programming responsible for it. The trauma scenes act like a mine field keeping these deeper structures and parts hidden and compartmentalized.

RECOGNITION OF THE DOUBLE-BIND IN MIND CONTROL
As with all double-binds the only way out is to acknowledge the bind and transcend it. There is no way to resolve the situation if it is accepted as presented. The basic feature of false choice programs is: “I stay safe and comply with programming/training or I resist and trigger trauma scenes.” It is not either/or; alters should be made aware that both sides of the dilemma are manipulated and all parts of self can come to the present and be free of the demands.

UNDERSTANDING THE NEED TO WORK “FROM THE OUTSIDE IN”
Trauma programming is layered. A good visual image to illustrate this concept is the children’s game of Mikado or “pick-up-sticks”—the outermost sticks must be removed before attempting to move underlying ones. When working to dismantle programming any interference encountered must be dealt with before proceeding. Not to do so is like pulling a stick from the middle of the pile and activating multiple layers of conditioned responses at once—something guaranteed to stop any further progress and destabilize the client.

UNDERSTANDING THAT EMOTIONAL CATHARSIS IS NOT NECESSARY FOR INITIAL MEMORY WORK
There are two basic forms of memory: explicit memory and implicit memory. Explicit memory is what most people are referring to when they talk about memory; it records consciously available information about past experiences. Implicit memory is information that is not consciously available and was encoded outside of conscious awareness. Abreaction and triggering can be understood in terms of implicit memory. The sense of self and self-control that accompanies explicit memory is lost when a trauma memory is an implicit recollection. The difference between these two forms of memory must be acknowledged to understand the basis of trauma programming.

AWARENESS OF POSSIBLE SURVIVOR CONTACT AND SABOTAGE BY HANDLERS
All survivors are monitored internally via programming that is designed to force compliance or initiate reporting to programmers/handlers in the event of non-compliance. Of greater concern and missed by many therapists is that survivors are also often contacted and sabotaged by the people in their present life—even survivors well along in their recovery; this includes people (often family in generational cults) known to the survivor as well as unknown handlers able to access alters outside the awareness of the normative personalities.

A CLOSING STATEMENT FROM BRIAN:
The chance to share this information with you is my pebble in the pond—maybe reaching you on the far shore. Don’t doubt that there are many survivors whose voices have been heard, and many therapists who know the truth about what is going on in the world; all of us working quietly (or out-loud) to make healing possible for each other and to create the world we know is possible.

Brian Moss, MA, MFT is a Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor of the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy. He lives in the Seattle area and consults widely, specializing in working in partnership with DID clients and their therapists.

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“Multiple Hearts” Artshow by Dr. Beth Allen

January 25, 2013

Solo show by artist and veterinarian, Dr. Beth Allen, about her personal journey with DID, runs through February in Batavia, NY.

Artist’s Solo Show is a Revealing Personal Journey

By Joanne Beck

Dr. Beth Allen has been fairly open about her life. Her first solo art exhibit furthers that by taking visitors on an intimate journey of her early years up to today.

“I’m happy, life is fulfilling and rewarding,” Allen said while setting up the exhibit Monday. “It’s a whole story, there’s poetry, sculpture, drawings, paintings, journals. There’s a start point and a path to follow.”

Allen has publicly talked about her past sexual abuse and the related psychological damage, disorders and trauma that she endured as a result. Her exhibit “Multiple Hearts” opened this week in the Main Gallery at the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council, 201 East Main St., Batavia.

The exhibition captures many moments of the hurt, anger and betrayal that Allen felt as she gradually went from patient to advocate for mental health issues.

Many of the self-portraits are not merely of Allen but some of the 23 different personalities she experienced while growing up. One shows a face with large green eyes and no mouth to illustrate how Allen’s mind and body were being controlled when she was told that she “deserved” what was happening to her.

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Read the rest at the link: http://thedailynewsonline.com/lifestyles/article_cb5e665c-5c55-11e2-b8d2-001a4bcf887a.html

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About the exhibition

She will be selling stacks of oversized, colorful postcards, framed photography and gratitude journals during the exhibit. She will donate 25 percent of her sale proceeds to MHA during the month of January and 25 percent to the Advocacy Center in February.

Dr. Beth Allen’s “Multiple Hearts” exhibit will run through Feb. 27 at GO-ART!, 201 East Main St., Batavia. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment.

An artists reception is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. Jan. 18.

Sue Gagne, assistant executive director of Mental Health Association in Genesee County, said that her agency is happy to support Allen’s exhibit by having staff at the reception.

“Our agency is supporting this venture; we really believe in what she does,” Gagne said. “She definitely brings a great perspective to our agency. We have benefitted from her experience as a volunteer and a leader. Beth has been a great partner in helping us bring awareness to the community by breaking down the stigma of mental illness.”

For more information about the exhibit, call (585) 343-9313.

Allen, 50, is a veterinarian who lives with her husband Mark in Elba. She has been a huge animal rights advocate and is also involved in Peaceful Genesee, Mental Health Association in Genesee County, Criminal Justice Day, Crossroads of Harmony and Justice For Children Advocacy Center.

She was a 2012 Fabulous Females Award recipient. Carol Grasso nominated Allen for her many attributes, but said she loves her most “because she is a survivor.”

Artist Dr. Beth Allen

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Ten Benefits of Having DID

January 13, 2013

From Kathy Broady, LCSW

Read the whole article: http://EzineArticles.com/2033487

Ten Benefits of Having Multiple Personalities and Dissociative Identity Disorder – DID, MPD

By Kathy Broady, LCSW

…

I see the following ten benefits in multiplicity:

• Being able to do more than one thing at the same time. Talk about having the ability to multi-task! I’ve known situations were one personality can be talking comfortably on the phone while another personality is busy doing the day’s work. How cool is that?!!!
• Always having someone to talk to. When you are friends with each other on the inside, you don’t ever have to be alone. Your best friends can be right there with you, any time of the day or night.
• Being able to maintain the joy of a child’s perspective. Children can be so innocently full of wonderment, and joy, and happiness. They know how to be carefree and happy and amazed at the simplest of life’s pleasures. Child parts, once safe from trauma, can keep that sense of joy near to them their whole lives long.
• Being able to take a break even when the outside body has to keep going. When you’re split, you can tuck back inside, and rest, or sleep, or think, and let someone else be out front managing whatever is going on in life. Having that ability to pull away and separate from the outside life can come in handy sometimes!
• Having the ability to remember so much more of life’s experiences. In my opinion, once a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder finds safety, and learns to connect with all their internal people, and lowers their dissociative walls, it seems to me that people with DID actually remember more of their life than “regular” singletons do. This includes remembering more of the good times as well as the bad.
• Having the ability to understand life and events from a variety of different perspectives. Those with DID don’t have to imagine what it would be like from a different perspective – they often have someone inside that already genuinely sees things that way!
• Blocking out pain. While blocking pain is not always a positive or helpful skill, there are times and places where having the ability to block out pain, both physically and mentally, can be a great benefit.
• Quite possibly needing less sleep? I can’t prove this, but it seems to me that a significant number of folks with DID can function quite effectively on less sleep than what the average singleton person needs. Maybe this is because the various parts can rest and sleep internally? By taking turns resting inside, does that make the overall physical need to sleep less? I have no real answers for this, but it’s not uncommon for this to appear to be the case.
• Looking younger. Again, I cannot prove this, but in my years of working with multiples, folks with DID look considerably younger even as they physically age. One would think that the years of trauma, abuse, and stress would have a negative effect on the physical appearance, and while there are obvious scars, there also seems to be a common ability to not age physically as quickly as singletons do. You all nearly always look younger than you actually are. How cool is that?!
• The ability to fit in with a variety of different people. While some system splits were formed as trauma-based ways of matching with various groups of people (and some not so good as others), the positive flip-side of that ability is that people with multiple personalities can literally find themselves fitting in easily with a wide variety of people in a variety of ages.

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• 

Among My Heroes, Part 1

October 18, 2012

This is Part 1 because I have many heroes today, despite the fact that only a few years ago I would have scoffed at the term. It would have been highly unfair for me to do so.  A number of individuals throughout the Diva’s life have behaved towards her and others in very heroic, and compassionate and giving ways, personally, and professionally. What can I say except that I prevailed through a period of very high cynicism.

Part 1 is dedicated to a couple of fellows. They are both extremely courageous advocates, brilliant researchers, and writers.  These men have put their lives on the line for survivors of extreme abuse, of whom many, if not most, have DID.

Nick Bryant

First I want to mention, especially since I may not yet have done so in these pages, is one Nick Bryant. Mr. Bryant is the author of  The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal, the seminal volume on the affair, published in 2009. The Franklin case began with the investigation of a failed savings and loan in the 1980’s. Inquiries initiated by the Nebraska State Senate eventually led to the exposure of a criminal network involved in child pornography, prostitution, and human experimentation with ties to some of the highest ranking members of the Republican Party and the White House. Nick Bryant, an extremely ethical and dedicated journalist, invested 7 years of his life gathering evidence and testimony from a number of sources and witnesses. His book is an unassailable work of journalism that puts together the proofs of the very worst about Franklin, which is probably why you haven’t heard about it, if you haven’t.

If you are a survivor of child trafficking, or organized or extreme abuse, read this book. It is validation from page 1, not only for the survivors of the Franklin associated rings, but for any of us who have gone through what most of the general public views as incredible. You can also see Nick on video and listen to many of his recent interviews linked on his website. Mr. Bryant is currently working on a documentary based on his book. Just as he describes it while he was initially researching and trying to get his book published, he is hitting some roadblocks placed in front of him by some powerful folks who have opposing vested interests, and others who are just fearful. You can contribute to the documentary project here.

Michael Salter

I should say rather, Dr . Michael Salter, as he has completed his PhD, and if I am not mistaken, did so with a thesis on organized child abuse. For several years, I had the pleasure of interacting with Michael while he was matriculating, as well as facing a number of serious challenges in his personal life that led him to his current focus on, and advocacy for survivors of organized abuse. We were acquainted in a very special online forum that is generally hospitable to survivors and people with DID. I have saved some of his writings on that forum, as they are marked not only by his brilliant insights into the plight of survivors, but his passion for justice.

Mr. Salter has published his very first book, today, entitled, Organised Sexual Abuse. Congratulations Michael! He tells me a more affordable paper version may be forthcoming. I can’t wait to read it, and I will post a review here when I do. Michael has also published a number of articles, including a recent one on the same topic that is a short, general review of what current peer review material tells us about organized abuse, and how survivors are under served. Its title is Organized Abuse: A Neglected Category of Sexual Abuse with Significant Lifetime Mental Healthcare Sequelae, Michael Salter & Juliet Richters. Here is the abstract.

Background: Organised abuse (where multiple adults conspire to sexually abuse multiple children) has been one of the most controversial issues in debates over mental health practice with survivors of child sexual abuse. Aims: The aim of this paper is to summarise and analyse the available prevalence data pertinent to organised abuse and to identify the challenges that organised abuse poses for mental health policy and practice. Methods: Prevalence studies of sexual abuse based on community and clinical samples were reviewed for findings pertinent to organised abuse. Key indicators of organised abuse were selected and summarised on the basis of their association with the known characteristics of organised abuse. The literature regarding the health impacts of these indicators was also reviewed. Results: A minority of people reporting contact sexual abuse in the community report experiences indicative of organised abuse. These indicators are elevated in particular settings and they are associated with poor mental and physical health. Conclusions: Organised abuse is rare but it is associated with poor mental and physical health outcomes. There is currently no source of integrated care for adults with histories of organised abuse. Many survivors end up in prison or homeless, chronically disabled by illness, or dead.

I hope I’ve provided some positive feelings by highlighting the work of these two fine men. If you can, send them some encouragement, in whatever form you deem appropriate.

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We Are All Data

June 1, 2012

The following are excerpts from Wanda Karriker’s recent webinar for Survivorship: The Aftereffects of Extreme Child Abuse and the Resiliency of the Human Spirit. It is well worth the quick read, moving and powerful.

She reviews how the Extreme Abuse Survey (EAS) came into being, the state of the evidence and current levels of denial around extreme abuse, most especially RA and MC. Keep a copy on your hard drive.

For three decades, the scientific community has failed to provide fundamental research investigating the phenomenon called ritual abuse. Ever since the early 1980′ʹs when stories about ritualistic abuse of children in daycare centers began to appear in the media, and therapists and law enforcement personnel began writing and speaking about their work with adults who remembered ritual abuse as children, skeptics have been calling for proof that it exists. They have repeatedly discounted existing empirical data, criminal convictions, and credible accounts by survivors confirming that RA/MC is a reality.
…

Here are a couple things I consider to be irrefutable evidence for the existence of ritual abuse.
First, are some photographs of ritual crime scenes in Perlmutter’s book..
…
And second, the case of a young African boy, whom police named Adam, whose dismembered, decapitated ritually-­‐‑abused body was recovered from the Thames River in London in 2001.
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What about the evidence for GMC? [Government Mind Control]…

For example, Lynn Schirmer and Carol Rutz, who have never met each other in person, have published similar sketches depicting their memories of having been tortured in mind control experiments as children.
…
Now for the “smoking gun.” [Karen Coleman Wiltshire's transport order]
…

But all the evidence out there (and all the evidence held within survivors’ minds) has not been enough to satisfy the skeptics who scream:

“Where’s the data?”

Every time I heard that question on an Internet group of professionals discussing dissociation, I got angry, and one morning I woke up thinking loud and clear: “I am data.”

And I realized . . . so are other victims from around the world who experienced RA/MC and similar forms of abuse. Some survived; some didn’t. We are all data.

Here is the prevalence of DID among respondents of the EAS:

DID on All Surveys

EAS:
84% of survivors who have ever been diagnosed with DID
chose RA and MC as their primary category of abuse.

P2EAS:
85% of helpers said that the majority of adult RA/MC
survivors with whom they have worked have been
diagnosed with DID.

C2EAS:
84% of caregivers have taken care of a child who
dissociates when talking or quesFoned about RA/MC.

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Author Donna Williams on Autism, DID

January 13, 2012

In this moving interview with Peter Gzowski on CBS radio (Toronto), Donna Williams shares her experience as a person with autism, and DID.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/rewind_20090731_18088.mp3

From the About page on her blog:

Donna Williams is an Australian born adult with autism who was assessed as psychotic at the age of 2 in 1965, labelled disturbed in the 1970s and diagnosed as autistic in her 20s in 1991.

She acquired functional speech in late childhood and went on to become a qualified teacher with an honors degree in Sociology and a degree in Linguistics. She is the author of two international bestselling autobiographies and has 10 published books including 4 text books widely used in autism education and two books of poetry and prose.

As a screenwriter, she wrote the screenplay to “Nobody Nowhere“, the first book in her 4 book autobiographical series. That screenplay is currently under option to become a Hollywood film. She is an professional artist, singer-songwriter and published poet as well as a world renowned public speaker on autism now living with her husband in Australia. In her presentations she draws not only on her own experiences but on international experience as a professional autism consultant since 1996.

Donna’s is a speaker in demand around the world due to her unique perspective and ability to share her feelings and experiences on a very personal level. More information about her and her life’s work can be found on her website at http://www.donnawilliams.net .

From her writings about DID, which I recommend:

I have three friends formally diagnosed with DID and have met with several others. Almost all have been relatively functional people. I am formally diagnosed with DID and other than also being a person with autism/information processing issues and immune disorders who has just come through cancer experiences, I’d say I’m also a reasonably functional person.

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Another Gifted Artist Who Has DID

December 9, 2011

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More on the Sybil Defamation Campaign

December 8, 2011

Update: Although the Diva was already aware of Nathan’s political agenda and affiliations, it is gratifying to find that professional journalists have also made these observations. Here is an article by David Folkenflik that exposes Debbie Nathan’s biases and lack of ethics. From Seizures Hurt Memory, Ex-’Times’ Reporter Says.

Nathan is an advocacy journalist who argues that federal laws on child pornography and child sexual abuse are too strict. “Sex is such a highly charged issue in our culture that — particularly when it comes to child sex abuse — people are very irrational,” Nathan says. “Many people are convicted who are innocent, in my opinion.”

But Nathan’s stories about Eichenwald for New York magazine’s Web site and for CounterPunch failed to disclose a key affiliation: She is a board member and donor for the National Center for Reason and Justice, a not-for-profit group that distributes money to help the legal filings of people it says have been wrongly convicted of child sexual abuse. The center distributes about $100,000 a year to their legal defense. Among the recipients of this aid: Father Paul Shanley, the most notorious figure in Boston’s Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal.

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While there are many passionate and informed reviews on the Amazon site for the book attacking Sybil, I wanted to highlight a few here as they cut to central issues that discredit the work. This first is one of my favorites.

Fiction or Non-Fiction, October 25, 2011

By Lori King
This review is from: Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case (Hardcover)
This book begins:

“MANY YEARS LATER, THE WORLD would come to know her as Sybil. But, in 1933, the little girl with the colored pencils in her hand was simply Shirley Ardell Mason, a sensitive and confused fifth grader in the tiny town of Dodge Center, Minnesota. She was quiet and slender back then, with crisp clothes, dark hair trimmed in a Dutch-boy bob, and skin so milky that the veins stood blue on her forearms. She had no….”

And it continues on through the next several chapters – written in third-person omniscient – commonly used in fiction, but when used in non-fiction, the author reports not only what is presented as facts, but also relates them to the characters’ thoughts and feelings and from there – conclusions. This is often seen in persuasive writing or `rhetoric’.

“In short, rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action.” (The Rhetorical Situation, Lloyd Bitzer, 1968).

I would have thoroughly enjoyed the story that follows had I not already been alerted by all of the media coverage that this book was written with a preconceived agenda – to discredit the book “Sybil”. The narrators’ use of colorful language and style of `telling the story’ is truly brilliant – mesmerizing – enough so that the unsuspecting reader becomes so removed from the narrator as to forget that this book is no more than rhetoric meant to persuade the audience to believe, not only what they are reading, but in this case, to trust the facts given us as truth. We all know that no writer can ever know the intentions, feelings, thoughts of any character, but a truly gifted writer can use this tactic to influence the readers’ beliefs – to control their ideas. Nathan is amazing and, for me, her ability to persuade discredits this book.

Though, I did enjoy watching the story and newly created character unfold, I wasn’t persuaded that this all actually happened. The more I read, the more entertained I became until, I was nearly laughing. I was reading it out loud in a dramatic voice to my grandson, prancing around my brightly lit room, my long dark hair flowing behind me as I imagined the next dramatic scene I would read in the book.

I read “Sybil” many times and have looked at the research of Dr. Wilbur. I never felt like “Sybil” was written for any other reason but to inform the public of the work that was being done. It wasn’t nearly as entertaining. I understood that the `alters’ did need to be exaggerated in order that the reader could get a sense of them. Clearly, it would be very difficult, and I think still is, for writers to share with readers such a subjective experience as dissociative identity disorder. The fact that they must have discussed this was not surprising to me at all.

The last couple chapters were just more irritation and confirmation to me that this was a piece of work meant to persuade us of Nathan’s political point of view about false memories, ritual abuse, and dissociative identity disorder. I did not see the connection of “Sybil” with any of that.

I think that Nathan is a wonderful writer. She may persuade many readers that her story is pure truth. She is talented enough to possibly bring enough questions to the mind of the public to slander the name of these three women who are no longer here to defend themselves. I am hoping to see her write a good novel – where her talent of writing fiction can be truly recognized.

Quote to remember:
“[Rhetoric,] that powerful instrument of error and deceit.” (Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke, 1690)

In response I commented:

It makes sense that Nathan used that style, it exhibits a lack of respect for personal boundaries, as if she executed a kind of postmortem mental rape. That would be my rhetorical description of what the false memory people have done to survivors of extreme abuse in the public sphere since they began their campaign.

. . .

In a reflection of her character, apparently Ms. Nathan has been ridiculing, on her Facebook page, survivors of extreme abuse, and other people who have given her book a bad review.

From a commentator named James to a news article about the book:

Let’s just let people read the book as the cash-cow it is.
Let’s not call it “scientifically solid” and watch people die in the wake of its destruction.
Let’s not associate the atrocities of psychology in its infancy to today’s practice and watch ongoing research collapse under political debate.
Let’s not start diagnosing DID patients as schizophrenics again at the extra cost of another $2.8 billion to society.

. . .

Publisher Simon & Schuster has agreed to delete from the dust jacket in future editions of the book “Sybil Exposed” the words “first person’” in the sentence: “The Sybil archive became available to the public only recently, and Nathan is the first person to have examined all of it….” as this was proved untrue.  A letter furnished by the executor of Sybil’s estate proved Dr. Suraci, author of Sybil, In Her Own Words, had prior access and the records were made public in 1998. I expect this correction will neither be the last nor the most surprising.

. . .

And finally, but by no means least, there is this from the closest living relative to Sybil, Naomi Rhode, posted here: http://sybilandmpd.blogspot.com/2011/11/from-sybils-closest-living-relative.html?spref=fb

As Shirley Mason’s (Sybil) closest living relative, I was close to her for the 30 plus years through the saga of her life journey. In fact, I was with her for several days during the week of her death, at her request, and was one of the only people that was in constant contact with her over those 30 years. I kept her identity confidential at her fervent request. Through all these years up until literally the day before she died, she verified the complete accuracy of the book, ‘Sybil’.

Debbie Nathan claims that she contacted me for an interview in 2008 and that I declined. Over the years many people have contacted me for information about Shirley’s life. Not knowing their intent, always, I have declined all such interviews. If Debbie was one of those people, I do not recall the call, as I do not keep records of every call in a busy business life. I apologize for this, but I do not recall her calling.

Knowing Dr. Connie Wilbur, and Flora Schreiber, also, the book concerns me greatly. It is an attack on their credibility, their research, and their professionalism. And, the book is a complete attack on the person I loved, Shirley Mason.

Shirley did not die a recluse. Shirley was a loving, and productive woman until her final,lengthy bout with cancer. She painted, and taught painting. She sold her paintings. She corresponded with friends, and regularly with us. She was a woman of strong spiritual faith in God, loved her books and her music, and loved our family greatly. She chose, however, to live carefully and confidentially because she was adamant that her identity not be known. She was very protective of our family and any recourse her life and story may have on us.

Naomi Rhode

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Sybil was not a Fraud

October 23, 2011

Sybil was not a fraud. Imagine if someone took a few facts about your life and wrapped an entirely false narrative around them making you out to be something that you never were, and destroying your reputation. Everyone should be concerned about this kind of activity. Every one of us should stand up against it.

Nathan’s work and her PR campaign are an attack not only upon the 3 dead woman she targets who cannot defend themselves, but upon all survivors of extreme abuse.

From a concerned clinician:

I collected a range of sites to show what a major push this propaganda is getting:
New Scientist?!
From Rush to NPR, now that’s coverage. Meanwhile, complete blackout on that fact that Tokyo is more radioactive than the Chernobyl evacuation area (http://enenews.com/)
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/10/was-sybil-a-psychiatrists-creation.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049789/Sybil-Best-selling-child-abuse-split-personality-author-exposed-FAKE.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/magazine/a-girl-not-named-sybil.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=sybil&st=cse&scp=1&adxnnlx=1319040193-l5jQUewHImByWkY/tR4aVw
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/20/141514464/real-sybil-admits-multiple-personalities-were-fake
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/oct/19/sybil-exposed/
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/16/sybil_exposed_memory_lies_and_therapy/singleton/
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/10/17/sybil_was_hoax_that_became_accepted_science_sound_familiar

Wanda Karriker’s review from Amazon books:

According to the product description of SYBIL EXPOSED, “Nathan gives proof that the allegedly true story was largely fabricated.”Although Nathan did a good job of constructing a narrative of how and why she believes the book SYBIL came to be, neither the patient (Shirley Mason aka Sybil, the psychiatrist (Wilbur), nor the author (Schriebner) are alive to defend against Nathan’s interpretations of their interactions and their motivations to produce the book.

On p. 396 (Kindle), Nathan states that Wilbur “used her medical credentials to aggressively promote a diagnosis [multiple personality disorder] that, ultimately, hurt women far more than it helped them . . .”

As a journalist Nathan has a right to use her research findings to impugn the motives of Dr. Wilbur; however, she offered no research to support her contention that the diagnosis “hurt women far more than it helped them.”

Wanda Karriker, Ph.D. Morning, Come Quickly

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Sybil, The Nathan Defamation

October 21, 2011

I regret that this may only be the first among many posts on this topic. If you are a supporter, loved one, or caregiver of an extreme abuse survivor, a little additional support might be helpful as this controversy plays out in the media.

Shirley Mason is most commonly known as Sybil Dorset, one of the most famous of all DID cases. This  beautiful, brave woman, her caregiver, and a dedicated journalist are being defamed in a smear campaign.

Debbi Nathan, an academic and former proponent of the now thoroughly repudiated False Memory campaign, has put Sybil in her cross-hairs in a new book. The New York Times and several other media outlets have jumped upon this potential new controversy, which from all appearances at this point, springs from a single statement in one of the letters Sybil wrote early on in her treatment.

Therapy for extreme trauma involves a long and repeated grief process. Denial is a natural part of grief. Denial is also a central feature of dissociation. In DID cases, alters actively cultivate denial of the trauma so that the child can perform in normative life.  Of course these aspects present in therapy, not only at the beginning, but over and over again, as the process of awareness and then grief repeats itself until all the traumas are confronted.

Sybil’s early declaration that she is not a multiple is a normal and expected part of the therapeutic process. Nathan, and those who have covered her work, have cynically highlighted it as a singular proclamation of truth. This is the very definition of propaganda, suggesting an alternate meaning of a fact in service of an agenda.

Child pornography and domestic child trafficking are mutli-billion dollar businesses. There are networks of people who have high stakes in keeping survivors silenced and out of treatment. Confusing the public about the natural responses to this kind of abuse, like DID, and engendering distrust of trauma therapists are integral to those aims.

I have no evidence that Nathan is tied to any such criminal network, but neither are any of the targets of her attacks here to confirm or deny her insinuations. I have no doubt if Shirley, Connie or Flora were alive today, Nathan could not publish this book.

Dr. Patrick Suraci on Sybil

Here is a link to the Facebook page for Dr. Patrick Suraci’s recent book on Sybil. In a wall posting dated October 19th, he refutes some points in Nathan’s book.

Statement from Dr. Patrick Suraci

I went to the Special Collections Library at John Jay College of Criminal
Justice to verify statements made by Debbie Nathan in her book SYBIL
EXPOSED.

1. On pages 99-100 Nathan writes: “Connie would carry her apparatus to
Shirley’s apartment and climb in bed with her. She would clamp the paddles to
Shirley’s temples, twirl the dials, and press the buttons. Connie’s gadget
was an old electro-convulsive machine she had retired years earlier.”

Nathan cites the evidence for this in her “Notes: Chapter 8, No.38.. FRS
Box 37, Files 1081, Tape 124.” In this document on January 26, 1955, Shirley
writes about “electric shock” along with her other treatments. There is
absolutely no documentation of Nathan’s outrageous claim.

2. On page 71 Nathan writes: “Completely inexperienced with men, she had
little idea of how to take Gene’s (O’Neill) measure. He noticed her
ignorance and didn’t like it. Too‘girlish’ he called Flora, particularly when it
came to sex. In a sheaf of notes she wrote to herself, she described feeling
pain at having his finger inside her, let alone his penis. ‘Be an animal,’
Gene would urge her, and he blamed her reticence on the fact that she had
a profession. ‘You bring Adelphi College into the bedroom. It is not that
career women don’t want to go to bed – it is that they don’t know how,’ he
scolded Flora.”

To prove this Nathan cites in: “Notes: Chapter 6, No.11, FRS Box 34, File
1051″ In this document Schreiber writes about Eugene O’Neill: “His
complaint – Be an animal – give – you bring Adelphi College into the bedroom –
we’re close friends in the living room and the moment we go into the bedroom
you become a stranger…he says that it is not that career women don’t want
to go to bed – it is that they don’t know how. Outcome might have been
different if she had gone to bed with him on the last Saturday after he told her
about _____” Schreiber at no time writes about O’Neill’s “finger” or
“penis.”

3. On page 232 Nathan writes: “…She (Shirley Mason) died quietly in her
home, surrounded by nurses, on February 26 of that year. She was seventy-five
years old. It was early evening when she died.”

In my book SYBIL in her own words: The Untold Story of Shirley Mason, Her
Multiple Personalities and Paintings. On page 261 I write:

“The penultimate time I phoned Shirley’s home was on February 26, 1998, at
12:07 PM. In the background I heard her weak voice pleading to Roberta
,(Guy) ‘Tell him I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ Roberta informed me that Shirley was
too sick to speak on the phone. I mumbled, ‘Please tell her that it’s okay,
it’s okay. I’ll call later.’ …

“When I called later that day at 3:01 PM Roberta stunned me with the news
than Shirley had just died.”

Dr. Suraci has the telephone records of that day, September 26, 1998.

Information about Dr. Suraci:

“SYBIL In Her Own Words: The Untold Story of Shirley Mason, Her Multiple
Personalities and Paintings” by Patrick Suraci, Ph.D.

Perhaps a productive way to counter Nathan is to purchase Dr. Suraci’s work.

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