EMOTIONAL DISABILITY FROM SRA

The State of Washington has a Crime Victims Compensation Program which gives money to people who have been the victims of criminal acts. In 1990, they allowed individuals who had recovered previously repressed memory of childhood sexual abuse to apply for compensation. 670 repressed memory claims were filed between 1991 and 1995. 325 of these were allowed. An employee of the Department (Loni Parr, RN) apparently selected all of the claims which involved ritual abuse; 183 in total. She then selected 30 cases at random from the 183. She and another Department employee (Rachel Brown) stated in their 1996-MAR report that:

	Total ritual abuse cases analyzed: 30
	Number of females: 29 (97%)
	Number of Caucasians: 29 (97%)
	Age range: 15 to 67 years; mean 43
	Therapists: 26 saw mainly Masters level therapists; 2 saw a Ph.D; 2 saw an MD.
	Time of first recovered memory: 26 during therapy; 4 before therapy
	Number in therapy for 3 years after the first memory: 30 (all)
	Number in therapy for 5 years after the first memory: 18 (60%)
	Self-mutilation prior to recovered memories: 1 (3%)
	Self-mutilation after recovered memories: 20 (67%)
	Suicidal ideation prior to recovered memories: 3 (10%)
	Suicidal ideation after recovered memories: 20 (67%)
	Hospitalization prior to recovered memories: 2 (7%)
	Hospitalization after recovered memories: 11 (37%)
	Employed before entering therapy: 25 (83%)
	Employed after 3 years of therapy: 3 (10%)
	Married before first recovered memory: 23 (77%)
	Number of the 23 who separated or divorced within 3 years of first memory: 11 (48%)
	Number estranged from family of origin: 30 (100%)
	Age of first memories of abuse: 7 months average
	Memories of non-Satanic ritual abuse: 1 (3%)
	Memories of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA): 29 (97%)
	Number of cases with family perpetrators: 29 (100%)
	Observed birth or infant cannibalism: 22 (76%)
	Total number of murders remembered: 150
	Total number of resulting police investigations: 0
	Consumed body parts: 22 (76%)
	Tortured with spiders: 20 (67%)
	Torture or mutilation of any type: 29 (100%)
	Number of medical exams which corroborated torture or mutilation: 0
	Many of the memories involve "fantastic nighttime rituals complete with chanting, black-robed figures holding smoking candles, human sacrifice, witnessed childbirth, murder, cannibalism and ingenious sexual torture."
	The longer that the victim stayed in therapy, the further their mental health seem to decline.

We conclude that:

	No  general conclusions can be reached about recovered memories and recovered memory therapy as a result of this study.
	The 670 submitted claims involving repressed memory, and in particular the 325 of the claims which were allowed, represent a valuable source of information about this form of therapy. Much valuable insight could be derived from analysis of these data. It is tragic that no such study is apparently underway.
	Conclusions can be reached about recovered memories of SRA, but their reliability is limited by the small sample size.
	The vast majority of people who recover SRA memories are white females who enter therapy with no SRA memories, and start to recover them during therapy.
	People who recover SRA memories can expect long term therapy, a massive degeneration in mental health, loss of employment; if married, about half will see their marriages disintegrate. (Therapists who believe in the reality of SRA often state that their clients must get worse before they get better; skeptics say that the decline in mental health is due to the memories themselves, which are false.)
	Most memory researchers believe events which occurred earlier than 24 months of age cannot be remembered. Yet in the cases cited the average age for the first SRA memory was 7 months. One can safely conclude that the latter at least are false memories (i.e. real-feeling memories of events that never happened).
	None of the claims was supported with medical findings; none triggered police investigations
	People who recover SRA memories usually blame their family members as perpetrators; they will usually sever contact with their family of origin.

The Compensation Fund recommended that no further reimbursements be made for mental health services that "focus on the recovery of repressed memory." This proposal was approved by the Department of Labor and Industries, effective 1997-JAN-31. At the hearing, Dr. Richard Ofshe, professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, said incredible stories like these are often encouraged by unscrupulous therapists with their own agendas. "The ritualistic satanic abuse - it tells you how wild, how over the top, how incompetent, how reckless these therapists are."

The type of ritual abuse remembered in all but one of these cases were believed to have been perpetrated by underground, inter-generational groups who worship Satan. We have shown that this type of Satanic Ritual Abuse almost certainly does not exist. We expect that:

	all of the cases involved false memories,
	the therapists involved have inadvertently transmitted their own beliefs to their clients,
	none of the ritual abuse actually happened,
	the resultant destruction of the client's emotional health and disruptions in family relationships could have been prevented.

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