Dear International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation,

We, the undersigned, in advocacy for standards of care that protect mental health consumers from exploitative, harmful, dubious, and/or pseudoscientific treatments, hereby respectfully request that the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation (ISSTD) discontinue the endorsement and propagation of speculative, implausible theories including, but not limited to, alleged programs of government and/or secret society “mind control,” Satanic, Illuminati, and/or occult “ritual abuse,” and paranormal phenomena, at its conferences, in its webinars, and within its published materials. 

We also request that the ISSTD clarify its position on the utility and limits of hypnosis and other methods as used in retrieving allegedly repressed memories of traumatic events from a client’s past. 

With deference to decades of research supporting our conclusions, we maintain that methods of memory “recovery” and other therapeutic interventions employed by mental health professionals with pre-existing beliefs in conspiracy theories, such as those regarding the etiological role of Satanic ritual abuse and/or Illuminati/Government Mind Control in Dissociative Identity Disorder and other mental illnesses, risk cultivating paranoid and crippling delusions of such in vulnerable clients who may not otherwise have arrived at those beliefs independently, and further embeds those beliefs in those who have. 

We sincerely believe it to be in the best interests of mental health consumers that the ISSTD avoid any and all endorsements and propagation of speculative, implausible, and empirically unsupported theories and practices, and voluntarily adopt The American Psychological Association’s Code of Ethics, which dictates, in relevant part, that:

• Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm;
• Psychologists establish relationships of trust with those with whom they work. They are aware of their professional and scientific responsibilities to society and to the specific communities in which they work;
• Psychologists seek to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology;
• Psychologists' work is based upon established scientific and professional knowledge of the discipline;
• Psychologists refrain from initiating an activity when they know or should know that there is a substantial likelihood that their personal problems will prevent them from performing their work-related activities in a competent manner; and
• Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients/patients, students, supervisees, research participants, organizational clients, and others with whom they work, and to minimize harm where it is foreseeable and unavoidable.

The Issue

The ISSTD propagates and endorses bizarre conspiracy theories related to Satanic Ritual Abuse, Illuminati Mind Control, and other unsupported, irrational beliefs. 

In 2008, the ISSTD established an official Ritual Abuse Mind Control Organized Abuse Special Interest Group (RAMCOA SIG). The alleged mission of the RAMCOA SIG is to “further dialogue, knowledge, research, and training on the etiology, evaluation, and effective treatment of trauma and dissociation in clients reporting histories of ritual abuse or mind control.” Conference materials and attendees of RAMCOA SIG seminars attest that rather than speaking skeptically, agnostically, or neutrally about the existence of the bizarre conspiracies alleged by their clients, the RAMCOA SIG openly endorses beliefs in those conspiracy theories.

For example, at the 2018 annual conference of the ISSTD, a speaker named Eileen Aveni, former head of the RAMCOA SIG, gave a seminar in which she spoke uncritically regarding Illuminati mind control and what we “know” about it based upon information gained from an alleged Illuminati whistleblower on the internet.

During the 2019 annual conference alone, the ISSTD hosted numerous lectures either outside the scope of scientific and professional knowledge relevant to the discipline of professional mental health care, or by individuals with a history of disseminating conspiracist and/or pseudoscientific claims. For example:

Susan Pease Banitt gave a presentation titled, Attachment, Rupture and Repair in the Treatment of Survivors of Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. Banitt’s website states, in part, “Ritual Abuse (RA) survivors have a unique set of triggers. Because so many are abused in rituals around Halloween (Satanic and Witchcraft ceremonial time) these triggers can get very activating. In some cases, there may be programming to return to the cult for ceremony. These internally installed prompts may be conscious or, more likely, unconscious, especially for those who are still under cult control and connection.”

Ellen P. Lacter gave a presentation titled, Treatment Strategies to Overcome Suicidality in Victims of Ritual Abuse: Work with Dissociated Self-states and the Unconscious Mind to Resolve the Psychological Manipulations of Dissociation-savvy Abusers. In an interview, Ellen Lacter contends, with no supporting evidence, that “there are a number of different organized groups that all have the agenda of ruling the world. There’s the Satanic network, and I don’t believe that that is all networked, there’s the witchcraft network,” etc. Ellen Lacter claims to believe that these cults revel in infant sacrifice, sometimes going after babies that are in utero to satiate their bloodlust: “[...] they'll force the delivery early so seven or eight months gestation and that baby will be sacrificed and then that person will be programmed [by way of mind control] to believe that she just had a miscarriage,” and, “a lot of the children who are sacrificed in rituals are brought in from third world countries.” Ellen Lacter displays a high level of paranoid delusion stating, “Most of the perpetrators of the most organized abuse never get arrested and they raise their kids to have jobs in law enforcement. They raise their kids to have jobs in child protective services and the District Attorney's offices, etc. So they have their own network established in the institutions to erase records to disbelieve these reports. They have a very organized never-let-it-come-out campaign.” The media has been infiltrated as well: “The most organized groups have raised some of their children to be reporters who definitely write articles saying none of this is true, these therapists are crazy, these survivors are victims of their therapists putting memories in their minds. So the media is very influential and is one of their main ways of keeping the truth from being exposed.” (Citations for each quote attributed to Dr. Lacter above may be found here.)

Nick Bryant co-presented a lecture titled, The Political Apparatus, Organised Abuse, and the Child Sexual Abuse Victim. Nick Bryant is not a mental health professional, rather, he is a conspiracy theorist who wrote a book alleging that the world is secretly controlled by a pedophilic Satanic cult.

Dr. Colin Ross presented a lecture titled, How to Use the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule. Dr. Ross claims to believe that he has a paranormal ability that allows him to emit beams of energy from his eyes. Dr. Ross has been sued multiple times with the allegation that he coerced clients, by use of overmedication and recovered memory therapies, to believe they had been abused by Satanic cults. Dr. Ross believes that patients suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder are often or always victims of CIA mind control experiments. Dr. Ross appeared on the show Conspiracy Theory hosted by Jesse Ventura to lend his “scientific” validation, as an expert on dissociation and “mind control,” to the now debunked claims of self-identified former psychic supersoldier Duncan O’Finioan. No summary can do sufficient justice to the depths of ludicrous irresponsibility and embarrassing credulity displayed by Dr. Ross, but one is encouraged to read this report about a previous malpractice claim against him, along with the hyperlinked supporting documents.

Orit Badouk Epstein presented a lecture titled 'Suicide Addict'- when Rupture Feels Beyond Repair. Epstein is the author of a book titled Ritual Abuse and Mind Control: The Manipulation of Attachment Needs. As can be seen from the book’s description, this book is a vehicle for propagating the Satanic ritual abuse conspiracy theory:
“This report - based on proceedings from a conference on the subject - presents knowledge and experience from both clinicians and survivors to promote understanding and recovery from organized and ritual abuse, mind control and programming.”

Michael Salter presented a lecture titled The Primary Prevention of Complex Trauma and Dissociation: A Public Health Approach. Michael Salter currently chairs the Ritual Abuse Mind Control Organized Abuse Special Interest Group (RAMCOA SIG). Salter rejects the widely accepted fact that there ever was a moral panic, referred to by sociologists as “the Satanic Panic,” apparently believing that the now-discredited claims surrounding “Satanic ritual abuse” were true, and their debunking is actually part of a cover-up. Despite a preponderance of evidence and overwhelming academic consensus to the contrary, Salter suggests that Satanic ritual abuse did take place at the McMartin Preschool -- an allegation widely credited as the start of the Satanic Panic. Salter can be found lecturing at conspiracist conferences alongside Neil Brick, a man who claims to have recovered memories of a secret life as a brainwashed Illuminati “super-soldier” who assassinated and raped people “without feeling.”

These are but some of the troublesome elements of the ISSTD 2019 annual conference that we readily noted. While it may be argued that some of the criticisms aimed at some of the conference speakers relate to works some of them have engaged in outside of their clinical practice, it is apparent that the ISSTD annual conferences harbor an alarming degree of speakers who propagate unscientific, irrational, and arguably very harmful beliefs. 

Why the Propagation of Conspiracy Theory and Pseudoscience is Harmful

In 2015, a mother was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the manslaughter of her autistic 8-year old son whom she believed was being abused by an unseen, omnipresent Satanic cult. The murder, she believed, would spare her son from unspeakable horrors at the hands of this imaginary evil. Before murdering her child, the mother consulted with Dr. Ellen Lacter, former chair of the ISSTD’s RAMCOA SIG, and speaker at the ISSTD’s 2019 annual conference. Dr. Lacter promotes the beliefs in various widespread conspiracies of Satanic, witchcraft, and Illuminati abuse programs that serve as the etiological roots of Dissociative Identity Disorder. 

The murderous mother alleged to have gained “self-reports” of Satanic abuse from her non-verbal child by way of the discredited method of “facilitated communication.” The reliability of these spurious self-reports was given a professional endorsement by the ISSTD’s Dr. Frank Putnam.

It is our belief that the irrational and pseudoscientific beliefs held by Drs. Lacter and Putnam at best prevented either of them from disabusing the mother of her filicidal delusions, and at worst helped cultivate those beliefs in her further, contributing to the murder. In fact, according to the ISSTD, Lacter “provided some resources for the mother related to organized and ritualistic abuse based on the mother’s concerns,” suggesting Lacter may have indeed further solidified Jordan’s delusions of Satanic abuse targeting her son.

In our research, we have collected endless testimony from “retractors,” those who once believed autobiographical narratives revealed to them in the course of recovering “memories” in therapy, narratives that they now believe were entirely false and harmful. Many of them irreparably damaged their familial and social bonds in the course of having come to believe that there was a conspiracy of abuse participated in by those closest to them. We shudder to think of how much damage has been caused to -- and additional trauma placed upon -- emotionally vulnerable victims of abuse and other mental health care consumers who receive irresponsible treatment -- the cultivation of paranoid conspiracist delusions -- from clinicians who share the beliefs of the ISSTD’s RAMCOA SIG.

The greater social costs of conspiracy theories are hard to measure. In recent times, we saw a fresh recurrence of Satanic Panic in the widely-spread “Pizzagate” narrative which alleged that Washington elites were involved in a child sex-trafficking operation run out of the basement of a small pizzeria. Belief in the conspiracy theory ultimately led a man to enter the pizzeria with an assault rifle looking to rescue children from hidden underground tunnels that turned out to be non-existent. The claims of Pizzagate are eerily reminiscent of debunked claims related to the McMartin Preschool panic, as still endorsed by the RAMCOA SIG’s current chair, Michael Salter.  

Conspiracy theories have been shown to increase feelings of helplessness, negatively impact individual job satisfaction and productivity, reduce civic engagement in vital issues, and undermine democratic deliberation. Conspiracy theories prove particularly insidious and persuasive when delivered under the guise of scientific authority, such as when the ISSTD’s Colin Ross, in his capacity as an “expert” in “mind control,” takes to the Russian television network RT (Russia Today), to decry the alleged implantation of remote mind-control devices by the CIA into the brains of the unwitting public.

Many harmful conspiracy theories and popular delusions, such as a belief in the abduction of, and experimentation upon, humans by extraterrestrials, and the existence of a world-wide Satanic cult practicing trauma-based mind control, claim their evidentiary basis in the “recovered memories” of alleged victims alone. 

It is our belief that the use of recovered memory therapies poses a serious threat to the safety and sanity of those trauma victims who risk becoming convinced of dangerous conspiracy theories. Indeed, the use of such practices directly contradicts several principles in the APA’s Code of Ethics, and the ISSTD should make known their position on the limitations and dangers of recovered memory therapies. The ISSTD should take care to ensure that their conferences are not being used as platforms for unscientific, irrational, conspiracist, and or pseudoscientific claims, and that these conferences are not being used to further grant a veneer of credibility to those who propagate irrational beliefs outside of them.

We Hereby Request These Actions

• Release a clear statement regarding the limitations and dangers of hypnosis, sodium amytal interviews, and other forms of therapy that aim to recover “repressed” memories, including the potential for mental health professionals to intentionally or unintentionally create false memories in their clients and patients.
• Dissolve the Ritual Abuse Mind Control Organized Abuse Special Interest Group (RAMCOA SIG) or give clear, scientifically valid justifications for the need for such a special interest group as it relates to the care and safety of mental health consumers.
• Release clear guidelines that suggest to practitioners when it is appropriate to merely “validate” emotions provoked by a client’s autobiographical claims, and when it is appropriate to intervene against the possible enablement and cultivation of highly improbable, paranoid, and/or dangerous narratives.
• Resolve to limit ISSTD conference seminar topics, webinars, meetings, and literature to professional issues within the scope of scientific and professional knowledge relevant to the discipline of professional mental health care without reference to speculative and/or disproven theories including, but not limited to, those of Illuminati or CIA mind control and/or Satanic ritual abuse.

We believe that all mental health consumers deserve the best available treatment, and that mental health professionals best serve these consumers by offering compassionate understanding and empirically supported treatments. It is our belief that the propagation of conspiracy theories by ISSTD-endorsed professionals harms both the immediate mental health of the clients exposed to them, the public’s understanding of mental health issues, and trust in the mental health profession. Those who are persuaded by conspiracy theories related to the etiology of Dissociative Identity Disorder (i.e., that it is the product of Satanic and/or CIA mind control), and are convinced of the unquestionable veracity of “recovered memories,” risk living in crippling paranoia. Those who conclude that ISSTD-associated conspiracists are themselves exhibiting delusional tendencies risk a total loss of confidence in mental health care treatment.

Trauma care is extremely important, and those who would treat victims of trauma should be commended, encouraged, and guided by the best available resources. We intend this letter not as an indictment, but as an opening of a potentially fruitful dialogue. We trust that the ISSTD will see fit to revise its current standards to best serve mental health consumers who seek treatment for traumatic psychic injury.

We, the undersigned, request that the ISSTD reply to this letter before their 2020 Annual Conference. We request that any reply directly address each and every bullet-pointed item following the heading “We Hereby Request These Actions.” We thank you in advance for your reply. 

 

Grey Faction

The Satanic Temple

Professor Richard Noll