Dr Phil promotes "Satanic Ritual Abuse" conspiracy theory

[douglas mesner]

Am I reading this correctly, that "Felicity Lee," the tireless defender of children against Satanic Ritual Abuse...writes bondage porn??

She was very slow to respond the revelation on Amazon, but after a lengthy deliberation, she is doing what we've come to count on her to do -- denying everything while accusing me of heinous dark doings based on no evidence at all -- in this case she has suddenly decided that I'm surfing child porn! http://www.amazon.com/review/R1GR9B...&newContentNum=30&store=books#Mx3MDZ7TB1RREAF

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Now I see that you author cheap bondage porn erotica, and your bizarre behavior takes on a whole new disturbing meaning. Is it possible that themes as depraved as these prove arousing to you, Lori?

You know, I think that we should be incredibly wary of implying that BDSM is "depraved" or in any way wrong in and of itself. I don't think that that will help anybody with anything. I'm not even sure what "outing" Felicity with her real name is supposed to achieve. Or, indeed, what the majority of the childish squabbling that the Amazon review comments has turned in to is supposed to achieve.

I think it's worth everybody taking a step back, taking a deep breath, and remembering that the point of the exercise is to provide information to uninformed spectators so that they can make informed decisions about the book and the contents thereof. It's to reduce the harm that this book and the industry that it's a part of cause. I don't see how anything that's been posted over there recently is supposed to accomplish that. Both sides seem as bad as each other.

 

[douglas mesner]

You know, I think that we should be incredibly wary of implying that BDSM is "depraved" or in any way wrong in and of itself. I don't think that that will help anybody with anything. I'm not even sure what "outing" Felicity with her real name is supposed to achieve. Or, indeed, what the majority of the childish squabbling that the Amazon review comments has turned in to is supposed to achieve.

I think it's worth everybody taking a step back, taking a deep breath, and remembering that the point of the exercise is to provide information to uninformed spectators so that they can make informed decisions about the book and the contents thereof. It's to reduce the harm that this book and the industry that it's a part of cause. I don't see how anything that's been posted over there recently is supposed to accomplish that. Both sides seem as bad as each other.

Allow me to be clear. I'm NOT saying that such fetish porn is in and of itself depraved. It's as I said previously, it's disturbing:

"Not because it's bondage porn, but because of the context it's given now that we know it is this particular author. It's disturbing in the way Rick Santorum being gay is disturbing: in a mentally disturbed ridiculously hypocritical self-deceiving way. It's disturbing in the context of knowing the author to be obsessed with fantastic stories of depraved child torture."

This is a woman who has done everything to affiliate critical commenters with her own pious ideas of "depraved". This is somebody who obviously isn't simply living out a healthy private sexual life in addition to DID advocacy. This is somebody with an extremely twisted cognitive dissonance that is not at all at ease with who she is. This is a woman who has based all of her "arguments" not at all on facts or evidence, but the idea that she is without fault, a paragon of virtue. This is somebody who seems to imply that alternative religion, secretive private practices, are the work of agenda-driven satanists. This is somebody who floods the comments, not with legitimate arguments, but masses of superfluous text meant to bury the criticisms. The arguments have been laid out again and again. Again and again she has tried to turn the argument into who we, the critics are. She has held up this idea that her only interest is in helping those who have suffered abuse. I think it is entirely fair game to point out that she herself seems to have a fetish for abuse.

[And further, if it happens that an interest in 22 Faces is based upon BDSM fetishism, it most certainly is depraved -- more so when one absolutely insists upon the reality of the story. It does, after all, involve children and murder]

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Again and again she has tried to turn the argument into who we, the critics are. She has held up this idea that her only interest is in helping those who have suffered abuse. I think it is entirely fair game to point out that she herself seems to have a fetish for abuse.

I think that depends on what your aim in posting is. From my perspective it looks like descending to their level. We're supposed to be better than the squabbling.

Again, remember that the point is to inform potentially vulnerable people, and that doing so well may save lives. So let them rant and rave, and don't follow suit.

 

[Altus]

You know, I think that we should be incredibly wary of implying that BDSM is "depraved" or in any way wrong in and of itself. I don't think that that will help anybody with anything. I'm not even sure what "outing" Felicity with her real name is supposed to achieve. Or, indeed, what the majority of the childish squabbling that the Amazon review comments has turned in to is supposed to achieve.

I think it's worth everybody taking a step back, taking a deep breath, and remembering that the point of the exercise is to provide information to uninformed spectators so that they can make informed decisions about the book and the contents thereof. It's to reduce the harm that this book and the industry that it's a part of cause. I don't see how anything that's been posted over there recently is supposed to accomplish that. Both sides seem as bad as each other.

I am very much for each her own. I don't happen to like 50 Shades and all the mutations it has spawned, but that has more to do with the horrific writing. Give me Anaïs Nin or Iris Murdoch...I'd curl up with them any day.

What has to be taken into context here is what many of these DID/trauma "therapists" are actually doing to their patients. They are in fact writing porn narratives on the minds of their unknowing patients...narratives so horrible that they drive some women to suicide. The few women who do make it out of this therapy will tell you that these therapists seemed to have a salacious fascination with the details of sex and/or abuse. They author a movie script and play it over and over with these women in living color, often for YEARS as a time.

The rape that is alleged here might well be very real to Jenny now. I cringe to watch that video. Judy, it is clear, is forcing a narrative on Jenny and Jenny has absorbed the details to a point she is terrified. That's what these therapists do. They make horrible rape and torture a real part of their victims' pasts.

I find it concerning that Felicity was obsessed with her idea that Doug was ritually abused and that she would be potentially interacting with vulnerable women on a website that claims to help people. If she were doing anything else, I'd say, have at it, lady, have a field day on your narratives, I really don't give a rat's ass...but when those narratives are forced upon others as she tried to do with Doug and as Judy did with Jenny is when I question what is being done in the name of "therapy".

 

[douglas mesner]

I think that depends on what your aim in posting is. From my perspective it looks like descending to their level. We're supposed to be better than the squabbling.

Again, remember that the point is to inform potentially vulnerable people, and that doing so well may save lives. So let them rant and rave, and don't follow suit.

Yeah, perhaps we can be clearer on this issue and why such a thing might be relevant. I admit to now harboring a visceral loathing for "Felicity" after her barrage of bizarre accusations and flat lies attempting to discredit the evidence that Judy Byington is lying about being a consultant for the Utah Attorney General's Office. have to keep in mind that some people might see that thread in isolation and wonder why some prigs are giving a lady a hard time about writing porn.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

have to keep in mind that some people might see that thread in isolation and wonder why some prigs are giving a lady a hard time about writing porn.

That's exactly my concern. And not just about the porn, but every time I dip in to one of those threads it seems like a continuation of an argument from somewhere else, and to have deteriorated the way that internet arguments invariably do. Were I coming to the thread without any prior knowledge, I'd think that both sides were as bad as each other, and I certainly wouldn't find anything to change any opinion that I had previously held.

Again, I'd suggest that our model for this kind of discourse should be Robert Lancaster and his StopSylvia site. That, to me, seems to be the most effective way of spreading this kind of message, rather than any form of attack.

 

[joesixpack]

I have to agree with Altus, there is a sexually exploitative dimension to this "therapeitic" relationship. It seems to me that compelling the patient to recite the therapists sexual fantasies (regardless of the S&M component) rather approaches rape. Keep in mind that these therapists deal with children as well. One wonders what sort unhealthy sexual gratification the abuser gets from these recitations?

 

[xterra]

As I read posts 966 through 968, the latest three as I begin writing this, I immediately thought about all the Alien-Abduction stories, in which the aliens seem interested only in genetic/sexual interactions or extractions. I wonder why this is....*

At the risk of a slight derail, do you think that in the case of Felicity, this might be the same thing, a way to project one's fantasy into a story not just on paper, but in the mind of another person? This would be domination indeed.



* Not only am I not a psychiatrist or psychologist, not only don't I play one on TV, but I am a proponent of the Groucho Marks school.

 

[Roma]

Again, I'd suggest that our model for this kind of discourse should be Robert Lancaster and his StopSylvia site. That, to me, seems to be the most effective way of spreading this kind of message, rather than any form of attack.

Well Squeegee I can't compare Sylvia and Judy, I wouldn't know where to start.
My elderly mother is a big Sylvia fan and has given way too much money to Sylvia and I fear that I may read my mother's will some day, far into the future, and find that everything has been left to Sylvia, but apart from that I can't say that I feel a lot of anger towards the woman, she's a con artist, a crook, a liar.
I am a victim of the very medical fraud that Judy and Felicity and all DID/MPD recovered memory therapists have and are continuing to perpetrate on vulnerable people all over the world. The victims of this fraud generally deteriorate into insanity and often commit suicide. The families of those victims are generally destroyed, often the fathers are criminally charged and sometimes find themselves in prison or they commit suicide. More than money is lost and more than silly stories of speaking to the dead are involved.

I would like this to be a nice thread containing only logical arguments and rational discourse but I find myself to "close" to the subject to be that calm.
Of course you are right about how people may react to clicking on the "last page" of this thread and reading only the last few comments written by a few steady followers and I understand that. So Squeegee I will do my best not to gloat about the latest bits of ridiculous hypocracy that we have dug up exposing those DID therapists as something like, oh I don't know, something like drug abuse interventionists who secretly have major drug problems themselves and deal crack to children.
I am now putting on my rational argument cap and will try not to let you down, you do have a very good point.

 

[douglas mesner]

As I read posts 966 through 968, the latest three as I begin writing this, I immediately thought about all the Alien-Abduction stories, in which the aliens seem interested only in genetic/sexual interactions or extractions. I wonder why this is....*

At the risk of a slight derail, do you think that in the case of Felicity, this might be the same thing, a way to project one's fantasy into a story not just on paper, but in the mind of another person? This would be domination indeed.

Regarding the sexual component of alien abduction narratives, check out this post on Dysgenics.com from last week. It's by a woman who suffered false memory coercion at the hands of a hypnotherapist (a Dr. of History) who made bizarre requests of her, such as asking for her unwashed panties to test for alien DNA. There was a sexual element to the narrative of the alien's experiments, but there was also a rather transparent sexual element to the "treatment" as well: http://www.dysgenics.com/2012/11/24...mories-of-ufo-abduction-a-personal-testimony/

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I would like this to be a nice thread containing only logical arguments and rational discourse but I find myself to "close" to the subject to be that calm.
Of course you are right about how people may react to clicking on the "last page" of this thread and reading only the last few comments written by a few steady followers and I understand that. So Squeegee I will do my best not to gloat about the latest bits of ridiculous hypocracy that we have dug up exposing those DID therapists as something like, oh I don't know, something like drug abuse interventionists who secretly have major drug problems themselves and deal crack to children.
I am now putting on my rational argument cap and will try not to let you down, you do have a very good point.

I don't mean this thread, so much. I would surmise that few people reading this thread wouldn't already fall on one side or the other of the debate. People will, generally speaking, find this thread if they specifically come looking for it. And, were they to read this thread and not know there is a wealth of information in this thread as it stands, and plenty of knowledgeable people posting here who can set them on the right path. So, actually, I don't see much of a problem with people posting whatever and however they want in this thread.

I was more specifically thinking of the comment threads to the reviews on Amazon and, indeed, any other more public places. Those are the comments that people who had never even heard of the Satanic Panic are likely to read, and it's people like that who may be at risk. Equally, you may get people who are starting to be drawn in to those kinds of stories who might be seeking out the book because of this. These are the people that I think it's important to reach. And, to that end, I think it's important to have a clear and civil message in mind when posting about this in public and, indeed, to constantly have in the back of our minds what the purpose of our speaking about this at all is - to educate those who might not otherwise be aware of the facts, and to minimise the harm that it can cause.

 

[Stellafane]

Regarding the sexual component of alien abduction narratives, check out this post on Dysgenics.com from last week. It's by a woman who suffered false memory coercion at the hands of a hypnotherapist (a Dr. of History) who made bizarre requests of her, such as asking for her unwashed panties to test for alien DNA. There was a sexual element to the narrative of the alien's experiments, but there was also a rather transparent sexual element to the "treatment" as well: http://www.dysgenics.com/2012/11/24...mories-of-ufo-abduction-a-personal-testimony/

There's also the third panel of the infamous "Turtleboy and Jet the Wonder Pup," which (one presumes) ostensibly depicts a scene of Satanic ritual abuse, but looks suspiciously like a porn scene between consenting adults. (The female in the image is clearly not a child in any biological sense of the word, and she appears to be rather, um, "into" the proceedings if what she's doing with her free hand is any indication.)

I'm hardly a prude, but I can't even imagine what kind of mind could derive sexual gratification from making others believe they've undergone horrific childhood tortures at the hands of their loved ones. What are these people thinking?

 

[douglas mesner]

There's also the third panel of the infamous "Turtleboy and Jet the Wonder Pup," which (one presumes) ostensibly depicts a scene of Satanic ritual abuse, but looks suspiciously like a porn scene between consenting adults. (The female in the image is clearly not a child in any biological sense of the word, and she appears to be rather, um, "into" the proceedings if what she's doing with her free hand is any indication.)

I'm hardly a prude, but I can't even imagine what kind of mind could derive sexual gratification from making others believe they've undergone horrific childhood tortures at the hands of their loved ones. What are these people thinking?

Oddly, I've found that many of those who have come to identify themselves by the diagnosis of DID try to use the horror of Satanic Ritual Abuse narratives themselves as "evidence" that those stories are true. After all, who could possibly conceive of such a thing if it weren't true, and why would anybody want to continue to believe it if the evidence against it were compelling? Setting aside the fact that it is already quite clear that many of them want -- in fact are desperate to -- believe it, and it isn't up to anybody else to determine WHY, we nonetheless see uncomfortable motivators in the expression repressed sexuality that allows for the telling of the most explicit tales of torture porn, while allowing the author to maintain (and indeed increase) an image of untarnished piety. This overlaps, of course, with the psychology of spirit possession -- a phenomenon that has been known to arise in repressed environments allowing the "possessed" to act out spastic fits of vulgarity and dis-inhibition while in many cases actually increasing social status.

 

[Altus]

I think that depends on what your aim in posting is. From my perspective it looks like descending to their level. We're supposed to be better than the squabbling.

Again, remember that the point is to inform potentially vulnerable people, and that doing so well may save lives. So let them rant and rave, and don't follow suit.

There exists the very real possibility that my "evidence" is incorrect. That there are two people with the same name and that they are linked by a number of common interests. And one bizarrely kept showing as a suggested book when I went on the 22 site. I have just communicated with whomever goes by Felicity and took my post down on Amazon and asked her to apologize to the woman by the same name as the author, who is a good friend of hers. She thanked me. Now, does anyone know how I can get a moderator to remove my post and the other post that quotes it? It's past edit time.

Geeze learning this cognitive bias stuff can be humbling. But when you may be wrong, no point in trying to spin it.

 

[xterra]

There exists the very real possibility that my "evidence" is incorrect

[...] Now, does anyone know how I can get a moderator to remove my post and the other post that quotes it? It's past edit time.

Geeze learning this cognitive bias stuff can be humbling. But when you may be wrong, no point in trying to spin it.

Thanks for correcting yourself. You're right: When you're wrong, you're wrong.

I think you can ask any moderator to remove your posts-or to delete the content and add a note that the author (that's you) asked for it to be removed because it was in error.


However, your error does not negate the observation I made about Alien Abduction stories, nor the posts that Douglas Mesner made about the sexuality themes. ETA, not a flame, just a statement of my point.

Edited yet again: Does anyone have any idea whether Dr. Phil's staff or the staff of the network are reading this? That would be an interesting datum point, don't you think?

 

[douglas mesner]

Edited yet again: Does anyone have any idea whether Dr. Phil's staff or the staff of the network are reading this? That would be an interesting datum point, don't you think?

The Dr. Phil thing seems to be all confusion at this point. They've apparently put off the show, and they still haven't scheduled an airing date, but they've also failed to say that they AREN'T going to air the show. It seems they've put it off without writing it off. I tend to think that the more time passes, the less likely the show becomes... especially with Judy making a fool of herself all over the internet.

 

[Altus]

Thanks for correcting yourself. You're right: When you're wrong, you're wrong.

I think you can ask any moderator to remove your posts-or to delete the content and add a note that the author (that's you) asked for it to be removed because it was in error.


However, your error does not negate the observation I made about Alien Abduction stories, nor the posts that Douglas Mesner made about the sexuality themes. ETA, not a flame, just a statement of my point.

Believe me, I don't take it as a flame at all. My feeling is, we can't cite lack of evidence and then hold up evidence that has a chance of being incorrect, even if it appears highly probable. There were a couple of things about it that made me question it in retrospect. If I spun it, I'd be as bad as the folks with whom I am taking issue.

I do not negate your observations either. In fact, I agree with them.

 

[douglas mesner]

This FMSF Newsletter contains a great article about the Greenbaum Speech of Corydon Hammond from which Judy derived elements of her own infantile conspiracy theory: http://www.fmsfonline.org/fmsf05.830.html

 

[xterra]

The article in the newsletter contains this statement [emphasis mine]:

'The "misrepresentation" by Prime Time Live included the scene in its program "Devilish Deeds," January 7, 1993, where Professor Hammond said that therapists are not responsible for verifying the information they teach in workshops.'

Assuming that the statement is correct; that Hammond is quoted accurately; that Hammond was referring to information on whether and how to conduct therapy, not on whether a Satanic cult exists, then the following inferences can be made:

1. Professor Hammond was acting irresponsibly in making that statement.

2. Professor Hammond was acting unethically in making that statement.

3. Any therapist who follows the advice given, who does not verify that the information they teach is equally irresponsible and unethical.

4. If Professor Hammond was at the time a member of an organization of professional therapists, that organization should have censured him. (Apparently he was: the American Psychological Association.)

5. If he held from the State of Utah a license to practice psychological or psychiatric therapy, the State of Utah should have been the recipient of at least one complaint -- whether it was or not, I have not investigated. But thanks to Orphia Nay, the link to the professional complaints online database has been posted.

6. If Judy Byington operates under the same methodology -- treatment without investigation, therapy based on false premises -- she is as guilty as he is. More, because Hammond " In the course of the story it becomes apparent that Dr. Hammond was already in 1993 trying to distance himself from his own words." [quoted from footnote 10 the link given above.]

xterra