Twenty-Two Faces discussion

The "author" of this book is a proven fraud who cites other proven frauds from a couple of decades ago to back up her lurid, supernatural, semi-pornographic diatribe to no purpose other than stirring up another round of life-destroying accusations. What is the net result? Resources squandered and public trust eroded, thus consigning victims of real abuse to their fates.

After the "Satanic" Panic of the 1980s subsided, social services never recovered. They bought into the Panic too heavily, so it made them look dangerously incompetent when the whole thing was revealed as fraud and hysteria. This is what Byington wants to bring back. She and her kind are responsible for enabling abuse; sure, children are stuck in abusive homes because the county now walks on eggshells, but at least they got to close down the local head shop and beat up some teenagers for playing Dungeons and Dragons. That is what is important to them.

Shrike, I'm encouraged lately to see researchers and other mental health professionals speaking out against the Satanic Ritual Abuse conspiracy and the DID diagnosis.

Allen Frances, former Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force, has a few recent Huffpo articles, including this one where he points out that the Dissociative Identity Disorder a.k.a. Multiple Personality Disorder diagnosis is highly suspect, and explains the bass ackwards anti-logic that keeps it in the DSM to begin with.

In two other articles, found here and here, he discusses the SRA fad and acknowledges his own mistake in not speaking out against the madness sooner.

Both Allen Frances and Dr. John Nardo mention (and link to) a piece by Richard Noll entitled When Psychiatry Battled the Devil, published and then quickly pulled by the Psychiatric Times this past December. The Richard Noll piece is hosted by psychotherapist Gary Greenberg.

These men are paving the way for open dialogue; hopefully others will speak up now before we find ourselves in the midst of another Satanic Panic.

From Frances' SRA article:

Anyone who thinks it improbable that anything so dumb and destructive could ever happen again need only google "satanic ritual abuse." You will find a wealth of reckless and nutty how-to guides ready to lure the gullible into a new round of similar primitive thinking and witch hunts. And there is no shortage of gullible people -- a recent survey indicates that a majority of Americans still believe in demonic possession. The percentages would be even higher in many parts of the world that are even less developed than we are.

If we don't recall this disaster and learn from its lessons, we are likely to repeat it -- possibly in the near future.