Ritual Abuse and Mind Control

Orit Badouk Epstein is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor who trained at The Bowlby Centre, London where she is a member of the executive committee. She works as a relational psychotherapist in private practice and has a particular interest and passion for working with individuals who have experienced extreme abuse and trauma, DID, ritual abuse and working relationally with parents. Joseph Schwartz is a training therapist and supervisor at the Bowlby Centre. He worked for over fifteen years in mental health research before becoming a clinician. He is the author of numerous papers on clinical practice, the history of psychoanalysis, and the lack of a role of genetics in mental distress. He has also written numerous books including 'Einstein for Beginners'. He currently lives in London with his partner and two children. Rachel Wingfield Schwartz is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist and a training supervisor and teacher at the Bowlby Centre. Rachel has been working with ritual abuse survivors since 1993 and is passionately committed to ending the disbelief and silence surrounding this issue.

'Although my father wrote about dissociation and multiple personality, it wasn't until Valerie Sinason asked me to do some filming for a survivor of ritual abuse that the penny really dropped. We had been filming the locations where much of the abuse had occurred and the woman asked me "Do you believe me?" And I realized that I did. This book of papers from a pioneering conference of survivors and therapists stands as a testament to the courage of those willing to come forward to name and identify the horrors of organized abuse practiced on children in our society. Every therapist should read it.'- Sir Richard Bowlby'This book, and the remarkable conference it documents, has brought together an impressive group of experts, professional and experiential, to discuss one of the most controversial issues in the fields of trauma and mental health. Attachment theory can definitely throw new light on a topic that some sceptics might prefer be left in the dark altogether.'- John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology, the University of Auckland'All books written by mental health professionals require intelligence, compassion, and sensitivity from their authors, but few demand courage. The contributors to this impressive and chilling collection of essays deserve our deepest thanks for their bravery in exploring and exposing the most ugly underbelly of human psychology. In sensitive and measured prose, these cutting-edge colleagues have managed to help us understand that extreme abuse, mind control, torture, and other forms of multi-perpetrator assault do exist, and that to deny the personal testimony of survivors, as well the growing body of clinical and forensic evidence, represents a horrific attack. The editors and authors of this collection share their moving psychotherapeutic work in a modest manner, helping all contemporary workers to develop a greater appreciation of the important work that demands our respect and our attention. I recommend this book as necessary reading for all who care about human dignity.'- Professor Brett Kahr, Centre for Child Mental Health, London

• Introduction , What has changed in twenty years? , “An evil cradling”? Cult practices and the manipulation of attachment needs in ritual abuse , Torture-based mind control: psychological mechanisms and psychotherapeutic approaches to overcoming mind control , Love is my religion , Working with the Incredible Hulk , Maintaining agency: a therapist’s journey