Main description:

This personal yet scholarly journey into the confusing and clandestine world of ritual abuse survivors sheds light on their catastrophic experiences and their efforts to heal afterward.

Revised, updated, and expanded, this third edition of a classic study is one of the most authoritative and evenhanded volumes to tackle its hotly debated subject matter. Incorporating the authors' firsthand observations, the book provides historical, anthropological, and psychological context for contemporary reports of both ritual abuse and ritual crime.

In addition to sharing patient vignettes and a history of cult and ritual abuse in society, the authors explore fascinating topics related to these practices, among them what triggers personality shifts for victims even many years after the abuse has stopped. Importantly, the book shows how ritual abuse affects society as a whole, influencing civil and criminal law, politics, legislation, social movements, social welfare, and psychological theory. It provides unique insights into the scientific study, forensic investigation, and implementation of social services for survivors of cult and ritual abuse, discusses new research and treatment strategies, and establishes the foundation for a psychological diagnosis to be called Cult and Ritual Trauma Disorder.

Features recalled histories of ritual abuse and vignettes of patients who have experienced dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder)

Discusses techniques used to create and manipulate altered states of consciousness

Explores how media sensationalizes and inaccurately depicts ritual abuse

Critiques the argument that ritual abuse stories are the result of false memories and advances the idea that reports of ritual abuse are understated

Expresses the position that clinicians have an ethical duty to achieve competence in recognizing and treating the psychological effects of ritual abuse

Concludes that clinicians, lawmakers, law enforcement, social services personnel, journalists, and others need to treat allegations of ritual abuse seriously and evaluate each report on its own merits