...more common than you might think
i was wondering just how common are beliefs in SRA today, is Neil Brick and SMART the only major promoter of such ideas today?
Neil Brick is not the only promoter, and I've noticed two things (among many others, I'm sure) that keep these ideas alive:
1] Although it's pervasive, it's also relatively obscure. As you said, for most people it has fallen off the radar. Even when people hear of recent events, it's very easy to write it off as an anomaly and assume it's not a problem anymore. That mentality allows the whole problem to fester, unknown to much of the public but still causing plenty of damage.
2] As Orphia said, although the number of professionals who promote a belief in SRA is comparatively small, many of them are considered "experts" and are respected by their colleagues.
Colin Ross, Richard Kluft,
Valerie Sinason and Joyana Silberg are all facilitators of these beliefs, and they are often called in as expert witnesses in trials. So, while they are a small group, they have enough power and influence to keep spreading these delusions throughout the mental health field, where they eventually trickle down to individuals (clients) and their families.
Randy Noblitt, whose "expert" testimony helped get the
Kellers wrongfully convicted, is an active faculty member at
Alliant International University, where he still teaches a
course on "ritual abuse". Noblitt and his wife have made no secret that they still cling to their SRA beliefs and their belief that the Kellers were guilty, even now that the Kellers have been released.
Alan Scheflin, another SRA believer, is on the faculty at Santa Clara University.
Both of these men have respected positions on the faculties of their universities where they teach impressionable students, and both are called upon in court to lend their expertise, and the problem just goes on and on.
Another way the problem is spread is through the "new" therapy models being used. Richard Schwartz developed a therapy model in which clinicians train their clients to think of themselves as having various "parts", and they use things like hypnosis, "trance", and guided imagery to allow the "parts" to communicate with one another and "disclose" things. It's just a repackaged version of Repressed Memory Therapy. And Schwartz isn't the only one; there are other similar therapy models, and mental health clinicians often receive Continuing Education Credits for learning them.
I really hope people will begin to realize that this problem is more widespread than it appears, that it's not limited to religious groups or fringe populations, and that it still has the potential to do a great deal of damage. I want to see this problem exposed and understood as the public health menace it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRiRN7Xiv_I
