Cult and Ritual Abuse: Narratives, Evidence, and Healing Approaches
Abstract
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.
In this second edition of Joyanna Silberg's classic The Child Survivor, practitioners who treat dissociative children will find practical tools that are backed up by recent advances in clinical research. Chapters are filled with examples of clinical dilemmas that can challenge even the most expert child trauma clinicians, and Silberg shows how to handle these dilemmas with creativity, attunement, and sensitivity to the adaptive nature of even the most complex dissociative symptoms. The new edition addresses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children and provides tips for working with traumatized children in telehealth. A new chapter on organized abuse explains how children victimized by even the most sadistic crimes can respond well to therapy. Clinicians on the front lines of treatment will come away from the book with an arsenal of therapeutic techniques that they can put into practice right away, limiting the need for restrictive hospitalizations or out-of-home placements for their young clients.
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