Patients come in complaining of depression, anxiety, or other ailments, and are told they are abuse victims. To these therapists, virtually everything is a symptom of abuse, including arthritis, headaches, tension, or a feeling of being different. Based on one office visit, patients have been diagnosed as survivors of satanic cults. When patients insist they have no memories of abuse, they are told that lack of memory is one of the prime symptoms. One way is to order them to.
Patients are eager to get better, and the therapists seem educated, caring, confident.
Meanwhile the patient is instructed to visualize being raped or otherwise abused. If the patient can picture the suggested scenarios, she is told that these are memories, and she must believe it happened. To get over denial, therapists use techniques known to distort and even create memories. Hypnotism is used freely, though clinical research shows that it increases the subject's vulnerability to outside suggestion. And it increases a subject's conviction that hypnotically enhanced memories are accurate, while doing nothing to improve their accuracy.