The dissociation circuitSloppy thinkers whose dangerous psychological theories resonate in naive circlesA FRONTAL ATTACKby Joost Niemöller De Groene Amsterdammer You will find the article in Dutch on: Dr. H.F.M. Crombag, co-author of Recovered Memories and other misconceptions, refuses to stand idly by watching the invasion of MPD therapists in the Netherlands. "BUYER BEWARE
!'' next time you visit a friendly neighbourhood psychotherapist. You may end up leaving with an entirely new past.
Increasingly - especially in the U.S, but now also in the Netherlands - the reliability of so-called "recovered memories' is being debated. After
clients are put under hypnosis, many become convinced of having been abused Professor Dr Hans Crombag, forensic psychologist at Maastricht
University along with Dr Willem Wagenaar, memory researcher and rector magnificus at
Leyden University, author of Dubious Cases, cannot find a single scientific basis for the possibility of "recovered memories'. Nor do they give any
credence to the closely linked fad diagnosis of Multiple Personality Recovered Memories and other Nonsense.GA: 'You are a scientist, yet your book is directed to the general public?'Crombag: 'Our subject has direct implications for a wider audience than scientists. Many people are faced with this sort of problem. A few days ago an older married couple came to me who, interrupting each other frequently, told me that their daughter, who had been diagnosed with MPD, now believes that her father for many years had raped her atrociously. As an in-patient at the Amstelland clinic, she had already acquired thirty alter personalities, with other new personalities emerging daily. You have no idea, what grief this brings to such parents. Those are the people I want to reach. Not just the victims, but also the judges, who eventually have
to deal with the cases - the police officer who arrested this father in the middle of the Our country has a multitude of caregivers, many of whom have made it their mission life to fight child abuse and might therefore headlong fall for the ideas propagated by MPD and recovered memory enthusiasts. For such caregivers, who need simple practical advice to help their troubled clients and who may have no time to keep in touch with the scientific literature my book was written. Merckelbach and I explain to them how memory really works and compare it to the outrageous claims made by recovered memory devotees. We explain that this is not just another one of the many disagreements in the field of psychology. Once someone has been diagnosed with MPD their condition goes
from bad to worse. In the U.S the situation is grotesque - tens of thousands of cases. A GA: In short, MPD is imagination.Crombag: Yes, but that does not mean that people said to have
MPD are healthy. They most likely have some other disorder, they may be bipolar,
what used to be called: manic-depressive or what is called borderline GA: One psychiatrist might see a personality disorder where another notes a mood disorder in that patient?Crombag: Well the latest American diagnostic manual (DSM IV) some time ago, as a result of much criticism, tried to weaken the notion of MPD, renaming it Dissociative Identity Disorder, describing it as: "The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states". GA: But what is a "personality state"? I haven't the foggiest notion as to what that meansCrombag: Neither do I, or anyone I know. That people's moods vary and that some people fall victim to that more so than others, is old news. The good thing is that for people who have real problems, such as bipolarity, good therapy is available using medication. Manics need to take medication to keep their problem under control. You are just not going to try a talking cure with such people for years on end. You better also not tell such people: " You have MPD which is often caused by childhood sexual abuse" "Oh no!, abuse .... who could that have been?" "How about your father? Before you know it your whole world collapses." Of course your mother was the enabler, or she would have deserted him." "The only thing is to break with your family of origin." That advice usually given. "Seek a new family of choice" - such as an incest survivor support group. Your new father and mother will be the group-therapist In the Netherlands it has recently been formulated somewhat milder than in the above, older and extreme U.S. model, but that has made it no less dangerous. It only has the appearance of making sense. The leading figures in the Dutch MPD-world, Onno van der Hart and Suzette Boon, got their training in, or their ideas came from the U.S. and they are part of the network. If you know where the network operates you know where the MPD cases begin to surface. In many countries not a single case has been seen by psychiatrists I consider the Van der Hart and Boon clique dangerous. I tried
not to say it like that in the book, that would be a personal attack. But really, look,
here is a pamphlet outlining a course in diagnosing MPD. Suzette Boon is the instructor. But also one Liz Bijnsdorp who has MPD herself and has
written a book about that. And now, dammit, she is teaching that stuff! Training caregivers, no less! How serious should I now take Suzette Boon?
There is such tragedy right here, just this one little sentence in the book - her dying father did not want her to come near his deathbed! She tells how the parents of an adult daughter got two
messages from her in one week: one informs the parents that she has terminal cancer, the other
one accuses the parents of abusing her in infancy in Satanic rituals. After receiving the first message the parents of course want to visit the
daughter. Next they hear from a therapist that they can see her on condition that they first admit to the abuse. Imagine the awful dilemma of Well, the reaction did set in. In the Netherlands, following
the example of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation we now also have an action group, the Meanwhile in the Netherlands, MPD got out of hand. My co-author, professor Harald Merckelbach, was visited by two young ladies, television producers, who announced that they wanted to do a six program series in the fall on Ritual Abuse and MPD. It was already impossible to get through to these women. Broadcasting such stuff is a direct attack on the national mental health. GA: Was MPD invented to cover a variety of symptoms?Patients diagnosed with MPD may have a host of problems, some
of which can be treated and others about which too little is known to help them. A GA: Such people must be deeply unhappyCrombag: Most certainly, at the height of a clinical
depression, such patients want nothing else but stay in bed. You only get them moving with
heavy anti-depressants. Much neurotransmitter theory on this os still in the hypothesis stage. No one wants to say out loud: "Go away, we can't help
you!" One can't do much more than console, sympathise and show that you GA: Have you ever met anyone who could have had MPD?Crombag: Never. That is of course the reproach we get:
"You have to see such a case, then you will believe for sure" I have asked many
psychiatrists:" Have you ever seen a case?" and they all say: "Never". The vast
majority of psychiatrists never saw cause to make the diagnosis. Now the counterargument
is that it takes time to recognize the symptoms of MPD - if you don't GA: Some psychiatrists diagnose it?Crombag: A tiny minority. Some with serious training, but with
something odd about them do it. That happens now and then in psychiatry. Some for instance Where do all those MPD patients end up? They just disappear. I assume that many eventually drop out and with some difficulty find a way to somehow survive. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to find former MPD patients to do independent research. GA: Are they kept away from sceptics.Crombag: It seems that way. As far as MPD research goes; the handlers are also the investigators. In real science there are various types of double blind experiments and colleagues work in collaboration. There is a requirement to work with large samples in order to detect patterns of behaviour. This is done to prevent drawing unwarranted conclusions from chance and coincidence. Such careful skeptical research has never been done with MPD. Those who should do such research do not seem to want to do it. GA: That looks like a conspiracy.Crombag: I say 'amen' to that. It is a circuit based on
belief. An inbred organization, a club with its own periodicals, and its own conferences.
There is going to be a conference in France about trauma, memory and GA: Strange.Crombag: In our small country where all psychologists know each other, you mean? Sure, all the ones who teach psychology I know. But not Van der Hart. He teaches in Utrecht. I asked Piet Vroon who teaches, Theoretical Psychology as well as, Philosophy and History of Psychology, " How was that possible?" Apparently in a weak moment someone must have seen something in Van der Hart and he got job as special docent, a kind of part-time job. Anyway we don't move in the same circles. Take someone like Ellert Nijenhuis, clinical psychologist in
Assen. He appeared on the Sonja Barend Show, when she had Yolanda [a woman who had
recovered bizarre false memories of sadistic abuse by many perpetrators] on the
programme. Here was Yolanda, exaggerating and Sonja going; "O, how I had the text printed verbatim and forwarded it to the board of directors of the Netherlands Institute of Psychologists, with the remark: "Please observe, there are limits to what is possible. Here a man is telling a story of which I am convinced that it is a lie. This man has be taken to task. Either he proves to the disciplinary commission that the story is true or he admits in public: "I invented that tale". The board's response was; what do you want? The rules clearly state that third party complaints will not be heard. The case died there. Such stuff coming from an expert sinks in like the gospel into
a church elder. "O, that's how it goes? Now I see why I hate tapioca pudding"
concludes a not too stable eighteen year old girl. "That's what must have GA: MPD blew over from the U.S. to the Netherlands. It's hardly known in France?Crombag: Let me give you an example to show that certain diagnoses have their networks. In the late fifties, early sixties we had at Nijmegen a notorious psychiatrist, Dr Anna Teruwe. She created a new disorder: Frustrationneurosis. The disorder fortunately never spread far beyond Nijmegen and surroundings where it was diagnosed only by Teruwe's students. She died, no one reads her books and the disease disappeared. It is only human, that some psychiatrist, in a weak moment
tries to augment his ignorance by intuitively clutching thin air. If you often have to admit
your lack of knowledge you become very frustrated. Especially when you see that the average lay person has access to a bag of anecdotes that explain
all kinds of behaviours in others. Unfortunately in psychiatry we have only GA:
Crombag:Exactly, this sounds as if there are several little men at
work in one's brain who control behaviour, and who each have their own purpose in
mind. Now, who wrote that nonsense? Don't tell me, it wasn't Ellert GA: Getting caught in a sentence.Crombag: True. Lets hope, it wont keep him awake nights. That
somecan get away with that. Animistic, is the correct word when psychological functions I begin to believe that the western world is getting more and more superstitious. In my
naivety I once leaned towards the belief that the course of history is one
where credulity was gradually replaced by knowledge and rationality. Now I
get the impression that the opposite is at work towards a general dumbing |