Please note: S.M.A.R.T. has no paid employees and all money paid to S.M.A.R.T. goes toward efforts to educate survivors and the general public about survivor issues and research.
Conference Information
Conference Participants
The conference will include those either recovering from ritual abuse and/or helping those recovering from ritual abuse. This includes survivors, co-survivors and therapists working with ritual abuse survivors. Members of secret organizations, acting out perpetrators, and/or members of unsympathetic organizations are excluded from the conference. This is for the protection and safety of those in attendance.
Conference Speakers
Survivors may want to use caution reading this material or read it with a safe support person.
30 Years of Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Dissociation – Valerie Sinason
In 1989 a Swedish psychologist, Anders Svensson rang me for help at the Tavistock Clinic in London. He was a psychologist working with a woman with intellectual disability who reported abuse. The call was to change my life. Although I had been working with the sexual abuse of children and adults with intellectual disabilities for ten years at a time there was only the beginnings of acceptance of child abuse, ritual abuse was something I had never knowingly encountered. Three decades later, how much has changed? How different is it for the victim or survivor or supporter or professional? Is there any improvement in police and professional response to such allegations? How much credence is given to deniers and purveyors of misinformation? What are the cautions that come with this work?
Valerie Sinason is a poet, writer, retired child psychotherapist, and adult psychoanalyst. She helped to pioneer the field of disability psychotherapy and continues to serve as founding President of the Institute of Psychotherapy and Disability. She is also the founder director and now patron of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies in London and has worked extensively with severely traumatised individuals suffering from dissociative identity disorder. Previously, Dr Sinason worked as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, the Portman Clinic, the Anna Freud Centre, and as an Adult psychoanalyst at St. George’s Hospital Medical School in the University of London. She is on the Board of the ISSTD. Her many books include Mental Handicap and the Human Condition: New Approaches from the Tavistock, now in its second edition, and also The Truth about Trauma and Dissociation: Everything You Didn’t Want to Know and Were Afraid to Ask. A first novel about mind control “The Orpheus Project ” will be published by Sphinx books in October. https://ritualabuse.us/smart/valerie-sinason/
The Modern False Memory Syndrome Movement in the United States – Neil Brick
The modern FMS movement borrows most of its history, techniques and research from prior false memory movements. These erroneous theories include memory implantation into survivors’ minds by therapist, pseudoscientific theories about memory and dissociation and the harassment of survivors and therapists and their support groups. The modern FMS movement also differs from prior movements in several ways. The modern FMS movement uses religion and prayer to promote its theories. The modern FMS theories, while they may quote the old false memory movements pseudoscientists of the 1990s, they do not usually use modern scientists in the field to back their organizations’ beliefs.
Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and ritual abuse crimes. His child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter S.M.A.R.T. https://ritualabuse.us has been published for over 27 years. http://neilbrick.com
A History of Ritual Abuse – Dr. Randy Noblitt
This two-hour presentation traces the history of ritual abuse, and critically evaluates the chronology and evolution of this topic in the scholarly literature. We will review and discuss the definition of ritual abuse from the APA Dictionary of Psychology along with other definitions and conceptualizations. We will consider ritual abuse allegations in the context of the backlash movement to including the false memory syndrome and sociocognitive theories. We will review contemporary international allegations of ritual abuse, also exploring historic accounts of ritual abuse. We will examine the frequently noted psychological sequelae in ritual abuse.
Randy Noblitt is a clinical psychologist and professor of clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) at Alliant International University, Los Angeles. He is the principle author of Navigating Social Security Disability Programs: A Handbook for Clinicians and Advocates (2020) as well as Cult and Ritual Abuse: Narratives, Evidence and Healing Approaches, 3rd Edition (2014). He is the co-editor and a contributor to Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations (2008). https://ritualabuse.us/smart/randy-noblitt/
Should I seek freedom? Should I go through with recovery? A workshop to help you decide and a discussion of its benefits – Wendy Hoffman
If you’re living as an unaware mind controlled victim, you’re living in a vapor, seeing yourself and life through an indistinct veil of mist. You have strong emotions that can break through numbness, but you don’t know who you are or why you react the ways you do. You may also feel trapped in hurtful and unloving relationships and not able to mature into who you really are. All that can be changed if you are willing to go through with a recovery. It is hard work. It can be exhilarating. The enemy group will try to stop you. But if you want, you can find out who you are and what your life has been and can be in the future. This presentation explores some of the benefits of relinquishing slavery and learning who you are. Self-knowledge is the way out.
Wendy Hoffman had amnesia for most of her life. When she regained memory, she wrote books about her forgotten life. Wendy has published three memoirs, Enslaved Queen, White Witch in a Black Robe and in 2020, A Brain of My Own. The Enslaved Queen has been translated and published in Germany. Her book of poetry, Forceps, also published along with a book of essays, From the Trenches, written with Alison Miller. Her most recent memoir, After Amnesia, is published on the SmartNews and Survivorship websites. and has been translated into German. What gives her life meaning is helping other surviving victims. https://ritualabuse.us/smart/wendy-hoffman/
The 20th Anniversary of the Ritual Abuse Network Scotland (RANS) – Dr. Laurie Matthew OBE
The 20th anniversary is in October of this year. Laurie will talk about the Ritual Abuse Network Scotland and share the experience of 20 years of setting up services and supporting survivors tof ritual abuse in Scotland. She will discuss the experience of raising awareness about ritual abuse in the UK and the issues she has encountered along the way.
Dr. Laurie Matthew OBE is founder and Manager of Eighteen And Under an award winning charity providing confidential support services to young people who have been abused. She is also a founder member and advisor to Izzy’s Promise the UK’s leading charity for survivors of organised and ritual abuse and of the Ritual Abuse Network Forum (RANS). She is the author of several books about ritual abuse and the Violence Is Preventable abuse prevention programmes for children and young people. She has over 40 years experience of directly supporting abuse survivors. Her recently published research has included participatory research with adult ritual abuse survivors and participatory research with young survivors of sexual abuse who were unknown to authorities. www.18u.org.uk www.violenceispreventable.org.uk
Sponsorship Information
The conference is sponsored by S.M.A.R.T., a newsletter that examines the possible connections between ritual abuse and secretive organizations. SMARTNEWS@aol.com http://ritualabuse.us/
The conference is co-sponsored by Survivorship. Survivorship is one of the oldest and most respected organizations supporting survivors of extreme child abuse, including sadistic sexual abuse, ritualistic abuse, mind control, and torture. Survivorship provides resources, healing, and community for survivors; training and education for professionals who may serve survivors; and support for survivors’ partners. https://survivorship.org
Please note: None of the material on these pages or at the conference is meant as therapy, or to take the place of therapy.
S.M.A.R.T. – Copyright 2022 (Entire Pamphlet and conference name) – All rights reserved, no reproduction of any material without written permission from S.M.A.R.T.
