Leave it to good ol’ Texas to have
a freak out about Satanism. When Dr. Perry first began talking about created
memories in the chapter, he appeared to have much less tact. I remember feeling
like he was victim blaming and doubtful of some of the experiences the children
were having (sexual abuse). Thankfully he was able to clear that up as he moved
forward in the chapter. While I was aware that our memories were malleable and
can be influenced, I find it deeply disturbing that the idea of this “Satanic
Cult” turned into such a pervasive presence in this town. I was very curious as
to how you sort out which memories were true and the ones that had been
tampered with by someone else’s seemingly unintentional coercion.
Perry
essentially did a lie detector test, but used heart rate instead of sweat. I
find it interesting that some of the children knew they had said things that
didn’t happen to them in response to the “holding” technique, others did not
refute that they had said what they said due to others, and seemed to truly
believe it. It is interesting that the “Created” memories of the children in
who did not say they only said the things they said as a result of punishment,
their heartrate was calm when discussing those horrific events. So even though
their memory may include it, since it didn’t actually happen they had a much
more passive response versus the sexual abuse that did occur. I found it
interesting that PTSD wasn’t said to have occurred in the children with the created
memories. One would think if someone believed they had bared witness to
terrible events like many that were described, the person would exhibit
symptoms, yet none were mentioned.
As for
the “holding” technique. This has evolved into something different in which I
was trained to do at the residential treatment center. However, it looks
absolutely nothing like what was described here. The intentional Stockholm syndrome,
and abuse being dealt out as therapy, churned my stomach. Having bruises be a
part of the technique, when nowadays if you leave a bruise on a child it is a
clear sign of abuse, should’ve been a big enough sign then that it shouldn’t
occur. As Perry explained, it only continued due to the “good” results it
produced. But as we read the results were not always honest or real, and was
mostly done by the child in an attempt to make it stop. The reinforcement of
telling the parents that you love them after the ordeal, made me feel so violated.
Like you have the parents do this really shitty thing to their child, and then
are positively reinforced by the child declaring their love for them, perhaps
to abstain from any guilt that process may have generated?
It
saddens me that even the components of the legal team in this town were wrapped
up in the belief of the Satanic Cult, and that they had children name names,
which helped the spread of children being taken from families that did not need
to be. I do wish Perry had addressed how/if he broke the news of his discovery
to the town and how it was received.
The "holding" therapy is definitely an interesting technique. I found myself remembering hearing about "re-birthing" therapy where a child would have to crawl their way out of a rolled up rug to simulate being born again and "restarting" their life. Needless to say, it didn't work, and a few children ended up suffocated to death because of it. I try to understand that therapy has changed and evolved over time, and that if we look back in years we may be ashamed about what we did now, but to actively harm a person seems a bit beyond what is considered reasonable. It honestly seems like everyone in this town was so scared and over-reactive about what "may" have happened to these children that it seems that they ended up causing more harm than good.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to wonder about the nature of memory, as we are encouraged to do in this chapter, especially as it relates to physiology. Granted the unity and inseparability of mind and body, it is in many ways, I suppose, natural to assume that what happens to the body affects the mind, and what happens to the mind affects the body - and we see how true this is in the creation of false memories in these children as well as their physiological responses to them. As you mentioned, the children who had actually been abused responded physically to thoughts of that abuse in the form of both behavior (one girl physically moved away to avoid the question) and increased heart-rate; and even though it was not explicitly measured or described, I imagine there were increases in other indicators of stress such as blood pressure, perspiration and skin conductivity, and blood cortisol levels.
ReplyDeleteBut it's curious that the children who were not actually abused but who said, and perhaps even believed, that they were did not show the same physiological responses. Trauma involves experiencing stimuli from the past as though they were still present. In the same way that we can invent a scary thought or recall a scary memory without actually feeling as though it were present in real time, it seems to me that the bodies of these children who had not actually experienced abuse couldn't possibly respond physiologically because there was no unconscious sensory information stored which could be retrieved to produce a physiological effect. As a result, PTSD symptoms could not manifest - the sensations were imagined, and even if the children "remembered" being abused, the memories, and the neurobiological changes that accompany them, simply weren't there.
This is Alex Sands by the way. Not sure why it says "unknown."
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