User:Neil Brick/Sandbox/Cult and Ritual Abuse (book)

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"Cult and ritual abuse : Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America" is a book by James Randall Noblitt and Pamela Sue Perskin, first published in 1995 with a revised edition in 2000. . Noblitt is a clinical psychologist, Director of the Psychology program at Alliant International University. Perskin is Executive Director of the International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma an organization intending to raise awareness patients reporting experiences with cult and ritual abuse; its mission statement includes the goal of "acknowled[ing] ritual abuse as a serious legal, social and public health concern."

The book discusses the idea that ritual abuse is an age-old phenomenon and it is found in many cultures throughout the world. It explores the psychiatric symptoms caused by ritual abuse, including dissociative identity disorder, and suggests ways to deal with the legal and social problems that can result from it. A new diagnosis “Cult and ritual trauma disorder” is proposed in this edition, although the term or variants does not appear in the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings. According to one of the coauthors, "Increasing reports by psychiatric patients of ritual abuse have provoked a debate about the appropriate interpretation of such allegations. Some authors contend that these claims represents fantasy material, dissimulation, or delusions. Others maintain that patients' descriptions of ritualized trauma may constitute a newly identified psychiatric syndrome."

Comments and critiques

The topic of the book is controversial, as there is disagreement over the reliability of evidence for the widespread existence of ritual abuse in contemporary America, and concern about the fanning of public hysteria by uncritical dissemination of exaggerated reports. Others however, believe that there is empirical evidence for the existence of ritual abuse as a serious phenomenon.

Kenneth E. Fletcher in a Psychiatric services review, discusses evidence of ritual abuse from the book and states that parts of the book are interesting and intriguing with uneven writing at times. Fletcher concludes that those interested in the topic of cult and ritual abuse will find it a worthwhile read. Another review puts it in a list of counterarguments to suggestions that "Many social scientists, scholars, and legal authorities now view the stories of Satanic conspiracy that circulated in the 1980s as urban legends, and the daycare abuse cases as historical aberrations"

An article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy stated that “Whether or not one believes in MPD and/or Ritual Abuse, this book provides one with what is probably the most comprehensive and reasonable review of the subject that has appeared up to now.”