Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM) is known to generate false memories that harm clients and families. Often the victims including the vulnerable client and falsely accused family members remain silent out of shame and fear. This web page is to help others learn about this tragedy inducing ministry that combines fraudulent recovered memory therapy with errant theological interpretation:
Cult Education Institute Speaks Out on TPM
Institute finds Theophostic Prayer Ministry as one of the many damaging cults.
TheoPhostic Counseling: Divine or What? (brief article)
Dr. Gary briefly cites major philosophical and methodological errors in TPM
Review of Healing Life's Hurts
Dr. Burgess reviews book by leader of TPM that describes Theophostic Prayer.
Lying Spirits (online book)
A journalist investigates and finds profound errors in method and results.
Theophostic Errors in Psychology
Analysis finds a major error in use of "repressed memories". Repressed Memories long rejected by informed mental health professionals and are rejected by the courts. TPM continues to use and treat this dubious experience as a factual recollection. Most counselors and therapists avoid "repressed memories" due to retractions, damage to families and lawsuits.
Theophostic Errors in Theology (online book)
Christian theological analysis finds major errors in biblical quotes used by TPM.
Theophostic Counseling Divine Revelation or PsychoHeresy? (online book)
Thorough analysis by two degreed psychologists who now review counseling programs that combine harmful psychological techniques with religious faith.
Theophostic Representative Responds to Negative Postings
In response to my posting a link to this website a Theophostic representative responded. I captured our exchange for your review and evaluation.
Some public accounts of Theophostic Prayer Ministry Impact:
The story of how a church was impacted and terrorized by TPM. A person who left the church was later accused, lost his wife and was then jailed before being exonerated by authorities.
Kim Clough describes the counseling process as "walking into a guillotine" . She says, when talking about the actions of the perpetrator, that "It is hard to forgive something you don't know about."
Therapist using TPM found guilty of malpractice and client realizes memories are false just prior to losing husband and family.
Client describes time with a psychiatrist, fully trained and practicing Theophostic Prayer Ministry for 5 years. The client states "At best, I wasted my time with him. At worst, he forced me to invent non-existent things from my past in order to cleanse me and relieve me of non-existent psychological pain."
Consecrated Religious Shamed by Theophostic Prayer Ministry
Consecrated Religious Shamed by Theophostic Prayer Ministry
Faustina is a consecrated religious living in a service community. Faustina shares how Theophostic Prayer Ministry nurtured false memories and shame.
Faith Baptist Church, North Yarmouth, ME:
Pastor Wesley Harris is pastor of this church. During 1998, he attended a training seminar at the Theophostic Ministries in Kentucky. The Associated Press reported that "According to former members, the climate at the church changed" after he returned from the seminar. Almost all of the women in the congregation have since underwent TPM counseling. According to former member Betty Bendixon, nearly every woman in the church who underwent TPM recovered repressed "memories" of sexual abuse. In RMT about 80% of clients can be expected to recover such "memories" (actually false memories). This means that TPM is extremely effective at generating pseudo memories, in this case, due to the immense social pressure of such group environments. Many of the women would stand, weeping, beside pastor Harris at the pulpit as he described in detail the sexual abuse incidents that they allegedly suffered, often at the hands of their husbands or fathers. Former church members said that two families have broken up and other family relationships have been severed as a result of these "memories."
In January 2000, Thomas Wright left the congregation, along with his four children, and began attending a church in Freeport. His wife, Susan, remained at Faith Baptist. In April 2002, a former adult male church member, Thomas Wright, was arrested and charged with the sexual abuse of a boy, aged 7 at the time. Three women from the congregation subsequently reported recovered memories of having been abused by this same man. Co-accusers, all with pseudomemories, are very common in such environments.
According to Thomas Wright, Harris told Susan Wright to avoid “having fellowship” with him. In May 2001, Wright said, he told his wife that she needed to leave the church. Within a few weeks, he said, a young woman in the congregation claimed that he and his daughter, Kate Wright, had sexually assaulted her when she was 12 years old. Susan Wright declined to be interviewed.
Thomas Wright was arrested and required a $15,000 cash bail. Mr. Wright said he never learned about the accusation of the 11-year-old boy until after his arrest last month. Although three women told police that Wright had abused them, Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion said detectives are focusing on the 11-year-old boy’s accusation because that one appears to be the strongest case. The Wright case has proven to be a complicated one for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Three detectives have conducted 55 interviews, and they are getting more letters and phone calls daily. The district attorney will decide if there is enough evidence to prosecute.
All of the current church members, including Wright’s estranged wife, supported the boy, Dion said.
Thomas Wright's daughter, Kate Wright, is one of the women who underwent counseling (she was 21). During the 3 hour therapy sessions she was asked to close her eyes the entire time. Harris allegedly told her that whenever she spoke during the her voice was either God's or Satan's. She recovered a "memory" of sexual abuse by a relative during her childhood. She now believes that the memory is false, and that she felt pressured to create a "memory" because the other women had successfully recovered theirs."
Nobody appeared to question why memories of sexual abuse were emerging in almost all of the women in the congregation. Investigators typically estimate (based on actual data) that only a few percentage of girls are the victim-survivors of childhood incest. About 1% are sexually abused by their father, 1% by their step-father, and a similar percentage are molested by other family members or strangers. Either there was a phenomenal concentration of incest and child sexual abuse in this one congregation, or the memories recovered through TPM were false. Investigators suspected the latter.
On June 26, 2002, Stephanie Anderson, District Attorney of Cumberland County, ME, dismissed the sexual-abuse charges against a Thomas Wright, and verbally accused Wes Harris, his former pastor, of "spiritual abuse." She defined spiritual abuse as the "manipulation and control over the hearts and minds of your flock. It instills fear in people." Tom Bell of the Portland Press Herald wrote: "Pastors from several other churches criticized Harris' ministry and said they are worried about the estimated 60 people who still follow him. They accuse Harris of breaking up several families and of leveraging his influence over people to gain large financial donations."Found on 7/12/2016 at http://www.religioustolerance.org//theophostic3.htm
Report of a client concerning TPM:
Kim Clough, of Sun Prairie, WI is a client of a TPM counselor. Central Kentucky News-Journal records Cough's description of "Theophostic sessions as private meetings where the facilitator prays and asks Jesus to take the person back to 'another memory when you feel the same feeling,' that is considered part of the current distress." Clough said: "You talk about it, get stirred up and go back to three or four memories. The facilitator helps you discover the lie. When Jesus brings the truth, the pain is gone. It's like a miracle. It's usually pretty intense. There's horrible pain in these memories. Some of the memories are some things I remember, some are things I haven't remembered before." Before a session, she says that sometimes I feel like I'm walking to the guillotine. Then I walk out really a different person." Referring to a male relative that she believes abused her as a child, she said: "Forgiving him is kind of a process. It's hard to forgive something you don't know about."
Found on 7/12/2016 at http://www.religioustolerance.org//theophostic3.htm
Malpractice using TPM:
"In Australia, a psychologist was found guilty of malpractice for using Theophostic methods in 2006 by the Queensland Health Practitioners Tribunal. The tribunal found that Irene Moreau, who practiced from a Christian counselling centre in Brisbane, 'inappropriately used Theophostic Prayer Ministry as a counselling technique'."\
Found 7/12/2016 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophostic_counseling
Report from a Client:
"I have a friend who is a professional psychiatrist who has been using this for over five years. He took me through the technique when I was enduring extreme pain. It proved to be fibromyalgia, not a psychological disorder, but he tried to convince me otherwise and "cure" me. At best, I wasted my time with him. At worst, he forced me to invent non-existant things from my past in order to cleanse me and relieve me of non-existant psychological pain.
My own opinion is that, at best, it is worthless, and, at worst, it can mislead sincerely hurting people such as myself."
Found 7/16/2016 at http://www.christianforums.com/threads/theophostic-counseling.7539827/#post-56892161
Conclusion of extensive Examination and Study:
"Although quick and permanent results are promised by this approach, it also holds the potential for irreparable damage to relationships and families by
unearthing of allegedly buried memories of the past sins of others. All that glitters is not gold, and all that claims to be "light" is not necessarily God's light. The theophostic approach does not withstand scrutiny under the searchlight of God's eternal Word."
Found 7/16/2016 at http://www.christiandiscernment.com/Christian%20Discernment/CD%20PDF/Book%20pdf/31%20Theophostic%20Theology%20FINAL%20PAPER.pdf
Archived Copy at:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25498804/Memory/31%20Theophostic%20Theology%20FINAL%20PAPER.pdf
Open Letter from a Client of TheoPhotsic Prayer Ministry
This is an open letter warning about dangerous forms of therapy including repressed/recovered memory therapy (which includes therapy based on Multiple Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder ) and a new and rampant proportedly Christian healing ministry called Theophostic Prayer Ministry marketed by Ed Smith In the U.S.A.
This therapy is DANGEROUS and can and has resulted in the destruction of countless (thousands) of families including my own and is even statistically proven to lead to Suicide in individuals involved in the therapy. It is an irresponsible form of therapy which statistics and scientific evidence are now revealing this to be the case.
As a 47 year old concerned mother of 3 ,deeply wounded by therapy, I write this letter because I was once an accuser as a result of these victim mentality therapies, then i became a retractor and broke free of the mind altering techniques involved and became a TRUE VICTIM who lost everything.
This included my husband whom I lost to the therapist, and my only two daughters, who continue to believe the 'False Memories' of childhood sexual and ritual abuse arising from the unproven and unethical forms of therapy. My daughters have cut off all contact despite efforts on my part to reconnect. I know they have been advised by this therapist in conjunction with their father to cut off all communication.
This Repressed Memory/ Theophostic Prayer Ministry used the following techniques on my family and me: guided imagery, reference to 'Body memories', hypnotic trances, suggestibility, heavy emphasis on 'abreaction', constant reinforcement of the fact that all the bizarre memories were true because the therapist had heard it all before, reference to 'alters or 'parts' (up to 20 different parts) and labeling me an SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) victim before I even started the therapy based solely on the fact I had depression and Lupus SLE.
There was absolutely no attempt to substantiate or corroberate any of the 'imaginings'. Instead the therapist tried to drag up more and more bizarre visualizations to the point where I was totally out of touch with reality.In a place of severe mental breakdown and tried to commit suicide. Initially before breaking free from this dangerous therapy I was advised to cut off from all extended family (because they were supposedly the root cause of my pain) I was told to stop taking antidepressants and not to seek professional medical help.
I openly encourage all mental health workers, therapists and church counselors to become more aware of this dangerous form of therapy and of the enormous, sometimes irreversible damage it can cause to an individual and to the many family members it can ultimately destroy. ( this also includes all those innocent people that have been accused of gross crimes because of repressed memory therapy and have and still continue to serve time in gaols for crimes that they did not commit.)
This dangerous therapy also takes away justice and diminishes the severity of true and actual sexual crimes which are perpetrated and have been proven to have occurred. I implore all of you involved in mental health fields and church healing ministries to keep up to date with current research and accounts that are now very clearly showing the damage created by such irresponsible forms of therapy.
To continue to use these therapies is malpractice to say the least and totally unethical and unprofessional. It CAN and HAS led to suicides, innocent people being imprisoned, and the total destruction of the family unit. I am one of those statistics and I can no longer sit idly by and know that there are still large numbers of you out there that are using these unorthodox and dangerous therapies.
I also challenge you to keep up to date with research in the field of memory and how pseudomemories (false memories ) CAN and ARE being created by these types of therapies. Elizabeth Loftus is a leading researcher in the field. In respect to Ed Smith and his Theophostic Prayer Ministries, I ask all those who have involved themselves in some way with this 'psychoheresy' to take an extremely critical look at his theology and his writings in 'BEYOND TOLERABLE RECOVERY'.
Jan Fletcher, a Christian journalist and reasearcher has written a very powerful e-book called 'Lying Spirits' which clearly and thoroughly discounts much of Ed Smith's teachings. It is a valuable resource for those who have suffered as a result of involving themselves in Repressed/ Theophostic therapy.
This is just a brief account of my true story. My name is Narelle Lewis and I reside in Brisbane Queensland, I have spent the last three years in total agony and emotional pain because I become involved with a freelance so-called therapist on the QLD Gold Coast who practices a mishmash of repressed memory, body memory and Theophostic Ministry on her unwitting patients. Before meeting this middle aged, female, divorced, freelance therapist who was and still is (to my knowledge) operating a business and preying on people's vulnerability; I had a loving family and adoring compassionate husband, two beautiful daughters and one son.
I had suffered from depression for many years and also have lupus SLE and high blood pressure. I met this woman in 2002, and was immediately labeled an SRA ( explained as Sexual Ritual Abuse) survivor. I then went through 18 months of intense and tortuous brainwashing therapy in which anything and everything was dragged up relating to sexual abuse by my father who died in 1989.
I had previously had no memories of my childhood much earlier than 6 to 8 years of age. In fact I was quite sure I had had a normal happy childhood, but because of my present ailments this woman labeled me as an SRA victim and continued to pursue the root cause of my present day ailments.
She followed all the same methods I have mentioned previously and used by many other such unethical counselors and eventually I became totally cut off from my extended family and indeed the real world. I did this only to please my husband who eventually was sucked into becoming involved with this woman and her dangerous therapy. He left me in September 2003 to support her and her dangerous therapy.
In September 2003, my whole world fell apart, I became suicidal and took pills, I couldn't stand any more of the pressure placed on me by both the therapist and my now very different self obsessed and blameful husband who was consumed with hatred for my family. He left me and went on to continue to support the therapist. My daughters now 23 and 21 became involved in the same Repressed/Theophostic Therapy.
They cut of all ties and to this day (two long and painful years) will have no contact despite my desperate attempts to reconnect. I was left alone to battle through what I had been left me , which had once been my life and reason for living. My son is still with me he is 16 but now has developed severe emotional problems including OCD and eating disorder. These conditions were not present before my husband left me.
The trauma had almost destroyed me and I was ready to end my life but I reached out to a registered Psychiatrist who has gradually bought me back to a place where I can at least function and work. I am a primary school teacher. I am still deeply and chronically depressed but this is controlled somewhat by antidepressant medication.
MY life is one of existence with out my daughters whom I love deeply and my husband who is under great deception and may even be delusional and in dire need of psychiatric help, which he refuses to have because this therapist will not allow it. She is very clever and manipulative and seems to have enormous power in being able to suck people in who are particularly vulnerable and are susceptible because of a deep need to feel the victim.
She cleverly tapped into this need as well as her need to have some sort of ego trip in being able to control the outcomes of other people's lives. She used information against me from my initial therapy sessions to manipulate and put herself in a position where both my husband and her were in a codependent relationship.
Neither of them could survive without communicating several times a day to each other and they got to the stage they were going away to motels and holiday houses to work on each other's healing. My husband and this counselor would not make any decisions without consulting each other. It was impossible to break in because they both remained unaccountable to anyone and kept telling me they only had to be accountable to God .
It was almost sect and cult-like. My husband is a totally changed individual who was once a compassionate, unselfish and caring man of integrity. After getting involved with this therapist in 2002 his whole personality deteriorated to the point of withdrawal from his family and the whole situation. My husband and I no longer communicate because the hurt and the hatred that is exchanged is just to much to bear.
This is only a small extract of the damage created by BAD and UNETHICAL therapy. I wish to seek help and I wish to get involved with bringing these crazy therapists who destroy whole families to some sort of justice and accountability. I want to help in lobbying politicians and churches and the wider community into becoming aware of the dangers of this kind of therapy. There desperately needs to be some protections put in place for the public at large.
Can you please make some sort of response in reading this letter, it is a cry from a deeply wounded mother of three who has lost everything and now has no family connections. This is all because I became involved with a therapist who practices highly suspect and dangerous methods of therapy, including repressed memory which has led to false accusations that cannot be cooberated.
She uses other practices such as 'body memory', massage along with guided visualization and aspects of the dangerous Theophostic Prayer Ministry of Ed Smith in the U.S.A. I really am very alone in all this and it has taken an enormous toll on both Andrew my son and I, healthwise.
I feel I have nothing, it has all been taken from me and I am still reeling from the shock of the last three years (lost Years) still. I would be grateful for your assistance and support and for your attention to the content of this letter. The numbers of hurting people out there are enormous.
Therapists, psychotherapists, counselors, church workers and psychologists all need to be held accountable for the damage they may have created as in my case. I have no money to fight this therapist in court but have very detailed accounts of the times I spent in therapy with her and have records of my husband's payments to her over a two year period. The total is quite enormous. And for What?
I was left a total mess with suicidal ideation and I lost everything that mattered to me, MY FAMILY!
Thank you for your time
Narelle Lewis
Originally found at:
http://www.peterellis.org.nz/Mak/2006/02/2006-0205_Lewis_OpenLetter.htm
concerning the
Theophostic Prayer Ministry creator's
position on "repressed memories"....
