Showing posts with label Theophostic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theophostic. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Trail of Lies


       One of the most studied serial false accusers in the historical record is Treva Thornberry.  Her convincing emotive manner in which she delivered her tales of woe and abuse spanned decades.  Treva's false claims gained her charity, favor and support from social services, churches, well meaning families, schools, counselors, therapists and most of all the police in 5 different states over 15 years.  Her stay repeatedly ended with betrayal and false allegations prior to her disappearance.  Her emotive (but fraudulent) presentations were so convincing that psychologists and psychiatrists now point to her case as an example of an extremely rare "factitious disorder" (Muchausen Syndrome).
      Her journey began in 1986 when at 17 years old she suddenly accused her father of repeatedly raping her at gunpoint.  After investigation the police cleared the father and family.  After expressing suicidal ideation she was sent to a state hospital where she was given Xanax & Trilafon and then sent to a foster home in Witchata Falls where she attended high school. In 1987 she was sent to a new foster home in Fort Worth, graduated high school and was released from juvenile care.  She lived briefly with a single mother and her three children.  She disappeared.
       In 1992 Treva emerged as "Keili T. Thorneberry Smitt" in Corvallis, Oregon. She claimed to be 16 and was taken in by kind families.  She told horrid stories of her father from Dallas who would force her into the car and assault her.  She was supported and aided but police were unable to verify her identity of the identity of her father.  She disappeared.  
       In 1993 Treva emerged as  "Keili T. Thorneberry Smitt" who claimed to be 16 (now 23)  in Portland Oregon.  She told stories to those who took her in of being abused by her father, a Portland police officer.  The police were unable to locate the officer or verify details of her story.  She disappeared.
      In 1994 Treva emerged as "Cara Leanna Davis"claiming to be 16 (actually 24) in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.  She claimed her abusive father had murdered her mother and was a satanic cult leader.  She was cared for by families and disappeared after 2 months.
     Later in 1994 Treva emerged as "Kara Williams" claiming to be 16 (actually 24).  She told police she was 16 years of age and detailed numerous claims of assault including a young staffer at a shelter.  She went to three different high schools and lived in numerous foster care homes at state expense.  When confronted by social services about her identity she confessed to nothing. Her protests were so adamant, and so tearful, that more than one person watching her came to the conclusion that she truly believed what she was saying.“ Kara was discharged from juvenile care. She disappeared.
     In 1996 Treva emerged as "Stephanie Danielle Lewis" claiming to be 16 (actually 26). She found help by a religious underground to escape "satanist parents".  She was provided juvenile care services. After 18 days of investigation police determined her real identity. She was arrested for fraud and released. She disappeared. 
    In 1997 Treva emerged as "Brianna Stewart" who claimed to have lived near Mobile, Alabama with mother and Navajo step father who murdered her mother.   She was looking for real father and hitchhiked as a 13 year old to area She was taken in by a family at a church she attended and enrolled in high school wanting to “have a normal life”.  She filed charges of rape against a security guard who was imprisoned and found guilty (later released and exonerated).  She also accused her host family father spying on her with video cameras while undressing and sexually assaulting her.  After investigation police dismissed the charges.  She vehemently insisted she was telling the truth and taken in by mother of a police officer even after investigators could not corroborate claims. 
     In 2001 Treva still claiming to be "Brianna Stewart" went to trial charged with fraudulent collection of juvenile services (she was 32 at this time).  She fired her lawyers who sought to claim innocence with an insanity plea.  "Brianna" decided to represent herself.   The prosecutor confronted her with a number of matching methods.  Her hand writing matched that of the teenager Treva Thornberg. Brianna's dental exam matched the dental records of Treva Thornberry.  Photos of Treva were presented to jury by Treva's mother that showed unmistakable similarities (Treva paused in the courtroom when shown the pictures).  Finally Brianna accepted a DNA analysis which came back with an overwhelming positive match with the married couple from Electra Texas.  This couple gave birth and raised Treva Thornberry until her mental illness struck when she was 17 (read more about mental illness at "Elephant Illness").  "Brianna" in her defense submitted a report by a therapist that stated an opinion that "Brianna" was 20 years old.  The jury found her guilty of all 7 charges.  Treva Thornberry was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
      While being escorted after the trial Treva (who still called herself Brianna) said in a loud voice "“I’m nineteen! I’m not guilty of anything except being a teenager!”  

      In 2003 Treva was released after serving 2 years and 3 months of the sentence. She appeared on an ABC news and stated: "I'm not Treva Thornberry," Stewart said. "I just want to reiterate that I am not, no matter how much that family wants to suddenly produce their family member, no matter what they do, what they say, I am not Treva Thorneberry nor will I ever be Treva Thornberry. Because you can't make another person into somebody else. You just can't."

     In 2016 Treva emerged as "Brianna McKenzie" in Lacey, Washington.  She went to police and accused a man of attempting rape while working at a hotel.  Investigation revealed her true identity.  Investigators found inconsistencies who then "Brianna" claimed  doubts about identity of attacker.  The accused man named Canton claimed that a hotel maid attempted to steal his meth.  Canton was eventually released.  Brianna now claims her attacker had more hair.
    She and others like her are out there.  Some of the convincing accusers actually believe the delusions and fantasies they imagine.  Anyone, even the kind and well meaning, can become a victim of false accusations by the mentally ill.

https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/620937.html

https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132349&page=1

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-day-treva-throneberry-disappeared?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR0EAtorjJHqmq3cpAo22hOIubCq-uaRdTZUWxX_8y6ITBtMKMlY-33uvII

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9833-factitious-disorder-imposed-on-self-munchausen-syndrome/diagnosis-and-tests

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Monday, August 19, 2019

Memory, Blame and Freedom


     "I encourage everyone to abandon the idea that psychiatrists know a great deal. I thought we should realize that we were working in a rather rudimentary medical discipline, one that has few natural correctives such as autopsy room or the laboratory to reveal its errors or restrain misguided enthusiasms.  We should look closely at what we are claiming in order that that we might abandon what impedes and seize upon what advances our enterprises."
                                                                   Paul R. McHugh, M.D.
                                                                   Former Chair of Psychiatry at John's Hopkins

      Many thousands of innocents have been harmed, lost careers and been imprisoned based on the false allegations that emerge from psuedomemories.  Pseudomemories are false memories of events that never happened.  They often  emerge as a result of memory based therapy especially if the client is young, mentally ill or taking psychotropic medications.  There are also "do it yourself therapy books" that guides readers in the same way as memory based therapists in "recovering past memories of traumatic events" that never happened.  These false memories can significantly impact the client (or victim) especially if the client strongly believes that traumatic events always have an impact and that the pseudo-memory is historically accurate memory of some past event (when it is not).
     Memory based therapy sessions often contain suggestive inquiry, intentional and unintentional planting and nurturing of the idea that some horrid event, long forgotten, is responsible for the present ills of the client.  If a person finds that a false accusation has been leveled by an adult or child client then the immediate action should be to cease all therapy sessions with the current therapist (or counselor).  
      The reliance on psychoanalytical (memory based) approaches to therapy as a cure for mental illness and the resulting impaired judgments has done immense damage to society over the last century.   Data increasingly suggests that we should discard the basic tenets of this errant approach.  "Freudian Mannerism" is a term coined by Dr. Paul McHugh (former Chair of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins) describes memory based therapies in psychiatry (Note 1) that has dominated psychotherapy since the late 1800's.  This approach has damaged our culture, torn families asunder and harmed both those who blame and those who are blamed for the mental illnesses that befall people.  Evidenced based treatments are slowly eroding the influence of these outdated perspectives.  In "The Broken Brain" Dr. Nancy Andreason (Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa in Note 2) boldly claimed that biological pathologies alone underlie mental illness.  She points out that somatic  and cognitive therapies are the most effective ways to help those suffering from intellectual and emotional maladies.
       Our culture has relied on psychoanalytical experts who claimed to be able to cure mental illness and impaired judgement with appropriate psychoanalytical techniques.  Institutes with such treatments were created, served the public and consistently failed to manage or heal the mentally ill.  Some of the institutions were corrupt themselves and found to be creating false memories, taking insurance money to help people with those false memories and creating more personal struggles for the suffering client. The faith in psychoanalytical approaches still remains and there are ardent believers  but the  evidence continues to mount.  Treatments for trauma, for abuse, for addiction, for mental illness are relatively ineffective without parallel somatic treatment.  In fact somatic treatment and talking with friends me be just as effective as somatic treatment with cognitive therapy..
     Freudian mannerists used recovered-memory (1980s and ’90s) where  clients were convinced by their therapist (or best-selling books on the subject) that their problems were caused by childhood abuse but were not consciously aware of these memories and labeled these as "repressed memories".   It now seems bizarre to create imagined memories that are not there as an explanation for poor  behavior but the idea was once popular.   Dr.  McNally, an expert in trauma and memory from Harvard, helped discredit the underlying theory that produced these types of false accusations thought to be real memories. “The notion that the mind protects itself by repressing or dissociating memories of trauma is a piece of psychiatric folklore devoid of convincing empirical support.”  This errant memory based approach is still being used to create victims who were never victimized under new versions with new jargon that invokes words like "neurobiology", "trauma informed therapy" or "trauma induced fragmented memory" but all of them lack researched and verified mechanisms.   Many therapists using memory based therapies still cling to these types of discredited assumptions.  Many, including elderly parents, face adult children clients with psuedomemories generated in the bogus therapies and false accusations.  The clients of such therapists may be both unaware that theses memories are false and come to believe the accusations themselves.  These memory based therapies fail to serve the clients and fail to help families and society see the truth about these errant therapies and counseling techniques (that they harm the client and those around them).
      The question arises "Why would anyone make up something so horrid as sexual child abuse?   Reasons listed for those of sound mind are mentioned by accusers, accuser family members and investigators in a variety of texts (cited in brackets):
 0.  Because the the person has been to a memory based therapist who uses techniques that nurture  false memories, produces trauma and insures dependency and income from the vulnerable client.  Pseudomemories has been linked to a number of  factors including hypnosis, trance like states (can be medicated), contextual variables, misleading post event information or suggestion , source monitoring errors, regression, stereotypes , instructional conditions, memory reprocessing , fantasy proneness, leading questions, search for confirmation of hunches and contagion. These reasons are summarized in an empirical meta-study by the Institute for Psychological Studies.
  1.  Because it explains why he or she cannot meet the modern social demand to manage careers, marriages, and children without the support of appropriate social programs. [ "Diagnosis for Disaster"Chapter 1]
  2.  Because it is a simple, neat explanation for a lifetime of turmoil and disappointment that has not been caused by any known or acknowledged trauma. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 1]
  3.  Because it provides a compelling and guilt-free reason for separating from family and ends those uncomfortable feelings of ambivalence. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 2]
  4.  Because it provides a sense of belonging and acceptance that he or she has been searching for all of his life. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 2]
  5.  Because someone in authority has said that belief is the only road to mental health. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 4]
  6.  Because no questioning of the treatment is allowed.  The clients are judged not competent to decide whether their memories are true.  Doubting is regarded as proof of their "denial" and resistance to getting well. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 4]
  7.  Because it is socially sanctioned excuse for escaping responsibility for one's own mistakes or failing to grow up emotionally. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 5]
  8.  Because he feels trapped, punished, and isolated in an inpatient program and believes he must play the "repressed memory game" in order to gain his freedom. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 5]
  9.  Because the therapist has used coercion and his or her aura of expertise to override the client's perceptions and convince the client that her memory can not be trusted. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 5]
10.  Because many therapists have failed to study the history of psychiatric practices, theory and past grave errors; these therapists do not realize that they can be mistaken. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 8]
11.  Because he or she finds focusing on a fantasy satanic abuse to be less painful than the mundane reality of parental neglect and emotional abandonment. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 9]
12.  Because it provides one simple graspable reason  for being unhappy when he or she "has it all." ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 10]
13.  Because  it's less painful to blame some-one else that to examine one's own personal failings and do all the arduous work of changing from within. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 11]
14.  Because  she has an un-diagnosed mental condition, such as post partem depression, that has impaired the adult child's judgement and made it difficult for here to accept appropriate help. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 12]
15.  Because his or her unresolved and unconfronted conflicts with significant others have built up to a crisis level, and the adult child has an unconscious need to create distance until he or she can learn better conflict-resolution skills. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 13]
16.  Because she has become isolated and depressed due to current life problems and an honored authority told her repressed memories of incest are a common cause of deep unhappiness. ["Diagnosis for Disaster" Chapter 14]
17.  Because the therapist/friend has no surviving family and would like to form a new family with a dependent client (or friend).   This would match the description of the therapist and author of "Sybil" according to Dr. Nathan of "Sybil Exposed"
18.  In order to extort money from parents by threatening the career(s) of the parent(s), refusing emotional contact and/or holding grand children and the family involved as "hostages" until monetary support is provided (often times to support drug or alcohol addictions).  Discussed in "Myth of Repressed Memories"
19.  Because the person seeks revenge for past perceived unjust actions or offenses unrelated to the accusations but provide a reason to create and nurture false memories as real. ("Innocence Isn't Enough")
20.  Becasue the accuser wishes to gain advantage in custody cases during disputed divorces (Ashes to Ashes Family to Dust)

      A mentally ill person may be overwhelmed by described abuses and the reasons planted and nurtured by a therapist or friend.  In this type of situation the blame is focused on another person and that gives the client freedom from guilt for poor decision making in the past.  The therapist or counselor is then seen as a benevolent person  lifting the yoke of responsibility from the client.  The problem is that the impaired judgments usually continue "despite the lifting of the yoke".   

     Data reveals memory therapy focused on uncovering of the wrongdoings of the parents or discovering some forgotten trauma (which are false memories) still result in continued impaired judgments, continued difficulties in life, eruption of psychosis and suicide.  Things do not get better for the client.  They get worse.
     Advances in psychiatry continue to unfold to help us understand why these impaired judgments that lead to poor decisions.  The idea that the mental illness has biological roots is often not a consideration because of the social determinism that guides much of our popular thinking.  In the early 1900's it seemed like blaming impaired judgments on poor parenting and/or traumatic events was an improvement over blaming innate moral character, demons and evil possessions.  Increasingly both psychological and medical science has been able to discredit the psychoanalytic approaches but it appears to me that many still cling to the widely held errant notions of social determinism (and Freudian mannerists Note 1).  Treating the client who is mentally unstable with appropriate cognitive therapy and somatic techniques (medication)  helps the client and helps the society.  Treating a client with memory based psychoanalytical approaches can generate false memories, poor outcomes and estrangement from family has been found to be not just ineffective but harmful. 

        Free people take responsibility, become informed and avoid the blaming that memory based therapies rely on.  An awareness of personal responsibility for one's health can help the person make better decisions, care for their body, care for their mind. care for their spiritual formation and live more freely.
     
5. https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/priest-who-headed-clergy-addiction-center-going-jail-fraud

If you read this far...Wow!  Thank you!

You may want to read:  
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*** WARNING ***
If you are seeking help for personal struggles and a therapist, counselor or friend says that "recovering childhood memories can help you get better" then IMMEDIATELY get up from your chair (or off the couch), run to the door, open it and flee. Hundreds of thousands have lost families, years of productive living and squandered immense wealth with tragedy inducing therapy that produces horrid false memories, splinters families, isolates the client and is documented to cause decline in mental health.


OUR DAUGHTER BEFORE TREATMENT
MEMORY EXPERTS COMMENT
DARK AGES OF MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Experts: Repressed Memory Facts and Commentary


       It is important to note that there has never been a verified repressed memory recovered in over a hundred years since being speculated and then rejected by Sigmund Freud.  Informed psychologists, counselors and mental health professionals have recognized that "repressed memory" is most likely a cultural myth (claimed in the west but not in other cultures).  Researchers have uncovered claims of repressed memories to be false publicly and repeatedly despite attempts of the "recovered memory community" to suppress the findings.   Experimental psychologists have never been able to create a "repressed memory" in controlled experiments despite years of efforts.  Soldiers, in highly abusive and emotional events, are now known to have inaccurate memories when traumatized and are most often unable to identify perpetrators of violence correctly.   This directly contradicts expectations that trauma enhances accuracy of memory details.  The science that discounts repressed memory was recently replicated again when a large study in England found no case of a "repressed memory" in a long term study that tracked 200 abused children over 20 years.  Thousands of living holocaust victims who survived concentration camps recalled activity at the camps for the courts following World War II and no repression was ever documented.   Those freed from the camps always remembered the torment despite the expected desire (predicted by repressed memory believers) to disassociate or repress.  The science that debunks "repressed memories"  has been replicated consistently.
       Starting in the 1990's "repressed memories" resulted in repeated and large settlements for clients.  The clients claimed "repressed memories",  nurtured by counselors and therapists were often false.  Families were destroyed, careers ended and thousands of innocent people imprisoned.  The lawsuits challenged the assertion of "repressed memory truth".  Beth Rutherford, with Christian counseling, accused her father of rape and forced abortions.  Later she won a seven figure lawsuit after she retracted her accusations and was medically verified to still be a virgin.  Many lawsuits and settlements followed and firms using "repressed memories" shut down and moved assets to protect them from seizure. 
       Criminally and civilly the use of "repressed memories" now weakens the case.  In 2010 the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and (the Supreme Court upheld) overturned a prominent case that relied on "repressed memories". Any method for "recovering memories" that science and study deemed unreliable or unverifiable could no longer be admitted as evidence.  In that decision not only was the case overturned but the court ordered ALL cases involving "repressed" and unreliable memory recovery techniques to be reviewed.  Using "repressed memories" now causes the case to be thrown off the docket arbitrarily.  If the case using "repressed memory" has been previously judged it now MUST be carefully reviewed and retried.

Some Comments by Experts
       There are many recognized experts, who have studied and researched "repressed memories"and have shared their insights publicly.  Here are a few of the comments by the most widely recognized experts:
      Dr. Richard J. McNally is a Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University (world’s leading expert with 250 publications to his credit).  In a 2005 letter to the California Supreme Court, Dr. McNally asserted: “The notion that traumatic events can be repressed and later recovered is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry. It has provided the theoretical basis for ‘recovered memory therapy’ — the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era.”
      Dr. Grant Devilly, from the Psychological Health research unit at Griffith University (an expert in trauma and memory) says that "Memories of terrifying experiences work in the opposite manner of repressed memory theory. People rather wish they could forget their traumatic experiences.  It’s the opposite. They wish they couldn’t think about it,” says Devilly.
       Dr. James McGaugh from the University of California, Irvine. His expertise in the area of memory was once profiled on CBS’ 60 Minutes program.  Dr. McGaugh said in a 2010 book, “I do not believe there’s such a thing as repressed memory.  I haven’t seen a single instance in which a memory was completely repressed and popped up again."  In a conversation he was quoted as saying “I go on science, not fads. And there’s absolutely no proof that it can happen. Zero. None. Niente. Nada. All my research says that strong emotional experiences leave emotionally strong memories. Being sexually molested would certainly qualify.”
       Dr. Richard Ofshe, a social psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley who has extensively researched and written numerous books, articles and peer reviewed studies on the subject of "repressed memory" states "Recovered memory therapy will come to be recognized as the quackery of the 20th century." 
       Dr. Elizabeth Loftus (University of California Irvine) has done hundreds of peer reviewed memory studies over the last 30 years, is a highly recognized court expert in memory and author of numerous books and articles often cited in courts at the highest state and national levels and has won numerous awards for her courage and integrity.  Dr. Loftus says "You can’t be raped for 10 years and not remember it.  Yet, according to the repression aficionados, anything's possible."
       The quotes above are gleaned from respected researchers who have done in excess of a thousand peer reviewed studies at accredited institutions.  They are true experts.  
     A “Repressed memory” is not an instance where an abused individual minimizes the awful harm being done by not confronting the perpetrator.  This is an example of the typical actual abuse that is often revealed later.  That abuse is, sadly, REMEMBERED all along.  It was never "repressed."
  
     So how is this "myth" still harming?  While lawsuits have driven this fraudulent practice out of insured and responsible therapies there are still marginalized practices and religious "prayer" methods that assume "repressed memories" to be true (such as Theophostic Prayer Ministry).  Many uninformed are sought out for profit.  There still remains money making books, training programs and texts that assume repressed memory to be true.
       The idea that we have repressed memories also means there is repression of popular memories like alien abductions, or past lives as eagles, or of being a roman soldier or having been brutally raped by a relative.  These stories are still with us despite the science, the data or the law.  I doubt if you read this far you put much credence in those types of "repressed memories".  
       Two factors feed this beast that STILL destroys families: (1) there is still money to be made using the myth of "repressed memories" (2) false memories are so easily nurtured in so many different ways (even without the intention of doing so by the ignorant or uninformed practitioner or "prayer partner").  The saddest thing is that the "healing" or "cure" means many new innocent victims.

       Victim advocates will often vehemently complain to writers and editors of media where the truth about repressed memories is depicted.  These  attackers will falsely claim that there is a legitimate other side to this issue.  There isn’t. The public should be very aware of this.  To repeat the words of Dr. McNally, “repressed memory therapy” is indeed “the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era.”

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WARNING!!!
If you are seeking help for personal struggles and a therapist, counselor or friend says that "recovering childhood memories can help you get better" then IMMEDIATELY get up from your chair (or off the couch), run to the door, open it and flee. Hundreds of thousands have lost families, years of productive living and squandered immense wealth with tragedy inducing therapy that produces horrid false memories, splinters families, isolates the client and is documented to cause decline in mental health.
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