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Analysis of Ritualistic and Religion-Related Child Abuse Allegations

NCJ Number
160875
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 20 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1996) Pages: 1-34
Author(s)
B L Bottoms; P R Shaver; G S Goodman
Date Published
1996
Length
34 pages
Annotation
A stratified random sample survey of clinical members of the American Psychological Association (APA) was conducted to determine the number and nature of cases involving alleged ritualistic and religion-related child abuse, whether reported directly by children or retrospectively by adults.
Abstract
To increase the probability of finding appropriate cases, the authors oversampled certain groups of clinicians. They randomly selected 3,278 clinical psychologists from those whose primary specialties, according to APA membership records, were clinical, counseling, school, or child psychology and 2,720 from all other clinical specialties. Because there was no widely agreed-upon definition of either ritualistic or religion-related abuse, the study gave respondents both a general characterization of the kinds of abuse the researchers were interested in and a set of features mentioned in the professional and popular literatures that could be used, in combination, to describe particular cases. There were 2,722 valid respondents, of whom 803 had encountered one or more ritual or religion-related cases. Findings show that only a minority of clinical psychologists have encountered ritual cases, but of these, the vast majority believe their clients' claims. Even so, the purported evidence for the allegations, especially in cases reported by adults claiming to have suffered the abuse during childhood, is questionable. Most clients who alleged ritual abuse were diagnosed as having multiple personality disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder, two increasingly popular, but controversial psychological diagnoses. Clinical and legal implications are discussed and a future research agenda is suggested. 7 tables and 69 references