Delpech

Claude Delpech & and Delphine Gérard,

President of AFSI[1] and Psychologist (FR)

 

BEWARE OF INDUCED FALSE MEMORIES

 

Our Association AFSI, created in July 2005, brings together more than two hundred families whose adult children unjustly accuse their parents of physical and sexual abuse that occurred in their early childhood, abuse of which they have no prior recollection and which they “discover” twenty – thirty – even forty years later, during or following so-called “therapy” sessions, based on the study of their early childhood memories that led them to these malicious accusations, resulting in an immediate rupture with their families.

 

Each family has its own history, but the technique is identical for the deviant therapists, often self-proclaimed, who use their power of suggestion to “induce”, through various mind manipulation techniques, acts of incest and physical abuse in their patient-clients, leading to severe psychological destruction.

 

It is what we call the Induced False Memories syndrome.

 

The false memories technique can be practiced using two different methods:

 

–         through a group, with a leader, a doctrine, and therefore a sect

–         through individual therapy which practices memory retrieval techniques.

 

Both cases are a matter of mind manipulation.

 

It is through our work on the sectarian phenomenon that we have observed the inducement of memories as a mind manipulation technique at the heart of certain sects. Then, in broader contexts, we noticed that certain psychological, psychiatric, psychotherapeutic or other practices could lead to the creation of false memories. The phenomenon thus greatly exceeds the problem of sects.

 

To describe these techniques, we can distinguish between several methods: manual methods of energy treatments associated with massages; intense and systematic psychotherapeutic methods which solve psychological problems and sicknesses; methods relative to therapies which take on diverse approaches, such as trans-generational analysis.

 

All of these healing methods rely upon the following shared premises:

 

  • The individual is considered in a physical, emotional, vibratory and mental global vision.
  • Most physical and mental sicknesses have violent emotional shocks originally experienced in childhood. It is a question of trauma engraved in the body.
  • It is by resurfacing what has been concealed that we heal.

From these premises come forward:

theoretical principles which we can thus summarize: these therapies rely upon the belief that every memory is a piece of the patient’s actual history. The inscribed memory is a static and unchangeable image of a previous reality. Because every memory is considered a reality of factual history, the therapist, thanks to certain techniques, incites the patient to “return to the past to find healing”. The body and the mind are thought of here as reservoirs of authentic memories. To heal past traumas, the real objective of all these therapies, the therapeutic work consists of focusing principally on memories and dreams. These are then immediately interpreted by the therapist. The interpretation is not to be questioned; indeed it results in a major truth.

techniques: all sorts of psychotherapeutic techniques can be practiced as well as so-called innovative methods created by ambitious promoters. We described these methods in the MIVILUDES 2007 report. In brief, all of these techniques are reliant upon the idea that the body does not lie. Everything is engraved on it. So it must be decoded. Thus, in order to induce a state of deep relaxation, to encourage the emergence of memories from the body, various psycho-corporal techniques are used, such as massages, relaxation methods, the laying on of hands, energy treatments, respiratory exercises… Through these methods, the trauma experienced in childhood is located and interpreted by the therapist. Then, techniques similar to trans-generational analysis and psycho genealogy complete the psychotherapeutic step: “Genealogy as a whole is sick and condemned to repetition. One must sever ties with one’s family to free himself”.

To conclude, all methods having these basic premises and theoretic principles maximize the probability of inducing memories. Thus, to avoid inducing or leading to the creation of false memories, the therapist must practice in a strict and neutral manner. His professional ethics and personal qualities such as discretion and prudence are crucial in the accompaniment of patients.

The goal of our association is to:

–         welcome families in distress

–         listen to them

–         inform them

–         provide them with information on the problem of deviant therapies

–         in collaboration with competent authorities denounce deviant therapeutic practices.

 

In March 2006, during the Fecris (Federation of European Centers for Research and Information on Sects) Congress that was held in Brussels, we presented our entirely new association. Since then, things have evolved.

 

We became known in April 2006 with the publication of the Miviludes Report, which spoke of AFSI and False Memories… “as a deviant form of psychoanalysis…”

 

The president of Miviludes, during our meeting several months earlier, had understood our suffering for the parents in distress.

 

From that day on we began to be heard by the authorities.

 

In September 2006, AFSI was heard before the National Assembly by the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry relative to the influence of movements with sectarian characteristics and the consequences of their practices on the physical and mental health of their minors. We alerted the members of this Committee of the damages provoked by the deviant therapists, self-proclaimed and often psycho-sectarians, who ruin and destroy their victims.

 

Since that hearing more than one hundred families have joined us.

 

By listening to all these families, who come from all over, we have conducted an analysis of the victims of deviant therapists.

 

 

 

Victims

 

Average age             33

Women                     79 %

Men                          21 %

 

 

Location

 

Paris                         42 %

The Provinces         57 %

Belgium                     1 %

 

 

Education/Profession of the Victims

 

National Education            15 %

Medical Professions           11 %

HEC (Business Schools)    10 %

Engineering Studies            7 %

Performance/Plastic Arts    9 %

Therapists                             3 %

Professional Training          1 %

Other                                   44 %

 

 

 

 

 

The Therapists

 

Location:

Paris                                       43 %

The Provinces                       57 %

 

Professions:

Self-proclaimed Therapists       64 %

Physiotherapists                         16 %

Psychologists-Psychoanalysts   10 %

Psychiatrists                                 7 %

Doctors-Homeopaths                   2 %

Professional Training                  1 %

 

 

We come across deviant therapists who work like certain sectarian movements:

 

–         in partitioned groups

–         by imposing Omerta outside of the group

–         “therapy” sessions at unaffordable prices

–         “financial punishment” if one of the group members disobeys the leader

–          and above all, the impossibility, or almost, of “escaping” the group…

without pressure or threats from the group on the “dissenter”.

 

 

Deviant therapists can also be found in the arts environment and certain performance arenas. Several families have informed us of different organizations.

 

We also encounter therapists who work at the centre of professional training groups. These very expensive training courses and sessions do not offer a single guarantee in regards to the diplomas obtained by the victims, but at the end of these training courses, sometimes scheduled over several years, some victims become “therapists” themselves and dispense the words of their “teacher” to the outside world with royalty payments afterwards… while others lose all conscience of reality and find themselves on the edge of a breakdown: suicide attempts, emergency hospitalization in psychiatric wards…

 

It must be known that if a lot of families have, or have had, problems with the Law because of their children’s accusations, it is because the therapists encouraged their victims in this matter. It would be the “act” that would lead to their “recovery…”

 

–         Some parents were heard as “witnesses”

–         Others left their homes in handcuffs and were placed in police custody,

with questioning of the rest of the family and a search of their

premises…not a single charge was pressed against them

–         Finally, other parents, now grandparents, were taken into custody, placed

under examination during long months leading up to a trial, and

were then cleared by the Court.

 

At the present time, none of the parents wrongly accused by their children have been acknowledged as being guilty.

 

There is another problem that exists for the accused families. For those whose children have not lodged formal complaints against them, these parents will always be, in the eyes of their accusing children, those “presumed guilty for life…” in their family and circle of friends.

 

Very elderly parents recently told us that they are sick, that they are going to die and that their greatest regret is that their children will never know that they are innocent…

 

Grandparents are also worried about the psychological health of their grandchildren who they have long been deprived of seeing. When they see the psychological damage of their children, the grandparents ask themselves what will become of their grandchildren, having been kept away from their friends and family and who only know one side of the story, that of their parents or leader of the group.

 

Currently there are some families hoping to file a lawsuit to see their grandchildren again and some are doing so, but after a long and painful procedure, if they win their case, nothing can force the parents to comply with the Court’s decision.

 

The families often ask us: “Why, when we know the names of the deviant therapists who are destroying our children by destroying their path, can we not do anything against them…”

 

Some parents, acquitted by the Court, turned against the deviant therapist. But they were dismissed, for lack of evidence…and the so-called therapist continues to create new victims.

 

For several months now we have been receiving questions by parents from Belgium, Switzerland and even Spain. We have to come together as a group to make our problems heard by the European Parliament in Brussels and by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg: the more there are of us to react the better we will be heard.

 

To do this we need the kindness and goodwill of those who could provide us with information from their respective countries: what kind of aid is offered to the victims and their families in each country and what is being done about deviant psycho-sectarians.

 

Our association is young, having only been created in July 2005, and we have come a long way, but we have to go even further to make known, to all the families in pain and distress, in France as in Europe, that psycho-sectarian therapies should be sanctioned.

 

Maison des Associations du 13e

11 rue Caillaux 75013 PARIS – Métro : Maison Blanche

Tél. : 06 81 67 10 55

·        Afsi.fauxsouvenirs@wanadoo.fr

 

[1] Alerte Faux Souvenirs Induits – Attention False Memories Induced, FECRIS correspondent