Valerie Sinason is a British poet, writer, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist who is known for promoting the idea that people with a

developmental disability Developmental disability is a diverse group of chronic conditions, comprising mental or physical impairments that arise before adulthood. Developmental disabilities cause individuals living with them many difficulties in certain areas of life, espe ...

can benefit from

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

and also that

satanic ritual abuse The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organized abuse, or sadistic ritual abuse) starting in the United States in th ...

is widely practiced in the UK. She ran the workshop dealing with intellectual disability at the

Tavistock Clinic The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. The Trust specialises in talking therapies. The education and training department caters for 2,000 students a year from the United Kin ...

for twenty years and also worked for 16 years as a consultant research psychotherapist at

St George's Hospital Medical School St George's, University of London (legally St George's Hospital Medical School, informally St George's or SGUL), is a University located in Tooting in South London and is a constituent college of the University of London. St George's has its o ...

. She is a Trustee of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability.

Psychoanalysis and the developmentally disabled

Since 1979, Sinason has claimed that severely developmentally-disabled people benefit by

. She saw her patients as having a

secondary handicap Primary gain and secondary gain, and more rarely tertiary gain, are terms used in medicine and psychology to describe the significant subconscious psychological motivators patients may have when presenting with symptoms. It is important to note ...

resulting from their attempts to adapt to society's attitudes toward them.

Satanic ritual abuse

In 1994, Sinason edited a collection of essays entitled ''Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse'' that claimed

existed in the United Kingdom and that she had treated victims. Satanic ritual abuse is now considered to be a

moral panic A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usua ...

. * * * * Despite this and a three-year Department of Health inquiry by the anthropologist

Jean La Fontaine Jean Sybil La Fontaine FRAI (born 1 November 1931) is a British anthropologist and emeritus professor of the London School of Economics. She has done research in Africa and the UK, on topics including ritual, gender, child abuse, witchcraft and ...

into 84 alleged cases of ritual abuse that found no evidence to support such claims, Sinason claimed in 2001 and 2002 she had clinical evidence for the widespread practice of satanic ritual abuse in the United Kingdom. Her own report on the topic, prepared with colleague Robert Hale, was funded as a pilot study by the Department of Health. It was released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act,https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/389624/response/969467/attach/4/REDACTED%20REPORT.pdf and the Department of Health stated in response to an inquiry by a reporter that they do not believe the Sinason-Hale report rendered LaFontaine's report invalid. LaFontaine commented on the story saying "It is not surprising to me that patients who are having treatment by Valerie Sinason would produce stories that echo such topical issues as the recent trial for receiving internet pornography and the publicity for the film Hannibal. There is good research that shows the "memories" of abuse are produced in and by the therapy." However, others disagree (Herman 1993) stating it is unlikely that reputable therapists would plant unexpected criminal accounts in the clients’ minds or that they would even be able to, either by suggestive techniques (McFarlane & Lockerbie, 1994) or leading questions (Sakheim & Devine, 1992). Attachment theory shows that it is normal to automatically defend those one is close to from attack, and in this case the attack is dangerous stories of parental Satanic Ritual Abuse, incest or paedophilia (Bloom, 1994). They would therefore be most likely to be rejected. To see how easy it would be to plant such ideas in clients’ minds, the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale was administered to Satanic Ritual Abuse survivors. The results showed they were low in suggestibility (Leavitt, 1997) so unlikely to succumb to suggestive techniques. Common sense also dictated that the idea of thousands of registered therapists, mental health professionals and law enforcement personnel throughout the US, England, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand all at the same time implanting similarly untrue accounts of SRA in their clients, with matching codes, torture and results, stretches the bounds of credibility (Barstow, 1993).

Bibliography

* * * ''Memory in dispute'', 2018. * ''The truth about trauma and dissociation: everything you didn't want to know and were afraid to ask'', Confer books, 2020. * ''Mental handicap and the human condition: an analytic approach to intellectual disability'', Free association books, 2010. * ''Mental handicap and the human condition: new approach by the Tavistock'', Free association books, 1992. * ''Understanding your handicapped child'', firefly books, 1997. * ''Night shift: New poems by Valerie Sinason'', 1995.

References

External links

Article
discussing Sinason's involvement with a satanic ritual abuse patient {{DEFAULTSORT:Sinason, Valerie Living people British psychotherapists Developmental disabilities Satanic ritual abuse British psychoanalysts British disability rights activists Year of birth missing (living people)