Back in December, I blogged about a resurgence in “Satanic Ritual Abuse” claims when a patient at Castlewood Treatment Center in St. Louis, Missouri, Lisa Nasser, said her therapist, Mark Schwartz, implanted false memories of such abuse in her mind while she was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder.
Now, a second woman, 28-year-old Leslie Thompson, has come forward, making similar claims against Schwartz.
The suit filed alleges that while undergoing treatment at Castlewood for anorexia between December 2007 and May 2010, Thompson was led to understand that she had “multiple personalities,” and that she had repressed memories of participating in satanic rituals, even “witnessing the sacrificing of a baby.”
“Only after she went to Castlewood and had this therapy did she recover these memories,” said Thompson’s attorney Ken Vuylsteke, “supposedly told to her by another personality that she also didn’t have before she went to Castlewood.”
The suit claims the Castlewood therapy caused or contributed to false memories and a belief that Thompson had ten personalities, including one named “Freddie” who was the “personification of the devil.”
In typical brainwashing style, Schwartz allegedly told Thompson she would die if she left his care. The therapist has indicated that he plans to fight Nasser’s lawsuit; no word yet on his reaction to the second set of claims.
I just want to remind readers that Satanic Ritual Abuse has been thoroughly debunked as a product of the therapeutic environment — a form of “introduced” memories that are essentially a form of brainwashing.
If indeed Nasser and Thompson went through this, it’s a sign of the times that they have come forward and targeted the appropriate culprit — rather than turning on their own families, as too many patients did during the height of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s.
Beth Winegarner
