ISSTD 1 - Introduction to ISSTD
International Society for the Study of Dissociation and Trauma
The ISSTD - A Controversial Organisation
The ISSTD - International Society for the Study of Dissociation and Trauma [2] and the associated Centre for Advanced Studies in Trauma and Dissociation have been at the centre of controversy since soon after its foundation. The ISSTD has been attacked by patients for its bad treatment, by False Memory Syndrome organisations, by the Satanic Temple as well as by survivors of ritual abuse.
ISSTD has regional global centres, arranges conferences and acts a professional accreditation organisation for Professionals in the Trauma and Dissociation field, as well as a research organisation. This large global organisation is based in Arlington, Virginia.
“We are the oldest complex trauma and dissociation society in the world. ISSTD seeks to advance clinical, scientific, and societal understanding about the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation.” [2]
The ISSTD was officially formed in 1984 in the US as the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation. The founders were a group of physicians and psychologists, Myron Boor, Bennett Braun, David Caul, Jane Dubrow, George Greaves, Richard Kluft, Frank Putnam and Roberta Sachs. Its first annual conference was held in December of the same year. By the end of the 1980s, membership approached 2,000. It changed to the International Society for the Study of Dissociation in 1994 and then to its current name International Society for the Study of Dissociation and Trauma in November 2006 [25].
Editors of the book Dissociation and the dissociative disorders: DSM-V and beyond described the ISSTD as "The principal professional organization devoted to dissociation" [25]. The ISSTD has published guidelines for the treatment of dissociative identity disorder in both adults and children through its peer-reviewed Journal of Trauma & Dissociation (formerly Dissociation: Progress in the Dissociative Disorders). These guidelines are often referenced in the field as a basic starting point for psychotherapy with highly dissociative clients [25].
Attacks on ISSTD
Founding and/or prominent members Bennet Braun, Colin Ross, Roberta Sachs, Judith Peterson and Richard Kluft have all had legal actions against them for issues surrounding leading patients to believe that they were part of generational and satanic cults or similar charges of implantation of false memory [25] [69] [16]. The payouts have been into millions of dollars.
Without researching all the public details and no doubt many private details of these cases it is impossible to know definitively if there was malpractice and inappropriate techniques used at that time back in the 1980’s and 1990s.
The scandals and lawcases could have been due to…
accidental malpractice in the early days of learning how to treat mind control and dissociation
deliberate malpractice
patient later changing to different mind control alter
patient not coming to terms with being ritually abused
patient being in the control of cabal programming
ISSTD deliberately being attacked by cabal / CIA / pedophile interested parties
insurance companies and medical licensing boards whose controlling interests or financial interests may be dubious.
Alison Miller, an ISSTD Fellow described the atmosphere in the ISSTD…
Bennet Braun had been sued and Judith Peterson, who I had done training with, had criminal charges brought against her. Everyone was frightened about this. What we were being taught at ISSTD now was don’t talk about these things and don’t ever suggest anything to your client. Well, I already knew that you never do suggestive therapy! I had already been taught that. That was just basic! But this went beyond that. It was about shutting it down, and ‘you don’t know if you can believe a client and you need to make it clear to them that you are not taking sides’. It just felt like everything was being discredited and you couldn’t talk about it. But my clients were making really good progress, even those still being harassed, they were still making great progress. And what I was hearing at ISSTD was you know … back track, be careful, cover your arse. That’s what it was all about, but they didn’t use those words.
The pressure was to downplay satanic ritual abuse. Alison says “it was about shutting it down”, ie.to shut down suggestions of ritual abuse, and diminish it by saying that you do not know if you can believe a client. The ISSTD were trying to shut down the truth, in favour of a non truthful safe narrative that did not get you sued. “It just felt like everything was being discredited and you couldn’t talk about it.” was the atmosphere within the ISSTD.
Wider Forces at Work
The legal actions and internal ISSTD were probably the result of wider forces which were also at play. Many organised child abuse and ritual abuse cases were coming to the fore in the 1980’s eg. McMartin 1982, Presidio 1984, Franklin child abuse scandal 1988. [See timeline below]. These led directly to prominent individuals in Army and Government and showed widespread child abuse and ritual abuse.
The cabal of course needs to keep a lid on that, as organised ritual abuse leads to the heart of the beast, and the reasoning and motives behind their world control. There was a concerted effort I believe to try to keep a lid on the allegations of abuse.
FMSF
In 1992 the infamous False Memory Syndrome Foundation, FMSF was set up based in Philadelphia, and 1993 the Illinois False Memory Sydrome Society.
The FMSF Board comprised of former CIA and military doctors with backgrounds in behaviour modification - not ritual abuse. All members were accused pedophiles and/or CIA perpetrators. Aquino was implicated in every major USA case involving CIA child trafficking, ritual abuse and MK-ULTRA mind control, including the McMartin Preschool, Presidio Preschool, and Franklin scandals. Aquino and Orne’s False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) and its Australian counterpart (AFMA) were formed specifically to counter the tidal wave of disclosure by victims of CIA child trafficking, [36].
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation appears to have been a psychological operation masterminded by Aquino to combat the credible allegations that he and other cabal members were facing. Aquino was an expert at psychological warfare, and wrote books on Mind Wars. The psyop labelled all the allegations a “Satanic Panic”, a moral panic. Gradually this was the view that prevailed, helped of course by the corporate media and controlled justice system and all the other cabal controlled entities.
However, widespread organised ritual abuse and satanic ritual abuse does exist. More people know about it now than back in 1980’s and 1990’s which was largely pre internet. eg 50 Voices of Ritual Abuse Videos Blood Cult 1 and 2 [100].
Similar Scapegoating Psyops
Braun particularly appears to have been targeted which set an example to other professionals and for more a widespread knockon effect, and to create the justification for a “satanic panic” label. I suspect that a few years later in 1998 a similar methodology of psyop to that used on Braun, was used to scapegoat Dr. Wakefield for the purpose of protecting vaccinations and Arpad Pusztai over genetically modified food.
Amazingly for wikipedia, the article on Pusztai is pretty accurate, I suspect because it is so difficult to spell it is rarely accessed, but even so I have included the archive link.
ISSTD 1990’s
One way to control the narrative was for the cabal to have a compliant professional body of therapists and trauma specialists. Fear is a great driver of compliance and as Fiona says this “Everyone was frightened…” .
Any officials within the ISSTD who supported the idea that organised ritual abuse happened were effectively muted. This left an ISSTD with key personnel and top management compliant to an agenda that denied the fact that there was widespread satanic ritual abuse. This effect would have cascaded down the organisation to the professional members, making it hard for them to speak out against the prevailing narrative.
The ISSTD organisation could be (falsely) pointed to by the media as the “truth” about the satanic panic as the ISSTD was supposedly the specialist organisation that was in the best position to know the truth about the ritual abuse allegations. It could thus be used to globally influence health professionals, corporate news and the wider public.
The exact mix of who in ISSTD was genuine from its formation and who was already corrupted and / or in the cabal is as yet unclear. It is likely that a proportion of ISSTD therapists themselves were Monarch mind controlled / mk ultra and programmed to act as per programme from the start. Ongoing there will be a mix of cabal controlled, blackmailed and those keeping their heads down for a quiet life or so that they were not sued or their licence taken away.
Whatever the exact mix of interests and counter intererest, by 1999 ISSTD President Peter Barach said the organisation was “crisis”. Between 1993 and 1998 the organization lost almost half its membership, about fifteen hundred people. Its journal has ceased publication and staff were being let go [25].
ISSTD 2000 - present
ISSTD was clearly badly compromised. Somehow the organisation limped on and survived into the millenium. Twenty years later it appears again to be thriving, according to 2023 President Michael Salter.
Membership of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is the largest that it has been in over two decades, and demand for our educational and training offerings has never been so strong. [66a]
However there still appears pressure to conform to the anti organised ritual abuse narrative. Richard Kleft gets mentioned in wikipedia for his views from several years ago.
ISSTD founder, Richard Kluft, wrote in 2014, “[I]t is undeniable that satanic elements are employed at times by those who wish to exploit the power of such materials for the purposes of intimidation and/or to pursue nefarious purposes. [...] Satanic elements remain problematic realities in many situations. I remain troubled about the matter of transgenerational satanic cults.” [25]
The 2023 President Salter has said that “in Australia, the dissociative disorders are rarely acknowledged in public policy documents on mental health, violence and child abuse” [66a], but the article is so couched in verbose word salad that it is impossible to tell if Salter is deliberately obfuscating and diminishing organised ritual child abuse or trying to tell part of the truth against the prevailing narrative.
It appears difficult for the ISSTD to tell self evident truths recounted by hundreds of mind controlled survivors and ritual abused individuals who have been through governmental / CIA mind control directly or for example via Jesuits or Mormons.
Fiona Barnett, survivor of ritual abuse revealed the composition and inclinations of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in about 2019 Real Memories Fake False Memory Foundation [36]. A few months later the FMSF shut down.
However the pressure on the ISSTD against the idea of organised ritual abuse on a false memory basis by FMSF has been superceded by pressure from the Satanic Temple, set up in 2014 who campaign against the ISSTD on the basis that the trauma model of DID is an old and false trauma model.
According to this model, dissociative disorders like DID develop as a result of trauma. But the reality is that there are probably multiple pathways by which a patient can develop the cluster of symptoms that characterize DID. Factors that likely contribute to the development of DID include irregularities in sleep, fantasy proneness, poor self-regulation, intrusive thoughts, and distress, as well as social and cultural factors. Trauma may also be an important variable, just not the sole causal factor that the trauma model suggests it is. [73]
The Satanic Temple are in favour of a Transtheoretical Framework model of DID [89]. The individuals in the Satanic Temple may well have a higher percentage than normal population of DID and could know far more about it than the average person. They may well have been treated in the current system and have legitimate complaints. There may well be something to what they say, and if it is to be dismissed it has to be studied further and intellectually challenged. Challenge on any simplistic basis that what a satanist says is wrong automatically, carries no weight. The facts and arguments need to be checked and countered intellectually if incorrect.
The video below was probably made as part of the satanic panic psyop, the propaganda to make people think that organised satanic ritual abuse does not happen, so survivors beware triggers.
Click on pic for video
Frontline -The Search for Satan (1995) [75]
The video does illustrate valid arguments against the treatment models at that time.
It is impossible to tell how correct the diagnoses were from this programme. It is difficult to argue with the fact that the Rockefeller medical system with its reliance on Big Pharma and pharmacological methods, and based in an extreme money making culture does not act in the best interest of the patient, even if their diagnoses of MPD / DID were correct. The use of so many drugs and the restraint techniques appears unreasonable.
On the other hand, witnesses who only saw one alter, may be caught in the big dilemma of DID, which is that it is difficult for many to believe and witness that a person in one alter is capable of changing to a totally different alter. A person may not change into ritual alters unless the correct triggers are given.
It is difficult to ascertain whether ISSTD therapists are genuine, whether they are cabal, whether they themselves are mind controlled or just patsies. Were the therapists genuinely diagnosing mind control programming, imagining the mind control by mistake or deliberately fabricating a diagnosis of mind control?
Similarly with the patients - are the patients non mind control programmed and outraged at their treatment? Are they mind controlled but have parts that later retaliate against the ISSTD therapists or are they programmed to act against the therapists?
This is all part and parcel of the evils of mind control that makes truth exceedingly hard to ascertain.
Bearing in mind all this confusion it is easy to see how ISSTD can be legitimately attacked from several angles. For instance, a refusal to admit how widespread organised ritual abuse is, the type of model used for the etiology / cause of DID, the reliance on pharmacology and other Rockefeller medical treatment, the connections of ISSTD therapists and management to the cabal itself and attacks for remedy via the law for maltreatment of patients.
The influence that ISSTD exerts globally appears to be far greater than it should, especially for such a compromised organisation. Should it be so powerful?
ISSTD Conference
They have a conference coming up in March, the pre-conference starting on the spring equinox, a major ritual date!
I personally have always found disconnected hands disturbing and the inverted drips are odd, but this is the symbol of the 2024 conference.
Couple of Timelines which may be useful
Timeline
1982 Kern County, sra
1983 McMartin daycare accusations
1984 ISSTD formed
1986 Presidio allegations
1988 Braun In 1988, one of the ISSMP&D founders Bennett Braun presented a workshop in Chicago at an ISSMP&D conference linking the diagnosis of multiple personality disorder (now dissociative identity disorder) to abuse at the hands of devil-worshipping cults.
1988 Jun Franklin child prostitution ring allegations began
1992 Mar The FMS Foundation located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1992 Dr Corydon Hammond Greenbaum Speech
1993 The Illinois FMS Society formed
1993 - 1998 controversies the ISSTD entered what 1999 president Peter Barach called a “crisis”. Between 1993 and 1998 the organization lost almost half its membership, about fifteen hundred people. In 1998, the society’s journal, Dissociation, ceased publication. By 1999 staff was being let go.
1995, ISSTD's founder and former president, Bennett Braun sued by a former patient who claimed that Braun had falsely convinced her that she'd engaged in Satanic rituals, cannibalism, and infanticide. The patient received a $10.6 million settlement. Braun's medical license was temporarily suspended by Illinois state officials in 1999.[27]
1998 Another former patient, Martha Ann Tyo, sued Ross and others in 1998, alleging that the defendants’ methods led her to believe her family was part of an “extended, transgenerational satanic cult.”[31][32]
1998 Putztai
1998 Wakefield
? Roma Hart accused Ross of convincing her, among other things, that she was forcibly impregnated by aliens and later gave birth to a half-alien, half-human hybrid. Anoth
2004 In 2004, another former patient of Braun’s, Elizabeth Gale, filed a lawsuit against Braun and Roberta Sachs, another ISSTD founder, alleging that they and their colleagues convinced Gale “that her family indoctrinated her as a child so she would make babies for sacrifice in a satanic cult.” The settlement in the malpractice suit amounted to $7.5 million.[28]
2013 Satanic Temple founded
2014 Another ISSTD founder, Richard Kluft, wrote in 2014, “[I]t is undeniable that satanic elements are employed at times by those who wish to exploit the power of such materials for the purposes of intimidation and/or to pursue nefarious purposes. [...] Satanic elements remain problematic realities in many situations. I remain troubled about the matter of transgenerational satanic cults.”[29]
2019 Bennet Braun sued again [54]
2020 Oct ISSTD Board of Directors issued a letter to membership informing them that the special interest group formerly known as RAMCOA SIG (Ritual Abuse, Mind Control and Organized Abuse Special Interest Group) had been renamed due to “stricter rules for the provision of Continuing Education (CE) and Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits”, largely due to growing concerns about the organization’s presentations which included sensationalized and controversial statements regarding “mind control.”[33]
In January 2021, former ISSTD president Bennett Braun's license was revoked an additional time by the state of Montana in addition to the previous revocations from the state of Illinois.
Timeline Daycare Ritual Abuse cases
1982 – Kern County child abuse cases.
1983 – McMartin preschool trial in California.
1984 – Fells Acres Day School in Massachusetts.
1984 – Bernard F. Baran Jr. convicted in 1985, exonerated 2009.
1984 – Georgian Hills Daycare Center, Memphis, Tennessee
1985 – Bronx Five case.
1985 – Wee Care Nursery School in New Jersey in April.
1986 – Child Development Center, Presidio of San Francisco
1987 – Cleveland child abuse scandal in England.
1987 – Friedman cases began.
1989 – Glendale Montessori sexual abuse case in Stuart, Florida.
1989 – Little Rascals Day Care Center scandal in Edenton, North Carolina.
1990 – Acquittals in McMartin preschool trial; remaining charges dropped.
1991 – Dan and Fran Keller, Fran's Daycare Center, Oak Hill, Texas.
1991 – Christchurch Civic Creche, New Zealand, involving Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis.
1992 – Kaare Sortia is killed, in Tacoma, Washington, after being found not guilty of child abuse.
1992 – Martensville Scandal, Martensville, Saskatchewan, Canada.
1996 – Convictions in the Kern county child abuse case overturned.
1997 – "Day of Contrition" in Salem, Massachusetts[36]
Links
[2] ISSTD website https://www.isst-d.org/public-resources-home/
[16] Grey Faction Salter 2 https://greyfaction.org/resources/proponents/salter-michael-ii/
[25] ISSTD Wikipedia ISSTD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_the_Study_of_Trauma_and_Dissociation
[27] ISSTD Conference https://annualconference.isst-d.org/
[28] Twitter ISSTD https://twitter.com/ISSTD
[29] ISSTD Center for Advanced Studies in Trauma and Dissociation https://cfas.isst-d.org/
[33] 2019 Archive.md ISSTD https://archive.is/d2WKf
[34] 2024 Feb 4 Wikipedia Archive ISSTD https://web.archive.org/web/20240204155918/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_the_Study_of_Trauma_and_Dissociation Braun comments
[36] 2022 Jul 14 foxyfox blog Real Memories Fake False Memory Foundation https://foxyfox.substack.com/p/real-memories-fake-false-memory-foundation #FalseMemoryFoundation #FionaBarnett
[48] wikipedia Pusztai https://web.archive.org/web/20180511153427/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pusztai_affair
[50] Wikipedia Andrew Wakefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
[66a] 2023 Presidential Editorial: The Facts and Fantasies of Dissociation Salter https://web.archive.org/web/20240206115428/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299732.2022.2157620
[70] 2023 Board of Directors - Salter President https://web.archive.org/web/20230417030538/https://www.isst-d.org/about-isstd/board-of-directors/
[73] Grey Faction FAQ https://greyfaction.org/about/faq/
[74] 2021 Oct 27 foxblog1 The War on Dr.Wakefield
[75] 2024 Feb 6 Odysee Frontline -The Search for Satan (1995) https://odysee.com/@FoxesAmazingChannel:8/Frontline--The-Search-for-Satan-(1995)-Ln7FSzfU5nE:7
[89] 2022 May Annual Review of Clinical Psychology Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders Reconsidered: Beyond Sociocognitive and Trauma Models Toward a Transtheoretical Framework https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081219-102424
[100] 2021 Feb 4 foxblog2 50 Voices of Ritual Abuse Videos Blood Cult 1 and 2 https://cathyfoxblog2.wordpress.com/2024/02/10/50-voices-of-ritual-abuse-27-videos-the-blood-cult-i-and-ii-lois-sasek/ #BloodCult #50voices #50voicesofritualabuse #childabuse
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Another great article. Thanks, Foxy.
Thank you so much for your time and effort in this matter and for getting the truth out. 💜