ABSTRACT
Destabilization is characterized by traumatic intrusions such as flashbacks, nightmares, body memories, emotional states of sadness, anxiety, and despair, and, sometimes, PTSD-related symptomatology suggesting bipolar disorder or psychosis, all of which are severely disruptive and painful. In the early 1990s, some of the literature on ritual abuse stated that virtually all clients continue to have involvement in “the cult.” The current view held by many trauma therapists is that the opposite is true—that the abuse which began in childhood is now over and the client can recover in safety, the only danger being from his or her own self-harm. The truth appears to be somewhere in between. Current contact is a serious business, whether it is present at the start of therapy, initiated by the client’s reporting to the perpetrators about therapy, or accomplished by the client’s contact with other survivors who are looking for disobedient survivors to trigger or recall.
