Demystifying Mind Control and Ritual Abuse: A Manual for Therapists

This manual is a step-by-step guide for therapists working with survivors of complex mind control and ritual abuse, explaining how survivors were trained and how to help them recover and take control of their own lives. It is an invaluable resource for all mental health and social care professionals. This book was written to meet the need of therapists: a succinct, thorough, practical, clear, down-to-earth handbook to which a therapist can refer as needed. Many, if not most, therapists have encountered a victim of complex mind control and ritual abuse, and most therapists feel deskilled in this work. Working with such clients is a challenge for therapists, given the extreme and prolonged nature of the clients' trauma, the severity of their dissociative disorders, the complexity of the mind control they have experienced, and the reality of organised perpetrator groups who follow up on their victims. Every therapist needs to know the basics of this work. AUTHOR: Alison Miller is a clinical psychologist recently retired from private practice in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She worked for many years in child and youth mental health services, helping children and families, and developing the LIFE Seminars parent education programs. Since 1991, Dr Miller has been treating and learning from persons who have experienced organized childhood abuse, in particular mind control and ritual abuse. She wrote Healing the Unimaginable to help therapists treating such survivors, and Becoming Yourself to assist survivors in their own healing process.

Table of Contents:
About the author Preface Introduction Chapter 1: Dissociation, ritual abuse and mind control Dissociative splitting Diagnoses Ritual abuse and mind control Recognising a survivor client Remembering the abuse Chapter 2: The therapeutic relationship The therapeutic bond: parental and infant love How abusers try to prevent the therapeutic bond Talking with someone who’s multiple Developing the therapeutic relationship Chapter 3: The life of a mind control victim Infancy Childhood Adulthood The groups’ activities in the larger world Chapter 4: Engineered personality systems Sections within the brain Appearing normal: the front Programs and jobs of parts Chapter 5: Stabilisation and internal safety Programmed triggering Internal hierarchies and leaders Chapter 6: Working with the personality system Higher-ups Stopping programmed symptoms Building inner community Chapter 7: Present-day physical safety Access programming Monitoring of survivors Chapter 8: Working through the traumatic memories Three phases of treatment Planning memory work Processing a memory Troubleshooting Chapter 9: Confronting the spiritual issues in ritual abuse Simulated religious scenarios Spiritual/moral abuse: making victims believe they are evil How does evil really work? ‘Possession’ Guilt, shame and forgiveness Making meaning of the abuse experience Chapter 10: Healing for our clients and ourselves Effects of the abuse on survivors Healing tasks Intimidation of therapists Therapists’ vicarious traumatisation References Index

About the Author :
Alison Miller is a retired clinical psychologist, who practised in Victoria, BC, Canada for over forty years, and specialised in work with survivors of ritual abuse and mind control for the last twenty-five years. She is the author of two previous books on that subject, and has contributed to various edited collections and journals.

Review :
‘Alison Miller’s latest book, Demystifying Mind Control and Ritual Abuse, is a tour de force in advanced psychotherapy for the most difficult of clients, those who have been subjected to torture since before birth and throughout their childhood in order to create compliant slaves without walls. She is a knowledgeable, tough, and compassionate guide who takes a clear-eyed look at what it really takes for therapists to do this work and gives us the tools to do so. She calmly addresses a topic that most find unbearable to acknowledge, that children can and are routinely used to serve the darkest desires of humanity. She lays out many practical tips; each chapter could almost be its own book. Any therapist who finds themselves confounded and feeling deskilled by a victim of organized abuse that is cult related, ritually abused and/or mind controlled will find helpful tips and resources in these pages. This book should be required reading for all therapists.’ ‘Having worked in this difficult field for several decades, Alison Miller has found a further way of passing on her knowledge of mind control and ritual abuse. What’s more, she does so in the most honed, processed way. This is a handbook which is easy to read despite the fearfulness of its subject. It is filled with wise information culled from decades of experience. It will aid the newcomer and the experienced clinician alike.’ ‘Demystifying Mind Control and Ritual Abuse: A Manual for Therapists delivers just what Dr. Miller promises – a book for therapists “who need a succinct, practical, down-to-earth guide for this challenging work.” She describes the strategies that mind control abusers apply to victims, beginning in infancy, to induce dissociated identities to form, to manipulate them, and to then set them up against each other for long-term, often lifetime control. These abusers hope to prevent victims from ever consciously accessing their memories, from being able to receive the help of a psychotherapist, and from ever defying and escaping their mental controls. Then Dr. Miller offers step-by-step therapeutic guidance in troubleshooting all of these obstacles so that survivors may discover their own minds and exercise agency over their own lives. This is a wonderful reference book to help psychotherapists navigate this toughest-of-all courses of psychotherapy.’ ‘Dr. Alison Miller's new book, Demystifying Mind Control and Ritual Abuse: A Training Manual for Therapists, is the most comprehensive book written to date on this topic. Dr. Miller discusses all of the techniques needed to help survivors of these crimes. Her book is easy to read and understand. It explains ways to work with trauma survivors in a compassionate, respectful, and comprehensive manner. Her many years of experience and research provide a unique guide into helping mind control and ritual abuse survivors. I have been proud to work with Dr. Miller in both Survivorship (survivorship.org) and SMART (ritualabuse.us).  Every time I attend one of her workshops or webinars or read one of her books, I learn more about our field, myself, and ways to help other survivors.’   Neil Brick, editor and conference coordinator for SMARTNews at https://ritualabuse.us