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Important recurrent aspects to highlight

Extreme
Repetitive
Cozolino notes a multitude of abusers and victims
- The abuse is usually performed by a cult, a group of people united by a religious or political beliefs, as well as socially deviant behavior
Wide variety of torture techniques
Attempts to control the victim's mental and psychic state ("mind-control")

Often linked to dissociative identity disorder

Notion derived from satanic ritual abuse, but soon separated; satanic elements aren't necessarily present

Definitions

Ritual abuse (Rhoades, G.F. 1999) defines it as a "method of control of people of all ages consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological mistreatment through the use of rituals."
Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force - Los Angeles County Commission for Women (Sep. 15, 1989 report, quoted and by Kathleen Sullivan)

"Ritual abuse is a brutal form of abuse of children, adolescents, and adults, consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and involving the use of rituals. Ritual does not necessarily mean satanic. However, most survivors state that they were ritually abused as part of satanic worship for the purpose of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs and practices. Ritual abuse rarely consists of a single episode. It usually involves repeated abuse over an extended period of time.

The physical abuse is severe, sometimes including torture and killing. The sexual abuse is usually painful, sadistic, and humiliating, intended as means of gaining dominance over the victim. The psychological abuse is devastating and involves the use of ritual/indoctrination, which includes mind control techniques and mind altering drugs, and ritual/intimidation which conveys to the victim a profound terror of the cult members and of the evil spirits they believe cult members can command. Both during and after the abuse, most victims are in a state of terror, mind control, and dissociation in which disclosure is exceedingly difficult."

Therapeutic techniques

History

Research into the mind-control

CIA's MKUltra project
- Techniques such as psychic driving developed within the project's frames, but usage was noted post-MKUltra (e.g. psychic driving, described by Ellen P. Lacter)
- CIA's goals reveal a strong interest for mind-control: range from puzzling the victim to altering the entire personality structure. The research targets mental confusion, amnesia, modification of personality, as well as reaction to strong stress and trauma.
  - A special interest for mind-altering drugs

Satanic ritual abuse

Ritual abuse nowadays

A broader definition
- e.g. Colin Batley's "sex cult"
  - Not necessarily linked to satanism (real or staged)

Controversy

A lot of the debates around ritual abuse target the notion of "repressed memories", countered mostly by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, stating that incorrect therapeutic techniques can implant false memories in patients
- The works of Elizabeth Loftus

The "bizarre" aspects of ritual abuse
- Distinction should be made between empirical truth and perceived truth: therapists do not deal with the empirical truth
  - So, when dealing with the patients, therapists are not supposed to believe certain things as true, but to belive that the patient perceives them to be true -- as a lot of the aspects of ritual abuse are about controlling the victim's psyche, it's hard to know whether specifc elememts of memories correspond to real or staged occurrences, or if they have been suggested or created by someone