Survivorship March/April 2024 Notes are available for free online at https://survivorship.org/notes-and-journal Information includes new speaker information about the May 2024 conference with low prices until March 15th.
The Survivorship Trafficking and Extreme Abuse Online Conference 2024
Survivor Conference – Saturday and Sunday May 4 – 5, 2024
Clinician’s Conference – Friday May 3, 2024
Please write info@survivorship.org if you would like to get on our conference mailing list and/or are interested in speaking at our 2024 conference.
Special Low Prices:
Register and pay before March 15, 2024:
Fri: $125 – clinician’s conference
Sat: $75 – $50 low income survivors
Sun: $75 – $50 low income survivors
Conference Speakers
Recovery Tips for and by Survivors
Survivors and their helpers have developed a variety of techniques toward healing from traumatic experiences. This presentation will encourage an open discussion of these techniques. Techniques will include those used in individual and group therapy and in survivors’ personal lives. This will be an open discussion for survivors and their helpers. The moderators will be Dr. Randy Noblitt and Neil Brick.
Teaching Trauma and Dissociation in Higher Education Randy Noblitt PhD
Clinicians can contribute to the well being of extreme abuse survivors directly by providing competent professional services. We can also assist by training graduate students who will become future clinicians. Folz and colleagues (2023) found deficits in trauma-informed training in their sample of 193 APA-accredited clinical psychology programs. Only 5% required a course relevant to trauma-informed care, resulting in only 8% of graduates receiving such formal training. We will discuss opportunities for being a college or university guest speaker, adjunct faculty and core faculty member. Participants will also discuss leading topics and trends in the contemporary trauma and dissociation literature.
Randy Noblitt is a professor of Clinical Psychology at Alliant International University, Los Angeles and a licensed psychologist in Texas. He has evaluated and treated extreme abuse survivors clinically since 1979. He has authored three editions of the book Cult and Ritual Abuse with Pam Noblitt (1995, 2000, 2014). Together they also edited Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century (2008) and they have authored a recent book, Navigating Social Security Disability Programs: A Handbook for Clinicians and Advocates (2020). https://ritualabuse.us/smart/randy-noblitt/
Tackling Complex Trauma Assessment Problems with Cybernetic Big 5 Theory Dr. Rainer Hermann Kurz
This presentation draws on contemporary personality assessment theory to illustrate opportunities and risks when using psychometric questionnaires in situations where extreme abuse has been alleged. DeYoung (2015) outlined a comprehensive ‘Cybernetic Big 5 Theory’ that revolves around the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality that psychologists converged on (e.g. Digman, 1990). Digman (1997) found that Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Low Neuroticism form a meta-factor ‘Alpha’ whereas Extraversion and Openness form a meta-factor ‘Beta’. DeYoung refers to these as Stability and Plasticity respectively and associates them with serotonergic and dopaminergic systems. Furthermore, DeYoung differentiates two Aspects for each of the Big 5. Johnson (2014) developed public domain versions of the ‘gold standard’ Big 5 personality questionnaire NEO which can be used free-of-charge: https://drj.virtualave.net/IPIP/index.html
The application of NEO IPIP and NEO-PI-3 to challenge poor assessment practice in a case of alleged organized child sexual abuse/exploitation will be illustrated including item level nuances (Stewart et al., 2022). Another case study will illustrate results of a multi-tool assessment of a self-identified survivor of extreme abuse using the Big 5 as an organizing framework in line with Bainbridge et al. (2022). A third case study will illustrate the use of Great 8 Totals (Kurz, 2014) as a proxy for the General Factor of Personality (Musek, 2008), conceptually the opposite of the general factor of psychopathology (Forbes et al., 2021), to challenge misleading results on the Millon MCMI questionnaire. The presentation shows how Cybernetic Big 5 Theory can help to overcome complex psychological assessment practice problems.
Rainer Kurz is a Chartered Psychologist based in London. Since 1990 Rainer has worked in Research & Development roles for leading test publishers. His PhD dissertation was on enhancing the validity and utility of ability testing. Rainer developed 50+ psychometric tests and authored more than 100 publications. He is a Consultant Editor for Test Reviews at the Psychometric Testing Centre (PTC) of the BPS. Rainer has been investigating complex trauma assessment problems since 2012. He presented 30+ posters on trauma, dissociation and healing at international peer-reviewed conferences that are available here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rainer_Kurz2
Ritual Abuse, Sex Trafficking and Mind Control Neil Brick
This presentation will explain how ritual abuse, mind control, and different suggestive techniques work to control sex trafficking survivors (Karriker, 2008). The presenter will describe different historical examples of how mind control and ritual abuse have been used. Legal cases will also be discussed from various parts of the world (McGonigle, 1999; New York Times, 1988). Research studies, like the Extreme Abuse Survivors Survey, will be presented, as well as examples of different cults and their techniques (Hassan, 2018).
Mental health diagnoses, like Dissociative Identity Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and their origins in sex trafficking survivors will be explained. The presenter will discuss his personal experiences of being in a cult as a child experiencing torture, sexual abuse, and mind control techniques. The forced development of these diagnoses and their symptoms will be connected to how they are used to control sex trafficking survivors. Ways to expose and prevent ritual abuse, mind control, and sex trafficking will be discussed. Finally, there will be a discussion of the future of advocacy efforts to stop ritual abuse, sex trafficking, and mind control.
Masonic Ritual Abuse: Its Characteristics, Prevalence and Expression in Western Art and Culture. Dr. Lynn Brunet
This presentation will examine the subject of Masonic ritual abuse. Based on the presenter’s personal experience and accumulated art historical research over the last two decades it asks a series of questions about its prevalence, how it is similar and different to other forms of ritual abuse, how it is expressed in art and culture and what its implications are for us today. Freemasonry is sometimes described as the ‘cult of the establishment’ and there is a great deal of material available about it and its rituals that can enable research into its practices, which is not necessarily the case for other cults.
The research, to date, suggests that the children of Freemasons are particularly vulnerable to abuse, but while they might be struggling internally with something inexplicably profound, disturbing or terrifying, they may not necessarily appear at a therapist’s office as many of them are encouraged by their abusers to express their trauma in creative ways. Driven to obsessively release the effects of the trauma, this can become a lifelong way of coping, resulting in the creation of cultural artefacts that are imbued with the traces of cruel ritual practices without the creators themselves being consciously aware of their source.
Uses of Art Therapy, Sensory Awareness and EMDR in Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Patricia Quinn
This presentation will describe the fluid uses of art therapy, Sensory Awareness and EMDR in treating Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The didactic portion will entail justification for using each modality, the benefit if the client being able to choose a treatment modality themselves, and examples of their clinical use with two clients with very different levels of access to memories of their past trauma. This effective, responsive healing approach will be useful for all counselors and therapists working in a variety of settings. The general descriptions of client responses may contain triggering content. The presentation contains a calming experiential that combines a body-based relaxation and use of art to counter-act traumatic memory.
We recommend that survivors bring a safe support person to the online conference who is familiar with the issues ritual abuse survivors may need help with.
None of the material on this page, on linked pages or at the conference is meant as therapy, or to take the place of therapy.
Survivorship - for survivors of ritualistic abuse 