We Are Adult Survivors of Child Abuse and Neglect

In 1997 the issue of multiple personalities was discussed by the national media. As usual, it was not helpful at all for the millions of adult survivors of child abuse or the therapists who treat them. Paul McHugh was selected by 60 Minutes, I guess because he was the Chief of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins.

The move to silence therapists and child abuse survivors in making claims about childhood abuse moved into a new direction in the 1990s. Elizabeth Loftus joined Paul McHugh, in denouncing memories of survivors, especially in the area of trial law. She conducted some experiments with people, successfully convincing them that they were “lost in a shopping mall” as a young child and used films of cars accidents in her research.

The 1990s was a time when the ugliness of those who wanted to protect child molesters really reared its head. Not only was it unbelievable what they were doing, but also that the media believed their ridiculous banter-hook, line and sinker.

To continue my discussion about Paul McHugh’s misguided attempts to thwart the treatment of adult survivors of child abuse for those of us who are diagnosed with DID, I will quote an article he wrote in 1993 representing Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

An important name as it relates to the issue of multiple personalities begins to appear in the early 1990s-Dr. Paul McHugh at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. The following are excerpts of two articles.The first is an article in The Baltimore Sun in 1990.

The political and sociological events and movements that I have mentioned in my previous posts supported the acknowledgement of the hidden epidemic of child abuse and its link to posttraumatic and dissociative symptoms.  One such event was the Vietnam War.  Despite the unpopularity of that conflict with much of the American public,

Significant changes began in the early 1900s both in terms of medicine and psychiatry. Laboratory science allowed scientists to explore the brain for causes of mental illness. Neurologists and microbiologists concluded that mental illness was a disorder of the nervous system. With this information, psychiatric illnesses were now viewed as medical problems.

As with a lot of scientific issues, mental illness cases were examined and documented relating to individuals involved in warfare. The next case in this series pertains to war amnesia after WWI-about 90 years ago. The article discusses dissociation and its causes.

It is important that a sampling of the multiple personality studies from the past be made public because this documentation directly relates to issues affecting child abuse survivors today-over 100 years later. As I said earlier, this process will be lengthy, but so much of the coverage in the media about multiple personalities, and the long-term effects of child abuse, has been distorted particularly as it relates to the Dissociative Disorders.