Following 30+ presentations on complex trauma assessment problems at conferences of the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation (ESTD) 2014, 2017 and 2019, European Psychiatry Association (EPA) 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, and European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine (EAPM) 2015 I plucked up the courage to submit two abstracts to the European Congress of Psychology (ECP) 2023 on ‘home soil’ in Brighton. I reproduce below updated versions of my abstracts in the programme as well as the slide decks presented.
Complex Trauma Psychometric Assessment Problems
This presentation is concerned with psychometric issues when assessing survivors of organised sexual abuse. It aims to illustrate problematic and sound assessment practice through a unique case study where data from IQ tests at age 7, 23, 25 and 30 as well as MCMI, EQi and the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ) were available for a female survivor of extreme emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
Superior Verbal IQ scores contrasted with lower processing and memory scores indicating a core deficit in phonological processing in particular her auditory memory and working memory commensurate with a diagnosis of specific learning difficulty commonly referred to as dyslexia. These deficits were more pronounced at 23 and 25 due to use of recreational drugs. Mental Health Professionals missed the ‘Twice Exceptional’ pattern and failed to recognise ‘not seeing’ and ‘not hearing’ incidents as somatoform dissociations.
MCMI results were found to be grossly misleading as clinical norms elevated healthy levels of self-confidence to (falsely) suggest Narcissism, and poor construction falsely implied delusional thought disorder. Mainstream personality assessments were used to counter the erroneous MCMI results.
The organised abuse claims were extreme and difficult to believe (let alone investigate) but proof of some disconcerting incidents was obtained.
The case study illustrates how poor assessment practice can re-victimise survivors of extreme abuse and how good assessment practice can be key to understanding them.
While the presentation is limited to a single case it touches on a very important issue affecting the most vulnerable individuals in the world who frequently are persecuted and framed e.g. through false Paranoid Personality Disorder diagnosis. It is important for a sustainable world to build communities with a better understanding of the impact of complex trauma on assessment.
The paper is aimed at academics and practitioners alike across clinical, counselling, forensic and occupational psychology.
Paranoid Personality Disorder or Organised Child Sexual Abuse? The Role of Psychologists and Psychiatrists in Family Courts
This presentation is concerned with the quality of psychological and psychiatric assessments in Family Court settings. Ireland (2012) found that 2/3 of psychological assessments trawled from UK Family Courts were found to be ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. New guidance to court appointed experts was issued by the British Psychological Society and the President of the Family Court. However, concerns remain as in the secrecy of the family court there is no transparency and virtual no recourse as HCPC and GMC watchdogs require prior permission of the judge for report release and refuse to get involved in matters of ‘professional judgement’.
A case study is presented where poor assessment standards were seemingly ‘weaponised’ by an organised child sexual abuse group.
A mother had asked the father of her daughter to leave their flat due to controlling and coercive behaviours but encouraged monthly contact day visits. The girl had various disabilities that were salient to the case. The mother organised seven therapy sessions for her pre-teen daughter who had become uncomfortable at school and developed an aversion to having a bath.
The mother and the girl found themselves victims of ‘gaslighting’ burglary where objects were placed, slightly moved, or removed. Subsequently, the father made a series of four threatening phone calls trying to coerce the child to report to Children Services that her mother was neglecting her, but the child refused. A few months later the girl started to disclose about sexual abuse by a man (including in bathtubs) while on contact visits to her father.
A mental health professional flouted the DSM-5 definition criteria for Paranoid Personality Disorder and used ‘disputed facts’. Mother and daughter as a consequence were separated for 5 years.
The updates highlighted in italics were prompted by an email I received Wednesday, April 19, 2023 from a Senior Manager at the British Psychological Society (BPS) which included the following sentences:
‘Two of the abstracts you have submitted contain case studies with details of the clients/patients and the professionals involved:
Complex Trauma Psychometric Assessment Problems
This refers to a <redacted> who ‘had missed the ‘Twice Exceptional’ pattern and failed to recognise ‘not seeing’ and ‘not hearing’ incidents as somatoform dissociations.’ If this case is not in the public domain, could this person be identified?
Paranoid Personality Disorder or Organised Child Sexual Abuse? The Role of Psychologists and Psychiatrists in Family Courts
There is detailed information about a case study involving a family and criticism of a <redacted> who you claim ‘flouted the DSM-5 definition criteria for Paranoid Personality Disorder and used ‘disputed facts’.’ If this case is not in the public domain, can the family members and/or the <redacted> be identified?’
I found this BPS action (while smacking a bit of ‘censorship’) much more enlightened than what happened in 2017 when fellow Psychologists conspired behind my back to ‘Cancel’ my symposium ‘Trauma, Dissociation & Healing‘ a few days before it was due to be presented at the 2017 BPS Annual Conference as outlined in my blog post ‘Trauma at the BPS Annual Conference in Brighton’:
https://psychassessmentblog.wordpress.com/2017/06
June 2017 – psychassessmentblog (wordpress.com)
I submitted a 19-page complaint to the BPS CEO Ann Colley which included as Appendices A to Q various posters on complex trauma assessment problems. Ann had obtained the ‘plum job’ after leading a ‘BPS Search Party’ tasked with recruiting a CEO. According to an anecdote she was once confronted by a BPS staff member at the Leicester HQ who did not recognise her (largely invisible) CEO: ‘Who are you and what are you doing here’?
The Senior Manager I complained about resigned within two months, CEO Ann Colley went into retirement shortly thereafter and another long-serving policy staff member left by the end of the year. A policy member who had been involved in the development of the disastrous ‘Memory and the Law’ (2008) guidelines (produced by False Memory lobby associated academics) only left a few years later. I pasted below the abstract and reference for an important article that exposed this dangerous development which fanned the ‘Discourse of Disbelief’ that abuse victims and their supporters (e.g. a protective parent of a child making disclosures indicative of Organised Child Sexual Abuse / Exploitation) frequently experience:
Abstract
‘This paper describes the alignment between the goals of the British False Memory Society (BFMS) and a group of sympathetic academics within the British Psychological Society (BPS). Since the 1990s, the policy formation process of the BPS has excluded critical colleagues concerned with child protection and the demonstration of the link between childhood adversity and adult mental health problems. Those involved in the nexus between the BPS and BFMS have focused singularly on the experimental evidence for false-positive outcomes and have systematically excluded a consideration of false negatives. We describe how this biased policy development emerged and was maintained. We discuss this skewed policy formation with reference to social network formation in professional life, as well as the wider context of child abuse in society.’
Ashley Conway & David Pilgrim (2022): The Policy Alignment of the British False Memory Society and the British Psychological Society. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation Volume 23, 2022 – Issue 2: The science and politics of false memories.
I joined an event where (only) four hand-picked candidates to succeed the CEO gave presentations. Strangely, no psychologist was put forward. Sarb Bajwa was selected and became visible for all the wrong reasons. When the CEO in March 2024 announced the cancellation of three Stage 2 Chartership Routes, I posted the following criticisms on LinkedIn and called for Sarb to ‘cancel’ himself:
‘Since Sarb became BPS CEO, things have gone from ‘bad’ to ‘worse’.
1. Sarb and the Finance Director ‘signed-off’ fraudulent expenses of £70k accrued by a convicted fraudster they hired without proper background checks.
2. Sarb presided over the Memory-Based Evidence Guidelines fiasco that left us with biased 2008 ‘guidelines’ developed under an academic who shortly afterwards joined the British False Memory Society (BFMS) Advisory Board, and whose testimony (‘explaining away’ child sexual abuse) was repeatedly rejected by UK Appeal Court judges.
3. Sarb is associated with early exit (exodus) of a BPS President and a BPS Past-President as well as the prevention of a newly elected BPS President taking up the role.
4. $Millions were squandered on a ‘BPS Change Program’ with virtually nothing to show other than a multi-million-pound deficit.
5. Cancelling Qualification for Occupational Psychology Chartership strikes out the Gold Standard that was offered and promoted for decades. It deprives newcomers from obtaining this accreditation and devalues it for those who spent a lot of time and money obtaining it.
Rather than cancelling qualifications, Sarb ought to take responsibility for his failures and cancel himself.’
When a valued fellow Occupational Psychologist found my post a bit unfair (e.g. ‘an internal investigation found him not guilty…’) I added the following:
‘I think it is ‘extremely unfair’ (and outright dangerous) that psychological assessments are routinely (mis)used in Family Court settings to suppress allegations of (Organised) Child Sexual Abuse. I have been raising the issue with the BPS and many institutions since 2012. The most helpful responses were from Counselling Psychologists, so I am most concerned about potential loss of their qualification. We are as Occupational Psychologists fortunate that with the ABP an alternative professional body is making headway, and Alan Redman posted some interesting thoughts on the topic.
I uploaded a slide taken from my 90-minute presentation at the 2023 Survivorship conference that can be accessed from the URL below (trigger warning):
https://survivorship.org/the-survivorship-ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2023-conference-presentations/
There are very deep, systemic issues that require courageous and competent leadership – especially at the BPS!’
Alexander Abney-King started a petition that I signed (please do so as well):
I welcomed the emerging consensus on LinkedIn (I cannot recall a single word of praise for Sarb):
‘Systemic issues have plagued the British Psychological Society (BPS) for a long time.
https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/british-psychological-society-chief-executive-cleared-fraud-inquiry/governance/article/1731592
The current CEO, Sarb Bajwa, has made matters worse by announcing without appropriate consultation the closure of Stage 2 Chartership Routes for Occupational, Coaching and Educational Psychologists.
https://bpswatch.com/2024/03/14/how-not-to-run-a-learned-society/
I agree with calls for his resignation and urge you to submit a formal complaint.‘
British Psychological Society chief executive cleared in fraud inquiry
thirdsector.co.uk
Many psychologists are calling for the removal of BPS CEO Sarb Bajwa e.g. Civil Service Psychologists created the pro forma at the top of this post.
The issues I raised in my 2017 complaint, that followed years of correspondence since 2012 that should be ‘on file’ at the BPS, remain unresolved. The case featured in the ECP 2023 paper ‘Paranoid Personality Disorder or Organised Child Sexual Abuse?’ could have been prevented through proper BPS ‘education’ about ‘extreme child sexual abuse’ and the professional duty of psychologists (and psychiatrists!) acting as Court Appointed Experts to refrain from making a diagnosis on the basis of ‘disputed facts’ (i.e. do not usurp the role of police and judge by basing a negative mental health diagnosis on a naïve ‘disbelief’ of disclosures of extreme crimes). US Clinical Psychologist Ellen Lacter (PhD) has written a lot about the many difficulties encountered by victims of extreme abuse with ‘sceptical’ law enforcement. OBE Dr Laurie Matthew wrote many books on organised extreme abuse gangs.
1:00 / 1:03:50
Ritual Abuse in the UK – Dr Laurie Matthew OBE Presentation at the 2021 S.M.A.R.T Conference.
Mind Control and How to Stop it – Neil Brick : S.M.A.R.T.’s Ritual Abuse Pages
Samantha Baldwin (2020) could have been spared the agony of having to write ‘Everything is Going to Be Okay’. Robert Firth, found suffocated with a shopping bag around his head in a North Wales prison cell, could have remained alive:
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/inquest-held-after-anglesey-man-24549362
The BPS as a Learned Society ought to ‘lead’ society at large to an increased understanding of trauma, dissociation and healing, and how ‘extreme criminality’ underpins a lot of mental health conditions.
The two cases I presented at ECP 2023 are ‘not in the public domain’ due to psychological and psychiatric assessments claiming paranoia/delusions/psychosis when the stark reality is (most probably) that Organised Crime set up ‘extreme gaslighting and violence’ EXACTLY to mislead mental health professionals who wear ‘rose tinted glasses’ falling for manipulations. Most lack the prerequisite expertise (and courage) to diagnose correctly, e.g. ‘(C-)PTSD with dissociative features consistent with Chronic Child Sexual Abuse’, in such ‘deception’ settings where the purpose of the criminality is the ‘weaponisation’ of Family Courts to separate a child from the protective parent, and to simultaneously ‘cover up’ prior CSA/CSE. Numerous efforts to get authority representatives to review important evidence in these two cases were rebuffed, and the BPS failed to respond.
With Sarb continuing at the helm of the BPS, things are only going to get worse.
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