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From: Mark Cashman <mcashman@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 11:13:51 -0400
Fwd Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 14:08:27 -0400
Subject: Purely Psychological 'Experiences'

The following news story piqued my interest.

(excerpts from http://www.newspage.com)

===

"Illinois has moved to discipline a prominent psychiatrist
accused of convincing a patient that she was a cannibal who ate
human flesh meatloaf, a child molester and the high priestess of
a satanic cult."

"Depressed after the birth of her second son, Patricia Burgus
sought therapy from Dr. Bennett Braun. Burgus says the doctor,
through repressed-memory therapy, led her to believe she
possessed 300 personalities, ate meatloaf of human flesh,
sexually abused her children, and served in the cult."

...

"She said she was given sedative, hypnotic and psychotic drugs
in inappropriate doses. She was frequently hypnotized and
sometimes restrained with leather straps to stimulate abuse
memories, her lawsuit
said."

===

UFO investigators and analysts are rightly concerned about the
degree to which psychological treatment or abuse could be
responsible for abduction memories, especially when hypnosis has
been used by non-professionals.

In this case, we have the alleged use of hypnosis, drugs, and
other techniques by a psychiatric professional, which supposedly
led to the generation of false memories of an extensive nature,
and which were, at least for some time, accepted by the subject
as real. If true, there are a number of questions raised:

(Note that the following comments and questions are not meant to
apply to all abduction claimants. However, they do apply to the
(unknown) percentage of such claimants who have actually had a
purely psychological experience, either self-induced, induced as
a result of a perceived real (non-abduction) UFO experience, or
induced by the actions of persons performing hypnosis either as
a result of a reported UFO or abduction experience.)

A battery of techniques in a hospital setting were required to
attain these results. Despite that, the patient eventually came
to her senses, and, in her words "I began to add a few things up
and realized there was no way I could come from a little town in
Iowa, be eating 2,000 people a year, and nobody said anything
about it."

a) What does this indicate about the potential for abuse by
non-professionals without use of drugs in a non-controlled
setting? Is it greater or less than we typically fear?

b) Is it the non-confirmable nature of the abduction experience
which prevents what I will call "psychological abductees" from
coming to similar conclusions? Or is this, at root, a desired
experience, similar to Munchausen, where the victim desires the
attention generated by victimhood, even if that attention is
provided only by one or a few investigators? Or do such
"psychological abductees" in fact "come to their senses", and
such reports are simply not reported in the popular literature?

I'd be interested in feedback from persons involved in abduction
research.

------
Mark Cashman, creator of The Temporal Doorway at
http://www.temporaldoorway.com
- Original digital art, writing, and UFO research -
Author of SF novels available at...
http://www.temporaldoorway.com/library.htm
------