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New Zealand Counsellors Talk About Ritual Abuse: a Discourse Analysis

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New Zealand Counsellors Talk About Ritual Abuse: a Discourse Analysis Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. Contact email: [email protected] New Zealand counsellors talk about ritual abuse: A discourse analysis A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand Sylvia Jean Pack 2009 Abstract Research indicates that in the last five decades, claims of Satanic ritual abuse (RA), and the numbers of clients receiving counselling for RA, have increased in all Western countries. This has resulted in an increased corpus of related literature overseas, which includes studies in which facticity as well as aetiology, symptomology and treatment are debated. This present study focuses on a New Zealand context, and examines the talk of New Zealand counsellors in relation to their views regarding RA and the counselling of RA clients. Social constructionist and positivist epistemologies were evaluated in terms of their suitability for this research, and the discourse analytic method developed by Potter and Wetherell (1987) chosen as the means by which participants’ talk might be analysed in such a way as to allow the inclusion of multiple constructions and the emergence of the many discourses and conflicting ideas which occur in overseas literature. A broad selection of the literature was first critically analysed to give an understanding of the topic. Nine counsellors gave interviews, eight women and one man, all Pakeha, six of whom were ACC-registered (Accident Compensation Commission, 2009). The participants constructed RA as a physical reality, which was justified by the use of the credible client discourse. A traditional linguistic repertoire furnished a discourse of government backing, which was employed to warrant voice. A moral stake in counselling, named concern for the client, was shown to be present in all arguments. The participants constructed three truths relative to context: a legal truth , the counsellor’s truth , and the client’s truth . Recovered memories were given a dual construction which legitimised correct and incorrect recall. DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) labelling was debated in a discourse of ambivalence . Finally in a discourse of preparedness , the participants constructed the therapeutic skills needed to treat RA clients. The thesis concludes by highlighting the participants’ comments regarding the need for openness and awareness, and specialised literature and training for counsellors treating RA clients. ii Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge and thank the nine professional counsellors who volunteered their time and expertise to give a fresh New Zealand insight into a topic which is often ignored. It was an honour to study their informative, thoughtful and intelligent contributions, born out of their lived experiences as counsellors and therapists. Without them, this study could not have taken place. My thanks to my supervisor Dr Keith Tuffin, who cheerfully answered all my questions, gave constructive feedback and criticism, and challenged and encouraged me to enlarge my knowledge of discourse analysis. My thanks to Massey for the scholarship which has helped me achieve this goal, to the library for the helpful communication and inexhaustible flow of articles and books, to the library Endnote advisers, and the staff at the Wellington School of Psychology for their efforts in providing post- grad students with information and fellowship. I would like to acknowledge and thank my wonderful husband and our three equally wonderful adult children, who have been unfailingly supportive and vocal regarding their belief in my ability to write this. I also wish to thank the many friends who continually expressed curiosity, encouragement and affirmation. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Literature review 5 Rationale and Aims 20 Chapter Three: Epistemology 22 An invisibilising epistemology 22 Potter and Wetherell’s discursive psychology 26 Towards an ethical epistemology 29 Reflexivity 30 Chapter Four: Methodology 32 Participants 32 Ethics 33 Interviews 34 Transcription 36 Coding 37 Chapter Five: Section One : Constructing the reality 39 Section Two: Stake, positioning, and warranting voice 53 iv Chapter Six: Truth 58 The credible client 59 A legal truth 63 The counsellor’s truth 65 The client’s truth 69 Chapter Seven: Recovered Memories 76 Memory is a twilight zone 78 Lost in the mall 83 Chapter Eight: Labelling 91 ACC and government funding: a discourse of power 91 Labelling 94 Essential and external disorder 97 I don’t like labeling 100 A discourse of ambivalence 103 Constructing alternatives 104 Chapter Nine: Constructing Preparedness 108 Adequate supervision 108 Risk factors 109 Counseling the RA client 114 Chapter Ten: Discussion 127 Analysis summary 127 Application and implications for future research 128 Validation and criticism 131 The last word 134 v References 136 Appendices 147 Appendix A: Information sheet 147 Appendix B: Participant consent form 149 Appendix C: Interview schedule 150 Appendix D: Consent for the release of tape transcripts 153 Appendix E: A summary of results for participants 154 Appendix F: Transcription notation 157 vi Chapter One Introduction Ritual abuse (RA) is a controversial topic, and a prolific source of internet sites, books and articles, both overseas and in a much lesser way, in New Zealand. Allegations of RA have been made by children and adults, and explained away as the result of suggestibility, media presentations, rumour and iatrogenesis; but such allegations have also been at least partially believed, by therapists and counsellors who treat RA clients. This introduces a variety of questions, all worthy of study. Is there physical proof of such activities? Is there consensus among professionals regarding either the imaginatory status of the “condition”, or the facticity of the phenomena? By professionals, I refer to psychologists, therapists and counsellors who may work with RA clients. Given that discourse analysis focuses on language, and that the action orientation of language resonates with therapy, I decided to make the focus of my research the spoken response of such professionals to the subject of RA and RA clients. When I began reading for this study, I had no idea that I would end up knowing far more about RA than I had ever wanted to know, or that it would cover a very wide spectrum of related traumatic experience. I did not anticipate having to briefly investigate the history of Satanism, which is not included in this study. Perhaps most surprising to me, being used to orderly textbooks and accounts, was the lack of resolution and specificity that would erupt each time I opened the pages on this topic. Scientific “proof” in the form of conclusive experiments with proven hypotheses, quantitative surveys and measured symptomatic responses, complete with new actuarial instruments to supplement existing psychometrics, would abound on both sides of the debate, with each claiming to disprove the other’s argument. Both sides also cited consensus and corroboration, first person accounts as witnesses, and creditable category entitlement. This however is grist to the mill for the discourse analyst, who may embrace confusion, diversity, contradiction and paradox. New Zealand yielded a much more orderly response; the only New Zealand writings on the subject seemed to be from two openly sceptical writers. However when I looked online, I found that there had been allegations of RA made in this country also. The debate appeared to be extant in New Zealand, but on a much smaller scale. I began to see an even more focused possibility for 1 study. I asked among counselling friends, and some contacts started to emerge, people who might be willing to participate in such research. As the time grew nearer for the interviews, I mentally reassembled some of the concepts I had read about, in all their fire, seriousness, mockery, and challenge. I formulated questions, and began to look forward to interviewing New Zealand counsellors; what would their accounts discuss, what discourses would be revealed? How would they justify their accounts, in a war zone where nothing was proven or satisfactorily agreed on? How would they make sense of the situation? Although the project’s title was New Zealand counsellors talk about ritual abuse, a discourse analysis, it soon became apparent in the interviews that their constructions around RA would not be limited or decontextualised. Arguments led off into broader issues which impinged on and affected the treatment of RA clients. What was truth? Could it be decided scientifically, or was it relative to context? Far from being a disconnected philosophical digression, this was shown to relate clearly to the larger topic at hand. The recovered memory debate, so often raised in RA literature, was also well known to the participants, who had worked with the phenomena with sexual abuse (SA) clients aswell as RA clients, and it therefore provoked strong discussion. The importance (or not) of using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV- TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) (DSM-IV) was also strongly argued. The interesting and challenging findings are contained in the eight chapters of this study, the first of which (Chapter One) aims to introduce the topic to the reader, and includes a brief look at definitions of RA in the overseas literature. Chapter Two provides a critical review of New Zealand and overseas literature, and examines a wide range of views, from the openly sceptical to the committed apologist. At the end of the review, the reader has been familiarised with the RA debate, but the question remains, why this study, and why in New Zealand? The rationale and aims of the study are then set forth.
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