Mental Health Awareness Month
This Mental Health Awareness Month, we are called to examine not only the care we receive, but the quality and integrity of that care. We would be remiss to ignore a darker truth in the industry: not all harm wears the face of illness—some of it wears the mask of treatment.
Within The Satanic Temple’s ongoing campaigns, Grey Faction stands as a necessary confrontation with that reality…..
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TSTWI’s Minister Jared Nichols elaborates:
Back in 2020 I did some volunteer work for The Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction. Grey Faction is an educational and advocacy organization whose mission is to protect mental health patients and their families from dangerous pseudoscience and discredited therapies, particularly in the area of so-called “repressed memories”.
As a volunteer I helped research "conspiracy therapists” who are individuals that propagate things like “recovered memory therapy” and satanic panic propaganda. On the website, greyfaction.org, they maintain a file of known conspiracy therapists and information on pseudo-scientific practices and conspiracy theories such as "satanic ritual abuse.” A study published in 1992 by Kenneth V. Lanning, a supervisory special agent at the FBI Academy, came to the conclusion that there is no good evidence for a single case of Satanic Ritual Abuse in the United States. Additionally current research in memory science indicates there is no reliable, reproducible evidence that traumatic memories can be completely repressed and later recovered in a verifiable way.
Therapists who propagate these types of false narratives due untold harm by iatrogenically creating many new issues and compounding existing issues within their patients. As someone who has a form of dissociative disorder and significant anxiety disorders, I myself have fallen victim to conspiracy theories in my younger days. Even though at first these extraordinary claims seemed to provide some sort of “awenser” ultimately all these theories did was further deepen my dissociation and anxiety. When I finally got help from a rational, scientific therapist, and medication from a clinical psychiatrist, my symptoms dramatically improved.
If you are considering seeking therapy, firstly great job! Getting help is not always easy, and requires conscious effort. Secondly, make sure you do some research and get a grounded and rational therapist. As Grey Faction continues to root out those therapists doing more harm than good, hopefully the process of finding a reliable therapist becomes increasingly simple in the future.
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If you are seeking secular therapies, please consider these resources:
