This morning I read a news item about Andrea Yates' husband
testifying about the apparently inadequate psychiatric treatment
she received at Memorial Spring Shadows Glen Hospital. I thought
the name sounded familiar. It was. This was the hospital
involved in the spectacular Lynn Carl recovered memories case.

-----------------------------------------------------
>From the APA Monitor, February, 1998:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb98/jud.html

...What was to have been a two-week evaluation turned into 22
months of inpatient treatment costing an estimated $1.1 million.
During treatment on the hospital dissociative disorders unit,
Carl became convinced that she had 500 different personalities;
had been raised in a multigenerational, homicidal, cannibalistic
and satanic cult; had abused her children; and had tried to
poison her husband.

As a result of Carl' purportedly recovered memories, she and her
husband divorced, and her children, then 13 and 14, were also
admitted to Spring Shadows Glen Hospital. While hospitalized, the
children also came to believe that they had been involved in the
same cult. Carl's 14-year-old son reportedly recalled being
programmed by cult members to die at the age of 16. Her daughter
supposedly believed that she had been used as a breeder for the
cult. Both children also came to believe that they had been
victims of incest. Carl sued the hospital and a number of mental
health professionals involved in her treatment, claiming that the
therapy she received had implanted false memories. While other
defendants settled out of court, the psychiatrist who treated
Carl went to trial denying any wrongdoing and alleging that Carl
was suffering from multiple personality disorder, had been abused
and had abused her children...
--------------------------------------------------------------------

(Back to me) Carl was awarded $5.9 million in damages for that
one. With the hospital allowing therapy like that, it it any
wonder that the treatment Yates received seems questionable? It's
also interesting that beliefs about the devil are prominent in
both cases.

-Stephen

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Stephen Black, Ph.D.                      tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology                  fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University                    e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada     Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
           Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
           http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
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