This thread is very interesting to me, largely because of the claims that Wiger suffered from "multiple personality disorder" - a highly controversial and to many professionals, discredited, diagnostic category that is very often associated with claims of "recovered memories" of prolonged sexual abuse including "satanic abuse". Nowadays the people who are "believers" in the disorder (usually also believers in conspiracy theories involving widespread satanic abuse) refer to the disorder as Dissociative Identity Disorder aka DID.
In my experience of meeting many people who claim to have DID and / or to have been victims of prolonged childhood satanic abuse, it is fairly clear to me that most if not all of these people have been abused by manipulative and even criminal psychotherapists who have planted false memories of such abuse and who also encourage their victims to manifest "alters" (different split off personalities). Some people self diagnose with DID and / or a history of prolonged sadistic sexual / satanic abuse having read the notorious book "The Courage to Heal" or some other irrational tome that advises readers that any one of a number of commonly experienced illnesses and emotional problems are indicators of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. People in this latter category tend to shop around for therapists until they find one who is enthusiastic about "recovered memory" therapy.
I am especially interested in this phenomena as there is a crossover category of dodgy psychotherapists involved with pseudo-tantric cults whose activities involve trafficking in human beings (THB) and dodgy psychotherapists who promote conspiracy theories regarding DID and widespread satanic abuse of children.
It is ironic that some psychotherapists who claim to be authorities on ritual abuse and dissociative states resulting from prolonged trauma are themselves involved with criminals whose activities include ritual abuses of children and adults.
The implications of this situation should victims of real ritual abuse be referred to these dodgy (and possibly criminal) therapists does not bear thinking about.
Anyway, I digress...
It is unsurprising to me that a vulnerable woman might be exploited and abused by a "counsellor" who claims to be a shaman and who advocates the diagnostic category of DID.
IME there are very clear links between some plastic shamans, some "psychotherapists" who are involved with pseudo-tantric criminal networks and some psychotherapists who promote the existence of DID and organised satanic abuse.
I am still studying this situation and the relationships between the "therapists" and "shamans" concerned and it it I think quite sensitive information and it will be a while before I post any details on NAFPS if at all, however i do want people to know that there is a link between these apparently disparate categories.
Now, as for Ms Wiger's "counselor" Cynthia Davidson Bend, her personal website is here
http://www.cynthiabend.dgi.bzYou can see a photo of her on the website and she is clearly a very elderly person.
According to the website:
About Cynthia Davidson Bend
Family
Cynthia Bend lives with her husband, Meredith, in the house in rural Afton, Minnesota, which they began designing and building in 1949. Six generations of Cynthia's family have lived in the St. Croix Valley. Now their sons, Richard and Harold, live nearby with their families. Their daughter, Katie, her husband and eleven-year-old daughter live on the family land where Katie teaches horseback riding.
Education and Teaching
After receiving a BA in English from Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, then an M.A. in human development from St. Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota, Cynthia taught creative writing to senior college students at Minnesota Metropolitan State University in St. Paul.
Her teaching experience is broad and varied, including animals as well as people of all ages. She has bred and trained dogs in obedience and retrieving, then schooled horses as well as pursuing an interest in wild-animal behavior. She taught horseback riding and dog training to 4-H members, swimming to people from toddlers to senior college students and art to preschoolers. She has worked as a counselor combining traditional with non-traditional techniques.
Special Education
At The School For Social Development in Minneapolis, (now Partnership Resources) Cynthia worked with severely disabled cerebral palsied students as a therapeutic teacher.
After training with Carol Ann Liaros, the psychic teacher who established Project Blind Awareness, Inc. , Cynthia taught psychic techniques for orientation to blind students including her future Native American collaborator, Tayja Wiger.
Publications
In addition to articles on working stock dogs, dog training and short stories, Cynthia Bend has published a biography and three novels:
Birth of a Modern Shaman, Llewellyn Publications is co-authored with Tayja Wiger. This biography is an outcome of Cynthia's teaching experience with Project Blind Awareness.
Arthur's Room, Beaver's Pond Press, is an intimate story of experiences taken from the lives of young adults living with cerebral palsy including Cynthia's brother-in-law and her special students.
Burning Clean, Ytterli Press, is compiled from short stories, some of which are the result of co-teaching Sioux spirituality workshops with Ed McGaa, the Dakota Sioux author of Mother Earth Spirituality. Cynthia has also been a student of the Choctaw-Seneca author, Jamie Sams, who co-authored Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power through the Ways of Animals. Find out what happens when Cynthia's unusual group of characters meet around a bonfire.
Billy's Goat, Ytterli Press, is a novel for young readers and adults, based on adventures with unusual family pets.
I cannot find any mention of any qualifications in counselling, psychotherapy or mental health in Bend's biographical account.
The reviews of her book co-authored with Wiger are interesting
Birth of a Modern Shaman
"I have long believed that we create our own reality. This is perhaps more true in healing than in all other aspects of our lives. I concur with the authors that true healing occurs when anger and fear are truly resolved. Individuals can program a positive, loving reality. This kind of story should give hope to all those still seeking healing."
- C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D.
Pain Game
"This is truly one of the most comprehensive case studies I have ever seen covering such an all encompassing series of events leading to resolution. We hear healers state that it is love that heals; yet it is so difficult for many to release the fear and anger that lodge in the subconscious mind in order to be able to accept that love. This is a story of one person's journey on that path."
- Boris J. Bagdassarroff, Ph.D.
Hypnotherapist at the Beverly Hills Institute for Self-Improvement
"Tayja's story fascinates not only because of the horror of her victimization and the beauty of her eventual transformation but also because of the testimony to an ancestral Native American imagination that anchored her in a derelict world. This book is as much a tribute to a psyche that willed survival as it is a tribute to nontraditional teachers and psychologists along the way who were willing to follow the path of Tayja. Her journey unnervingly demonstrates the old truth that the cure for the wound is in the wound itself."
- Nor Hall, Ph.D. Jungian Psychotherapist
The Moon and the Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine
I googled for the hypnotherapist Boris J. Bagdassarroff who endorses the book and I found his FP page here
http://www.facebook.com/bbagdassarroff?sk=friends&v=friendsHe only has 86 friends that include a few newagers and I did notice that among his friends is Tara Sutphen
http://www.facebook.com/tarasutphenwho has her own NAFPS thread here
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=745.0I also noticed that he appeared on a radio show in 2007 described as follows:
Nov 29, 2007
Dr. Boris Bagdassarroff
PhD in Human Behavior, metaphysics, spiritual thought. past life regression.
source: (scroll down)
http://www.sandishore.com/radio.htmlSo the book is endorsed by a hypnotherapist who specialises in past life regression. Okaaaay
Next i checked out C Norman Shealy
His FB page is here and his friends list is chock full of newagers, including the fraud C Mikkal Smith
http://www.facebook.com/NormShealy?sk=infohis websites are here
http://www.normshealy.comhttp://www.holosinstitutesofhealth.com/He is a promoter of newage and holistic medicine with a special interest in reincarnation and "energy medicine". A google search for "Norman Shealy" and "Quack" tuns up over 16,000 results.
Next I had a look at Nor Hall, she appears to be a Jungian therapist who has written extensively on the Goddess, initiation, femininity and other usual Jungian subjects. I do not have time to research her thoroughly at this point but I can imagine how a Jungian who is enthusiastic about the "divine feminine" and naive about newage frauds could be taken in by a fake book such as this one.
Back to Wiger..
I do not have sufficient data to be able to comment on this particular case but I do feel concerned for Ms Wiger's welfare and I share the concerns of others here that there is a possibility that she is / has been exploited by others.
I would be very interested to learn more about this if anyone has further information.
