WHAT DO CHILD ABUSE PROFESSIONALS BELIEVE ABOUT RITUAL ABUSE?
Professionals are divided over whether or not “ritual abuse” occurs. Much of the controversy in the professional community would likely disappear with the introduction of a coherent, widely-accepted definition of “ritual abuse.” No reliable data are available on the prevalence of different beliefs about “ritual abuse” among professionals. However, in a nationwide study of thousands of interdisciplinary professionals, 11 percent of mental health professionals reported having encountered one or more allegations of child abuse that included ritual elements, as defined by the researchers. A very small group of clinicians (1.4 percent), each claiming to have treated scores of cases, accounted for most of the reports of ritualistic child abuse (Bottoms, Shaver, & Goodman, in press). A very high percentage of professionals who encountered reports of ritual abuse from patients believed those reports, based largely on patients’ strong affect and apparently abuse-related behavioral symptoms, eve
