Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 4 · Ep. 1314

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sa. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is August 2, 2019, and we are so excited to be live streaming today on Mormon Stories Podcast and to be able to continue our discussion of a very important and serious topic, which is the history of reports of satanic ritual abuse within Mormonism. And for those of you who are joining us for the first time on this topic, it's really important that you understand that We've already recorded two really important episodes.

John Dehlin [00:01:13] The first is a 45 minute introduction to the topic of satanic ritual abuse or reports of that within Mormonism. It's really important, important that you listen to that because this is a really fraught topic where there's a lot of passion on both sides. People who believe that there was a history of satanic ritual abuse in the 80s and 90s and that it continues to today, and people who claim to be victims of that. And then there's another side of people that feel like it's not true, that it's false, that it is actually a product of inappropriate therapeutic techniques such as hypnosis and recovered memory, leading to something called false memory syndrome.

John Dehlin [00:02:00] And part of the problem with this, number one, is in the Harvey Weinstein MeToo movement and just in developed society, we are all learning that it's really important to believe people or at least start by believing victims of abuse, because we know that so often victims of abuse goes unreported or if it goes reported there, oftentimes, you know, victims aren't believed or, you know, claims of abuse don't lead to convictions. And so on the one hand, we don't want to ever on this program be in a position where we're ignoring or invalidating legitimate claims of abuse. On the other hand, we are talking about a topic that, according to those who are not believers of, you know, credible satanic ritual abuse systemically happening within Mormonism in the broader culture.

John Dehlin [00:02:58] You know, those people will say that this social panic begins by a hysteria of books and articles and therapists and TV shows telling the story of how a satanic ritual beast happens. And then people and therapists then incorporating those memories into people's reported experiences after the fact as again, implanted or recovered memory. And so we don't want to be invalidating victims or be spreading a social panic. But the reason why we're covering this topic is because to this day in 2019 and even more over the past year, I, John Lynn, continue receiving almost on a weekly basis now reports and some from very dear friends that either they were victims of satanic ritual abuse or they have loved ones who report being victims of satanic ritual abuse or their family's been torn apart because certain members of the family didn't believe other members of the family's claims of satanic ritual abuse and that difference within the family has caused estrangement.

John Dehlin [00:04:14] And, and as I've mentioned In the first two episodes, as you know, in the McKenna Denson, Joseph Bishop, Lowell Robinson, you know, Chris Swallow, you know, Sean, Sean Escobar, slash Sterling Van Wagner sort of era where we're learning that there has been systemic cover up of actual sexual abuse. And with the Boy Scouts within Mormonism which where victims are not believed or told to stay silent and perpetrators are protected and in some cases even promoted within Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:04:54] As journalists start to study this topic of, you know, cover ups of sexual abuse within Mormonism, these stories of satanic ritual abuse often get interwoven in to newspaper reporter and TV reporters attempts at getting to the bottom of actual abuse that sometimes this, these accounts of satanic ritual abuse either confuse and, or potentially cloud and discredit what otherwise would be credible reporting. And so again on Mormon Stories podcast we are trying to just bring to light the information, the best information we can gather on these accounts so that we can just help people become informed and we can bring as much disinfecting sunlight to this history as we can.

John Dehlin [00:05:50] Our purpose is not to get you to believe that sra, you know, satanic virtual abuse happened. Our intent is not to invalidate the claims of people. It's not to persuade anything other than to provide credible information and evidence and then allow that to inform people's decisions. So I did a 40, 45 minute introduction of this topic. Please go back and listen to that. It's really important. We talked about the Glenn Pace memo there a bit where general authority Glenn Pace of the Mormon Church in the, in the Presiding Bishopric around 1991 actually produced a report where he reported to have actually interviewed over 60 people who claim to be victims of satanic ritual abuse.

John Dehlin [00:06:37] And we will be covering that memo in depth in, in a future episode. But it's important that you understand that that's how serious this all got. There was also a Utah commissioned a report to validate or invalidate satanic ritual abuse during that time period as well.

John Dehlin [00:06:56] But we have covered all that. And then in the second episode, if you haven't listened yet, we brought on scholar David Fr, who has a background from, you know, from Harvard, from Harvard Theological School, from I believe it was Princeton, a real top notch scholar who spent 10 years studying satanic ritual abuse. He published a book called Evil Incarnate Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History.

John Dehlin [00:07:26] And he spent two hours with us yesterday chronicling 2,000 years of claims of satanic ritual abuse that started against Christians by Romans 200 years, you know, after Christ's death. He talked about the Middle Ages as, as you know, Catholic church or Christians started going on inquisitions to punish witches or Jews. You know, he, he talked about reports of satanic ritual abuse then. And then of course, we brought it to the present time where we talked about the satanic ritual abuse situations that happened in the 80s and 90s. And we concluded with Dr. David Frankfurter basically saying that in his 10 year study of this topic, he never found any credible reports of actual satanic ritual abuse happening anywhere in the United States, let alone in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] And that was his claim. We're not saying that's true or false, we're just saying that is an independent scholar's claim. And so today we are continuing this series and we are bringing on what I think is a very important interview. So we are going to refer to this interviewee as Kim.

John Dehlin [00:08:43] Kim does not want to use her real name or her husband's real name. And we'll be talking about why that is in a minute. But the reason why this story is so important is because we're calling it a cautionary tale of repressed memory therapy. Kim lived in Orem during the late 80s and early 90s.

John Dehlin [00:09:06] And eventually as she was interacting with her bishop, was referred to a therapist that ended up maybe being more than one therapist over time. But two of the therapists that she worked with, and we are going to use their names, Rex Cokerhans and Ruth Kilpak, were both therapists that used hypnotic techniques to recover memories. And so she saw these therapists over a four or five year period. And during that time she feels like she was the recipient of, I don't want to say victim, recipient of recovered memory techniques that were incredibly damaging to her life. And what I think is going to be really important and interesting to Mormon stories listeners, in addition to just Kim's story, is that one of these two therapists, Ruth Kilpak, has also been listed as one of the therapists for Martha Beckman.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] So for those of you who will remember, Martha Beck is the daughter of Hugh Nibley, a Mormon scholar who was an apologist for the Mormon Church, Egyptologist, well respected author within Mormonism. Martha Beck came out with a book called Leaving the Saints Late.

John Dehlin [00:10:36] I don't, I want to say late 90s or early 2000s. I don't have the date on Leaving the Saints, but in Martha Beck's book Leaving the Saints, she accuses her dad, Hugh Nibley, of sexual abuse of her involving some sort of ritual.

John Dehlin [00:10:52] And of course, in the wider public sphere, Martha Beck's accusations have been called into question as being as coming out of these hypnosis recovered memory techniques. But we've never kind of covered that directly on Mormon Stories and, and it's sort of still out there in the post progressive and post Mormon zeitgeist. We know that Martha Beck made these claims. Are they legitimate or not? Well, we are talking to someone who received the same sort of techniques that, that at least some of those same techniques that Martha Beck did under therapist Ruth Kilpak. And as I understand it, Kim also was interviewed by Glenn Pace for the Glen Pace memo that we will be talking about in a future episode.

John Dehlin [00:11:47] So for all these reasons, this episode doesn't specifically tie to satanic ritual abuse, but it certainly speaks to the use of hypnosis and recovered memory techniques in Utah in the late 80s and early 90s. That very much then speaks to these broader claims of satanic ritual abuse within Mormonism. So that was a long involved introduction. But this topic requires the sensitivity to provide context so that we don't do damage to either side. And again, for those who are who claim to be victims of satanic ritual abuse or believe satanic ritual abuse, we are not bringing Kim on to say that's never happened or to invalidate people's claims.

John Dehlin [00:12:39] We are doing this to bring in what we think is relevant information so that we can put all the cards on the table and then allow people to make informed, to have the information they need and make informed decisions about this topic. So I just want to make sure our motives are to just bring good information to the table, let people tell their stories, bring credible information, and then let people make sense of it what they will. And so, without any further ado, we welcome Kim on to Mormon Stories podcast. Kim, thank you so much for being willing to join us.

Kim [00:13:17] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] John, really quickly, so you chose the name Kim to use and for your husband, we'll be using the name John, if it's okay. Can we. Is there anything you want to correct in my introduction? First of all, I mean, we'll be

Kim [00:13:33] telling your full story, but I think it sounds great. Although with the first therapist that I saw, he wasn't from a Bishop's referral. I made contact with him a different way.

John Dehlin [00:13:45] Okay, but the Ruth Kilpak.

Kim [00:13:48] The Ruth Kilpak was a bishop's referral and he had gone to LDS Social Services and was given her name as someone who would be helpful for me to see.

John Dehlin [00:13:58] Okay. Any other, any other clarifications on my intro?

Kim [00:14:01] No.

John Dehlin [00:14:01] Okay. Do you mind telling us why you're uncomfortable having your face shown and using your real name? If it's okay.

Kim [00:14:12] I thought a lot about this. If I would want to have my face shown or my name used and decided against it. As you'll. You'll hear from my story. I was led to suspect that my father had sexually abused me as a child. Somehow over a 30 year period, I've been able to keep that outside of my dad's awareness. He does not know what I have gone through. He does not know that he was targeted through a therapeutic process as someone who had committed incest. And I'm still trying to protect him from any negative repercussions that could come with him being associated in any way. Even if the discussion is about false memories, I don't want this discussion to impact his life or any of my other family members.

John Dehlin [00:15:18] Okay, that makes sense. All right, so let's begin with your Mormon story. And let's go back. As I recall, you were a convert to the church. So let's go back into your early childhood or childhood, if you're comfortable.

Guest Background and Religious Upbringing

Kim [00:15:36] Well, I was raised a Catholic and was taken to Catholic Mass on various occasions, not regularly. And my Catholic experience was a very positive experience. I looked forward to going to Mass as a. As a little girl. And I associated the Catholic Church with.

Kim [00:16:02] With peace. And I love the idea of people meeting together and talking about how to be nice to each other and how to. How to live good lives. And I was very attracted to the idea of Jesus Christ.

Kim [00:16:20] My family had a big black Bible that my mom had bought from a door to door salesman. And the family never read it. And our family also never prayed together. But I knew that Bible was in the house. And I used to sneak and get the Bible, take it into my bedroom and read bits and pieces and then look at artistic paintings that were in it following the days of Christ's crucifixion, the days that led up to that. And I was so moved by the idea that there was a human being that would sacrifice and suffer so much for others happiness.

Kim [00:17:09] But when I was in high school, I went on a trip out of state and I met a guy who was preparing to go on an LDS mission. And the day I met him, he asked me on a date and I went out with him. And he spent a lot of that time trying to convince me how wonderful Mormonism was and trying to proselyte me.

Kim [00:17:37] So I only spent maybe a handful of hours with him. But I developed a huge crush on him and started thinking all kinds of dramatic things about us being a couple. Even though I was leaving this trip and going far away, back home, and we kept in touch and he said, sent in a referral for me for missionaries to come visit with me, there was a long gap of time in between when they actually arrived at the door. Something was going on in the, in the mission, and there was a long delay of a couple of months.

Kim [00:18:19] During those couple of months, I talked to a few people, read a few things about Mormonism and was having a good time making fun of it. I thought it was so ridiculous about not drinking coffee and the ideas about premarital sex.

Kim [00:18:37] And I, I really had a good laugh about it. But then the missionaries came, and they were sister missionaries. And in a very short time, I went from making fun of it, but having a crush on this guy to joining. It happened really fast. And as I've pondered what, what, what was the attraction for me, I can see a couple of things, and one of them is that the idea of the family, the family could be together forever. I, I hope to tell during this some more about my, my family life, which was really quite distressful.

Kim [00:19:20] But the idea that you could have a happy family and be together forever was a big thing. And also the idea that there was no hell, that I had suffered physical abuse growing up, and the idea of a hell where you would suffer physical abuse throughout eternity had scared me about the Catholic Church and other religions that believed that. And Mormonism said there was no burning hell.

Kim [00:19:50] So I went to church with the sister missionaries and I idealized every human being in the, in the chapel or in the, the Sunday school room. And to me, everywhere I looked, everybody was. Was perfect. It wasn't until years later, when I visited with the man who had been my bishop during that time and his wife that I learned that that ward had a lot of dysfunction to it. But as a young person, I was just 16 years old at the time.

Kim [00:20:26] I saw what I wanted, what I needed to see, and it was perfection. When I joined the Mormon church. This missionary, he was now out on his mission. He used to call me on the phone from his mission, and he thought it important to call Me and tell me that he was no longer romantically interested in me, that he had met young woman on his mission that he was pretty interested in and he wanted me to have a heads up about that Before I was baptized. He didn't want me to according to his words, join for him. But I took offense at that because I was so, I had so accepted the message of Mormonism that he was a small player now in things.

Kim [00:21:17] So I, so I joined the Mormon Church and I, along with my, my husband, he also joined as a convert. Only members in our families, both living out in, in the mission field, both joining in areas where, where he joined. He was the only member that joined in the whole year where I joined. I was one of two high school kids that joined in the year and we stayed in the LDS Church for almost 30 years.

Kim [00:21:52] We initially married civilly, but then we were sealed in the temple about a year later and we gave it our whole, our whole hearts. My husband served in many leadership positions. I served in some leadership positions, but also did a lot of teaching. I was a gospel doctrine teacher and Relief society teacher, primary teacher. And we, after over 30 years we decided that we did not believe in the beliefs of the LDS Church. I had had many periods throughout those 30 years where I was very concerned about things that I was learning about the history of the LDS Church and also about concerns about the way that the influence of the church, I thought that it had a controlling influence in members lives in a way that rendered them more childlike than adult like.

Kim [00:23:08] And that built and built. And I would always talk myself out of, out of my concerns and blame myself that I was lacking in faith. But it built and built to a point where I was seeing my life slip away, slip away from me and not feeling that I really had control of my life, that someone else was steering the boat. And when my husband, he, when he was ready to, then we both, we both left together. It's been over eight years and we've never looked back.

John Dehlin [00:23:46] And maybe normally I would have said hey, let's wait until that part at the end. But I think it's kind of important a lot of the people who are real advocates for viewing satanic ritual abuse within Mormonism as credible claim that there's a conspiracy amongst church leaders, police officers, the judiciary in Utah, you know, that there's a cover up, there's a conspiracy of a cover up and that the church because. And again I'm always hearing these reports that it's the, the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 that are all satanically ritual, ritually abusing people, you know, in the basement of church headquarters. That's a very common claim that usually comes with these techniques.

John Dehlin [00:24:41] You know, for the, for the advocates of this theory, you know, it's because there's a conspiracy. But so you saying that you're, you left the church eight years ago and no longer believe. I think that's important. For those who, you know, who might wonder whether you're part of that conspiracy. If you were, it's certainly not due to your loyalties to the Mormon Church. Is that right?

Kim [00:25:08] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:25:09] Okay. All right, so let's go back and talk about, you know, if you want. Do you want to start with Provo Orem and how you got into therapy in the first place, or is there some background you want to give first?

Early Life and Path to Therapy

Kim [00:25:22] I think there's some important background about why I did pursue therapy in the first place. So I was born to very young parents and my mother had become pregnant with me and that was the catalyst for them marrying my parents. I loved them very much.

Kim [00:25:50] They are very hard working people and have always been very hardworking people. But with the young marriage, they weren't prepared and they had a lot of serious problems. There was constant fighting in the home. There was alcohol abuse and domestic violence. There was a lot of verbal domestic violence and there was episodes of physical domestic violence, particularly related to the use of alcohol.

Kim [00:26:24] My relationship with my mother now is wonderful. At the time when I was growing up, my mother was very stressed out. She was emotionally not able to be there for me. She physically abused me and verbally abused me.

Kim [00:26:44] There was great disconnection between us with my parents problems. They divorced when I was preschool age and then they tried again and they divorced again when I was older but before the repressed memory experience. I also do not have any siblings. And so that's an important thing to keep in mind as I share my experience in the therapy.

Kim [00:27:18] Some other background information I think is important to understand about me and my emotional well being and mental health. Through the repressed memory therapy, I was encouraged to believe that my dad had sexually abused me during childhood. In reality, I had experienced some sexual violation during childhood. And as a student at BYU when I was in elementary school, an older boy had exposed himself to me.

Kim [00:28:00] No one else was around and he had done that. And he had said horrible things to me about taking pleasure in what, what I was seeing. That shook me up. I don't believe I ever talked to anyone about that experience.

Kim [00:28:16] Also another very traumatic Experience was when I was about 11 years old, I was walking by myself in my subdivision when a group of boys my age or a bit older, maybe four, five boys, approached me and they threatened me. They threatened that they were going to strip me of my. Of my clothes and hurt me. It was a very traumatic experience.

Kim [00:28:48] And then when I was at byu, I was convinced by a guy on campus who was not a BYU student. I was convinced by him to go into one of the music practice rooms in the. I don't think it's the Harris Fine Arts Building to go into one of the practice rooms with him.

Kim [00:29:12] He said to do this with him under the guise that he was going to play music for me. In reality, he tried to assault me or rape me. I. When he tried to rip open my jeans, he ripped open my jeans and I made a run for it and I got away from him. So I do have those experiences in my background also. I have an experience with having bad adjustment problems in making a move at the tender age of 12 to a new city where I had a very difficult time.

Kim [00:30:03] Sought school counseling then and was told just to buck up. But I was having trouble coping. Crying all the time, crying in classes. Right after that started, I developed a childhood illness, juvenile diabetes. A huge life changer, Very, very difficult with medical trauma associated with that. Going from a child who was scared to death of injections. When I would go to get immunizations, they'd have to chase me down and hold me to give me an injection. I was that scared. And overnight I was diagnosed with diabetes and had to learn how to give myself injections, how to follow a strict diet according to the clock, and having to be concerned at all times about how I was feeling physically to cope with low sugars or high sugars.

Kim [00:30:59] After the development of diabetes, I went through an episode of severe bullying in middle school where a group of girls targeted me. I was considered a really pretty girl and they targeted me and they said they were going to, well, beat me up. They were going to get me in the girls restroom and cut off all my hair. They used to hit me when they saw me or bark at me. They even went so far as to make little construction paper name tags that they would wear that said Kill Kim Day. And the idea was that anybody who saw me was supposed to belittle me or hurt me.

Kim [00:31:42] This was hugely traumatic and still continues to affect me. I'm still working on the effects of being treated like that. It went on for four months. I did eventually make good friends, though. So What I'm trying to get at by sharing this background information is that it was marital therapy that eventually led to me having contact with Rex Cokerhans as the marital therapist. But I had suffered a great deal during childhood related to all these things that I'm talking about. At the time, I had not been diagnosed even with depression or anxiety or post traumatic stress disorder. But now I am clearly aware of how I was suffering these type of illnesses throughout childhood and into my young adult period.

Kim [00:32:46] I felt very rejected, insecure, lonely, very defective, powerless and confused. And some things that really scared me were binge eating. I had trouble with binge eating, which is a huge problem if you have diabetes. And also I had come to believe that through Mormon teachings that having sexual desire was bad and that I should be able to not have it and not want to act or act on my sexual desires. And so I became convinced that something was really wrong with me that I couldn't control myself.

Kim [00:33:30] I think these are important things to keep in mind. And I also want to say that as I share my experience today, I think it's important to note that this experience with repressed memory therapy, that this started over 30 years ago for me. And so I am very thankful that I did some journaling during this time.

John Dehlin [00:33:58] And.

Kim [00:33:58] And so I have these journals and I have spent a lot of time in preparing for today by reading through my journals. And also I had other writings. And I have spent a lot of time because I want to try to capture what it was like at the time. I can look back and reflect now these years later, and I have learned so much. But it's important to know how I was feeling and what was going on at the time.

John Dehlin [00:34:33] Thank you. And that's important if we're going to be fair. Memory is a huge central theme in all of this discussion. And obviously we're going to be talking this is about implanted or recovered memory, but also on both sides of the equation, whether it's people who claim to be victims of satanic ritual abuse within Mormonism, or people who claim to be victims of repressed or recovered memory therapy techniques, memory's fallible on either side. So we have to. I really appreciate that you've done your best to draw this story from your journals and, and from the writings that you've done to just to do our best to go back as close as we can to the actual memories.

Kim [00:35:30] Thank you, John. And one other thing I'd like to share right now is that it became so clear as I was reading my journals When I converted to the LDS faith, it became so clear why I had interest in the LDS Church and had gone so far as to join it. Another interesting part that I think comes into why I.

Why the Guest Was Vulnerable to Repressed Memory Therapy

Kim [00:35:58] Why I did have these experiences with. With this repressed memory therapy. Why I was vulnerable to these experiences have to do with some of the conclusions I made from that first year being a Mormon, which were really night and day from a lot of the things I had been thinking before I joined. I'm going to just quickly list some of these things.

Kim [00:36:26] Almost immediately after joining, I had come to believe that being LDS was the only way to be happy in life and the one true way. That I have to work really hard and to be perfect, to be worthy of God's love, that I have to love perfectly. I have to be selfless at all times, that unrighteous thoughts are really bad, that I cannot judge others, that I am being selfish to even feel hurt if my feelings are hurt by some intentional wronging done to me. That it's selfish on my part to even feel hurt because love means you don't ever have to forgive anyone because that would mean you had judged someone.

Kim [00:37:17] I also had come to believe that non LDS people are messed up and that they're deceived by Satan. So I started to distance myself from close friends that I had made after the bullying episode. I had a really strong belief that Satan was after us and I had to be on guard at all times or he might trick me and deceive me and cause me to do something to hurt myself or someone else.

Kim [00:37:48] I believe that I had to act on faith no matter any sacrifice or no matter any risk. It's like that, that line, do what is right, let the consequence follow. I had a belief that my emotional pain and as I've expressed, I had a lot of emotional pain and confusion. That all of that emotional pain meant one thing, that I did not have the Spirit with me. I read lists put out by the LDS Church about how to tell if you had the Spirit with you or didn't. And the list said that things like sadness, discouragement, that that meant that the Spirit wasn't with you.

Kim [00:38:31] So to feel pain was a sin. I believe that a faithful attitude was what I needed to heal me. That was going to relieve me of the things that I've described. I've already mentioned this, that I believe that my teenage sexual desires were dangerous and that acting on them was actually second to murder. I desperately wanted to not have those desires.

Kim [00:39:02] And throughout my journal the first year of being an LDS member. Over and over again, I said to myself, boy, I'm feeling doubtful that what I'm doing is really the one true religion or one true way to life. But I'd quickly correct myself, but questioning is bad. Questioning is dangerous. And then I'd write that I was recommitting myself so that I wouldn't fall prey to Satan.

John Dehlin [00:39:38] That's important context. And I was just going to make the point that your traumatic childhood upbringing didn't just make you vulnerable to recovered memory or reparative therapy techniques. It made you interested in Mormonism. And it's Mormonism that, that could help give you order and structure and a theology and a doctrine and, and guidelines and rules and community. That probably seemed very appealing at the time. I mean, you, you probably, maybe you were conflicted, but also you probably felt a lot of hope that Mormonism could bring you joy and peace and comfort and heal you in some way, right?

Kim [00:40:21] That was huge. It was about the hope, the hope that everything could be different if I only followed the tenets of the Mormon faith. But then I joined, and no sooner did the sister missionaries get transferred out to another area that I was crying in church, feeling so, so lonely. That was such a love bomb with the sister missionaries because they had made me like the most important thing in their lives. They wanted to be with me, they wanted me to be happy, they wanted to educate me. And I think that was a big part of why I joined. Also that, that positive attention. I needed that so desperately that I was able to switch over from making fun to wanting it so desperately, like in a snap, snap of your fingers like that.

Kim [00:41:24] But as I'm getting to here, that feeling of hope, it didn't last. It would come and go. And I was still emotionally struggling and I still felt like a failure. But now I had something new to feel like a failure about.

John Dehlin [00:41:40] Oh, no, the.

Kim [00:41:41] I couldn't perfectly live, live the gospel. And the consequences of not doing it perfectly seem so serious. The idea that having sex without being married was second only to murder. I mean, that's a pretty, That's a pretty serious crime. Crime that would deserve a pretty serious punishment. And I didn't want punishment. I wanted love. I wanted acceptance. I wanted to be understood. I really wanted to be wanted, and I really wanted to be needed with my parents. One thing I don't know that I mentioned was that they also both had extramarital affairs, which I was privy to. And I wanted, I wanted the things that were promised if you gave your, your whole Self to being a good Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:42:40] Okay. All right. Thanks for that background. Tough stuff.

Kim [00:42:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:47] But I think it's really important because I do think a lot of the people that end up recipients of the types of techniques we're talking about are vulnerable to begin with.

Kim [00:42:59] Yeah. Some of the other stories of people who've recanted the repressed memories that they developed during therapy, share similar stories of extramarital affairs their parents were having or alcoholism in the family. Not all, but it's not, you know, why do people go to therapy? They're seeking help.

John Dehlin [00:43:22] Right.

Kim [00:43:23] It's not always because of parental mistreatment or family problems, but often it is.

John Dehlin [00:43:31] And it's. And it's just. As a psychologist myself, there is a very significant power differential between a therapist and a client. And that's why we have a code of ethics. And that's why, you know, I did six years of training in a PhD program, because that can be abused. And so if you're just this super vulnerable young wife who comes from a traumatic past, your bishop's telling you you need to repent. You need to go to this therapist. If the therapist is super competent and responsible, you may get really great treatment. But if the therapist is using inappropriate techniques, abusive techniques, then they could. They could lead you into years of damaging and inappropriate techniques and therapy, and you won't feel the power to be able to speak back or reject or oppose whatever techniques are being used. And I think there are hundreds of thousands of examples of that over time.

Kim [00:44:37] Yes. You know, this episode is called A Cautionary Tale. And I think that's so, so fitting for what I'm going to be sharing with you, the Cautionary Tale, because I support the mental health community, and I think that access to therapy can make such a difference in a person's life.

Kim [00:45:09] I don't know that the average consumer, mental health consumer is. Is aware of the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship, at least if it's the first time they're going into therapy or if they've had maybe a bad experience the first time, and they're thinking that's the way it should continue to be, blaming themselves for why it was bad.

Kim [00:45:40] To me, it is extremely important that the community understands that therapy has the power, if done well, to really improve a person's life or a relationship or a family. It also can have the power to not make much of a change, to kind of just stay where you're at.

Kim [00:46:08] And unfortunately, sometimes it has the power to hurt instead of help. And mental health consumers need to be aware of this, and they need to be aware that even if someone has education or experience about mental health subjects, it doesn't mean that the patient should delegate their well being to the therapist. A patient has to continue to advocate for themselves in the therapeutic relationship, and the patient needs to have clear goals about what they want to get out of having therapy and not jump to conclusions that a therapist, because that person has education or experience, is foolproof and now they can be like a child and just turn over their well being to the therapist.

Kim [00:47:26] It is an adult responsibility. Even in therapy or any type of medical situation, maybe in any kind of relationship where there's an authority that the person who's turning to the authority for assistance not give that authority figure power over them. They have to ask questions, think critically, talk to others, right.

Entering the World of Repressed Memory Therapy

Part 2 of 4 · Ep. 1315

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sa. Okay, so back to your story.

Kim [00:00:32] Okay. My husband and I newly, newly married just a year or so, year or two. And we had a little child by this time, beautiful little boy. And husband and I were fighting so much, and we decided we needed marriage counseling.

Kim [00:00:57] My husband in elders quorum, the teacher was Rex Cokerhans in our Orem ward. And after some of the Sundays, my husband would come home and he'd say, boy, I really like this guy. I like the things he's teaching and how he's teaching it.

Kim [00:01:18] And by the way, he's a licensed social worker. And in hearing that, then we both thought, you know, sounds like a good guy. We really didn't know Rex. More of an acquaintance. But how about him? You know, better than going in blind and not knowing the therapist. And Rex agreed, which I look back now, and that was a significant boundary violation.

Kim [00:01:50] He agreed that he would give us marriage therapy. So we would meet with Rex. He was working at a residential treatment center with a school for girls that were having significant emotional problems. This was a school in Provo. And Rex would meet with us in the basement, I think it was of the girls dorm there.

Kim [00:02:22] We only went a couple of times to see him, and he was basically working on communication skills. And we were noticing it right away. It was helping in our relationship to put into practice these communication skills. And we were starting to think, well, you know, maybe we don't need a lot more about marriage therapy. Maybe this is going to be good. But I still had emotional pain, but the marriage was going a bit better.

Kim [00:02:54] And then one. One time when we were there for the marriage therapy, just out of nowhere, he turned to me and he said, now you've been sexually abused by your dad, right? And it.

John Dehlin [00:03:17] And prior to that, you had never made that claim?

Kim [00:03:21] No, I had never thought about that, never suspected that, had no memories, anything even closely related to that. And I'd like to share. Something from my writing at the time when I had written down my therapeutic experience right after it ended.

Kim [00:03:54] This describes. This describes what that was like for me. I was shocked. He told me I had the classic symptoms of an incest victim. He said he could even tell by the way I looked at him seductively, he said.

Kim [00:04:17] Another client of his recently told me he bragged to her about being able to diagnose an adult victim of childhood sexual abuse after just being in the same room with her for a couple of minutes. Currently, he was working as a therapist at a school for delinquent girls and saw clients like John and me after Hours. He said most of the girls he saw were sexual abuse victims, and it was his area of expertise.

Kim [00:04:55] I thought of my dad. Was this possible? I had never suspected my dad of sexually abusing me, and I had absolutely no memory of any such thing. Rex insisted this was totally irrelevant to whether or not it had happened. He told me I had probably repressed, hidden away in my subconscious mind, all of the ugly memories because as a child, I was too emotionally weak to deal with it. He said it had stayed buried all this time until as an adult, I could deal with it.

Kim [00:05:39] I stumbled out of his office like a zombie. The night he, out of the blue, sprung his diagnosis on me, I felt like I had been diagnosed with a terminal disease. I respected his diagnosis like I would have a doctor's, and it was presented with the same authority.

Kim [00:06:03] Rex had an advanced degree, a license, and my insurance, with its many exclusions, was willing to pay part of his hefty hourly charges. Therapy was presented as a science. I felt lightheaded. I could barely think straight. Rex told me I was dissociating, which was my mind's way of protecting me from the incest memories I was yet too emotionally weak to deal with. To him, this was further proof I had repressed memories of sexual abuse. I wondered in amazement at this proof. And his prescription was for me to go home and see if I remembered anything.

Kim [00:06:52] I spent the next week on a vigil, pressing myself to remember something, anything. My world had been turned upside down. I was in a state of emotional limbo. It was like sitting by the phone waiting to hear if a loved one was a casualty or a survivor of a plane crash. Was nothing as it seemed to be My dad's, not who I think he is, nor my mom, not even my childhood. Who am I?

Kim [00:07:26] This precarious state felt torturous. I looked through my childhood photo album and read old poetry I had written, thinking this might bring back a memory. I pressed myself so hard to remember that I worked myself into a frenzy. Still, I could not remember anything about incest. Now I can recognize this as an experience with cognitive dissonance.

John Dehlin [00:07:56] And you're reading right now. Tell us what you're reading from.

Kim [00:08:00] Well, back after I left this repressed memory therapy and I had, what I say, woken up, I contributed to a collection of stories that were published. It was called True Stories of False Memories. It was published by SIRS S I R S. And it had the experiences of women who had come out of memory for therapy for repressed memories and had shared the horrific suffering that they had gone through during the therapy, reading other stories, I felt that maybe I was one of the more fortunate ones because some of their stories were so, so dramatic with being put on very strong antipsychotic medications and hospitalized. And it was. Some of the women went through things more difficult than I did.

John Dehlin [00:09:10] Okay, and so you're saying he, he led with suggesting that your father abused you?

Kim [00:09:19] That's right. And it was one minute laughing and smiling. Marriage therapy's going great, and the next minute that.

John Dehlin [00:09:30] Okay.

Kim [00:09:32] And so as I described in what I read, I. I was in a horrible, horrible state. If one can try to imagine what it would be like to not trust yourself and to be putting all your faith into a therapist and to be thinking that because this therapist is the elders quorum teacher and an LDS man that had a nice family.

Kim [00:10:10] I didn't get to know Rex's wife very well, but she seemed like a lovely person. He had really a lot of kids and cute kids. And to be in that situation and then to have somebody that you've put your trust in insist that, that this has happened to you, like I described, it was like being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Like how could I ever question. The doctor says I have a fast growing cancer and I have two weeks. That kind of a position, like how when I was 23 years old. Was horrible.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] Right. I'm so sorry.

Kim [00:11:03] Thanks, John. And I'd like to share what happened after that week when I went back to meet with with Rex and my husband. John went, went with me. Rex. Oh. In agony. I went with John to our next appointment. After hearing I couldn't remember anything. Rex asked me what it would take for me to remember.

First Recovered Memories Under Hypnosis

Kim [00:11:31] I said a safe place. Some psychology lingo I picked up along the way with the goal of ending my week long agony by remembering being sexually abused by my dad. He had me close my eyes and visualize this safe place.

Kim [00:11:52] This visualization eventually developed into a scene of my dad violently sexually abusing me. Rex instructed me to say whatever popped into my mind. Throughout this hypnotic state, a variety of the details I saw were real memories of objects and non abusive experiences which I had previously remembered as having taken place under different circumstances totally unrelated to sexual abuse.

Kim [00:12:27] In between picture like flashes of these, there were many gaps during which nothing picture like would pop into my mind. And at these times I would follow Rex's instructions and mentally strain, waiting for thoughts to pop into my mind, believing that whatever popped into my mind about sexual abuse had to be real.

Kim [00:12:55] I felt great anxiety when details of Sexual abuse actually did pop into my mind. I cried and shrieked as they came. They were laced with feelings of terror as I had experienced during my dad's violence toward my mom.

Kim [00:13:14] I was aware of my mind trying out different thoughts of sexual abuse by first visualizing them and feeling their corresponding emotions. I was looking to put together a sexual abuse scene, looking to put together details and storyline that flowed in the context of the developing scene.

Kim [00:13:42] Rex asked me questions during this hypnosis about what quote was happening. He told me to visualize himself at one point talking to my child self. I was visualizing. I did this while he actually said things as the voice of my visualization of him. He said things about my dad being a very sick man and about me not having to suffer anymore.

Kim [00:14:14] This visualization of Rex felt as real as when I filled in the gaps with whatever thoughts popped into my mind. I was very upset during this hypnotic experience. It was very intense and my thoughts jumped around very quickly.

Kim [00:14:31] After the visualization, Rex told me this scene had really, really happened to me when I was a child and that it had been repressed since. He commended me for my strength and I felt some relief in a sense in that I was able to remember something. But I also felt some confusion.

Kim [00:14:59] And shortly thereafter, although I could clearly remember what I had visualized and said, it felt like I had just made up a story. The objects and the non abusive parts of the visualization I had seen, which I had previously remembered as being unrelated to sexual abuse, felt real to me. The emotions of terror and victimization also felt real.

Kim [00:15:32] But the sexually abusive details I had visualized did not feel real at all. They didn't even feel like a dream. Rex assured me that it was normal for women to doubt the validity of the memories they unrepress. He maintained I was dissociating again because I was still too emotionally weak to deal with the truth. He was confident that in time, the scene I'd visualized would feel more and more real until one day I would finally accept it.

John Dehlin [00:16:12] So this is, this is great. Kim. I have a. I have a listener named Anne who writes this. She's saying that it, to her it sounds like an audiobook, like an audio tape. And, and that, you know, they're hoping for some, for us to add some conversation to this. So is it okay if I, if we stop with the reading for just a second? And again I want to highlight, you know, we talked about this beforehand. Your desire to read this from things you have written is because you want to be as close to the facts and the history as possible.

Kim [00:16:47] Yeah, that's right.

John Dehlin [00:16:48] And be as accurate as possible.

Kim [00:16:49] That's right. With it being over 30 years, I think that it's important to go as far back if I have the resources to go as far back as I can. But I understand the desire to have some conversation. Go.

John Dehlin [00:17:09] So let's go back. Can you explain to us how the hypnosis techniques worked? Does he have a. I mean, when I think of hypnosis and I've never received hypnosis, I've never performed it. I've never watched someone be hypnotized that I can remember as a child. You see, like the stopwatch, and someone's watching the stopwatch go back and forth. That's just the stereotype of what hypnosis is. Like. How was this hip. How were these hypnosis techniques experienced by you in your memory?

Kim [00:17:37] Well, the way that mine worked, and of course this was only how it worked with Rex is just like I read. He told me to close my eyes and then to. He would say things like, okay, now I want you to think about this pain that you have, you know, that you say you feel lonely. I want you to think about that feeling of loneliness. And I want you to tell me, let your mind go. I want you to tell me where you are when you're feeling this intense loneliness. But keep in mind that this therapy, this hypnotic experience, that it would start with a clear goal. And the goal was to remember my dad sexually abusing me as a child. That was the only reason we were doing the. The hypnosis.

John Dehlin [00:18:44] Okay.

Kim [00:18:45] And other experiences of hypnosis with Rex were similar kind of things. Nothing ever came as with as much crying as that. That first one. I also did a lot of self hypnosis at home, which was basically the same thing, but without wrecks adding in directions or so how if you're.

John Dehlin [00:19:10] If he's getting you back to. To. And I. And I've had a trainer in my psychology experience try to teach me these techniques. So it's like sit the client down, get them to remember a safe place in childhood and. And then get them to start talking about it. And we'll talk about how. How memory can be so flawed because memory, we encode the initial memories and there are all sorts of ways we can encode impressions versus reality. But then every time we retrieve a memory and then whatever is experienced or said at the time of the retrieval gets re. Encoded with the memory. And so we'll be talking about how, you know, whether it's people remembering Brigham Young having Joseph Smith's face transform onto his face in Nauvoo.

John Dehlin [00:20:05] You know, those are, those are false memories according to some really reputable dialogue articles that I've read. Whether it's 911 and people misremembering where they were during 911 or what they saw during 9 11, even to this free Brian Williams episode that I recently saw on Malcolm Gladwell's revisionist history podcast.

John Dehlin [00:20:29] Memory is, is really malleable and can be influenced. And this, this retrieving and then re encoding process over time can make people think all sorts of crazy things that they were a part of where they weren't a part of them at all. And, and this can include reports of like, being abducted by UFOs, et cetera. So, and that's not to say that, you know, all memories should be invalidated. You yourself are telling us memories right now, and there are SRA advocates right now who are saying, well, her memory, she's the firsthand account. Her memory could be just as flawed. I'm acknowledging that that's all true.

John Dehlin [00:21:11] So we're, and we try to acknowledge that at the beginning memory is just always flawed. So having said that, he's bringing you back into a memory of childhood, into a safe space. Is he saying things like, do you remember any. Remember your father remember. Is he like saying, yes. Was there sexual abuse? Did he touch you? What types of things is he saying?

Kim [00:21:33] Yeah, things like, okay, where, where did he put his hands? Things like that? What, what, what was he wearing? What, what did it feel? What are you feeling while he, he's doing this? Guiding along the story of a sexual abuse incident.

John Dehlin [00:21:58] Okay. And so you're at the time trying to, to go with the process. You're trying to go back in your childhood and remember things. And, and a lot of us just don't remember anything of our childhood, you know, with much specificity. You're saying that he's already primed you by mentioning sexual abuse in your father and suggesting that you exhibit symptoms of other people who have repressed their memories of sexual abuse. And then as he brings you back into that childhood memory, he is, he is intentionally and explicitly injecting references to sexual abuse such that you would merge them with your childhood memories and then encode them as sexual abuse.

Kim [00:22:48] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:48] Is that what you're saying?

Kim [00:22:50] Yes, that's what I'm saying.

John Dehlin [00:22:51] Okay. Okay. And so was, how many instances of these sort of hypnotic episodes would you have been involved with with him?

Sessions with the First Therapist

Kim [00:23:00] As far as with him, Almost all of the sessions I went to with him. Now what. This gets even more. More involved. But I was doing self hypnosis a lot. And most of the times when I met with him, we would do hypnosis also. And he was insistent that I had been sexually abused by. By my dad. He barely knew anything about the traumas that I related as we started today. He barely knew anything, any of that. And I would ask him over and over again, are you sure that this feeling that I have, this feeling of victimization, sad feelings, the list that I gave initially. Are you sure? Are you really sure? My. My experiences that with the known trauma that I've been through. Are you sure? And he would say, I'm sure. You are in. In denial. One time he went so far as he told me, you are just making up excuses.

John Dehlin [00:24:21] And this is Rex Khan.

Kim [00:24:23] Rex Kokerhans. Huh.

John Dehlin [00:24:25] So he's basically being insistent now that you have been sexually abused and that you're intentionally blocking it or repressing it.

Kim [00:24:33] Yes. And he would say that it was because I was too emotionally weak to be able to cope with the truth. But just stick with him. And any day now I was going to be remembering. But anything that we did with hip hypnotherapy or I did with self hypnosis, none of it ever gave me that feeling like I think that probably everybody has. I can't say that. I'll just speak for myself.

Kim [00:25:06] None of it ever registered with me as this happened. But I can say that I have some experience with EMDR therapy. And in EMDR therapy I have remembered some things related to the physical abuse or the domestic violence that I had. I don't know if I could say repressed, but that I. I wasn't aware of. And when I remembered them, I knew. I knew there was no asking the therapist, are you sure this happened? Doesn't feel real to me. It doesn't feel sure. There was none of that. It was 100% clear to me when I remembered it. I. It as a remembrance.

John Dehlin [00:26:00] Okay. And with Rex Kogerhans, that wasn't the case?

Kim [00:26:03] No, that wasn't the case. And then also keep in mind that Rex was a social worker. I'm really curious about how much training, education he had on memory. Really. Now there's very limited information about how memory works. And the American Psychiatric association and the American Psychological association, they both warn to have caution.

Kim [00:26:35] They don't say all repressed memories are not real, and they don't say that they all are real. They urge caution, saying that there is just not enough known to say, and that you need to have corroborating evidence to back it up. But the American Psychological association, they have some good information online about their position on repressed memories. And they point out that there is consensus that most memories of physical and sexual abuse are remembered, maybe not in entirety, but in part, and that it is very unusual to have someone remember something that they had no suspicion or no little bits. Like, for instance, my parents, the first time they divorced.

Kim [00:27:41] I wasn't consciously aware of what that scene looked like when my dad left, left the house. But I came to to remember part of that scene of him leaving and the trauma of that scene, the things that were said, his behavior, my mother's behavior. And it came with no doubt that I was remembering something that really happened.

Boundary Violations in the Therapeutic Relationship

John Dehlin [00:28:13] Okay, so back with Rex Coker, Hans, you saw him approximately how many sessions and for what duration?

Kim [00:28:26] I would see. Well, it started off okay with the marriage therapy, and then it took a little turn and this is very unfortunate, it took a little turn with the boundaries again. And my husband kept going with me a couple of times when this hypnosis stuff started. But then one time he couldn't make it. And I was there alone. And Rex said to me, you know, you are so much more open when your husband isn't here. And I think you should come without him from now on. And so that's so moved from marriage

John Dehlin [00:29:12] therapy to individual therapy. And he wanted you alone?

Kim [00:29:16] Yeah, he wanted me alone. He didn't think I needed the support of my husband and he actually thought he was not helping the process. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:33] And that again, feels like a questionable move in terms of boundaries because he's working hard to get you to remember things and to get you to endorse these memories.

Kim [00:29:44] That's right. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:29:46] And he wants anyone who might be skeptical or be concerned to kind of be cut out of the picture.

Kim [00:29:54] I think that that's what was going on. And. I wanted to tell you more about the boundary issue. So in these visits, they would last for two hours, sometimes three hours. And he had told my husband and myself that he was going to bill the insurance as though it was happening on different days, but it actually was all happening at the hours were all together. And then along with that with billing the insurance, he was meeting with me alone, as I had previously described, in a basement.

Kim [00:30:47] No one else was around. And it was always at night, so it was often dark. One time during a three hour session, I got home after midnight from that session. So this was with Rex Cokerhans Some of the things he said to me, I mentioned about boundary problem, about going to church with someone that you're seeing as a therapist and the problems that could come up with that. These are some of the things that Rex said to me during therapy. He said that he watched for me in our neighborhood, and when he saw me, he wanted to run to me and take me in his arms.

Kim [00:31:29] He told me that he enjoyed looking at me. He told me I had a beautiful mouth. He told me he liked my feminine, gentle ways. He told me he loved me in a special way because I appreciated him. Unlike others who just paid their bills, he would gaze at me adoringly when I was talking during therapy.

Kim [00:31:53] After therapy, he would put his arms around me and whisper I love you in my ear. And if I said it back to him, I love you, then he would dramatically sigh. I could call him at home if I wanted to talk to him about my repressed memory pursuit. And I came to idealize him. I became really, really dependent on him. And I started to feel attracted, sexually attracted to him. And it really felt to me like the attraction was mutual. And I asked him about that, and he said, yes, he was attracted to me, but that he had a wife and he didn't want to compromise his relationship with his wife.

Kim [00:32:47] Well, this scared me to death because I was feeling these feelings. And as I have explained, I was scared of my sexual feelings. After becoming Mormon, I had developed this big fear of them and that I was feeling them. And I was now married and Rex was married. It really, really scared me. So I went running to my husband, to John, and I told him about how I was feeling and how scared I was and how Rex said I wasn't going to ever heal or come out of emotional pain if I didn't accept my repressed memories. And what. What. What should I do? What was going on?

Kim [00:33:36] And my husband met with. With Rex, and Rex said that that this was a good sign, that my attraction was a real good sign, and that what I was doing was that I was taking my sexual feelings for my dad and I was transferring them onto him, and that his job was to teach me how to have boundaries.

Kim [00:34:09] And I remembered at that time, when we first started with the therapy, Rex had told my husband and myself that the girls that he was a therapist for at this residential treatment facility in Provo, that most of these girls had been sexually abused and that they would come into an individual therapy session with him and that they would spend the whole session trying to seduce him. And that he would just be very patient with them and let them go at it and then try to get some therapy in. And he said his wife used to find love notes from these girls in his. His pockets when she was doing laundry.

Kim [00:35:04] And that's what I believe he thought was going on with me, that it was about incest, not about his lack of boundaries or his telling me how attractive I am or telling me how much he loves me or embracing me. And I want to point out that Rex never touched me other than those embraces when the therapy would end. However, one day during therapy, when we were talking about this, you know, how I look and about attraction and all of this, he took his chair and he pulled his chair in so as close as he could to my face, so our faces were as close as they could get.

Kim [00:35:56] And I. I didn't know if he was going to grab ahold of me or what he was. He'd never done that before. And I panicked and I, like, shrieked and jumped, jumped back. And he never did anything like that again. I don't know if he was grooming me and that when he saw that I wasn't, I told him that I told my husband about what was happening. And I don't know if he decided against following through with actually initiating some type of relationship because I had told my husband and because of my response when he got so close to me like that, or if he just had no idea how he was violating professional boundaries in his. His behavior.

John Dehlin [00:36:51] Right. So let me. Let me throw in a couple comments from listeners really quick. Jenna writes, I had a therapist who tried to use hypnosis techniques to make me think I was abused. I never remembered anything. She told me that not being able to remember when I was little meant that I was most likely abused. I spent a few years being convinced that I was abused and that that was the root of my issues. To this day, I don't believe it was. So that's Jenna's writing that Janet writes. A really important question that we're going to get into both with. With, you know, both as we speak about Rex, but also about Ruth Kilpak, you know, and I'll just say this, what you're reporting to me, sort of this meeting you in a.

John Dehlin [00:37:37] In a strange building, in the basement, alone at night, having you call him directly at home, touching boundaries, saying things that are inappropriate, wanting your husband not to be there. Those are all very classic signs of therapists violating ethical standards and violating important emotional and physical boundaries.

John Dehlin [00:38:04] And someone who was trained six years in A legitimate APA psychology program. I was trained against all that kind of stuff. You meet in, during business hours in a, in a clinical setting that, that has people around and it's supervised. And you don't say certain things and you don't communicate certain things and you have this professional distance. And you would never, you would rarely, if ever hug a client. Right. And these, these weren't hugs.

Kim [00:38:36] These were holding. You know, it wasn't long holding embrace. A long holding embraces.

John Dehlin [00:38:43] And, and I would never want to get a spouse out of. You know, you would refer somebody for an individual therapist. You would never like, have a couple as a therapist and then try really hard to get just the woman, you know, alone and to get the husband out of the picture so you could do that. Therapy, like all that stuff are just huge boundary violations and ethical violations. But also, you know, you, you sign this code as a therapist to not be bringing your own values or baggage into the therapy. So you would never want to be like, convincing a client that abuse happened and pressuring them to go back and back and back and are you sure it didn't happen? This sounds like you're repressing it. Like that is all leading the client in ways that would be deemed sort of egregiously.

Kim [00:39:34] As I'm saying, he would not take no for an answer that he was sure and that was all to it. As far as how this was affecting me.

John Dehlin [00:39:47] Well, really quick, before you do that, but this gets to Janet's question, which we'll cover as well when we talk about Ruth Kilpak, who is also Martha Beck's therapist. Janet writes, I don't understand why a professional would do such a harmful thing. I'm not saying it didn't happen to you. I just don't understand why a professional was doing this. Now, before you answer, Janet, that that was covered in our previous interview with David Frankfurter. He is this PhD level historian who, you know, has degrees from Harvard and I believe Princeton. And he talks about for two millennia the, the power that these therapists, these social workers, these police officers, these, you know, religious leaders have, whether it's in 200 A.D.

John Dehlin [00:40:37] or 1500 A.D. we talked about this in the last episode. So I really want you to go back and listen to that. When there's people in pain, when there's social angst or suffering, and everybody's looking for some sort of solution, you gain a lot of power if you stand up and say, I know what's going on. I know how to fix your problems either individually or collectively as a society. I'm an expert here.

John Dehlin [00:41:05] And so when you read this history of SRA from the early 80s into the early 90s, you see these people emerging, social workers, therapists, police officers who start getting fame and reputation. They're getting invited on TV talk shows, they're getting invited to newspaper interviews, they're being invited to schools and to speak at conferences as they are willing to step up and make these claims of ritual abuse.

John Dehlin [00:41:43] And as we talked about in the last episode, daycare, abuse of children, etc. Now, that's not to say, obviously, if you know anything about Mormon stories, you know that we are, you know, hopefully are among the leaders in this space of calling out abuse. We're not here to say sexual abuse doesn't happen. I believe that in Utah of all places, sexual abuse is rampant and way overrepresented in our population. So do not misunderstand. Our desire is not to deny victims or claims of sexual abuse. And I'd be horrified if that's what people took away from what we're doing. But I think it's important to distinguish between legitimate abuse that has evidence and is reported and improper, unethical, condemned therapeutic techniques that actually prey on victims.

John Dehlin [00:42:33] And that seems to be a lot of what happened in the 80s and 90s. But I'm sure there was also legitimate abuse and we want to hear about that as well. So that's my little preamble. As someone who has a PhD in clinical and counseling psychology, how would you respond to this question of why would a therapist do something like this? What would be that therapist's motives? What do you think might have been Rex Kocher Hahn's motives in doing this?

Why Therapists Engage in Harmful Practices

Kim [00:43:03] I think that is a great question that really can shed some light on. On this type of vulnerability. For you as a viewer to come with that question says that you can't fathom why somebody in mental health would do something like this.

Kim [00:43:25] And that was me at 23 years old. I wasn't thinking that way, that somebody who says they want to help is actually going to do things that cause destruction and cause so much pain. To me, that wasn't in the forefront of my thinking because it seems so bizarre. I didn't appreciate at the time too that because mental health services are what's called a soft science, there's really limited research about a lot of topics that are addressed in therapy. We already mentioned memory as one of those.

Kim [00:44:13] I didn't appreciate the art part of being a therapist. They say that art is about knowledge or not art that therapy is about skills, knowledge and art. And I did not appreciate how much is allowed to be the art part. This was before the emphasis on evidence based.

Kim [00:44:39] And with mental health there's only so much evidence, as I keep reiterating, there's only so much scientific evidence. It's very difficult to do scientific studies related to mental health. And I didn't appreciate what a free for all a therapist could, an unethical or, or maybe incompetent, incompetent therapist, the direction that, that they could take me. But regarding what a therapist might, how a therapist might be rewarded for doing things like this, it's so I, I haven't talked about how I was falling apart during this therapy yet.

Kim [00:45:24] But why a therapist would feel that things were going well even though their clients falling apart or what the therapist would personally be getting out of, out of this. Well, as John has mentioned, there can be a power trip. The therapists I saw were adored.

Kim [00:45:46] And that's quite an ego boost. I think most people want to be successful in their careers. And after the investment. Rex had a master's degree, Ruth Kilpak had a doctorate. After the investment in their careers, they, I'm sure like to think that they were really making a difference in people's, people's lives and all that hard work and money wasn't for nothing.

Kim [00:46:11] Also the possibility of just plain incompetence. I have to ask myself, both Rex and Ruth were educated at byu. This, this problem with repressed memory therapy, it wasn't in any way limited to BYU graduates, but they both were from byu. So I had to ask myself, what were they taught about boundaries?

Kim [00:46:40] What were they taught about, about memory? What were they taught about domestic violence? What were they taught about physical abuse? What were they taught about divorce? What were they taught about childhood chronic illness? What were they taught about bullying?

Kim [00:46:58] Were they incompetent? Were they not prepared for the type of endeavor, childhood sexual abuse that they were claiming to be experts in? What did they know about memory? Both hadn't been that long in their careers. I believe that Rex was probably in his 30s while I was doing therapy with him. And Ruth Kilpack was middle aged and she hadn't, I think I have a Note here.

Kim [00:47:37] In 1978, she graduated with a Master's in Family Studies from BYU. And then she went on and got marriage and family counseling, a PhD. You know, were these the kind of things covered at BYU in their education? Were they educated on repressed memories? Or was this some kind of popular hysteria going on that they were attracted to.

Kim [00:48:04] And what about arrogance? What about, I mean, what kind of arrogance does it take for a client to say to their therapist, this is what I remember, this is what I think, I'm so confused. And for the therapist to say, no, I know, you don't know. I know. What kind of arrogance is that? And is that empowering?

Kim [00:48:31] Is that therapist trying to empower their client and elements of the therapeutic community can't be wrong? Was there arrogance in the therapeutic community that they're in doing their art, part of therapy, that they couldn't be wrong? Clients are messed up and they don't know anything. The arrogance of the mental health community.

Kim [00:48:57] Is it arrogance? If, for instance, if you were going to a medical doctor and you had something wrong with you and the doctor wasn't sure just what it was, but was prepared to try something to try to help you, you would hope that that doctor wouldn't say, this is. This is it and this is going to help you, but that they would say, we don't know too much about this. This has helped some people. Let's try it and see if it helps. Instead of speaking in absolutes, what about recklessness?

Kim [00:49:30] What kind of critical thinking goes into something where so little is known about the subject, but yet the therapists are willing to put people through this horrible trauma of trying to unrepress memories, telling them that that's the only way they'll ever be at peace with themselves. How reckless to put families, put families through that, to ruin reputations, to have criminal proceedings, to have lawsuits based on so little.

John Dehlin [00:50:09] Right. And just to kind of do my best, to kind of add to what you're saying, you're going to get billable hours, you're going to get lots of hours where they're paying lots of money to get this treatment. So there's always a financial incentive to treatment.

John Dehlin [00:50:26] There's community reputation, community referrals, but also like reputation as an expert in something. If there's a social panic lifting, whether it's witches and witchcraft in the 1500s or satanic ritual abuse in the 80s and 90s, because ACDC and Ozzy Osbourne and, you know, the Omen and the Exorcist and all this panic around Satan and these claims of satanic ritual abuse in daycares, like if there's this social panic that's coming up and then some therapist in Provo puts themselves forward and says, hey, I can cure this and I see this everywhere and it is everywhere. And but I know the answers and I can make it better.

John Dehlin [00:51:12] You not only get clients, you not only get money, but you get the social reputation. You get to go on the Geraldo show or the, or the Donahue show or the OPRAH show or 60 Minutes or Nightline, and you get to speak as an expert and be invited to panels. But what's actually tricky about this, and this came out with David Frankfurter, is I don't think anybody credible thinks that these therapists were intentionally lying or deceiving people. What David talked about from his experience was these were people who hated abuse, hated child abuse, hated sexual abuse, wanted to stomp it out. And by the way, it wasn't just therapists.

Cultural and Institutional Context of the Abuse Panic

John Dehlin [00:51:49] It was police officers, it was social workers generally. It was religious leaders, evangelical Christian leaders, et cetera. They hated abuse, didn't want to see abuse. They also hated any sexual impropriety because sex is evil and bad and dirty and wrong, except under certain circumstances. And so there's a lot of theology fueling this, a lot of religious dogma and doctrine and beliefs fueling this. But there was also social reputation and money fueling this as well. But it was also fueled by a genuine contempt for abuse.

Kim [00:52:23] That's right. And I don't know about Rex, but with Ruth Kilpak, she. She told us in group that she was the survivor of sexual abuse, that a relative had sexually abused her. She didn't elaborate if it involved repressed memories or not.

John Dehlin [00:52:41] Right. But we know that Mormonism in Utah is rampant with sexual abuse. So it all gets intermingled. And that's part of the whole point of the series, is how do we tease out legitimate sexual abuse, which we want condemned and prosecuted. Right. From other things that aren't legitimate and also the possibility of legitimate ritual abuse or satanic ritual abuse. Like, we are still wanting to say that if there are legitimate accounts of sexual abuse or satanic ritual abuse, we want to cover them. They just have to be rooted, not hopefully in recovered memory techniques and hypnosis, but. But in something where there are witnesses or evidence or something that is as credible as we can make it.

John Dehlin [00:53:31] Now, I just want to make one other point as to, you know, can psychotherapists. I'll read this comment. So, Kimberly Anderson, a loyal listener and a dear friend, a former interviewee on Mormon Stories podcast who's currently in training. She writes, as a recent graduate with a master's MFT in counseling psychology. I'm absolutely nauseous at what I'm hearing regarding the behavior coming forth from this therapist. Thank you for sharing this incredibly personal story. This speaks to the fact, you know, can therapists, you know, engage in unethical behavior? And I, you know, we, in my psychology program had an entire class for an entire semester on the ethics of, of psychotherapy.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] And whether it's the Stanley Milgram experiments or the, you know, the Stanford prison experiments or the electroshock therapy, you know, experiments at BYU on gay people in the 70s, whether it's the lobotomies that were done on people in the 40s and 50s, like the field of mental health is rife with egregious examples of abuse of ethical violations. And, and that's why I went through six years of supervised training where I'm doing 20 hours a week of, in many instances of therapy with someone like videotaping everything I do, and we're reviewing the videotapes regularly and I'm meeting with my supervisors weekly for a six year period so that by the end I'm, and by the way, there's a full year of an internship again where it's 40 hours a week of totally supervised therapy.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] All of that exists because of the history of egregious abuses of ethical ethics and standards and mores by therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, et cetera. And so not to mention therapists that sleep with their clients and break up marriages. And you know, I remember while I was in Logan, there was a scandal where a well known psychologist ended up having an affair with one of his clients. And so it just, you know, these abuses can happen. They, there's a long history of them happening and that's why ethics and licensure and all that are so heavily emphasized.

Introduction to the Second Therapist

Kim [00:55:58] Of note, we haven't gotten into the therapy with Ruth Kilpak.

John Dehlin [00:56:02] Let's go, let's go there now, but when you're ready.

Kim [00:56:05] Okay. But I, I did share this experience with Ruth Kilpak and she told me that he had violated boundaries and she gave me the phone number for Doppel. And I called Doppel and I reported Rex to Doppel. And the intake worker that took my call assured me that this would be investigated. And I never heard back from anyone. Months passed. I decided I'd check up. I got quite the runaround and was eventually told that there was no allegation worthy of investigation.

John Dehlin [00:56:43] Okay. And that, and that again speaks to, you know, that's something that is verifiable. You reporting him, the Doppel, it happened, you know, while you were still in treatment, just with another therapist. You reported him and that's the type of evidence we're looking for. Even though there's going to be a lot of abuse that won't ever have evidence, hopefully there will be some where people reported something to someone where authorities were involved that you know, during the time the abuse was happening. And that's what we're looking for with sra, people who have SRA claims and other types of abuse as well. But you're saying you actually at the time reported them and that's.

Kim [00:57:19] I did. I wonder if it is still in the records.

John Dehlin [00:57:22] Right? Yeah.

Kim [00:57:23] Uh huh. I would like to know more about that. When I say that I was falling apart during the therapy, I don't want to lightly kind of brush over what falling apart means. I was being re traumatized. I woke up every morning and I went to bed every night thinking about this. And I had crazy, bizarre fears that I had not had before.

Kim [00:58:00] I had fears like one time I was staying over with my mother and I had a fear that she might kill me while I was sleeping. I had episodes of suddenly being really spooked. I had a fear of the police coming to arrest me, a fear that my dad was hiding in the house, a fear that my dad was trailing me, walking behind me. When my husband John would come into our bedroom while I was sleeping, I would wake up and scream. I was terrified.

Kim [00:58:35] And this is personal but important. John and I had a great sex life. But with all of this obsession about sexual abuse, I started imagining seeing sexual abuse scenes when we were together. And it seemed after we would be intimate, there were so many times where I would just sit on the edge of the bed and sob.

Kim [00:59:04] It was affecting my marriage, it was affecting me as an individual. I mean, how was I supposed to go about life in the state of cognitive dissonance, not knowing what had happened to me? And another part of this is about protecting others.

Kim [00:59:23] The, the books on uncovering repressed memories and the therapists that I saw, they talked a lot about this. About my responsibility to make sure that my dad didn't hurt any, anybody else. And my dad had young people in, in his life. And I felt so guilty, so ashamed that I could not remember because I was too emotionally weak. I could not remember so I could take action so I could protect them. I was encouraged to report my dad to protective services where, where he lived or to the police. And I could not make myself do it because it did not feel real. And I. I felt horrible about that, that I was defective and, and weak.

Kim [01:00:23] And as far as the effect that this was happening, this was having on my husband, my poor husband, Was going through hell with me. He was so confused and so scared for me. He was seeing me fall apart. I was not available to him because I was so wrapped up and in so much pain with this. With this stuff. And he didn't know quite what to make of it. He, too, was thinking about authority. And how is he supposed to know how memory works and brains. And brains work? And it got to the point, well, there's something weird that happened that I wanted to mention.

Kim [01:01:11] Is. Okay, John, if I go? Yeah. Okay. So with all this confusion and pain, we had some neighbors who also were neighbors to. To Rex. And they had kind of befriended my husband and myself. We were so far from family, and.

Kim [01:01:34] And we were very isolated. And so this couple that was a bit older than us befriended us. And I talked to the wife about the therapy and that, and she thought it sounded funny, fishy. And she. She said, you know what? I have a sister who is a massage therapist. She does massage therapy, and if you're interested, she could come and work on you and this might help you. She does stuff like that. And I was so desperate, I said, yeah, okay.

Kim [01:02:14] So the friend and the sister, they come and they set up the massage table in our little living room. Now, this. This sister, she was the wife of a byu, popular BYU professor. And so based on this massage therapy, she says she thinks I was sexually abused. She says the evidence is that when she was working the areas of my body near my pelvic region, I would tense up.

Kim [01:02:47] It was like anything could be a symptom of having repressed memories. Anything could be a symptom. And anything that would suggest that it might not be what it. What it's saying it is, then that was said to be nonsense. There was no discussion.

Kim [01:03:11] They were just the gospel. They were facts, period. So my husband with this massage therapist, it was time that I was going to have this experience. And then I was going to go to a therapy session with Rex. This was going to make me more open so I could remember. Well, I go to the therapy session, and I come back hours later. And this therapist, massage therapist and her sister had already left the house, same time I left the house. But I come back, and the massage therapist is sitting on the couch with my husband.

Kim [01:03:48] And she's saying all kinds of very personal things about herself. But mind you, the atmosphere was really personal. And she's talking about how she was a rape victim and about how all the men she did massage therapy on, they all fell in love with her and about how she'd Almost had an extramarital affair with one of her male friends.

Kim [01:04:13] And I. The red flag went up right away, what is she doing here? What does she want? What's going on? When she left and my husband and I talked, He said that when I had left and they had left, he had gotten down on his knees and he was. He was crying and pleading with God to please help me.

Kim [01:04:42] Please help me. What? What? I didn't know what I needed. Please help me. Please help our marriage. Please, please. And then he heard a knock at the door, and it was this woman. And she said, God has sent me to tell you you are loved.

Kim [01:05:00] And he let her in the house, and she was listening to him tell about the experience and all of this. Well, shortly after this, I went out of town with children, visit family out of state. And during that time, my husband was going to the temple every morning, first thing when they first opened to beg God to help me remember and to help me heal and to help our marriage survive. And lo and behold, guess who showed up at the temple? The massage therapist. The massage therapist showed up at the temple and she decided it was her.

Kim [01:05:47] Her role was to save my husband because this was hurting my husband. And she was older than us, she was middle aged. And it was a horrible. A horrible experience. But it was the start of a wake up call because my husband compared my relationship to Rex to his relationship with this woman. Both of them say they're going to. Going to help us. And.

John Dehlin [01:06:16] And Rex had referred this woman, right?

Kim [01:06:17] No, her sister had referred her, who was a neighbor, to Rex.

John Dehlin [01:06:21] Okay, okay. And Rex's neighbor referred her sister.

Kim [01:06:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:26] Okay.

Kim [01:06:27] And so my husband pointed out there are a lot of similarities. And my husband was saying, I think you need to stop seeing. Seeing Rex. And he was saying, you want me to not see this sister for help?

Kim [01:06:47] It's the same thing. You stop seeing the sis, you stop seeing Rex, I'll stop seeing the. The sister. And we ended up involving our bishop, who was Rex's bishop also, and the sister of the massage therapist bishop. And my husband and I told about the therapy, and the bishop told my husband, you need to back off, John.

Kim [01:07:14] Rex is a professional. He knows what he's doing. You need to back off and let him do his work. And my husband responded to that by having somewhat of a breakdown. And he went looking for help for himself. And he went to. There was some. I don't know what it was, and he doesn't know what it was. A hospital or a clinic or something. And he said, he needed to be an impatient. And he talked to someone there and he told the story. And here the person said, you know, there's nothing wrong with you.

Kim [01:07:53] This is not an appropriate situation. These boundary violations, this is not appropriate. I'm not going to suggest you be hospitalized. You're okay, you're thinking straight. Then the bishop, he calls my husband, asked to meet with him again. They met at some kind of park. And he apologized to my husband. I don't know what happened in between the first, you need to back off and this. But he apologized and he said he overreacted, didn't have enough training and experience in these areas, and he would recommend I see a different therapist.

Kim [01:08:38] So when my husband talked with Rex before this therapy relationship ended, Rex was fuming. And he said that my husband and Rex told me this myself because we discussed it. Also, besides him talking to my husband alone, he said he wasn't sure that my husband really had my best interests at heart, that he really cared about me, and that he was undermining my therapy with his immature jealousy. And this is part of what I have written also in my. Right after this therapy, I have this written down in there.

John Dehlin [01:09:21] In your journal or diary?

Kim [01:09:24] Yes, in my written account that was published in the. In the book right after I ended the therapy.

John Dehlin [01:09:30] Oh, wow. Okay.

Kim [01:09:31] And he was, he was angry. He was angry. But that was the end of my relationship, therapeutic relationship with. With Rex. And I was scared and I decided I'm going to take a break from it and just kind of hope it will go away, all of this craziness. Hope it will go away in my head. And I took about a six month break. But I. I had a child, another child during that time. And I had mild postpartum depression. I wouldn't even call it depression. I'd say the blues depress, you know, felt bad and I got scared. What if this is related and that my relationship with my extended family was so, so distant. It had been years at times when I hadn't visited and

John Dehlin [01:10:35] let me. Can I jump in?

Kim [01:10:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:36] Okay. So just a couple things I want to note. This whole, you know, one of the most important ethical teachings we get in therapy as therapists is this idea of dual relationships. You want to avoid dual relationships, meaning I would never treat my wife, or I would never be a bishop and a therapist, or I would never, you know, see a therapist that was in my elders quorum or, you know, whatever. You just want to avoid any relationship as client or therapist where there are multiple relationships going on. This idea of Rex and his bishop and you being in this triangle of therapy. But bishop, but you're the member of the war.

John Dehlin [01:11:27] That's a classic triangle of dual relationships that's deeply problematic. Plus your husband and. And Rex. And Rex having feelings about your husband and telling you that, you know, in your marriage. And that's just all lots of boundary violations that are. That are deeply inappropriate.

Kim [01:11:46] Yeah, that's on top of the, the violations related specifically to repressed memories.

John Dehlin [01:11:52] Right. Yeah. In addition to all that. Okay. Do you need a quick break?

Kim [01:11:57] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:11:58] Okay. Why? As you're, as you're taking a quick break, you can go ahead and take a break, and I'll just talk for a second to my audience. Audience, it's been great to have you here so far. Thanks to everyone who has been joining us.

Were the Recovered Memories Implanted?

John Dehlin [01:12:15] And this is a sensitive topic. So Jomie Shell writes. Okay, so I'm totally confused. Does she remember being abused and it's true, or were these memories planted? And what does this have to do with satanic ritual? So, Joe Michel, I'm guessing you joined late because.

John Dehlin [01:12:39] Because a. This is all about repressed memory or recovered memory techniques. And just earlier in the show, Kim definitely reported that it was a therapist that was using hypnotic techniques to implant these memories in her and that she never really had strong confidence that actually abuse was taking place.

John Dehlin [01:13:05] But because of the insistence of the therapist and the power dynamic and the use of hypnosis and suggestions, she started to be willing to accept reluctantly, these memories of abuse over time and was in this real volatile state of trying hard to remember because the therapist was insisting that she had been abused and that she needed to remember and that she was repressing the memories. And that all speaks to what is now a summarily kind of condemned technique of mixing hypnotherapy with recovered memory that the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological association, others have all really condemned since the early 90s. But. But throughout the 80s and early 90s, it was all the rage.

John Dehlin [01:13:52] Now, what does this have to do with satanic ritual abuse? Were there any claims of satanic ritual abuse associated with Kim and her story? No, we are not claiming, and Kim is not claiming that she was the victim of satanic ritual abuse. However, the reason why we're covering this story is because it is these same techniques that Rex Cokerhans and then eventually Ruth Kilpak used to try and. And get Amy or to try and get Kim to endorse sexual abuse that have been long associated with claims of satanic ritual abuse, not just within Mormonism but writ large. And so in the 80s and 90s, you would have all these accounts of satanic ritual abuse that came out of what some would call a frenzy or a hysteria around fears around satanic ritual abuse.

John Dehlin [01:14:51] But all of these accounts would be tied to these same sort of techniques of therapists using hypnosis and recovered memory techniques to tease out these accounts of satanic ritual abuse. So hope that clarifies things. And that's why we'll be covering this in future episodes as well. And, and again, having said all that, we've had some pushback, specifically from Leslie saying, hey, this is unfair. You're kind of, in my words, I'm just going to say, poisoning the well, because you're relying on the firsthand witness of Kim here. But there are going to be other firsthand witnesses of satanic ritual abuse that aren't going to be able to produce evidence.

John Dehlin [01:15:41] Evidence or police reports or whatever. And so if you're going to rely on Kim's firsthand account of her therapeutic experiences, then you need to rely on the firsthand account of people who claim satanic ritual abuse, even if they don't have evidence, it's their firsthand account. And all I can say to that is we are desperate to interview credible people to talk about their abuse. The only thing we have to guard against is false, you know, false accusations and maligning people's reputation. And that's why we're desperately. And I'm just being totally candid and open about this, so because I plan to be attacked by. By people who are saying on either side, I'm doing this wrongly.

John Dehlin [01:16:26] We are very eager to interview people who claim to have been victims of satanic ritual abuse. What we're really searching for are people that have some sort of witnesses or evidence or made police reports, and preferably they're actually convictions, because that's the type of stuff that helps guard against false accusations. And false accusations can destroy lives and careers.

John Dehlin [01:16:53] And we don't want to do that. And so we're trying to figure out a way to navigate this responsibly. And so to conclude part two of this interview with Kim, we are going to keep putting out these calls because. Because we do want to be fair and interview all sides. We just want to avoid false accusations and wrecking lives and careers. Hope that makes sense. Leslie, I hope that addresses explicitly the concerns you've been writing here. And again, I invite you and anyone else who can bring forward credible witnesses about SRA to come forward, and we will interview them and I'm eager to. And man, if there are legitimate claims of satanic ritual abuse, I want them exposed and punished because we're all against sexual abuse and cover ups here, but we're also against false claims, fraudulent therapeutic techniques and false accusations that destroy lives.

John Dehlin [01:17:51] And we've got a walk that balance. So thank you for joining us for part two of our interview with Kim. And we're just going to keep rolling with part three.

Part 3 of 4 · Ep. 1316

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sa. So, hello, Kim, and welcome back to our interview on your experiences with repressed memory. And we've spent two hours now talking about your background. You're joining the Mormon Church. You're having a history of trauma which made you vulnerable and in needing therapy. And we've talked about your really unfortunate experiences with, with Rex Kokerhan's Improvo, where he crossed all sorts of boundaries, apparently by your report and violated all sorts of ethical laws using hypnosis and recovered memory techniques. So you say at some point you and your husband stopped that therapeutic relationship with Rex. You said you had a baby, is that right?

Kim [00:01:18] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] What I'm dying to know is how in the world could you then get back into therapy with Ruth Kilpak where more hypnosis techniques are used after you had just been through a bunch of kind of abusive, inappropriate therapeutic techniques? So tell us how. And of course, for those who are tuning in now, this is significant and going to be interesting to the Mormon audience because as we've already said, we're all familiar or many of us are familiar with Martha Beck, national author who made claims in her book Leaving the Saints that her father, Hugh Nibley, respected Mormon scholar and apologist by some. You know, we are aware of Martha Beck's claims that Hugh Nibley sexually abused her in the book that she came out with.

John Dehlin [00:02:05] There are many that jumped on and said, yes, Hunobi's an abuser. There are others who came to Hunnibaly's defense and said, no, these, these claims that Martha Beck made were made using these hypnosis and recovered memory techniques. And this man's being falsely accused, including members of Hugh Nibley's own family. And many of us are aware of Boyd Peterson, who wrote a book, a Memoir of Hugh Nibley. And he, along with other daughters and maybe even sons of Hugh Nibley, condemned their sisters accusations of sexual abuse and again saying it was recovered memory. Well, why am I bringing all this up? We are now about to talk about how Kim left Rex Kokerhans as a therapist and went to Ruth Kilpak as a therapist, who it has been reported in Sunset Magazine and other places, was also a therapist to Martha Beck. So without any further ado, how in the world, Kim, did you end up with another person, practitioner of hypnosis and recovered memory?

Kim [00:03:13] Okay, if it would be okay, John, before we go into that, as you mentioned about Martha Beckin and her family and her siblings not agreeing with what she was saying and not having any remembrance themselves of suffering, those Types of things with their father, Hugh Nibley. I wanted to touch on one thing with Rex Cokerhans before we move on to my therapy with Ruth Kilpak. And that was about when I called my mother and told my mother that I thought that this had happened to me. As I mentioned at the beginning of our discussion, I have never told my dad that I went through any of this and I did tell my mother.

Confronting Family Based on Recovered Memories

Kim [00:04:03] And so this was during therapy with Ruth. And if it's all right, I have just a couple paragraphs here about that. I decided to phone my mom and see if she could give me some information. I told her my dad had molested me as a child.

Kim [00:04:24] I tried to conceal my own doubts for fear she wouldn't accept what Rex said about doubts being proof it had really happened. I wanted her to take me seriously, and I was afraid she wouldn't if she knew of my doubts.

Kim [00:04:43] Her response was mildly hysterical. First, she denied my dad was capable of such a thing and told me that despite his faults, he never would hurt me like that. She was angry at Rex and accused him of incompetence and trying to fill his wallet at my expense.

Kim [00:05:06] I maintained that my molestation had happened but avoided going into any detail because I didn't know the details myself. I had kind of formulated a scenario based on my hypnotherapy experiences, but if pressed, I would be at a loss to offer any solid information. That's why I was calling her, to try to get some information.

Kim [00:05:30] She sounded confused for a minute. Her anger turned toward my dad and she said if he really did that to me, she would buy a gun and shoot him. Then her anger was directed toward Rex again and she defended my dad. She was torn by her doubts about the accusation and her trust in me. I felt obliged to defend Rex and I felt a familiar angry frustration with my mom.

Kim [00:06:01] Rex and I interpreted her angry and jumbled response as further proof the incest had occurred. I had become competent at filtering my past, my thoughts and my feelings through repressed memory theories. No wonder I hadn't told her about the abuse when I was a kid. Look at how she responded now. She would have blamed me. Or maybe I had told her and she did blame me. I'd have to think about it and see which explanation felt right and try to do self hypnosis to remember.

Kim [00:06:38] She was most likely a sexual abuse victim herself and was in denial. Before she could acknowledge my abuse, she'd first have to unrepress her own. It was common, I was taught for sexually Abused women to marry sexually abusive men. During later phone calls, I asked her questions about her own childhood, looking for evidence that she too had been sexually abused a couple.

John Dehlin [00:07:07] Just quick responses. Thank you for sharing that. And again, there's some of you that don't like on Mormon stories to hear things being read. I'll just repeat what we've said in the past. Kim wanted to read because during and after immediately the time that she experienced these things, she wrote down her memories and impressions. And any good historian will know that anything that's written down, the sooner it is to the event that actually happened, the more accurate it's likely to be because of how flawed memory can be. So thank you for your patience as we allow Kim to read these things because it's her attempt, in our attempt to be as accurate as possible when we talk about this.

John Dehlin [00:07:46] But when you talk about confronting your dad through your mom, that's so sensitive because of course, isn't it just classic in abuse scenarios where real perpetrators are defended and protected by the other spouse? Right. Or by the church or by siblings. So just the fact, obviously just the fact that, you know, your mom in this case wanted to defend your dad doesn't mean that it's true or false that there was abuse. That's a classic response to anyone accused of abuse, whether they're guilty or not. Right? So that makes it complicated. Right? But then, like, as you read that, I'm just thinking there that fishing is again, like, not only has now your therapist projected onto you, Rex Cocoons has projected onto you all this sexual abuse that he's seeing everywhere.

John Dehlin [00:08:41] It's like to anyone who has a hammer, everything is a nail. Right? He's projected that onto you through hypnosis and suggestions. And now you're trying to project that onto your mom. Right. And everyone else. And that's how this spreads, right? It becomes this social panic where everybody is seeing it everywhere and projecting it onto everybody. And it reminds me of the McCarthy hearings with the communist accusations. Everyone's a communist, you're a communist, she's a communist, I'm a communist. And it reminds me of the Salem witch trials where she's a witch and he's a witch. And oh, if you defend the witch, you must be in witchcraft. Like, that's how. That's the sign of these social panics where it just becomes this virus where it's getting projected onto everybody, right?

Kim [00:09:26] Yeah, that's right. And I appreciate you with the way that you're approaching these subjects, because I'm not here to Say that there is no such thing as repressed memories. As I explained in our first part of visiting, I believe that I have had forgotten or repressed memories.

John Dehlin [00:09:49] But we all forget things all the

Kim [00:09:51] time of sexual abuse by my. By my dad. That was very different. And so as I also, in the first part of our discussion, I mentioned sexually abusive experiences that I had unrelated to repressed memories in childhood and as a young adult. And my heart goes out to people who have suffered sexual abuse. What I suffered was something of. I would say it like this. I suffered the pain of not knowing who my dad was for a time and thinking he could be a sexual predator for a time. And in the course of that, I suffered in ways that people who really have been sexually abused suffer.

John Dehlin [00:10:50] Right. So tell us how in the world you ended up in with another therapist that practiced hypnosis and recovered memory after you. After you booted Rex Coker Hans, as your therapist.

Kim [00:11:03] I don't think you mess around with somebody's. With somebody's mind like mine was messed around with, and you just walk away, right?

Kim [00:11:12] You.

Kim [00:11:12] You say, okay, this guy, he wasn't behaving professionally. So the whole thing is a farce. And I'm just going to walk away now. I had.

John Dehlin [00:11:25] You were maybe more messed up than before.

Kim [00:11:27] I was more messed up than I had ever been in my life.

John Dehlin [00:11:33] So the therapy was damaging you?

Kim [00:11:35] It damaged me. I was having more trouble functioning than I ever had in my life, despite all of the trauma that I talked about in our first discussion. So I was scared. And I also still felt responsible for any potential victims of my alleged perpetrator dad. I felt a responsibility. Unlike Rex, who was able to recklessly talk about reporting my dad based on so little evidence, I felt a great responsibility to protect people.

Kim [00:12:19] And I was concerned, what if my dad is hurting a little child in his life? And so I thought, okay, Rex might be inappropriate, but I better see somebody else. And so my bishop at the time, now it's a different bishop. I've moved the bishop at the time, he goes to LDS social Services and he asks for a recommendation. And Ruth Kilpak is the name that he was given and he. He shared with me. Of note, when all of this. When I finally woke up and I left four years of this nightmare, the same bishop went back to the LDS social service person, I believe it was the director of a particular location and told him about what my experience was.

Kim [00:13:11] And that man was horrified. He said he had no idea that Ruth Kilpack was doing that type of Therapy, and he would never have referred me to her if he had known that she was doing it. So. So I go to Ruth Kilpak for individual therapy. As I mentioned before, she had undergraduate degree from BYU in family studies and. Or yes, master's degree in family studies. And then she had a doctorate, a new doctorate in marriage and family therapy.

Kim [00:13:50] She heard my experience. I told her. I told her my experience about what had happened with. With Rex. And she too, was convinced that based on that hypnotherapy experience, that initial one and the following ones, and. And all of my emotion, she too, was convinced that I had repressed memories of being sexually abused by my dad, even though I never had ever thought such a thing. I never had suspected such a thing. I never had any memory before. My first therapist, Rex Cokerhans, insisted that this had happened to me.

Kim [00:14:33] So I shared with her also stories of my experience with Rex as far as the boundary violations. And she listened to those, and she said something interesting. She said, you know, you're not the first person who has had stories like this about Rex that they have shared with me. And she told me that Rex had recreated the incestuous relationship that I'd had with my dad by isolating me and using me to satisfy his own emotional needs.

Kim [00:15:10] That's when she gave me the phone number for Doppel and suggested that. That I call Doppel and report him. And I've already talked about what happened with that in the first episode where they didn't think there was enough to investigate him.

Kim [00:15:27] Ruth and I, we discussed these boundary violations and tossed around the idea that maybe Rex was the problem, why I wasn't remembering sexual abuse by my dad, that maybe Rex's boundary violations had made me scared, so that I couldn't come out of denial and remember that I had been abused in that way. But she was sure that I had repressed incest memories. In fact, I questioned her so many times about the trauma that I had experienced as a child and as a young adult that I go over in the first discussion with John.

Kim [00:16:18] So many times I ran through the list with her again, asking her, are you sure that my symptoms are not from this? And she had a pet phrase she liked to use. She used to put two of her fingers together and point at me, and she'd say, trust me, it happened.

John Dehlin [00:16:40] And that's again, a therapist leading with their bias, wanting to see it everywhere. Like, to someone with a hammer, everything's a nail. And it's so inappropriate for a therapist to tell you what happened. And to insist in such a forceful way. And so it's just. It's outrageous that that was your second experience in therapy. It's terrible.

Kim [00:17:08] So in the therapy with Ruth, I had made a note in my writing that the individual therapy, this was back in the early 90s, it was $70 for 50 minutes of, of therapy with her. My insurance would cover part of this. I also noticed that when I would show up for therapy, I had to write on a paper by the front desk where the receptionist was, there was a list of clients. And then you had to check, kind of like when you go to the doctor, check your method of payment. I saw so many in the list that said bishop, Bishop, Bishop. So many of the women, their therapy was being funded either for individual or group therapy or both was being funded by their bishops.

Kim [00:18:04] I have to ask myself how many of them, like my bishop, knew what was going on in the therapy and if they would have supported what was. What was going on. My, My bishop did not pay for, not him, but him as a representative. He did not give money for any of my. My therapy. But in therapy with Ruth, aside from hypnotherapy and then me doing self hypnosis at home, other suggestive techniques were. Were used. These techniques, I don't know that in and of themselves that, that all of them pose the same.

Kim [00:18:48] Pose the same risk or can be considered so highly suggestive. It's more to me about the way that they're done with the agenda with the discounting the client's own experience and going with the therapist's idea of what is supposed to be true.

Kim [00:19:11] But with that in mind, aside from the hypnotherapy and self hypnosis, she did therapy with me with anatomically correct dolls, with free association with analyzing body memories and with making up a story. Making up a story. That's when. If you feel some painful emotion and you can associate it with anything in your past, say, for instance, you're feeling scared when you drive down the freeway and you can think back and you can remember, oh, you know what, One time when I was a kid, I witnessed an auto accident. And you can make that connection? Well, if, if a person was unable to. To make any kind of a connection, then Ruth would say, make up a story. And you just off the top of your head, start talking. And of course, it was in the

Kim [00:20:21] context of remembering sexual abuse. And so that was. That was another method.

John Dehlin [00:20:29] So by saying, just to be clear by. And you mentioned puppets. We talked about in the last episode with the Expert. The emergence in the early 80s of the social worker named Key McFarlane, who was a social worker claiming to be an expert on child protection, who was investigating the McMartin Daycare Preschool scandal in California.

John Dehlin [00:20:58] And as she emerged, it says in, you know, in this book, evil carnate rumors of demonic conspiracy and satanic abuse in history, that. That key McFarlane developed these techniques, a way of interviewing children suspected of abuse, using hand puppets, dolls, and playful interview techniques. And then when you talk about your therapist actually having you write the equivalent of fiction in your therapy session in the context of also retrieving and then restoring memories, that idea of having you create fictional narrative and interweaving it with, again, the retrieval and the storing of your memories, that is creating memories. I mean, isn't it? Or at least that's how it would seem.

Kim [00:21:52] It definitely had an effect on me, but anything memory like, for me did not have an authentic feeling to it. I consider myself an intelligent, analytical type of person. I was analyzing this as I was going along. Of course, I was limited. I had limited life experience. I started this just when I was around 20, 23, and it went until I was about 27. So I had limited experience. And I still was in a place in my mind where I had this idea about what was written in books and authority, that it was facts. I didn't yet have the maturity to appreciate the need for critical thinking. When you're working with authority.

John Dehlin [00:22:51] And also, again, you're working with a therapist that was referred to you by your bishop.

Kim [00:22:54] Yeah, that's right.

John Dehlin [00:22:54] And there's some ecclesiastical pressure, some spiritual patriarchal pressure.

Kim [00:22:59] Well, that brings up another point, and that is that Ruth was the widow of a bishop, and that she went into this field after she was widowed in middle age and she had children to take care of, and it was like a new, new life for her. She was getting. Getting into this.

John Dehlin [00:23:18] And who is this again?

Kim [00:23:20] Ruth Kilpak.

John Dehlin [00:23:21] Okay. Okay.

Kim [00:23:27] Also, there was journaling. And as far as putting this into my mind, writing down experiences of hypnotherapy and self hypnosis, writing it down, that would reinforce. Reinforce it too. I bounced back and forth throughout four years of thinking, leaning toward this really happened to me, and then saying, this did not happen to me. This does not real. Sometimes this happened in the same day. The bouncing back and forth. I was eager to be successful, to remember, because that was the goal that was set up for me. And I. I wanted to please.

John Dehlin [00:24:18] Right.

Kim [00:24:19] Mm.

John Dehlin [00:24:21] Clients should never want to please their therapist, by the way. That's not your job. It's not your job to please your therapist.

Kim [00:24:29] Okay.

Kim [00:24:30] Well, I, I know reading might not be ideal, but I really have to

Kim [00:24:34] read something related to that, if that's okay.

John Dehlin [00:24:39] Sure. Yeah.

Pressure Tactics Used by Both Therapists

Kim [00:24:41] Let me, let me find it here. This, this can say, I think, better than I can express just right now. I think that this is a very helpful in understanding the kind of pressure that was put on me by Rex Cokerhans and Ruth Kilpat to remember.

Kim [00:25:08] Remember things. The moral, the moral pressure that was. Was put on and the, the pressure to, to please. Since that was already a problem I. I had before I started therapies in group therapy. I had listened intently as Ruth explained her philosophy about therapy.

Kim [00:25:31] She said the whole therapist client relationship was about trust. She said the therapist asked her client to take risks. She compared this to being told to jump off a cliff, saying the client may feel the risks are life threatening, literally like being told to jump off the edge of a cliff, a mental cliff.

Kim [00:25:56] All her instincts may tell the client not to jump. However, only if she trusts the therapist that all will be well and jumps will she heal. She also had added that those clients who were willing to trust her the most were the ones who healed the fastest and ended therapy the quickest.

Kim [00:26:23] And I was upset. I had jumped off the cliff so many times, I had lost count. And rather than feeling healed, I felt like my sense of well being lay smashed in the ravine below the cliff. Was I ever going to be happy? Was I ever going to come out of denial? Other women supposedly had done it. What was wrong with me?

John Dehlin [00:26:52] Right. And so, yeah, so go ahead.

Kim [00:27:01] And

John Dehlin [00:27:03] that idea, it sounds like what Ruth is trying to do there is have you shut off your own internal skepticism, your own internal boundaries, your own internal sense for what's good for you. And that is completely submit to completely submit.

Kim [00:27:20] And that was the last thing that I needed. My, my life up to this therapy, my life had disempowered me. I was afraid of my. Myself.

John Dehlin [00:27:35] Right.

Kim [00:27:36] I felt inadequate. I. I felt like a failure. I was scared. I was lonely. I needed to be empowered to trust myself.

John Dehlin [00:27:47] Not told to trust your therapist and to deny and ignore your own internal compass.

Kim [00:27:51] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:27:52] Right.

Kim [00:27:53] Another thing with the therapy was a book and a workbook called the Courage to Heal. This was written by two women who had no degree in any mental health field. And it talked about recovering repressed memories. This, this workbook I had, and I read it all the time, and in this workbook, it talked about all kinds of goofy things. Like for instance, one time when I was in, in therapy with, with Ruth, I had on glasses, and Ruth turned to me quickly and out of the blue, she said, what did you want to see that you had to start wearing glasses, meaning what happened in childhood that you had to start wearing glasses?

Kim [00:28:47] It had a lot of suspicious type of therapy techniques which were developed great measure by these women who had no education to be able to exercise this kind of authority, that someone with a PhD is going to be relying on somebody without any education in mental health to direct their therapy.

Kim [00:29:17] So there was a lot of pressure, manipulation, abusive therapy, and more suffering for me and, and my family. At Ruth's suggestion, I got involved with her group. She also did group therapy along with teaching assertiveness classes that she was always marketing. And with the group therapy, it was for eight women. And women would come and go. It was $20 to attend the group or have a bishop pay for it.

Kim [00:29:52] And in the group, women would process their abuse experiences. All of the women in the group had had some type of child abuse experience. The majority, it was sexual abuse. Most of the women were, like me, with no memory of any history of sexual abuse, but they had uncovered repressed memories through therapy.

Kim [00:30:26] There was a big difference between those women who had the repressed memories and those women who had never forgotten. And it was incredibly painful to listen to the stories of the women who had never forgotten that it had happened with them. And they were in a different place. Those women, they were hoping to heal. Whereas for those of us, repressed memories,

Kim [00:31:06] almost like all of our energy, even though the end goal was to heal, almost all of it was about to remember, the focus was on to remember. Sometimes I worked with Ruth in group or in individual therapy on issues not

Kim [00:31:26] related to sexual abuse.

Kim [00:31:27] I did cover other traumas I had with her. She still was convinced I had been sexually abused by my dad.

Kim [00:31:38] In the group, those therapeutic methods that I've already talked about were used. There also was a strange thing that those of us with the repressed memories, we used to talk sometimes after group or during breaks and compare notes and, and we were so much in the same place with being so confused but trusting like, like that.

Kim [00:32:08] And we, we felt the desire to, to be happy and had bought into the idea that this was the way, this was the way that it was going to happen for us. Some of us took note that Ruth did something odd about alleged perpetrators. So if a woman talked about, say, she had a repressed memory and she talked about the abuser, alleged abuser, or even if it wasn't about sexual abuse, in any scenario where a woman was.

Kim [00:32:54] Was saying something had. Had happened to her, Ruth would attack the alleged perpetrator. She showed no mercy in her tone or how she would respond. There was no, like I would say, trying to take a mature approach to something, something that.

Kim [00:33:18] That a woman might be talking, talking about, like maybe, you know, like maybe your husband, you know, we don't want to make excuses for him, but, you know, in reality, with you going through this repressed memory therapy and you not wanting to have sex for years, maybe your husband has. Has his own, own needs and, you know, maybe. No, there was no mercy for anyone that a woman said was hurting her or affecting her in some way. And a very dramatic thing would take place. I don't know if this is still used in therapy settings or not, but she had. Ruth had these padded bats or padded clubs, Batakas, something like that.

Kim [00:34:13] And say that I had say in group therapy that I had a repressed memory that came out. And even though it doesn't feel real and it feels like just a story, Ruth would say, okay, now I want you to go and sit in this special chair, and I'm going to put a chair across from you and keep it empty. I want you to pretend that the alleged perpetrator is in that. That empty chair. And I want you to talk to that alleged perpetrator and tell. Tell them how you're. How you're feeling about what they did and what they did to you.

Kim [00:34:53] And then she would have that client

Kim [00:34:56] move into the empty chair and pretend to be the perpetrator and talk about what they think and how they would respond, use their imagination like that. And then she'd give us one of these padded clubs and encourage us to pound the hell out of the empty chair and to yell and scream and

Kim [00:35:21] pound the hell out of it. And I would do that. And the women, other women did that. And then afterwards, like, I can picture some of these group members with me, a woman would look so exhausted and so. So, like, embarrassed about what she had done. And then Ruth would say, okay, now

Kim [00:35:51] let's give her a reality check.

Kim [00:35:53] And everybody would go around the room of the group members and. And commend the client. Commend, oh, you're so brave.

Kim [00:36:04] You're being so courageous. We're so.

Kim [00:36:06] We're so proud of you.

Kim [00:36:08] You know, Way to go.

Kim [00:36:10] So whether whether the woman believed what had happened in that scenario or not, she was commended by Ruth and the. And the whole group for being a hero that woman. So not only was the therapist doing the repressed memory therapy a hero, but the women like myself were made out

Kim [00:36:37] like they were heroes.

John Dehlin [00:36:40] And what that seems to introduce for me is this strong, powerful, social, positive reinforcement that people are being sort of pushed and egged on and nurtured towards believing and believing these recovered memory claims and owning that recovery created or manufactured story and almost like being celebrated to embrace and celebrate their victimhood. Right. It's a new identity, a new identity of a victim.

Kim [00:37:15] And you weren't alone. And I wasn't alone anymore. Now I had a whole group that were saying, it's true, it's true. Believe it. Believe it like that.

John Dehlin [00:37:25] And what does that do to you in your attempt to try and decide if this stuff really happened? If you've got all your therapists and all these people celebrating you and applauding you as you're beating your fictitious victor with a bat, what does that do in your own internal desire to try and make sense of what actually really did happen?

Kim [00:37:46] It could go. And it did. It went either way for me. Sometimes, like one time, the supposed memory, repressed memory was so outrageous, so, like, impossible, Just so against common, common sense. There was just no way. And so at times like that, it's like, what's going on here? This is weird. What's going on here? Some of the women would uncover repressed memories of ritual abuse,

John Dehlin [00:38:26] like satanic ritual abuse.

Kim [00:38:28] I'm particularly remembering ritual abuse.

John Dehlin [00:38:30] Okay.

Kim [00:38:32] And it's like, because I was still LDS and I. And I'm hearing about this kind of stuff, and it's like temple ceremony stuff or so. So.

John Dehlin [00:38:45] And you hear about this, that there are Mormons along the Wasatch front who intermingle ritual sexual abuse with temple ceremony rituals. And I'm not again saying whether that does or doesn't happen, but that's another flavor of the ritual abuse. It's not satanic. It's actually Mormon temple ceremony. And Pace even mentions this, the incorporation of Mormon temple ceremony, like, things into the ritual abuse.

Kim [00:39:12] And as I had mentioned, Ruth was the widow of a bishop, but we knew that she wasn't what is now called orthodox. Like, one time in group another, another woman called Ruth, Ruth out on this thing about attacking alleged perpetrators or attacking husbands or, you know, whatever. She called her out on that. And she said, you know, Ruth, that doesn't seem like very Christian. Like, you know, that no mercy, that no trying to understand, no empathy kind of approach. And Ruth got angry and she said, I'll tell you right now, you can get more, more of Christianity in therapy with me than you can at church.

John Dehlin [00:40:08] Right. A lot of power. She felt a lot of power. And this is Ruth Kilpeck.

Kim [00:40:15] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:40:16] Okay, so you're going to say could go two ways, though. So on the one hand, some of these, the crowd cheering you on, sometimes if the stories are too fantastic, it could make you wonder about their truthfulness. Could it have the opposite effect as well?

Kim [00:40:30] Yeah, the opposite effect of validating things that. For myself, I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm so confused. I don't know. Don't know what happened to me. How am I ever going to know? I can't remember anything. And then having the women saying, oh, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, it's. It happened. It happened like that. One interesting thing that, that happened, among many interesting things, is that one woman in my group, she approached me and she said, you know, I have such a hard time believing my memories, but when I see you in group unrepressing your memories, then I think, man, mine must be true.

John Dehlin [00:41:20] Yeah.

Kim [00:41:22] With the, with the therapy, with Ruth, I don't know if we're ready to get to the part when I. When I leave it. I think there was some other stuff I wanted to tell you about before that, but.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] No, you can. Whatever.

Kim [00:41:38] Okay. While I'm thinking about it, let me go ahead and. And address it. This therapy, like I have said, it was going on and on and on, and there was so much suffering and my marriage suffered, and I was doing my best to be a good and attentive mother. That was so important to me. I love my children. And trying to cope and then not knowing how to talk to my dad. Sometimes I'd be like passive aggressive on the phone with him because

Kim [00:42:14] I didn't

Kim [00:42:15] know how to deal with this.

Kim [00:42:17] And.

Kim [00:42:24] I wanted this to come to an end. And so I went to Ruth for the last time and I went through my list of the traumas I had experienced in my life unrelated to incest and asked her again, are you sure?

Kim [00:42:44] And she again, trust me, it happened. And then I said, what will happen if I never remember? What will happen to me? What will happen if I leave therapy? And she said, it'll follow you. It'll follow you. You. You aren't going to be free from will follow you. And when you're strong enough, you will remember. And I heard that, and I said to myself, I'm going to remember. I've put all this time into this. I've Suffered so much. I'm going to remember. And so at that time, I had just started seeing her for group and I had not been seeing her for individual. I decided I'm going to do both and, and I'm going to give it 100%.

Kim [00:43:33] And so I met with her for group and with this huge pressure I had on myself to remember based on what she had told me about the consequences if I didn't, I started having dramatic, crazy, unrepressed memories and hypnosis. Before I knew it, I had a memory that a female relative had abused me. But it followed the same path as it had with incest from my dad, that it felt horrible. Had bits and pieces of remembrances unrelated to sexual abuse and objects. And with my mind trying to string it, string it all together, only to have that experience and then to say, this just does not feel real.

Escalating and Expanding Recovered Memory Allegations

Kim [00:44:36] It moved to three male relatives, either through hypnosis with Ruth or self hypnosis of three male relatives sexually abused me. And then in group therapy that I had been raped. And with that, with that rape experience, there was a woman in the group who actually had experienced a rape, and she helped me get home. I was so upset after this experience. And I said to myself, after this experience, if all of this, this has

Kim [00:45:13] happened to me, I. I must surely be out of my mind. I must be just a walking zombie. I am a walking zombie. How could anyone have experienced all that I remember experiencing, plus

Kim [00:45:33] repressed incest, repressed sexual abuse by a female relative, repressed sexual abuse by three male relatives and

Kim [00:45:41] a rape and be able to even survive in life?

Kim [00:45:47] And I went.

Kim [00:45:49] I went home and I told my husband about this rape. But as I was telling him, my mind was saying to me, I don't feel like somebody who's been raped. This does not feel real. This feels like I put pieces together to try to make a story out of these fragments of things. And then I made a decision. Okay, maybe enough. You know, this was very expensive too. This was really expensive and time consuming.

Kim [00:46:19] And I was falling apart.

Kim [00:46:21] And I said, enough, enough, enough already. I have to take my chances. Enough. And

Kim [00:46:34] my bishop had come over. He. He was part of the stimulus in this. The same one who had got the referral for Ruth Kilpak in the first place. My husband had asked him to come over and he sat with me and my husband had told him about, now, this rape, supposed rape.

Kim [00:46:51] And this bishop said to me, kim, I don't know what happened to you, but you're falling apart. This isn't working. For you, I think you need to try something different like that. And I felt a relief when he said that, like I was having permission, I could quit this.

Kim [00:47:19] But no sooner did he walk out the door than I felt so angry at him. I had been taught that if somebody challenges my therapy, they don't give a damn about me as a human being. It's just self serving and I should avoid them at all cost.

Kim [00:47:41] They're bad, bad influence. So I was mad at him and I went to see Ruth and I told Ruth about it and she was mad at him and she said, what right does he have to say that, to say that to you. What right does he have to say that to you? But I nevertheless, I had had enough and I decided, I'm gonna stop this. Then something really amazing happened A couple of weeks after I made that decision. I opened up our front door and there was a newspaper rubber band around it on the front porch.

Kim [00:48:21] And we didn't subscribe to the newspaper. And I brought that in and the COVID story on the newspaper was about false memory syndrome and repressed memories. And I read through that and it was just like as fast as I had joined the Mormon Church, as I talked about initially, it was like a finger snap of awakening.

Kim [00:48:49] This is what happened to me. There was nothing that I, aside from my mom questioning the motives of Rex, there really wasn't anyone in my life who had questioned repressed memories. It wasn't like we had, we could google things and stuff. It wasn't in that time.

Kim [00:49:17] There was no one who had. This was the first in four years, aside from my mom who questioned it. And I knew immediately that this is what I was going through, this is what had happened to me.

John Dehlin [00:49:36] And just two quick things just to reflect on the ending part of that story with Ruth Kilpak. Two things you mentioned. If they're persistent enough in the therapists and the groups in encouraging you to create or recover falsely memories, you experience ultimately this burst in memories, you know, again, the other women and the rape and all that, that just shows that that is the outcome. If you do it long enough, even if you're resisting, even if you're unsure, you do that, quote, treatment long enough, you're going to experience this burst of accusations.

John Dehlin [00:50:15] But also it was great, it was sad that your bishop put you on to Ruth Kilpeck. It's great that your bishop had the sense to say, this isn't helping you because this is damaging people. But then the final thing is you said you experienced that immediate resentment towards the Bishop for telling you to stop your therapy because these therapists prime you to target as enemies anyone who shows any skepticism or uncertainty about the treatment you're experiencing. And this is when families get ripped apart. They get ripped apart when your therapist primes you to make anyone an enemy who has any. Who dares ever question the therapist's approach or the memories that get manufactured in this scenario.

Kim [00:51:01] In my therapy, in the group at one time there was some talk about some women, some woman who had left the group and didn't want to pursue, repressed any memories anymore. And she was vilified. She was vilified and she was talked about as being inferior to the rest of the group members.

John Dehlin [00:51:26] Right? And as we listened to in that interview on Radio West, A Short Panic and a Life Cut Short with Doug Fabrizio and Alice Talmadge, who wrote a book called Now I Can See the Moon, A Story of the Social Panic, False Memories and a Life cut Short, which is a story about satanic ritual abuse, you know, recovered memory and claims of satanic ritual abuse happening in both Logan and in Provo Orem. Ironically, they talked about how journalists who during the time again showed any skepticism or questioned these SRA rumors or accounts. The journalists were vilified and in some cases run out of the business or demonized for showing any skepticism, even though years later, just like with the McCarthy hearings, just like with the Salem witch trials, many of these journalists were vindicated because these were false accusations levied against people in result in reaction to a social panic.

Kim [00:52:35] You know, I think that unfortunately, I think we see this a lot in our society related to this type of topic and other topics. Excuse me, let me take a drink. You have issues which are very, very complex in life. There is so much uncertainty in life. And then you have people who feel so strongly that their view of. Of an issue is the one true, true view.

Kim [00:53:20] And it's almost like they're ready to die, ready to die for the issue, even though it's so emotional. And the closing off of taking in other information to really try to make a critical judgment about an issue. I think we see that all over our society.

Kim [00:53:49] Just jumping in, not wanting to hear the other, hear the other side, and then having this certain type of. It is an arrogance and it is a naivete to take something so complex and to think that one really could ever fully understand it and not need to research and get other opinions and keep a somewhat open mind about the. About the issue instead of vilifying people who think differently.

John Dehlin [00:54:24] It's Tricky. It's so tricky because it's so emotional. All these things are so emotional. Right.

Kim [00:54:30] And so often we don't understand our own motivations for why we do the things. The things that we do or what we get out of having certain.

John Dehlin [00:54:40] Certain beliefs, but also not, you know, legitimate victims are so often ignored or not believed or told to stay silent or, you know, the perpetrators protected and, you know, things unreported or even if they're reported, they don't lead to convictions. And so that's what makes this so hard is that, yes, you want to keep an open mind, yes, you want to look at all sides, but, you know, you also don't want to just say that victims shouldn't be believed at all.

Kim [00:55:12] That's right. And unfortunately, sometimes people advocates for different causes, they swear allegiance to the cause and jump on the bandwagon for a cause. And in the name of the cause, they let go of some of their moral reasoning. You know, what kind of a therapist would feel comfortable encouraging someone like me to report their dad to the social services or to the police? What is that about? How can someone let go of. To me, that's so obvious that. How hurtful that could be based on no evidence.

John Dehlin [00:56:09] Right. Yeah. And that's. And again, that's what makes all this so frustrating and hard is that in 2019, what we're caring about is, you know, people like Joseph Bishop, you know, allegedly raping a female sister missionary in the basement of the Provo mtc, which we have him on audio recording at least once and I think twice with the Provo police admitting that he did things like that, you know, and again, Sterling Von Wagner admitting to Sean Escobar that he had sexually fondled him as a boy.

John Dehlin [00:56:48] And yet we have the church and we have the whole spotlight thing with the Catholic Church and priests and pedophiles and children being abused. But when there are these questionable techniques that are being used that can be a cover for institutions to sort of say, oh, any accusation made against us, it's all that recovered memory business. It's all that crazy satanic ritual abuse business.

John Dehlin [00:57:17] And it allows these false accusations, this hysteria stuff allows institutions to protect itself and dismiss credible accusations and accounts as they can just conveniently merge it all together and then dismiss credible accounts. And that's, again, what makes this so frustrating.

Kim [00:57:41] Yeah, it is, and it is very complicated. And I think that there are some things in place now that can help prevent this from happening in therapy now, like the emphasis, as you were mentioning, the education that you Received empowering, not having your own agenda, going where the client wants to go. How did I go through three and a half years of therapy in a four year period where I was falling apart instead of getting better? And the therapist never made note of that, that it wasn't working for me. I. I hope that therapists are better prepared.

John Dehlin [00:58:28] Right. Right. So if you're ready. So how did. What. When you ended things, if you're able to talk about ending things with Ruth Kilpak, did you like have a confrontation with her? Did you tell her you didn't like what she was doing? Did you just quit? How did that end?

Ending Therapy and Beginning Recovery

Kim [00:58:49] I told her I worded it, that I was going to take a break.

John Dehlin [00:58:54] Were you scared to tell her that? With the power differential,

Kim [00:59:03] I anticipated rejection, but I was so exhausted.

John Dehlin [00:59:08] You were done?

Kim [00:59:10] I was done.

John Dehlin [00:59:12] Did she get mad at you or fuss at you?

Kim [00:59:15] She seemed kind of relieved. And why? I'm not sure. But I do know that a woman had entered our group who had seen Rex Kokerhans for therapy and this woman was talking about that she liked him so much and positive things about him. And after that woman had talked about Rex, Ruth, after the group therapy had pulled me aside and said, you know, I know you heard, you know about that and probably better not to talk about Rex, you know, in this setting, like in the group setting and that. And at the time my mind had said to me, she, she doesn't, she doesn't want to take responsibility for what she knows about Rex.

Kim [01:00:06] She doesn't want to take responsibility for the things that she told me about Rex with this woman. Because this woman, she's got to validate this woman and like that. So I, I had a sense of like, maybe she was ready to, to move on to a new client. She had a waiting list.

Kim [01:00:27] There was a waiting list for individual therapy, there was a waiting list for group therapy. Maybe she was ready to. To move on to somebody who was going to stop questioning things. I have to ask myself why I never got to that point where, even though it was so long, why I never got to that point of accepting.

Kim [01:00:52] Accepting what they were pressuring me to, what might make me, make me different. Of course, leaving the door open that it is possible to have repressed memories. But as I mentioned earlier, the American Psychological association says that to totally repress so that you're not even aware that you were ever abused is quite rare.

John Dehlin [01:01:18] Yeah. And I read the statement and the APA basically says most people, if they were sexually abused, remember at least some are all that. It's rare, very rare for someone who is sexually abused to not remember any of it. You know, it's our baby.

Kim [01:01:33] So there was something about my. My personality, my background. My parents are both very independent thinkers. Something maybe about that. Something about my sense of right and wrong and about how I didn't want to hurt any. Take a chance on hurting anybody unless I was sure, unless I had some confidence that it had really happened. If it was. Was those things.

John Dehlin [01:02:15] Right. So tell us how you move from. From leaving the care of Ruth to. Of. Of Ruth Kilback to actually becoming kind of a public opponent of recovered memory or, you know, reparative memory.

Kim [01:02:38] Yeah. With the. The public advocate, I had to do it very carefully because I was still wanting to protect my family. And I did things using different names, like I'm. I'm doing this now. And I. In that newspaper article that I mentioned, I went to visit with that reporter that was one of those. I think they're called, like. Utah county had one. I was living in Orem, and Utah county had one, and it covered Utah County News. I went to visit with the reporter who wrote that article, and I got more information from him. And that article mentioned the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. And the False Memory Syndrome foundation was. Well, it came together. There were parents and others, professionals and people who knew the parents who were suffering by being accused of having sexually abused adult children when they were little.

Kim [01:04:00] And

Kim [01:04:02] they became a resource for me and were very interested in what I had to say, of course, and one of the families. So there was a local meetup of False Memory Syndrome foundation in Utah. And I went to that meetup shortly after I got this newspaper article and I visited with parents of a daughter who had seen Rex Kokerhans.

Kim [01:04:30] And they told me about their daughter's experience and how uncertain she was of her memories and that she said that she used to watch a soap opera sometimes before she had therapy, and that in hypnosis, the things she was remembering were things she saw in the soap opera as far as sexual type environments like that. And interesting with this family, the father had had an extramarital affair. And they were so surprised when I was telling them about some of the trauma I had been through and asking them if their daughter had been through trauma like that. And the couple had told me the father had had an affair and that they. They hadn't made the connection, that maybe that had done something to disrupt the sense of connection between the daughter.

Kim [01:05:31] When I learned that my.

Kim [01:05:32] My parents had had affairs, I felt so rejected. And I felt angry and resentful and scared.

Kim [01:05:44] And that maybe that creates an opening to contemplate if maybe your parent is possible of it.

Kim [01:05:54] No one would want to think that their parent would do that, even though

Kim [01:05:58] as an adult you understand how that, how that can happen. So with the False Memory Syndrome foundation, they provided me with resources and they, they. I gave them permission to share my name with reporters. And so I did some interviews. I was interviewed by Deseret News, using a different name, talking about my experience. And in other places I. I started to notice something as I was participating with the media. And this was really eye opening for me. I had an experience with television where I had opportunity through the False Memory Syndrome foundation to go on a TV program, a talk show.

Kim [01:06:57] I was on the show with a family, a mother and a father and a teenage son, where the daughter had gone through therapy and had accused the father, and then also with a couple whose daughter had therapy and had accused them. And we went on the program and I knew from when we went in the green room and the host of the program came into the room to introduce themselves, I knew that something was wrong. I had been really wined and dined by the producer of the program. And I think that she had some sincerity to her. She said they really wanted to expose about repressed memories and what could go wrong with this type of therapy and that.

Kim [01:07:57] And.

Kim [01:07:58] But when I was in the green room and met the host, as I'm saying, the way that person treated the family members and myself, very hostile, very hostile toward us. And then when we were on the, on the program, I remember the parents and I, we were looking at each other and saying, wow, what's going on? And then the program started and it became clear this was not any kind of interest in understanding anything better or understanding our experiences, shedding light on another side to what's going on. This was about trying to make us look like fools.

Kim [01:08:47] And

Kim [01:08:49] it was so sensationalized. And a supposed therapist who was some type of. A new age type of therapist who was planted in the audience. And just out of nowhere, the camera turns to this person and this person starts arguing against my take on my,

Kim [01:09:14] my experience and what these parents are saying and basically promoting that we've been.

Kim [01:09:24] Well, that I've been deceived and that these parents and that brother, that they're.

Kim [01:09:30] They're guilty as all get out and like I'm a pawn in this whole thing. And I had gone in disguise for this. The show had put a disguise on me. But that was a joke too. It was. I think it was designed to make

Kim [01:09:49] me look like a fool.

Kim [01:09:51] And when I came off the show

Kim [01:09:53] and went back to the makeup room

Kim [01:09:54] and they took off the wig and all of that, I could not stop crying. I was. I was crying so hard and for so long I had been traumatized because I was still freshly, freshly out of this. And I wasn't up for the.

Kim [01:10:21] The vilification. I was hoping for support.

Kim [01:10:25] I wanted understanding and support, but I didn't get it. And then I had a reporter from the Boston Globe call me and she wanted to interview me over the phone about my experience. But talking with my husband, we had decided that I had to really be careful. I had been in one obsession and there was so much demand for me to talk about my experience that if I wasn't careful, I was never going to get over what I had been through and I was going to just move from one obsession into something else. And so we made a decision together.

Kim [01:11:07] I'll do so much advocacy work and then it's time to really try to heal, try to, you know, like that. The reporter from the Boston Globe, I told her that and I told her it from the heart, still somewhat naive, told her from the heart. And she accused me of.

Kim [01:11:33] She. Villa. She vilified. She vilified me. She said, if you, if you really had this experience, if you had really had these, these awful things, if it's true, then you would want to talk to me. So there were have to be careful with, with the media because maybe they're looking for people who want to be heroes and people who they can get to validate their, their prejudged assessment of issues rather than to learn more about something or get at any kind of truth.

John Dehlin [01:12:19] Yeah, yeah, that's. So it's like triple. You have all the trauma of your childhood, then you have the trauma that your therapists inflict upon you, multiple therapists. Then you have the trauma of the media of trying to be an advocate. And that's just awful. I'm so sorry.

Kim [01:12:36] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:12:39] I'm just going to keep coming back to this. Like, I really want to interview people who claim to have experienced satanic ritual abuse. And I have to imagine that now that I've brought on you. And then formerly Dr. David Frankfurter, both are. Who are explicitly speaking to the elements associated with reports of satanic ritual abuse that are problematic, like the hypnosis, like the recovered memory, like the social panic element, like the long two millennia history of claims around sacrificing babies and eating babies. And I'm worried that people who really are legitimate victims are going to say, well, this isn't a safe environment to tell my story. I don't want to victimize them by number one, all the recordings that we've already done. But also I don't want to bring them on and feel like I'm interrogating them and not believing them. And that's what, that's part of what makes this so complicated.

Kim [01:13:43] That's right. I think we have to be, be so cautious and not just have a broad brush and say, oh, any forgotten memories that are remembered, those are a joke, you can't believe those. Or to say that anything that pops into your head through suggestive therapy techniques, you have to believe that those are real. A point I really want to strongly make is that I was aware when I was doing hypnotherapy and self hypnosis of my mind. True. Trying to weave these details into the goal of remembering sexual abuse.

Kim [01:14:28] And that when I have remembered things, trauma, traumatic things unrelated to sexual abuse, things that I had forgotten, what have you, they came with a power that there was no question in my mind that it had happened. If I'm unique in that, I don't know, I don't think anybody could tell us at this point if, if it's something unique or if, if all people who enter therapy and do any kind of thing to try to get at things from the past, if this is something they could be careful about. When I have done emdr, I have seen that I could so easily break into doing that again, taking something that feels real and making up a story in my mind with the, with the intent of piecing all these things together

Kim [01:15:27] into this, this scene with all the emotion that comes with it.

Kim [01:15:31] So I think, I think EMDR is a very powerful therapeutic tool, but it shouldn't be entered in to unless that therapist has a lot of experience with it and does nothing to pressure their

Kim [01:15:50] client to follow that therapist's agenda. Or, and that that therapist doesn't. Based on something that is remembered or thought to be a remembrance of that, that therapist doesn't put that stamp of approval on it. This happened to you. We, I can tell you, you want to be remembering this unless this really happened to you.

Kim [01:16:15] Therapists have to be really careful.

John Dehlin [01:16:17] Right? Yeah. And I'll just say for my PhD, EMDR was, was actually selected or validated as an imperial, empirically supported treatment for PTSD in certain scenarios. And it's used by the Department of Defense to Help treat soldiers with ptsd. That doesn't mean we understand how it works totally or why it works. And there are some CBT therapists that aren't big fans of emdr.

John Dehlin [01:16:50] At the same time, more and more, as the field of psychology has matured, like you said, coming out of the 90s and 2000s, there became this really strong emphasis on empirically supported treatments instead of more of the hokey folk magic, unsubstantiated sort of therapies.

John Dehlin [01:17:10] And both, you know, both, you know, some of these hypnosis techniques, the recovered memory techniques, but also a lot of the techniques around dissociative identity disorder and multiple personalities all fit in that category of really highly of both valid in some instances, but also highly suspected by professionals and others. And really quickly, someone asked, was dissociative identity disorder or multiple personalities a part of your therapeutic experiences either with Rex Kokerhans or Ruth K. Kilpak?

Kim [01:17:50] No, it wasn't. They also did not encourage me to go on any antipsychotic medication or to be hospitalized, unfortunately.

Kim [01:18:01] Woman.

Kim [01:18:02] The movie was Sally.

John Dehlin [01:18:04] Sally Fields.

Kim [01:18:05] Yeah. Sally Fields was in the movie about

John Dehlin [01:18:07] early late 60s, early 70s.

Kim [01:18:09] Yeah. I mean, that was really a popular, popular movie and gave people some ideas about how dissociative identity, diagnosis, what that's about, or multiple personalities. And a book has been written explaining about the actual person that that story was based on. She was a Seventh Day Adventist. And about the abusive therapeutic relationship she had with her. Her therapist. I highly recommend that.

John Dehlin [01:18:47] Yeah. And I'll just say one more thing, that it's known within the field of psychology that this phenomenon can be of sort of a clinical diagnosis becoming popular. So whether it's childhood, you know, childhood bipolar disorder or ADHD or again, multiple personality disorders, you can sort of see this history of diagnoses over time, over decades, where you'll have kind of slowly increasing or flat levels of diagnosis, but then there'll be some Hollywood movie or some scandal or some report or some popular story of a particular diagnosis, and all of a sudden you'll see this massive spike in diagnoses until it's sort of recognized. Whoa. We went overboard.

John Dehlin [01:19:41] We had way too many diagnoses. This. We were passing out diagnoses like candy, just like they're doing with opiates, you know, now. And we got to rein this back in because we're. We're way over diagnosing people, you know, at the drop of a hat. So this is just another dynamic that affects mental health.

Kim [01:20:00] Yeah. And when it came to repressed memories. Roseanne Barr in particular.

John Dehlin [01:20:05] That's right.

Kim [01:20:06] Was one who was very outspoken, saying that she had memories from six months old of being sexually abused. Repressed memories that she uncovered from six months old. And we know that there's childhood amnesia and that children can't go back to six months. And from what I understand, Roseanne Barr has now stepped back and she said that when she had said those things, that was a difficult time in her life. And she's not advocating for repressed memories.

John Dehlin [01:20:39] And oddly, she has ties to Utah because she was raised in Utah.

Kim [01:20:43] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:20:44] So who knows if she had a recovered memory therapist in Utah performing.

Kim [01:20:48] That's interesting.

John Dehlin [01:20:49] Might be that was influencing her. But. Okay, so. So you gave up the business of being an advocate against recovered memory and for false memory syndrome.

Kim [01:21:02] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:21:02] Because it was just kind of too traumatic for you.

Kim [01:21:05] Yeah, no, like breakup or anything. But I just told them, and they honored that. I told them that, don't send anyone more my way. I've had enough. And they honored that and treated me

John Dehlin [01:21:17] with respect because it's brutal. And, and again, I'm, you know, I'm, I know that there are going to be really strong SRA advocates that are going to be really mad at me and find ways to sort of say John didn't treat this perfectly or John was dismissive or John stacked the deck by the way he contextualized this or who he chose to interview in what order. And I'm, I'm just. I kind of entered this knowing that I'm going to get attacked for that. I've tried as hard as I, I could to be responsible, to show all sides, to give disclaimers out the wazoo. And I'm very eager and excited to find people I can interview who can provide alternative perspectives.

John Dehlin [01:22:02] But part of this business of applying skepticism in these very sensitive cases is that you're going to be demonized by one side or the other or both for trying to look at this objectively and fairly.

Kim [01:22:17] Yeah.

Kim [01:22:18] Based on my conversations with you before we, we did this, I took note that you, you were investigating.

John Dehlin [01:22:27] You were interrogating me. You were totally investigating.

Kim [01:22:31] I was.

John Dehlin [01:22:31] And what were you looking for?

Kim [01:22:35] I was looking for an open mind. I was looking for whether or not you had an agenda one way or the other. Because I am concerned about reality. And as I've said a number of times already, I in no way want to say that sexual abuse, incest do not happen and that it's not rare.

John Dehlin [01:23:09] It happens every day, every day.

Kim [01:23:10] I know. I know that it is not rare. And I listed my own sexual abuse history not related to any repressed. Repressed memories. And I in no way want to discourage anyone from seeking therapy

John Dehlin [01:23:30] or justice. Right.

Kim [01:23:31] Or if someone has that sense of authentication, if they have that sense of that their memories are authentic, that's only their business as far as I'm concerned.

False Memory Syndrome and Professional Accountability

Part 4 of 4 · Ep. 1317

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Sam Kim, where would you like to take this discussion next?

Kim [00:00:32] I'd like to go back and touch on something I didn't mention regarding Rex Kukerhans. So after I had made contact with the False Memory Syndrome foundation and had met with, I don't know if you'd call it a branch, but a local group of concerned parents and others that had some tie in to accusations of incest.

Kim [00:01:04] And I had visited with a particular set of parents whose daughter had also seen Rex Kokerhans and had had a similar experience of questioning her repressed memories that were coming out. These families were very upset with the therapist and rightly so, as they were being accused of maybe the worst thing a parent could ever be accused of, having sexually abused their own child or another child.

Kim [00:01:44] And it was decided I had no awareness of this until after it had happened. But it was decided that there was going to a small protest march outside Rex Kokerhan's office. So after I had seen him for this type of therapy, he had moved from my neighborhood. He had moved into a very nice, affluent. Affluent, that's the word. Very affluent area. The therapy business must have been going well. And he moved into a very affluent area and he started practice in a group with other therapists. And I know nothing about that group or what they were targeting, but I do know that that's what he did.

Kim [00:02:36] And that march outside his office, the people who participated in that march, they didn't want their faces shown because of the stigma of having your name connected in any way to an allegation of incest, even if you're marching to say I'm innocent and this therapist is incompetent. So they wore the drama masks on their face. And I believe they carried signs with warnings about the therapy that Rex was

Kim [00:03:14] doing,

Kim [00:03:17] trying to issue a caution to others. And

Kim [00:03:22] I had no part in. In that. But my husband and I, one day we came across Rex at a home, a home store kind of thing. And I didn't speak to Rex, but my. My husband did. And he was very angry with my husband. He seemed to think that my husband had set up this. This march and asked my husband if he was crazy or what.

John Dehlin [00:03:49] Had you set up the march?

Kim [00:03:50] I had absolutely no knowledge that it was going to take place or I didn't know anything about it until after it had happened. So I had nothing to do with that.

Kim [00:04:02] Another thing, when I left therapy with Ruth Kilpack and started being in and advocate for caution about repressed memories, there's a researcher named Elizabeth Loftus she's known as well. She has a fantastic reputation in the area of memory. She's done so much research about false claims and false allegations and also about false confessions.

Kim [00:04:35] It's important to keep in mind that sometimes people believe they've uncovered repressed memories and then they go to family members and they. And once in a while, a family member with enough pressure has said, oh, yes, I. Okay, I did do it. I did do it. And maybe sometimes that is a true confession. But keep in mind that the kind of pressure that was put on me to remember allegations or come up with allegations of sexual abuse, that same kind of pressure, and maybe even more so can be put on alleged perpetrators that maybe if you will confess, maybe I won't go to the media, maybe I won't tell everyone I know that you sexually abuse me. Maybe I'll let you see your grandchildren while we have supervision so you don't hurt, you know, hurt them. So.

John Dehlin [00:05:37] So even report. Even reports where a parent or other person admits that. That they were a part of some sort of abuse or even satanic ritual abuse can't be taken at face value. That's right, because they can be. Either their memories can have been pressured or distorted, or they could have been coerced into that sort of statement. Just like a police without supervision can coerce confessions from, you know, alleged perpetrators that are false confessions.

Kim [00:06:15] Yeah, if you.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] But then that means we can't believe anything. I mean, that puts us in a place where we can't ever believe anything. I mean, that's my fear. But keep going.

Kim [00:06:24] I think that that can, that can be avoided of never believing allegations, allegations of abuse, even ones where someone confesses to it. I think, I think common sense can guide us, can guide us in this,

John Dehlin [00:06:43] say you and evidence gathering.

Kim [00:06:45] And evidence gathering. Yeah. Say you have elderly parents. There are elderly parents and they have a daughter who is saying that. Let's go back 60 years. That 60 years ago those parents did something sexually abused. Say the father sexually abused the daughter, and she had no memory of it until she went to therapy. And then in therapy she started remembering that it happened. So how many years has it been since it happened to her? How many years has it been for the parents from that, that time period? And I think we're all aware that there are changes to memory as we

John Dehlin [00:07:34] age

Kim [00:07:36] to take those things into, to take those things into account. I'm not saying that every confession by an alleged perpetrator who's elderly has to be dismissed just because of their age or the time that that has passed. But there's ways to get corroboration. We have to have a line somewhere where we cut it, cut it off, you know.

John Dehlin [00:08:09] Yeah. And I'm going to say something that might be really controversial to some. When we think about Joseph Bishop and McKenna Denson and the fact that he had recently had heart surgery and then she interviews him and even though he had also admitted to the Provo police that, you know, and I even had some people express that concern, it's like, wait a minute, this guy's old. This guy recently had surgery. And so even though we have his audio recordings on tape, or even though he may have also confessed that to the police previously, could that be his own false memory or could he have been coerced into making those sorts of statements?

Kim [00:08:53] Yeah, he was a vulnerable man when he made those statements.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] And certainly Van Wagenen, too, is sort of later on in his life and, you know, he was being confronted. But again, he admits it. So it's complicated because I'm not in any way trying to say that Joseph bishop didn't rape McKenna Denson or that Sterling Von Wagner didn't molest Sean Escobar. Like, I think when you've got an audio recording of them admitting it, that's evidence that's pretty significant. But I guess, you know, like you said, we still have to use common sense and gather evidence. That's all I'm saying.

Kim [00:09:32] That's right. In whatever direction we can go to gather that evidence. You know, like when there are court cases at one time, clients, therapeutic clients with therapy induced memories, they were suing their parents for cash. Or sometimes there were. Were criminal charges filed and there were criminal trials.

Kim [00:10:04] And in a court system. Well, sticking with that for a second, from what I understand, that doesn't happen very much anymore. It's averaging about five cases a year where there's something about repressed memories. Most of the states have. Have made changes so that there are exclusions in the ways that repressed memories can be used as proof, as evidence, as evidence used as evidence.

Kim [00:10:41] So from what I understand, there are about five cases now. But what really made a difference was when parents who had been accused started suing the therapist. That's when there was a drop off in these lawsuits when therapists started to have to be paying.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] Right, right, right, right.

Kim [00:11:02] Taking responsibility, at least monetarily, for what they did.

John Dehlin [00:11:06] Right. Okay, so protests against Rex Kokerhans. Should we talk about the. The PACE memo?

Kim [00:11:20] Yeah, okay, let's talk about that.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] How did you get involved in that?

Kim [00:11:23] Okay, well, I don't. I was involved with Pace and being interviewed by Pace. As far as the connection to the memorandum, I don't know just what my interview with him, what, what exactly it was about. What happened is that I was contacted about going to meet with some official at the church office building to talk about my experience. I had written down not only what I have in this book that I mentioned earlier, but I had written an abbreviated version of it and I had submitted it to the, The. The church. The. The Salt Lake Church. I had submitted it to them. The Mormon Church.

Kim [00:12:18] The Mormon Church. To the Mormon Church. I thought that this my story. I thought that it was such important information for them, considering how the LDS social service employee who put me in with Ruth had no idea the kind of therapy she was doing and that she was taking a lot of money from the church as payment for therapy she was doing with women in her practice.

Kim [00:12:49] And just call me a do gooder. I wanted to help people. I didn't want anybody else to be hurt. And so I wrote down my abbreviated story and I sent it to them. And then I was contacted and asked to come in to talk. And when I went in to talk, I was with the.

Kim [00:13:16] I was with. Let's see, I was with one couple and I was with a brother and his brother. And with the couple, the husband had been accused of incest and they. Their daughter had seen Rex Cokerhans for the therapy and with the two brothers. One of the brothers was accused of sexually abusing a child.

John Dehlin [00:13:46] And so you're interviewed by. With others in front of Pace. He doesn't interview. I mean, that's kind of a sensitive thing to have other people being co. Interviewed with. That's kind of.

Kim [00:13:56] It was a pretty large crowd.

John Dehlin [00:13:58] Okay.

Kim [00:13:59] Yeah. It wasn't like a couple of men. It was a lot of men and everybody in the white shirts and ties.

John Dehlin [00:14:07] And. Was this before 1991? Because I think he wrote the date of the PACE memo, as I recall, is 1991.

Kim [00:14:17] No, it's after.

John Dehlin [00:14:19] So you're. Okay, so you were interviewed by Pace? Oh, no, it's 1990. So the Pace memo is June 19, 1990.

Kim [00:14:27] Okay. I was interviewed in 1992 or 93.

John Dehlin [00:14:31] Okay, so this is actually after. But by Pace.

Kim [00:14:34] But by Pace.

John Dehlin [00:14:35] So he's continued his investigations after the memo.

Kim [00:14:39] I. I only can think that's probably likely, but I can't say for sure.

John Dehlin [00:14:45] Okay, well, we'll have to correct what we write in the write up. Okay, but you were interviewed by Pace.

Kim [00:14:50] Okay. So I go in with this family, and I see that all of these men have copies of that abbreviated story that I had written. And the ones that are sitting closest to me, I can see that they've used highlighter to mark up the copies.

Kim [00:15:12] And Pace, he comes in after the main group of these men have come in, and he comes in and he sits near. Near me. And basically he's like, well, what would you like to tell us about your experience?

Kim [00:15:34] And so it was very tearful on my part. And I kept saying, wasn't it enough? So I was just freshly out of this. And I was saying, wasn't it enough, all that I went through as a child? Wasn't it enough to suffer all of that? Why did they have to go and try to convince me that there had to be more to account for the pain and compulsions I had?

Kim [00:16:07] And what was so confusing about this experience is that I was anticipating that they would feel for me. I was looking at them as my brother is in the gospel. I. They were big shots in the Mormon Church. They were leaders. They were the heart. In my mind, they were the heart of the church. They were the ones closest to Heavenly Father, closest to Christ.

Kim [00:16:39] They were going to feel my pain. And I anticipated something like this.

Kim [00:16:44] They'd say, oh, Sister, we're so sorry

Kim [00:16:47] that this happened to you. Would you like a blessing? I anticipated something, something like that, or an offer of, oh, Sister, I'm so sorry.

Kim [00:16:57] We're so sorry.

Kim [00:16:58] How can we help you now?

Kim [00:17:00] How can we help you?

Kim [00:17:01] Is there anything that we could do instead of that? No one said anything except Pace.

Kim [00:17:09] And he

Kim [00:17:13] was glaring at me.

Kim [00:17:15] He looked so angry.

Kim [00:17:18] And it didn't make any sense to me. I had no idea what to make of it. Then when I left, I thought, well, maybe they're so close.

Kim [00:17:31] They're so holy.

Kim [00:17:32] Maybe. Maybe they think I'm going to hurt people by sharing my story. Maybe something like that. Like they were vilifying me, too. But it was just very, very confusing.

John Dehlin [00:17:52] I'm just looking up his history. So Glenn Pace has a bachelor's and a master's in accounting from byu. So he's not a mental health professional, he's an accountant. And it says he worked for two big eight financial firms. So he's a professional accountant, I'm assuming in the 70s and early 80s. And he was a CFO of a land development firm. And then in 1980, he decided to take a job working full time for the LDS Church so he could focus more on spiritual matters.

John Dehlin [00:18:24] So anyway, that. So we know that his background is in accounting, not mental health, which I don't know in this case which would have been better or worse if he had a mental health background. Right. Given what we know about therapists sometimes at the time, but I'm sure most are responsible. But anyway, what we do know is that by 1993 or two or three, he would have already written the memo saying he believed all the SRA claims. And so I would guess he would have been offended or put off by people trying to claim that, challenging these claims and trying to say that this was a hysteria because he was on record with the brethren of having having been in support of these claims. I don't know. I'm just speculating now.

Kim [00:19:10] Yeah. And I. I don't know if I was even aware at that time what was. What had happened or was happening in lehi. I barely know the details of what happened, but I know it involved allegations of sexual abuse and a lot of people and children and a ward and all of that. So I definitely wasn't there to try to convince him that he had misunderstood anything.

John Dehlin [00:19:45] Right, right.

Kim [00:19:48] Yeah. I left there. I anticipated some kind of a follow up, you know, There was no. There was no follow up.

John Dehlin [00:19:56] They didn't offer you legitimate treatment?

Kim [00:19:58] No.

Kim [00:19:58] It was like they had sworn a vow of secrecy when I was there. Like none of those. All those men in that room, the only one who said anything was Pace. And then the man who initially welcomed us into the room told us where to sit. And then after we were done, all he said was thank you. I was waiting for empathy. I was waiting for the blessing. All there was was thank you. And then they filed out of the room and nobody said anything else. It wasn't any kind of a church type of experience. It was a shock.

John Dehlin [00:20:41] Nothing pastoral, nothing. And this totally is reminiscent of the Chris Swallow interview. I interviewed someone named Chris Swallow who had been the victim of sexual abuse by Lowell Robinson, who ended up becoming a mission president and then a stake president.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] And in spite of Chris Swallow and two of his friends, family members, going to church headquarters, going to Earl Tingey, who's an attorney, and telling Tingyi, a general authority, about the sexual abuse they'd all experienced, same thing. Tingy had a legal pad. He's writing down everything they say, no compassion. It's all, get the information.

John Dehlin [00:21:27] No attempt at actually providing any reassurance, comfort, and a thank you, you were dismissed. Now it's over. And then no follow up for any pastoral care treatment. It's almost as if Curt McConkie trains all these people of how to do a deposition in a way that will gather all the information that could protect the church but control the environment. So nothing could ever hurt the church without any care or concern for the actual victims. And then just dismissing them to go their merry way and not following up. Because to follow up and provide therapeutic care would be some sort of acknowledgment of guilt or responsibility.

John Dehlin [00:22:12] And by the way, this therapist of yours, this therapy of yours, Ruth Kilpak, was referred to you by a Mormon bishop. And so the church would want to be very. They would be scowling at you and they would be wanting to minimize any risk on their part because, in fact, you had been. Ruth, you know, had been referred to you. So.

Kim [00:22:33] And that is so very unfortunate. It's so very unfortunate because pastoral care, spiritual leaders, what is their role? What are they trying to accomplish? I cried throughout the whole interview with. With them. I cried. And I was 27 years years old, a faithful young Mormon wife and mother with children who thought of them, who thought so highly of them based on nothing really but their reputation. And I. They sent me away. They sent me away empty. They sent me away with no comfort. They sent me away with no caring. They didn't want to help me. They wanted to take from me. They wanted my information for their own purposes, but they weren't interested in my welfare. That hurt.

John Dehlin [00:23:49] I'm so sorry. So where do you go from there?

Kim [00:23:56] Okay, well, so my husband and I had decided we were going to get on with our lives and hope for the best as far as my emotions and all of that.

Kim [00:24:08] And the farther I got away from

Kim [00:24:12] the therapy, the better that I felt.

Kim [00:24:18] So during my therapy, at some time with Ruth Kilpak, I had a thought come into my head and it was that, you know, the way that this repressed memory thing works, this reminds me, like, of the church. And at this time, I was very Orthodox, very faithful, would do anything except any calling. I was the one cleaning the toilets when they had church members cleaning the building. I was the one ready to do whatever I was asked to do, and my husband, too.

Church Response and Eventually Leaving the LDS Church

John Dehlin [00:25:03] So even though you had this really bad experience with church headquarters in Glen Pace, you didn't just leave the church offended. For how many years did you serve as an Orthodox, faithful member of the church?

Kim [00:25:13] Almost 30 years.

John Dehlin [00:25:15] After?

Kim [00:25:15] Oh, no, after. Let's see.

John Dehlin [00:25:17] So you're 27ish when this happens with Pace. So what age would you do?

Kim [00:25:24] I left eight years ago.

John Dehlin [00:25:26] What age would you have?

Kim [00:25:27] And that was about 92. So you do the math.

John Dehlin [00:25:33] Okay, I can't do the math, but I'm guessing at least a decade or two more. You served faithfully in the church. You didn't get offended and leave?

Kim [00:25:42] No.

John Dehlin [00:25:42] You stayed faithful and orthodox until some year. What year where you started having an awakening?

Kim [00:25:47] Eight years ago.

John Dehlin [00:25:48] Eight years ago. So 2011.

Kim [00:25:52] But throughout my. Throughout my membership in the church, starting in the first year, in the first months of membership, based on what I wrote in my journal during that time that I just have read through again, I didn't think I could leave.

Kim [00:26:12] I had it. I had bought into the idea that I was already in a lot of emotional pain based on my life experiences and my current situation, living at home with my parents. I had already bought into the idea that there was no chance of ever feeling better unless I was LDS within.

Kim [00:26:44] Maybe even before I joined, when I was taking the discussions, I bought into that idea and I saw in the therapeutic experience about the repressed memories. I saw some similarities, believing that I had repressed memories of sexual abuse was the only way I was ever going to feel better.

Kim [00:27:14] They told me that over and over and over again, probably at every visit, and that if I didn't remember, I would not heal, which would mean more suffering. Then there's the idea about the authority. So I accepted the therapists as authorities who knew more about life than me, knew more about how to be happy than me, knew more about how the mind worked than me, knew more about my own childhood than me.

Kim [00:28:00] I did that based on nothing. It was based on nothing. It was based on nothing in my. In my own experience. It was based on what I saw on TV about therapists, things I had read about therapists, assumptions I had made based on what society was telling me about therapists, people who, in my mind back then, people who made fun of therapy, talked about shrinks and things like that. They were like Archie Bunker. They were the unenlightened ones. And I didn't want to want to be. Be that. I wanted to be good and nice and smart and all of that. Same thing with the Mormon Church. I joined based on nothing. I joined based on what other people told me. It was what other people told me. Things meant other people's interpretations. I've come to understand that with the

Kim [00:29:15] therapy and with the religion, in. In both cases, it's somebody else's story, not my story.

John Dehlin [00:29:26] Joseph Smith's story. Right?

Kim [00:29:28] It's Joseph Smith's story about what worked for him.

John Dehlin [00:29:32] Stories in the Book of Mormon, stories in the Bible, Other people's stories.

Kim [00:29:36] Yeah, I'm not talking about literal stories. I'm talking about what they say about life, you know? And so in the therapy, it was just more. More of the same. I had no experience with remembering memories and healing. I was trusting. I was trusting authority. I didn't. I didn't know better yet. I was too young to know better yet. And I guess my life experiences had it. And also the horrible vulnerability of being. Being a victim of physical abuse, verbal abuse, watching domestic abuse, listening to domestic, domestic abuse, the sexual assaults type. I don't know what other word to use for it that I told you about that I never forgot. I was so vulnerable.

Kim [00:30:54] And I was vulnerable when I joined the Mormon Church because I was in

Kim [00:30:58] all that pain and so lonely

Kim [00:31:03] and it was so accepting.

Kim [00:31:06] Just like with the therapy.

Kim [00:31:07] As I mentioned, Rex, when I would talk during the therapy, he would just gaze at me with a smile. Like. Like.

John Dehlin [00:31:15] Like the missionaries.

Kim [00:31:16] Yeah, like the.

Kim [00:31:17] Like the missionaries.

John Dehlin [00:31:18] Yeah.

Kim [00:31:19] Okay. And I was. I was so important to him, you know, and he told me. He told me I was. He told me I was different from the other clients that he did therapy with.

John Dehlin [00:31:31] Right.

Kim [00:31:33] And the solution with. With living the LDS gospel, The solution for doubts you have about its authenticity or whether it's good for you, the answer is always work harder. You got to try. You got to try hard. Are you praying individually two times a day? Are you praying with your family morning and evening? Are you doing family home evening every Monday?

Kim [00:32:09] Are you attending all your church meetings? Are you doing your scripture study individually with your husband and with your family? You're not. Well, then how can you have any expectations that our, Our gospel will make you happy or make you feel safe or bring you peace?

Kim [00:32:32] You're a slacker. Pick up speed, you know? And that's what I would do many times over my 30 year history in the LDS Church. I would freak out about things that I would learn had happened in the history of the church or about attitudes expressed by members by the. By the church as a whole. Attitudes and that I would freak out. But I always blamed myself. Something was wrong with me. This was true. And I needed to get in line. And this was, this was just. You don't, you don't question this. This is just universal truth. This is how it is, period. If you don't get it, something's wrong with you.

Kim [00:33:20] Well, well, that's the same thing I did with the therapy. They had the truth. I worked harder. I did whatever they told me. I worked harder. I believed Them, I trusted them. I was misled.

John Dehlin [00:33:38] So that putting you on that hamster wheel of worthiness and, or shame and. Or hustling for love or healing, you know, you having to do the work to, you know, make yourself worthy, so to speak, that hamster wheel of hustling for worthiness you found in the church, just like in therapy, you're saying.

Kim [00:34:05] That's right. And it makes me really sad when you, when you say it, you know, that, that phrase, hustling for love, that still hurts. I took it all so seriously. I really thought it was life or death to believe in the LDS way or to believe in the memories. And I hustled. I really, I really gave it, Gave it everything. But in the result, the consequences were that I felt like more of a failure.

Kim [00:34:42] Because in doing everything, I think you can take this back to child abuse, you know, the physical abuse I told you I experienced in that, I think you can take it back to what happens when there's trauma like I experienced in childhood. What happens to that child? How does that translate into their everyday life where they feel like they're defective in some way? Why is my mom hurting me? You know, why is.

Kim [00:35:12] Why are these horrible things happening in my family? I must be responsible in some way. And hey, maybe I can control it. Maybe if I, if I be a good girl, let's be a real good girl. And maybe, maybe this, this will come to an end.

John Dehlin [00:35:31] Maybe they won't hit me.

Kim [00:35:32] Maybe they won't hit me. Maybe they won't abuse me. Both of my parents at different times had said things about me being responsible for them not getting along and stuff like that horrible burden to put on a child and untrue. And, you know, I carried that. And I was so looking for love. And so with hope. I don't know if human beings can survive without hope. And I needed it desperately when I was young and I joined the LDS Church feeling some hope. And then I needed it.

Kim [00:36:13] When I was introduced to this idea about the therapy with the repressed memories, I needed hope that my emotional pain could subside, that I could heal, that I could be whole. And in reality, what happened is that I left it. And I learned how to be an adult. I learned how to take responsibility for myself. Instead of turning to other people, authority figures or not, and expecting someone else to. To guide my life or keep me safe, I took adult responsibility for myself.

Kim [00:37:02] And I learned so many things. Critical thinking, critical thinking skills, not taking things at face value. I've learned so much about empathy. I really feel for people, whether they

Kim [00:37:26] are,

Kim [00:37:32] Whether they are accused or whether they are the accuser or whether they suffer from their own decisions. They've made bad decisions and they suffer like how I did. In the end, I think I have to take responsibility for what happened to me. I was vulnerable.

Kim [00:37:59] I got into something that was very destructive and could have killed me. There have been suicides related to repressed memory retrieval. Sometimes I thought I couldn't make it when I was doing it. But I think that I have to take responsibility because in taking responsibility, I am saying I'm an adult and I'm not going to delegate my behavior, my thoughts, my feelings. I'm not going to delegate them to anybody else because that gives me the

Kim [00:38:37] power, that attitude gives me the power to learn and grow in life. Just like in the Mormon Church. I came away with the Mormon Church when I was doing it. I got the, the, the teaching that if you make a mistake, it's, it's, it's big. You know, it's big. If you have sex and you're not married, we're talking big, really big. And it was the same thing with the therapy. You don't remember.

Kim [00:39:11] It's big. There's going to be big problems.

Kim [00:39:14] There's going to be a lot of punishment. There's going to be, there's going to be suffering. And another similarity is that those that think differently are inferior or, or weak. In the LDS Church, I remember many times at church people making jokes about people of other faiths making, making fun of the way that they saw spirituality.

Kim [00:39:45] And there was only one way, and that was the, the Mormon way. And those with different ideas are mistaken. They've been misled. They have part of the truth, but not 100% of the truth like the LDS people were said to have.

Kim [00:40:01] Also that critics are dangerous. With the LDS Church, we know you're not supposed to look at anything that might shed some different light on information. Avoid information and by all means avoid anybody who outright says they disagree. It's bad enough if you're doing something else, but if you specifically disagree, then that's really dangerous and you should avoid those people. So when I was doing the therapy,

Kim [00:40:37] I turned and the beliefs that came into my mind were about Satan, that

Kim [00:40:44] Satan was trying to destroy me. He didn't want me to remember. I was always pleading with Heavenly Father to let me remember.

Kim [00:40:52] So I, I turn to that concept of Satan, the cognitive dissonance that is. I would think that listeners could hear that throughout this whole experience, the cognitive dissonance Maybe people who experience a lot of cognitive dissonance are people who really take integrity seriously, that they, they take responsibility. They, they don't want to hurt any, hurt anyone and they want to be honest. I've always been a person who wanted to be very honest. Like when I was young, I remember my, my dad wanting to steal towels from a motel, which was a big thing. I don't know if it still is, but people used to do that. And I remember giving him a lecture, dad, that's not right. We don't do that. We didn't pay for that. We need to put those back. And unpacking the towels. I've had that kind of integrity in

Kim [00:41:55] my life and that kind of integrity when you're up against two things that you think could be possible. You don't want to make a. You don't want to make mistake. I know it's more than just about integrity. It has a lot to do with fear. Fear of punishment, fear of how you could be hurt if you make the wrong, wrong decision. Have to think perfectly, make the perfect decision.

Kim [00:42:30] The risk of losing identity by participating in either one of those things, my identity that I had before I joined the LDS church. Boy, I became what I was told what heavenly father wanted me to be. I married young, 19, had children, was pregnant within two months of marrying. I had had a four year full scholarship to university. I surrendered that to follow the, the goals that were given to me through the, through the LDS Church because I trusted them more than I trusted my own thinking, my own heart.

Kim [00:43:20] In the repressed memory therapy. Of course, I repeat this again. I trusted the therapist more than I trusted my own thinking. Then I trusted my own heart. But not enough to surrender to what they were demanding. I had to surrender to. So something won there, you know what, what one that

Kim [00:43:49] I'm going to have

Kim [00:43:49] to ponder that, you know, something, something outweighed something else in all of that. And I think it was love.

Kim [00:44:04] Yeah.

Kim [00:44:04] I think it was love for my family, love for fellow human beings

John Dehlin [00:44:15] and hopefully for yourself and for myself. Yeah.

Kim [00:44:19] And the idea of vilifying those that

Kim [00:44:21] leave it, that happens in the ld

Kim [00:44:26] LDS faith and, and some of these conspiracies.

Kim [00:44:31] Yeah. And the recklessness with power. I look back about things that I learned through conference or the ensign and at church and that the lessons, I

Kim [00:44:48] look back at some of those and

Kim [00:44:51] I think how very reckless, how very, how very reckless and how very arrogant to mess with people's lives like that, to say their own opinion, to present their own opinion. As Heavenly Father's will or God's will and threatened the punishments associated with not accepting. Accepting it. And how reckless. Like what. What has happened with the. When they weren't going to baptize the kids that had a gay parent or whatever. How reckless is anybody taking the time to possibly count the cost that might happen with some of these directives that have been made throughout.

Kim [00:45:45] Throughout.

Kim [00:45:47] Did Joseph Smith ever take the time to count the cost about what would happen to a young orphaned girl who he was telling her that she was meant to be his wife? And the pressure. Who, who's counting the cost of all these bold proclamations? And who's going to take responsibility for them? We know that Oaks has said there's not going to be any apologies. They don't need to apologize. Well, why, why not? Why not when people are hurt? What's wrong with apologizing? How is that Christian? I don't understand that from a Christian viewpoint, but I do understand it from

Kim [00:46:43] an ego and a power and a money. A money viewpoint. No one has apologized to me from. With those therapists that I saw. Neither one of them ever apologized for anything that they said or. Or did. They went on doing their thing.

Kim [00:47:10] Ruth made plenty of money. I know she bought a TCBY franchise looking for places to put her money. And I know that the. It was Aspen something Therapy in Provo, over on Centre street in Provo. I know that that clinic goes on. Ruth had a. After her marriage to the bishop, she became a life partner with her, another woman that was also a therapist at the same Aspen something Therapy. That therapy practice goes on. I have no idea what they're. What they're doing there.

Kim [00:48:01] So we learn to. We learn to follow our own hearts, follow our own minds. We have nothing else. There's nothing else in this world that can supersede our own, our own sense of what's real in our lives. That's been a big lesson for me. I'm happy now. Miracle. My husband and I been married 35, 36 years. We're happily married. He's the light of my life and my best friend.

Kim [00:48:54] I came out on top. I survived this nightmare. It's a cautionary tale. Be an adult. Think.

Kim [00:49:08] Do your own research.

John Dehlin [00:49:13] Beautiful and so powerful. And yes, I'm looking up Aspen therapy. Aspen-therapy.com and there's a picture of Ruth Kilpeck. It says she's retired, but for some reason she's died. She has passed away. Did either, did either Ruth or Rex apologize to you?

Kim [00:49:35] Never.

John Dehlin [00:49:35] And did any of the bishops that referred them. Do you apologize?

Kim [00:49:41] The, the bishop that got the referral from Social Services, he said that. That. That man from social Services said that he was sorry that he referred me, that he wanted. Of. If he had known what she was doing.

John Dehlin [00:49:57] Okay, did that feel like an apology or an acknowledgement or something?

Kim [00:50:07] It was a validation. I got that shortly after saying I wasn't going to be going anymore and got the newspaper article and that it was a validation. But my, oh my, who is. Who's overseeing things? Who's making sure that things are. Are done in a way where people aren't. Aren't being hurt? It comes back to the individual.

John Dehlin [00:50:43] Right. And it sounds like. I mean, I want to say, how did you heal from all this? But if I had to summarize, you're basically saying, don't give your power away. Don't trust anyone who claims to have absolute authority. Don't trust any one narrative as the absolute truth. Use evidence and data and critical thinking to guide your way. Trust more in your own strength and resources than outsourcing. Assemble your own identity instead of allowing someone to hand an identity to you. That's what I'm hearing. You say anything else you'd say to

Kim [00:51:25] survivors of abuse, self acceptance?

John Dehlin [00:51:29] Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't buy narratives that make you feel worthy and are worthless and that everything's huge and that you're bad. Keep going. Sorry.

Kim [00:51:37] Yeah, that's. I like where you're going with that, John. Yeah. Self. Self acceptance. And I think that a crucial part of developing self acceptance is getting out in the world. The more that I've mixed with other people. You know, when you come. Come from a trauma background, there's a tendency to want to isolate yourself and be afraid of people and not know how to interact with people. But the more that I have gone out and taken on risks and challenges, and I had the point brought home to me that everyone has issues. We're all just human. Perfection isn't what it's cracked up to be. That that imperfection can actually help us to bond with. With each other, to feel for. To feel for each other, help each other, care about each other. If everyone was perfect,

Kim [00:52:45] that wouldn't exist. I think that's God. God given. I think imperfection is God given to

Kim [00:52:52] help us to draw. Draw toward each other.

John Dehlin [00:52:57] So kind of lower the stakes in terms of you, your catastrophizing mistakes. Have self compassion, self love, and don't hustle for love. Right?

Kim [00:53:12] Yeah.

Kim [00:53:13] And a big issue for me was

Kim [00:53:15] the idea of not being judgmental.

Kim [00:53:19] When I read that in my journal from that first year of being a

Kim [00:53:22] Mormon when I was 17, boy, I,

Kim [00:53:29] it was, it was pretty, it was pretty dramatic that I felt that I had to.

Kim [00:53:37] You know, there's that, there's that thing about accepting other people as they are, but also knowing how to say, how to have a boundary to talk therapy talk, how to say, I don't like this, I don't want to be part of this, I don't like you, I don't want to be part of being around you. Or I disagree, we'll have to agree to disagree. But I don't have to agree with you and please you. So you'll be nice to me, so you won't hurt me, right?

John Dehlin [00:54:14] So be aware of ethical boundaries, ethical standards for mental health professionals. Read up on those codes. The apa, the American Psychological association has an ethics code. The American Psychiatric association has an ethics code. Marriage and family therapists, licensed counselors, licensed clinical social workers, they all have ethics codes. Become aware of what ethics codes are for mental health professionals, hold them to high standards, know what dual relationships are and what appropriate boundaries are, and become an educated consumer about evidence based therapeutic approaches to mental illness. Which is why I spent six years getting a PhD. I don't practice psychotherapy right now. I do some faith crisis coaching, which is not therapy, right?

John Dehlin [00:55:03] It's just like, hey, you're having a faith crisis. How do I help you get through that? That's a very different thing than treating trauma, treating eating disorders, treating depression, treating anxiety. I don't do that because I'm not licensed to do that. I'm qualified to do that. I can do that, but I don't do that because that stuff should be done under the rubric of someone who's licensed, but not just licensed, but well trained and professional and competent and someone who has a good reputation and who adheres to all the best practices, not only of the ethical codes, but also of empirically supported treatments that have evidence behind them as efficacious treatments for legitimate psychological diagnoses.

Kim [00:55:48] And when you're feeling a person is feeling down low, oftentimes they don't have a lot of energy. And then feeling anxious, a lot of times it's hard to concentrate. But for one's own welfare, one has to take responsibility and not turn it over to the therapist, has to research. Because even though there are evidence based practices, the key is in following

John Dehlin [00:56:19] how

Kim [00:56:19] it's supposed to be administered, how to do the techniques, how to do the therapy, and therapists don't always stick close to the guidelines in doing it. They can break off. And if you educate yourself, you'll know more. Not perfectly, but maybe enough to be able to make an educated decision about what's happening to you. I have just a couple of things. Expectations of therapy. To be empowered to see your life and relationships improving, to have less emotional suffering with time or better able to cope with what you have to accept and resolving problems or accepting. Accepting. What is that Courage to Heal book that I mentioned and the workbook, which are the bibles of the repressed memory movement. And there they talk about how it might take years, how you might stay in the suffering state of therapy for years before you feel. Feel better. I don't believe that. I don't believe.

Final Reflections and Lessons for Mental Health Consumers

John Dehlin [00:57:40] Probably helps therapists buy nice cars and yogurt franchises, but it probably doesn't lead to healing. Right?

Kim [00:57:48] Right.

John Dehlin [00:57:50] Yeah.

Kim [00:57:50] Yeah. And it's dangerous.

John Dehlin [00:57:51] Yeah. Super dangerous. Yeah. I received a message from a therapist that doesn't want to be named, and she writes, hey, John, good job on your SRA coverage so far. If anything ritual has ever happened and there is evidence that can stand investigation and prosecution, we would all be concerned, meaning mental health professionals. But I've never seen it. In 14 years of child abuse investigation and treatment, I've seen thousands of cases of sexual abuse with lots of evidence, thousands with lots of evidence. And few of these cases had forgotten memories beyond the preschool age.

John Dehlin [00:58:34] So again, she is saying that people tend to remember their sexual abuse. So we just. And then they go on to write, I've had clients with Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnoses, but it is rare and none of them have had SRA or recovered memories like are common with satanic ritual abuse.

John Dehlin [00:59:02] But then, you know, they go on to write why they're not wanting to use their name. She writes, I'm careful of being public and my skepticism about SRA as the advocates for it will demonize you. If you show doubt and claim you're part of the conspiracy, they will claim you are part of the conspiracy. And so that's. And finally, she writes, it's hard to disprove a conspiracy to the person who believes it. Yet we have an obligation to seek truth and follow evidence, especially when facing those who refuse to do so. So, yeah, again, it's like conspiracies happen.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] Follow the evidence. We all care about abuse, but we have to be responsible and we need to talk openly about this because it affects people. Well, Kim, I can't thank you enough for your willingness to spend five plus hours with us to talk about this super important issue.

John Dehlin [00:59:57] You're courageous. Your integrity, your wisdom. Thousands of people are going to be blessed by your willingness to tell these stories. And my hope is that at a minimum, people become better educated about these things and for whatever spectrum of sexual abuse or ritual abuse that is not legitimate, that your story will help people look at those cases and be able to identify the signs of illegitimate or non credible therapeutic techniques or evidence or accusations of abuse. Right. And so for that, I just can't thank you enough for coming on Mormon Stories.

Kim [01:00:44] Thank you. Thanks for visiting with me. Thanks for your work. It's making a difference.

John Dehlin [01:00:49] Thank you. Thank you. And for all of you who claim to be victims of satanic ritual abuse or ritualistic abuse within the church, for all of you who are supporters of people who claim to be victims, we want to hear credible stories. We are not here to just show one side of this. I know that you're going to be hesitant because, you know, we interviewed Dr. David Frankfurter who, who's an expert on claims of satanic ritual abuse. And we started with that because we don't want to be guilty, like I said, of perpetuating or advancing more hysteria. And we want to be informed in a broader context.

John Dehlin [01:01:37] He had never studied Mormon satanic ritual abuse. So all of his information was based on evangelical Christianity and Catholicism and, you know, satanic ritual beast claims going back all the way to 200 AD in the Roman Empire. Like that was outside the Mormon context. But I felt like it was responsible to start there, to set the context in the frame for the history of these sorts of claims, even outside of the Mormon context, but also within. So I know that SRA advocates or supporters or alleged victims are going to be frustrated that I started there. I felt like that was responsible. And then I also started with Kim next because Kim was one of the first people that reached out to me and we actually met face to face.

John Dehlin [01:02:23] I vetted Kim and she vetted me. Just like I will be vetting people who claim to have SRA experiences, I will be vetting you. I want you to vet me. But I hope that people who feel like they have credible evidence based claims won't be scared off by the fact that we started with skepticism and information and even with some, you know, critical perspectives on dissociative identity disorder, on hypnotic techniques, on satanic ritual abuse, on these sorts of claims. And I don't think anybody is going to be able to accuse me of being a shill for the Mormon Church of being me, of me being part of some Mormon, you know, conspiracy to cover these things up.

John Dehlin [01:03:07] I'm not. I have no stake in this game. There's nobody that's come to me and said, either way, you need to do this, or hey, let's have some conspiracy. There have been people coming to me who have said, john, I'd love you to cover satanic ritual abuse as people who are supporters of the claims. And I've told them I will do it, but I will have to do both sides.

John Dehlin [01:03:28] But I'm not anyone's puppet or pony. And I think Kim made it really clear that she left the Mormon Church a long time ago. Her final testimony certainly is not showing anything like sort of being a shill for the Mormon Church. So for all the conspiracy people out there, this is not about a conspiracy to cover up any claim anywhere. And we're certainly, again, not telling victims that their stories aren't true. What we are doing is trying to do an objective, honest, open look at this situation. And so now I am publicly calling for therapists, police officers, you know, victims or family of victims. If you have claims rooted in evidence that are credible, I want to hear about it and we want to have you tell your story.

John Dehlin [01:04:17] But just know we're going to have to have. We're going to have to have a review of the evidence or whatever evidence you have, because the last thing we want to do is perpetuate a hysteria or falsely accuse somebody and wreck lives as a result of someone's false claims. So that's what we hope we're going to be providing with you. In addition, for this series, we will be interviewing Sandra Tanner. We'll be talking about the Glen Pace memo in depth.

John Dehlin [01:04:45] And we hope to interview proponents of SRA in whatever form we can, if they're credible. So that's how we're going to continue the series. Thanks for joining us. Please spread the word. Thanks for everyone who supports Mormon Stories podcast. If you support this type of programming, Please donate@mormonstories.org 1050, 100 bucks a month, whatever you can afford. We're a tax deductible organization. We're transparent in our finances.

John Dehlin [01:05:11] All the money goes towards supporting these types of stories and communities, people like you. So please support us. And thanks to everyone who does support us. And please spread the word about this series to anyone you know who might care, because the more feedback and information we get, the more good we can do. So thanks for joining us again, Kim. Thanks for everything.

John Dehlin [01:05:32] Thanks to your husband John, as well, pseudonym John and for his support. I'm so happy for you. Your marriage surviving, your you guys thriving. And we just were again, so grateful for you coming on.

Kim [01:05:47] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:05:48] Take care, everybody. And thanks to Cody Layton, who is our video and audio producer and engineer. He does great work for us and we have to thank him. Take care, everybody, and we'll see you again soon. On another episode of Mormon Stories podcast.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.