Abuse & Survivor Terms

This section names severe forms of abuse. Some of these terms are debated.

Organized Abuse (OA)

Abuse carried out by two or more abusers working together, often with more than one victim. It can happen in families, institutions, or networks. Trafficking rings are one example (La Fontaine, 1994; Salter, 2013).

Ritual Abuse (RA)

Abuse that is carried out in a planned, repeated way and uses rituals, symbols, or beliefs. The beliefs may be religious, but they don’t have to be (Lanning, 1992; Salter, 2013).

Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA)

Ritual abuse said to be carried out by groups using Satanic beliefs or symbols. The term became widely known in the 1980s, after the book Michelle Remembers (Smith & Pazder, 1980). There is no agreed-upon definition of SRA, so it is not a reliable term. The FBI’s investigator called the term “ritual abuse” confusing and misleading, and recommended not using it. He found little or no evidence backing up claims of organized Satanic groups abusing children (Lanning, 1992). A UK government study of 84 cases found no evidence of Satanic abuse. In the few cases that involved rituals, the abusers used them as a tool to frighten and control (La Fontaine, 1994).

Mind Control (MC) / Trauma-Based Mind Control (TBMC)

A term some survivors and therapists use for abuse meant to control what a person thinks, feels, and does, using fear, pain, or trauma. Psychology describes these effects with terms such as conditioning (learned responses), grooming, and coercive control. There is no evidence that a person can be made to act completely under someone else’s control (Stark, 2007; Marks, 1979).

Programming

A word some survivors and therapists use for trained responses that are said to be triggered by certain cues, such as words, sounds, or dates. In psychology, these are called conditioned or learned responses.

RAMCOA

Short for Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse. It is an umbrella term used by survivors and some clinicians. A person may have experienced one, two, or all three.

OEA (Organized and Extreme Abuse)

A newer term that some people use in place of RAMCOA.

MKUltra

A real CIA program that ran from 1953 to 1973 and tested drugs and other methods on people, sometimes without their knowledge. It was made public through U.S. Senate hearings in 1975 and 1977. The CIA did not find a reliable way to control a person’s mind (U.S. Senate, 1977; Marks, 1979).

The “Satanic Panic”

A term for the wave of SRA claims, news stories, and court cases in the 1980s and early 1990s, such as the McMartin preschool case.

Sources for this section: La Fontaine, J. S. (1994), The Extent and Nature of Organised and Ritual Abuse: Research Findings, London: HMSO. Lanning, K. V. (1992), Investigator’s Guide to Allegations of “Ritual” Child Abuse, FBI, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Marks, J. (1979), The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate”: The CIA and Mind Control, Times Books. Salter, M. (2013), Organised Sexual Abuse, Routledge. Smith, M., & Pazder, L. (1980), Michelle Remembers, Congdon & Lattès. Stark, E. (2007), Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life, Oxford University Press. U.S. Senate (1977), Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification, Joint Hearing, 95th Congress.