“Multidimensional child sex rings”: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract

Background: In 1983 Kennet Lanning began his studies dealing with sexual rituals, and in 1985 there calls “Multidimensional Child Sex Rings” identifying features and modes (Lanning, 1992). In his studies Lanning (1992), describes the types of offences related to the dimension of ritual abuse by claiming that there is no clear evidence about some of these crimes. On the basis of those statements Weir and Wheatcroft (1995) list as possible by declaring a false ritual abuse and then of false memories, the suggestion of special interest about the growing psychotherapists induced ritual abuse and who believe in the existence of these crimes.This systematic review of the literature, in the light of subsequent events and subsequent updates of methodology aims to analyze the relationship between “Ritual Abuse” and the false memory that can appear during psychotherapy. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out using the PRISMA guidelines, by conducting a systematic search of the literature on PubMed, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, EBSCO, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect. The following keywords used were “ritual abuse” “AND” (i.e., Boolean operator) “psychotherapy” combined with “AND” Boolean operator and “false memory”. Results: The initial search identified n = 167 citations. Only one research report met the predefined inclusion criteria and was analysed. Conclusion: In case of false memories in ritual abuse, it is necessary to implement the research activities to avoid that results obtained can be rejected by health professionals or by theories not scientifically validated.

Keywords

• abuso rituale
• psicoterapia
• false memorie