Wicked Psychotherapists

The 80s Satanic Panic: The Media's Role in Fueling Mass Hysteria

• Erin Gray and Tanya Dos Santos • Season 2 • Episode 34

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In this episode of Wicked Psychotherapists, Tanya and Erin dive into the phenomenon of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. 

They discuss the mass hysteria fueled by the media, the involvement of mental health professionals in perpetuating the false narratives, and the widespread repercussions on society. 

Through the lens of the documentary 'Satan Wants You,' they explore how one book, 'Michelle Remembers,' led to a nationwide moral panic, the dubious therapeutic practices of the time, and the long-lasting impact on cultural perceptions of mental health and abuse.

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You are listening to Wicked Psychotherapists, a podcast where two psychotherapists show you that taking care of and learning about mental health doesn't have to be wicked hard.

Tanya:

Hey everyone, this is Tanya. Hi, this is Erin, and welcome to Wicked Psychotherapist. today we have a really interesting one. This is something that some of you, if you're a particular generation, if you're on the younger side, and by this, I mean, probably under 30, you may have heard of this, but you probably didn't live through it. But 30 and over, maybe you've had a chance, or 35 and over, or something like that, of hearing about it. So we're going to be talking about Satanic Panic, which was a huge phenomenon in the 80s, and I believe part of the 90s as well. Where there was this uprise in cases that were reported where there was Satanic ritual abuse. It's based in, occultist beliefs, satanistic rituals, and we are going to be kind of talking about it more in the frame of this documentary called Satan Wants You, which we watched and how there were many causes of this satanic panic, but there was a particular book that was written called Michelle Remembers that and it's subsequent popularity, I mean extreme popularity that really drove a lot of reportings of what turned out to be false cases.

Erin:

Yeah.

Tanya:

So this is a really interesting topic because it involves a lot of therapists, psycho, psychologists, psychiatrists that were involved in the reporting of these kind of repressed memories that became a huge thing, this phenomenon of people having repressed memories of being abused by satanic cults. And there were a lot of contributing factors. To that leading up to that but again this documentary focuses on this book It does kind of talk about some other things that went into it, but not as in as much detail. So We thought this would be good because of the role of therapists psychologists Psychiatrists and ethics and all of that and in popular trends how that affects Therapy and reporting.

Erin:

Yeah And it's Halloween time.

Tanya:

And it is Halloween time. So we got the Satan there and I got my, I got the Satan and the witchy stuff and I got, I don't know if you saw my three little witches over here. I've been

Erin:

admiring them.

Tanya:

Yeah, I like my little decorations, like a, just a, basically a an arm that's kind of decorated in, like, black lace, that has a black rose coming out of it, and it just looks kind of creepy. That does look cool. The nails are, like, sparkly black, too. I like that. That's fun. Yeah, so I just, I kind of put that over to the side because I don't necessarily want that in the background for therapy, but. That'd be really funny.

Erin:

That'd be really funny if you're doing therapy. I was like, your client sees this really creepy

Tanya:

hand. They're like, is that an arm holding on to a rose? Like, yeah. Did you murder someone?

Erin:

Yeah. Is

Tanya:

there someone hanging out back there? Yeah, is

Erin:

somebody in our

Tanya:

session? Yeah, that might creep them out and I definitely don't want to do that. Yeah. And we've also, we've got, you know, some you know, you're wearing black, you know, which is I am, yeah. Very witchy. I'm wearing my orange black polka dot shirt, which I described as kind of a clowny shirt, but I decided, yeah, clowns are

Erin:

scary.

Tanya:

Its are scary. I hate them. Yeah. So, and we also, I think you've got something that says Wicked.

Erin:

I do. Where is it? Yeah, it's kind of hiding. I don't know if it's showing backwards though. It's good

Tanya:

to be wicked. Yeah, Erin's got a sign that. So we have a lot of, you know, this is our time, right? We're the wicked psychotherapist. So we you know, I've got a fall background. Erin's got her, you know, the owls and, you know, she's got other stuff around her. I have some crows

Erin:

and stuff because I'm obsessed with crows, but I have them somewhere.

Tanya:

You are a crow girl. Yes that's awesome. All right, so let's get into it after that show and tell. Yes,

Erin:

show and tell for a podcast. I don't know how that works, but we'll make it work.

Tanya:

We'll figure it out. Yeah, it's we described it, so, I also got some, like, orange flowers back here, too, so. Yeah, I like it. There's some stuff.

Erin:

Yeah. So,

Tanya:

Yeah, I try to decorate, I like to decorate different styles. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just doesn't. It doesn't. So anyway, so let's start out with talking about this documentary Satan Wants You which focuses, like I said, primarily on the book Michelle Remembers. so there's a lot to unpack here. People that, if you haven't seen this documentary came out, I believe, in 2023. So it's fairly new, but it is describing a book that came out in 1980. And it has since been debunked. That's what, that's the description of it. I don't know the particulars of that, but it's described in, you know, a sense being not thought to be completely true. Yeah. So, basically just to get into this a little bit want to start off by saying what you think about kind of the book, like giving us a little bit of background about what's written about in the book and the documentary describes in terms of Michelle Remembers?

Erin:

So the book is about this woman, Michelle, and I can't remember her last name,

Tanya:

was Smith at that time.

Erin:

It

Tanya:

was, I know that's weird. I think that was her married last name because she was married, I believe. Funny, I can't remember Smith. It's like We didn't really refer to her to, her last name. Yeah, I just said Michelle,

Erin:

But she goes to this.

Tanya:

It's really funny. I do that all the time though. It's like sometimes I remember the most complicated last names and then I can't remember like Jones or something. Yeah,

Erin:

it's so funny. So this woman, she's been seeing this psychiatrist already for four years for depression and she's had a Miscarriage and so she's seeing him and she says that she's starting to have different memories They don't really talk about what happened before like why all of a sudden he starts recording But during the documentary they skip to the wife his ex wife the psychiatrist's ex wife and says that he just read or watched the movie Cibyl and they talk about a psychiatrist who has a client, back then they called it multiple he's like, oh, I have a patient that I feel is similar to this or I could do something similar and I could record our sessions and I can write a book. So he starts to record the sessions with Michelle originally it just starts as Short sessions, then they turn into six hour sessions. It's like almost every day. It becomes a full time job. Just talking. No, I can't. It's just, and just talking about things that have happened from like when she was like five years old, and she's claiming that her mother put her for 90 days, 80 or 90 days with Satanists. Who abused her, and abused animals, and did horrible things to her, and put her in a cage,

Tanya:

Really wild stories. Yeah

Erin:

really bizarre things, It's just really interesting because you're like, oh, this is just really works of fiction But the psychiatrist is I don't know. I was gonna say feeding into it, but kind of encouraging yeah, encouraging the wording of it because when you listen to the documentary it has Tapes that everything's taped. So you hear some of the way he's questioning or the way. Oh, so did you see demons? Oh, so did you do this? He's leading. Yeah. Oh, so was it, oh, was this when they sacrificed? Oh yeah, this is when they did this. Or is this when there were Satanists? Oh yeah. So it's very, It's difficult to listen to because it's so unethical in that sense, but it's like, you don't know who is manipulating who it's very disturbing on, on all fronts. When you're listening to and hear it about how the book was started and made

Tanya:

yeah And that's from our perspective now This was in the mid to late 70s that they were working together. The book came out in the 80s and There were a lot of things leading up to that, there were movies coming out like, you know, The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby right? Like, there have been kind of a lot of, you know, really spiritually based, you know, kind of like Satan, demons, good versus evil like culty kind of, sorry, a culty, like Satanistic themed movies. And the psychiatrist was very devoutly Catholic very devoutly Catholic. And you know, we have this viewpoint now looking back on it, but at the time this work was being done and we can now see that possibly The psychiatrist, his name was Larry Pos Posner? Posner? Posner? Posner?

Erin:

Posner?

Tanya:

I'm not sure, it sounded like they were saying Posner, but I think it's Posner or something. And, they, you know, it sounded like he kind of wanted this, to be able to write about, to kind of sensationalize, he saw with Sybil, maybe, you know, he said to his ex wife, like, oh, I want something like this. I have a patient like this, kind of thing. So you can kind of see the sparks of, oh, now looking back, all the pieces being connected, but at that point, This was just going and becoming kind of, you know, the basis for a book that would just explode in

Erin:

popularity. it became an obsession for him as a, you know, and if you're just like, Oh, well, yeah, well, authors do become like very immersed in their work, but then you have to remember he's a doctor and this patient is entrusting him so of course again, we're looking at now day in our day and age of different ethics, You know as a therapist and I'm sure a psychiatrist too, but it's just very Disturbing how he almost had it planned. It seems that this is what I want to do I want to write a book I want to become really famous, and I want to have the notoriety of it.

Tanya:

Yeah, it seems like that was kind of a driving force, and on the other end, hers was And again, this is all speculation, but it's just kind of what it seems from the documentary and from interviews with people that knew both of them, and hearing the tapes, and this is just kind of our thoughts on this, we don't know this for a fact, but seeing as how it's been debunked, we're probably not too far off, right? You know, and knowing this in the context of today with ethical considerations, but it seemed almost like his drive was maybe like, Ooh, this could really catch fire. I could be known as the psychiatrist that broke into like repressed memories and this satanistic ritual abuse, which became a thing. It was like, you know, acronymed like SRA. And it became a thing of like, Oh, this person is suffering from it. This is a hidden kind of epidemic. And. I believe with Michelle herself, she possibly, we don't know her motivations, but it kind of was speculated by people that knew her, like her sister, her younger sister was in the, and her older sister were interviewed, that possibly maybe she was Lonely, maybe she liked this attention that, that she was getting, but also maybe that there was trauma from this miscarriage and maybe this was a way of getting her psychiatrist to feel like he was paying attention to it. She was getting what she needed from it. And maybe there were other traumas as well. There were other things in her life. Not quite. Not this all, actually, but more you know, that they had Michelle and her sisters describe their father's alcoholic, had a gambling habit. He often got them kicked out of housing or like would cause fights and he would abuse their mother, you know, and so that was a lot, you know, that, that's a lot of trauma. Yeah. But it sounded like Dr. Posner, or Larry, let's just say Larry, I just call him Larry. Because that just sounds more appropriate for some reason at this point. But it sounds like Larry kind of really re tooled In some way, and maybe she kind of caught on to that, like, hey, let's look at it as being expressed in this way, somehow it came out in this way, we don't quite know what, how that came to be, but there was some sort of push towards that being the narrative, and that being kind of, that would meet both of their needs.

Erin:

Yeah, and you just, when you were talking too, it reminded me of what was said in the documentary, which I thought, which I was like, what? How is this happening? So I don't know if you remember when it first started they were like, oh, she's like, oh I have other memories, you know Because they're talking about what happened in her grief and then he let her lead it Which just seems so bizarre as far as like, oh, yeah, she just laid on the couch and then just Started talking about all of her repressed memory, almost like she was, and they described it like she was going into a trance, almost like she was doing her own self hypnosis or something.

Tanya:

That's a good point. That's really true. I didn't even think of it that way because, yeah, he wasn't guiding this hypnosis. He kind of was more like let her down it and then let her go.

Erin:

Yeah.

Tanya:

that's not typical for hypnosis. So it's almost kind of like he was saying this is the process and maybe he thought this is like the process, maybe this was, became the new process for like satanic ritual abuse. He

Erin:

probably was never, he was probably never trained in hypnosis or anything because it sounded like he's like, Oh, just breathe and just go do it.

Tanya:

Yeah, he didn't really come in very much other than to say, I know, and there was one part, And these recordings are disturbing. They're disturbing. The things she's saying, the content of it, but also her, like, screeching, not to say that she is not experiencing trauma, but the content of it is likely Probably been proven to be not true, right? Yeah,

Erin:

And some of the stuff that she may have felt, you know, Remember, she's saying this happened when she was five or so, and they lived with an abusive Alcoholic parent who she may have been hiding, you know, I'm just speculating She may have been hiding in a room with her two sisters while her father You know, like was abusing their mother, you know, who knows? what repressed memory she's actually was bringing back or what feeling she was bringing back.

Tanya:

Yeah, it's almost it makes me think of play therapy where there's symbols for imagery, right? Like, you know, if say you do like, some sort of, like, Sand tray therapy, right? Which is, you know, using a Sand Tray, using different figures to represent different things in a child's life. Yeah. If there is somebody who's abusive in their life or somebody who's doing something bad to them, they may pick a figure that represents something bad to them, like the devil. Or you know, if they grew up in a Catholic household. Or if the person leading you possibly sees that as the worst figure. It's almost kind of like it may have come out in that way because maybe he was directing it towards that or maybe that was her five year old imagination of interpreting that at this point because five year olds can be imaginative and to escape abuse. just to survive,

Erin:

right? And that doesn't mean that they may have something psychologically wrong with them. A lot of times for coping, people disassociate and people create fantasies to escape whatever reality is happening at that moment. And if it's really scary. You know, she may have blocked out a lot of that time or those years.

Tanya:

Yeah, like kids tend to make it make sense in their world, you know, if they're watching cartoons all day or if they're at school and they're being taught this material, which is very, kid friendly, right? And people are talking to them like children. But then you start to see this very confusing, scary, abusive, traumatic event and time after time and your parent acting erratically because they have substance abuse issues and they're getting kicked out of housing, you know, and things like that to make sense of that. It's really hard you know, we've seen it, I know, you have worked with kids in the past, Yeah. we have experience, both of us, with that, like, just in yeah, we were,

Erin:

yeah. it's hard and back then, she was a five year old, I think they said like in the fifties, right? Like the late fifties. Like, I think she's, so there was like less help for children and, you know, like, so they really,

Tanya:

therapy wasn't a thing.

Erin:

Yeah. And teachers probably were not really coached to help a child if they looked really sad or they looked malnourished or anything like that. Because if the mother is just trying to survive, you know, if she has an abusive husband like that. Yeah. You know, who knows how the children are taking care of, but the sisters seem like they were taken care of. They said that their mother was, it sounded like their mother was really lovely to them. You know, like the sisters just, you know, like it sounded like she tried.

Tanya:

Yeah, and that's not to say that maybe they didn't, like, they didn't talk about it, the sisters, but maybe they had their own issues with trauma, you know, and that's something you, you deal with for a long time, it could have been that this was, and again I'm speculating, maybe this doctor saw an opportunity to say, hey, There is something here. This may be able to be interpreted in a medium that would help me with, you know, kind of becoming, being able to write this book and have this thing be uncovered. And I don't know, maybe he really believed it because of his own spiritual beliefs. I mean,

Erin:

because he was like, cause that's one thing his daughter, cause they interviewed both the daughter and the ex wife. And the daughter said a few times, like he was a devout Catholic. Like he was, they were very. It wasn't a Sunday they missed, and they were into church. Yeah.

Tanya:

To the point where, when the mom had passed, she wanted her ashes cremated and put in a, in the vault, in the tomb vault, in the church. That's how important it was to her, like she, she wanted that, that was her request. and not to say that, this could not happen to a child, but this appears to have, there doesn't seem to be much evidence. I guess, you know, and it's been since debunked this novel, like the methods that were used to obtain this information seem to be very spotty, very unethical, because we learn later on that Larry, the psychiatrist, leaves his family, his wife and his kids to marry Michelle.

Erin:

Yeah.

Tanya:

And there were some questionable things along the way, like when, you know, she would have these sessions and if she was really tense, she had to be Cuddled with her shirt off, or something, like, to in a way handle it. And they had a table,

Erin:

And they took pictures of it? I don't understand. I mean, like, that's what I was, like, trying to wrap my head around. I'm like what instance would that ever need to happen? You know, like,

Tanya:

it's just like. I think that's insane to us. We would never, ever. Yeah, like. ever go anywhere near that.

Erin:

Like, I mean, like, that was like 101 in our ethics class. And when we were in school, like, yeah, do not, yeah, do not molest your patients. Don't there's no reason any of you need to have your shirt off ever.

Tanya:

Yeah. And I'm sorry, we are not obviously we're not laughing at if that was ever a case like that, of course, is completely wrong. We're just saying like, that's something that It's just like, like 101, like basics, you know, and here he is taking a picture of it and putting it in the book. That's right. It was in the book. And that's in the book. Yeah, that's right.

Erin:

Because it was either the wife or the daughter or someone was like, and he put it in the book.

Tanya:

The wife was like, that's when I saw that and was like, okay, that's what she saw the depth of it. Like, she kind of realized. They always thought of Michelle and the daughter and the kids, cause I think there were three kids on Larry from, with Larry and his ex wife Marilyn. But the daughter, Teresa was the one that spoke and said, she was always like a stalker figure. She was always calling. She was very needy. That's how they viewed her. And then this was before the book came out. And then they found out from the book that he was like, Encouraging. You know what I mean?

Erin:

Like. He was encouraging the behavior. Like, so much that he would give her the number when they'd go on vacation there were no boundaries because she was probably his girlfriend, too, at the entire time. It just, you know, who knows? Yeah, there's

Tanya:

speculation about that and the wife and the daughter are kind of speculating, like, we didn't understand why he married her. it kind of seems like maybe there was a protection in, like, spousal protection. spousal privilege or something. Maybe there was something that went on that Larry realized, oh, this could come back to bite me, you know, and so I don't know. We have no idea. We don't really know the full details of what went on in those sessions. All we know is the messed up results, you know, and what happens.

Erin:

And then after the book was published, it seemed like everybody, every. News organization, every talk show, like, you know, we have Geraldo and Sally Jesse, Raphael glasses, they had, like, all the key players back then. I think, yeah, I think I saw Maury too. I mean, like, it's just like, if you don't

Tanya:

know who these people are, look them up. This was like our childhood. Yeah, these are, these were our

Erin:

babysitters.

Tanya:

And they weren't, they were not good babysitters. They were not appropriate at all.

Erin:

But they went on every single one, even on a game show of like, guess who I am? Oh, that's to tell the

Tanya:

truth.

Erin:

Yeah. And so it just really like, and so they started talking about it then all of a sudden that's when the satanic panic really seemed to shift in gear, like in the early eighties, you know, all that because it's like, Oh wait, now it's, On all of our television, so, you know, you can't turn on a daytime television show or news or anything where they're not talking about Oh, is, you know, Ozzy Osbourne's causing your kids to go to Satanism, or Dungeon and Dragons, or this music, or the preschooler teachers are, it's an easy way for them to have kids go into Satanism. It's just like everywhere, which, you know, looking back now, even like a lot of the investigators were, who they interviewed, were saying like, this is, even then I thought it was insane. Why is everybody drinking the Kool Aid? Why is everybody believing all of this stuff?

Tanya:

It was kind of like a cult belief that got like a pandemic. Yeah.

Erin:

Yeah. And it was because, and the investigators and I think it was like, it was an FBI too, but some, they were talking about how, you know, they were seeing like, they were like, Oh my gosh. And they're, you know, like pinpoint pin in where it's all spreading and why it's spreading and just how ridiculous, but people believed it and people were getting arrested without any evidence. And. It's just, you would have thought that the whole United States just had. Thousands of Satanic you know, I was gonna say cult. So what are they called? Like

Tanya:

rituals? Yeah. Like, and abuse ritual. Yeah. Satanic ritual abuse. That's what they started to coin that term. Yeah. SRA. Because yeah. It became, all of a sudden when that book came out. And there were interviews. Then other people started to go to mental health professionals, which this is something we want to talk about, right? That it then became, because it was so much in the zeitgeist, it was just everywhere. And it was like kind of a belief that, Oh there's this underground thing that we haven't been looking at. There's something going on. There's this pandemic of. ritualistic abuse you know, because at that point the church of Satan had been approved as like a church. There was like always this fear of like, The other and how they're infiltrating and this must be, you know, kind of, if it's not good and pure and have all these symbols, it must be bad. Right. But these things were being brought up as repressed memories and therapy and all of a sudden there was an explosion of accusations in the thousands of like children being molested at daycares. There's the McMartin daycare, which is like an infamous case in the, I believe it was in the. The 80s that happened? Yeah, the 80s. Or maybe the 90s? Yeah, the 80s. Yeah. And I mean, it ruined people's lives because there was all this kind of, and it wasn't just the mental health professionals, like they, they were maybe the ones that were kind of like digging for these, like, it was assumed that everybody had kind of these repressed memories, if there was something going on. Yeah. And people reading that book. And then that kind of validated it. And then also you know, insurance companies were starting to pay for this brand of therapy. So it really became validated mental health therapy

Erin:

and the people who were. doing the therapy probably weren't qualified. I mean, especially because a lot of therapists back then weren't really, a lot of them, you could just get certifications and, or take one or two classes. And then all of a sudden you're a therapist, which That in itself is mind boggling. but a lot of people, it's not like they went to years school to become just specialized in satanic I'm sorry

Tanya:

goals for realistic abuse. Yeah, I was

Erin:

gonna say, but there's treatment goals or whatever, but like they, they can't

Tanya:

write it. Writing it, can you imagine writing that on a treatment? No, like,

Erin:

like, oh, well, this person, oh, this is my twelfth. Person that was in a satanic ritual or they're into satanism. I mean, it's very, I mean, it's you would think like in that, in those numbers, it'd be like, probably like one to three people in your, that you are in contact with are a satanist and doing satanic rituals.

Tanya:

And to mention, so there, there's a couple of things there, doing satanic rituals or the occult or whatever and through the church of Satan, it's not necessarily and I don't know much about this, but from what people were saying that represent this, there, there's not necessarily any type of abuse or anything that's like, this is just being, you know, worshipping in a different way. Yeah. I don't, again, I don't know very much about it, but it's. You know, having that association with that then brought the Church of Satan to sue Michelle and Larry because of what this book brought on and how it was defaming their name because they were like, we don't like sacrifice kittens and throw them at kids in graves and take unborn babies and stab them and have the mother stab them to death.

Erin:

Yeah, they probably just wanted to. Learn or talk about the fallen angel, you know, and that it probably was Probably a little more in depth, but it's you know, but yeah, it's really difficult they probably fought to have it recognized as a religion and now all of a sudden it's For lack of a better word. I was gonna say demonized, but Yeah, it's

Tanya:

Literally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that, that is kind of, that's, but I, and I also wanna point out, we are not saying that there is not abuse that can happen within, you know, a churches or the churches of Satan or people that do worship with satanistic beliefs. We're not saying that has never happened because there may have been cases, but this was. These were disproven. Almost, I mean, a huge percentage, an insane percentage were eventually proven by the 90s to say this was all false, falsely implanted memories that were known to be repressed. And that was a sign of the time it was satanic panic.

Erin:

Yeah, satanic panic. And it's interesting too, like that decade. Like the 80s to like the early 90s that it was just like anything, you know, cause there was all like music was such a huge thing cause it was like, Oh, well if you listen to black Sabbath or Ozzie or, you know, you know, anything like that, you're going to become a Satanist or you're gonna, you're worshiping the devil or games like, you know, dungeon dragons was a big one and you know, just other, you know, movies,

Tanya:

just

Erin:

any of that stuff was just really like. Gonna send you down the path. And like, and parents, you'd better watch out. These are the signs. And it's just very scary.

Tanya:

It was a warning, you know, it was like a kind of like, parents, you don't want your kids going to the dark side. But these things and meanwhile, I mean, there's so many other things to worry about, things like actual, you know, mental health issues, like, taking drugs or, you know, peer pressure or, you know, whatever, all these other things which came later, you know what I mean? we're having severe

Erin:

anxiety because your parents think you're a satanist and all you want to do is just be a kid.

Tanya:

Yeah, exactly. this book, the widespread popularity of it just hit the culture at the right time with all these like background movies and music and also fundamentalists. evangelical movements that also contributed, and I believe there was something that had been said that you know, there's kind of something like the moral majority or whatever, and then the rise of like the anti cult movement you know, kind of, Started to really have this narrative of like, oh, this is why kids are going to the dark side in order to kind of push them back over into these beliefs. There always kind of has to be an other. Kind of like the similarity with the village that we covered a couple weeks ago. Yeah,

Erin:

that will be releasing. They would have already listened to it by the time this comes out.

Tanya:

Yeah. So you guys have already heard that, but you already understand. If you missed it, go back and watch it. It's cool. But I was also thinking,

Erin:

I was also just thinking while you're saying that, I think also what really made this like the perfect storm of information or misinformation being sent out was this is when talk shows became popular, the 80s. So they had, so all of these. Platforms to talk about it or to sensationalize and all at all these parents and children and everyone's just listening to it. And so it's on every single station like a couple times a day.

Tanya:

Yeah. And there's all these sensational cases that are like being written about in like National Enquirer. And like,

Erin:

oh, yeah, if

Tanya:

you don't know what that is, it's like an old like, rag, you know, kind of exploitative magazine. That's what we consider clickbait, but

Erin:

TMZ today

Tanya:

worse. Yeah, like TMZ.

Erin:

But yeah, and there's always bat boy. Where is Batboy?

Tanya:

Oh yeah, oh my gosh, I remember that. It seemed like there was always something about Batboy. Poor Batboy. I never really got that. I was always what the heck? Who cares? I don't know, but like, I get it now. Like, yeah, like looking back.

Erin:

And now you realize like, oh wait they knew how to do Photoshop before we knew, like before Photoshop was a thing or whatever. They knew how

Tanya:

to stage pictures and make things look a certain way. Yeah, for sure. And you know, I also think there was it's also been said that Part of this was the development of, the struggle to recognize child sexual abuse. This was just becoming something that was, I think, talked about publicly. So there's, there was almost kind of like the pendulum swung to the other side to be like, Oh, there must be all these hidden cases because we've been ignoring it for so long. And now we're talking about it. And that's kind of, That kind of speaks to like our cultural response to things and still to this day, I think we do things like that, you know, where we kind of swing to the other side to be like, it must be this, like, like, how many times have we talked about like, you know, certain things on TikTok where it's like, Oh my God, everybody's a narcissist, everybody's this, like, we kind of always swing to the other side before it kind of comes to a conclusion. hopefully a medium.

Erin:

it's like the chicken little, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Everyone just feeling, you know, without really getting the information or really slowing down and saying, what is happening? So why is everyone all of a sudden doing these satanic rituals? What exactly was said? What exactly was heard? Why are we saying everyone's sexually abused? What is the information we have?

Tanya:

I think that's probably what led to in the 90s people started actually settling into this because, our culture started to settle down and see wait, we need to take a look at this. This doesn't make sense. And a lot of these cases are being misproven or people that had been in jail for like five years. Like their cases were finally turned over. Their lives were ruined. Their reputations were ruined. You know, false accusations from daycares. towards teachers, towards you know, parents, towards you know, people in the community, anything and everything. And again, not to say that, we can't say that all of these were false, right? Or that this does not happen, but this was a particular period where this was spurred on by this kind of wave of all that, the perfect storm of all these factors that really were largely proven to be false. And it's really disconcerting because, mental health professionals did play a role in that in validating that and absolutely. And I think what I really want to kind of take away from this is that we still have a lot of panics or a lot of kind of surges that we don't necessarily name, right? But we might be in the midst of them, these kinds of trends. And we've talked about this in our past podcast that we don't want to jump on and say, okay, so we need to look for this issue because this is something that's being uncovered. We still need to be very factual and kind of look at, you know, what details were given in session and not necessarily jump to conclusions based on trends, right?

Erin:

Yes. And that's something we always say, and we'll always. We talk about it a lot, like how sometimes like on TikTok or different things, people will see like, oh, now all of a sudden I feel like everyone I have in contact is narcissist or I have ADHD or I have this diagnosis, which is like, okay, well, let's get the facts and let's see. before You diagnose yourself, you know, it used to be, you know, like doctors would be like, don't go on WebMD, don't do this. And now, you know, we, as therapists, we have the right to make sure our client is safe and make sure that we have all the information correct and make sure they do as well.

Tanya:

Right. Yeah. And I mean, can we, our information is only as good as what our client is telling us. Yeah, what

Erin:

we're supplied.

Tanya:

It sounds like there was a lot of opportunity, not only in Michelle Remembers, in that instance, to be able to see that maybe something else was going on here, you know, that there is something that, not to say, not to believe, you know, your client,, there are particular things that I think could have been looked at maybe more critically. That would have been able to say, Hey, I'm not necessarily going to jump to this conclusion. You know, maybe it's not about this kind of, you know, panic that's going on that we need to uncover all of this. But let's look at something else, you know, let's try to kind of look at. The facts of what's being presented, is this maybe being presented in a different way? Is this maybe, has this person been staying at home and watching talk shows, you know, like, and getting involved in this and maybe thinking this is something because they have had a trauma.

Erin:

Yeah.

Tanya:

Maybe they just feel like it's this theme because this is what everybody's saying is being repressed.

Erin:

There's this

Tanya:

epidemic of it.

Erin:

Did they just see poltergeist when they weren't supposed to? Did they? You know, like, there's like. Some scary ass movies coming out in the 80s that I know I was traumatized as a kid.

Tanya:

Yeah, it was, I mean, there was a lot of insane stuff, like the Exorcist, I mean, people like threw up on that when it was shown in the movie theaters.

Erin:

Yeah, that was scary. I never watched it in the movie theater, but I saw it.

Tanya:

Yeah, I don't think I did either. I think it was very much just on TV, but it was, I mean, those things are, you know, if you really are, if you're seeing that, then you're seeing on like, oh, real life people are coming up with this is a phenomenon, and you're feeling like, I'm really depressed and there, maybe there's something with me, you know, because they might be giving out signs of saying like, Oh, if you're experiencing, you know, kind of trauma or this or that, and maybe you are experiencing something, there was a push towards that and that was not necessary.

Erin:

it seemed like around that time too, people like in their twenties and thirties were also in having these memories, you know, like of anything, but yeah, a lot of people don't because they were saying like, well, if you don't remember. your whole childhood or you, yeah, if you've had anxiety or had depression or had this or that, it may be this abuse or that, but a lot of times if you do have, you know, a traumatic childhood or any type of anxiety, even if you don't have a traumatic childhood, you're gonna have some blocks of memory and you have I have talked about that. There is a lot of disassociation that can happen when people have anxiety or people are depressed. And don't have abuse associated with it or if they do have abuse associated with it But it is very common. I mean, I've shared I have anxiety and there are sometimes I'm like Oh wait a minute What did I do two hours ago? Because I might have been a little anxious for the past couple little bit or what did I do? So it's really hard to Have multiple thoughts happening. So if you're just focusing on having anxiety or if you're in a very anxious state or very depressed state, it's often hard to really remember, you know, what may have happened.

Tanya:

Yeah, there can be, like, there can be blocks in your childhood for many different reasons. And again, they, it may be trauma. It may be, you know, it may be things that you don't want to remember. It may be things that you decided weren't going to be a part, you know, a part of you subconsciously, and that's how you managed as a kid. It may be just because you don't remember. We don't know until we kind of start to kind of, you know, put some of the pieces together But some, a lot of the themes are pushed towards like, oh, it's the satanic ritual abuse and I, that really needs to be taken on a case by case basis to kind of say, okay, we may never know why this is being blocked out, but. What's going on now? You know that we need to take a look at what's not working now You know and that may have to be you know part of it. It's you know, some therapists still use hypnosis I personally do not. I Don't feel like that would be something I would feel Comfortable doing yeah, and I have no desire to do that because I think you know brains can be tricky They can be very suggestible and you know I don't wanna to do that. Yeah. To someone if I'm not skilled in that and I don't feel safe in it.

Erin:

Yeah. I took a I took a training in it once like, you know, CEU, few hour training, and it was so, I don't wanna say bizarre, but I just felt so uncomfortable.

Tanya:

Hypnosis?

Erin:

Yeah, it was hypnosis. It was, I forget what it was called, but it was just, I felt like it was just, I don't wanna say a waste of my day, but it was just kind of like. I was like, all right, I'll never use this. And I'll never go to deeper training just because I felt like it wouldn't be very therapeutic for the client population I see.

Tanya:

Yeah you kind of decided it was not something that would, you know, be helpful. Yeah. At all. And yeah that's the way I see it, you know, and again, I'm not, for people that are trained in that and maybe use it and it's helped people, that's great. You know, there's different methods of doing that. I just choose to not go there. It sounds like Erin, you know, either, you know, I don't, I'm trying to work on like present day functionality and like if there are things that come up from the past or that are relevant to talk about from the past, That's something that, I let the, client tell me things and kind of say, okay, and again they could misremember. They could people say like, Oh, it's only from their perspective. You're right. That is therapy.

Erin:

Sometimes that perception that they had. It might be muffled or it might be what their truth is at the time and then as we begin Helping them process it. We're not putting words into their mind or we're not Saying it for them. It may change and it may shift because it might get clearer. That's not hypnosis. That's just Helping them along Helping them to remember the, you know, what may have happened and helping them process things in a different way.

Tanya:

Yeah. It's a very fine line. You have to be very careful with that. That's something, that's why we're so shocked at Larry's instance and having his client or his patient take her shirt off and say, and then, these stories coming out and being debunked and saying, well, how did that happen? How did we go down this? You know, like where did this come from? And how

Erin:

did he not instantly lose his medical license when that book came out? Like that's also like, what the heck, who, where were this governing body with that? You know, like if, you know, it's almost like his wife instantly saw that it's like, Oh, get in a divorce right away. but how did other people who read it not think like, Oh gosh, how did this person? Who's supposed to be, helping and healing this woman lay with her shirt off, and how is that therapeutic, or how is, how can that be not harming?

Tanya:

I think there was a time where it was very much believed, and they thought he had uncovered something, and that maybe he had on conventional methods. But still, there was plenty of time, because he didn't die until 2004, where these things maybe could have been questioned, and I don't know what happened with that. And that's actually, that's a good question. Who knows?

Erin:

So they were married a, they were married a long time then.

Tanya:

I believe I don't know how long they were married. I think it was probably like 10 years they got married. Like,

Erin:

I don't know, like the 90s or something or probably maybe the 80s right? Like when the book came out,

Tanya:

I think it was a little bit after I think it was probably in the mid 80s or so, but I think that. You know, as the, his daughter and ex wife, Larry's daughter and ex wife said, you know, especially the daughter, she was like, I could hear that he was kind of pulling away from Michelle, because he started to maybe realize that like, oh wait, this is not the best thing, Yeah, and he died in his, like, I believe late 60s or so, it was in 2004, so he didn't really have that much kind of, like, he had some flack in the 90s, but he hasn't had, like, all these years, like, nowadays, can you imagine if he were still alive? Yeah. You know, it sounds like a lot of, you know, he's a lot to blame for this. Oh, yeah,

Erin:

definitely. Yeah. Something where it's

Tanya:

like, she was just a, you know, some people were kind of making it out like, oh, she just wanted this husband. But I mean, he was the professional. Yeah. He was, you know, that's messed up. And also he was, you know, she was married too, but They both decided on this together, but at the same point, you know, he, maybe this wasn't as enforced as before, but she was his patient, you know, and that's that just does not settle well. And he married her. It's something that's gross and yeah, maybe, I don't know, no, I'm sorry. That's not judgmental. That's just that's, those are our ethics that we have. It's just,

Erin:

You don't marry your patients or your clients or. You know, you don't

Tanya:

have relationships with them that obviously there was something more intimate going on leading up to that. Yeah,

Erin:

you just don't you don't because You're at a level of power almost with your clients or your patients

Tanya:

there's a power difference. Yeah,

Erin:

It's not fair to try to Manipulate that it's not ethical.

Tanya:

No, it's not at all. It's it's really bad Actually, it's like, you know, cuz you hold this person's deepest secrets, their thoughts, their vulnerabilities. And you have all that. They don't have that on you. And then you're guiding them. And they're looking at you to guide them. Right. And that's that's an abuse of power. It's not okay. So yeah, I don't know. I guess maybe they overlooked that. Maybe they didn't want to go near that. Maybe there was a lot of shame

Erin:

I don't know. Well, I just found out he got married, he married, he tried to get his first wife. He tried to get the marriage annulled. Meanwhile, he had already been married to her for a while and had children like his first wife. And he married his. Patient. How did he try and get that annulled? On what basis? Because he's Catholic. How did he do

Tanya:

that?

Erin:

Because in the Catholic Church, if you get divorced, you can't get remarried again in the Catholic Church unless you have it annulled.

Tanya:

Well, that's his reasoning for it. Yeah. On what basis would he be able to? I mean, there's no reason to have it annulled. Yeah.

Erin:

There's no, no reason for annulment. Like, there wasn't abuse, like his wife wasn't abusive. If anything, she could get the marriage annulment. Yeah. That's what I was

Tanya:

saying. Like, I'm thinking. Yeah. Yeah.

Erin:

But, and then he married Michelle, I guess in 1980s, because it says in 1979, after rejected attempt at annulment, Pazder divorced his first wife and later married his former patient and co author Smith. So they were married for a little bit.

Tanya:

Yeah. And, I mean, I don't know, there was a lot of speculation as to why that was. This was a term. Protect himself? Was it, you know, did she, was she really needy? Was there, there obviously was some sort of odd dynamic that had been happening for a while. But, yeah this caused, not just this, like we said, there's other circumstances, but this was a big catalyst to this satanic panic. And a lot of, Just a very strange time, but also damaging and ruining a lot of people's lives. Yeah

Erin:

once again people don't understand how wacky the 80s were for all of us and many different ways.

Tanya:

for sure. And with that, I think we should probably close out because that's, that really is honestly the 80s are wack. That's the best way to sum it up. But yeah, if you wanted to look on this more the documentary that we watched was Satan Wants You, it's on Amazon Prime Tubi, whatever, you can find it. There's also some other books that were written that contributed to this as well, that have since also been kind of debunked. But and I'm, I wonder, there's probably some other books and resources as well, but yeah, we hope you Enjoyed, or maybe just learned something about this crazy period called Satanic Panic, if you've happened to hear the term. I kept hearing the term, I didn't really fully understand it until I kind of started looking into this. Yeah I,

Erin:

When we first started, when we're like, okay, well, we're going to try, because Tanya and I plan our episodes in advance. We're like, okay, October is going to be all Halloween and spooky and different things. And we're like, okay, let's talk about the 80s, Satanic Panic. And I thought it was going to be just Ozzy Osbourne. The speculation of him, you know, being a Satan is seen in a bat, bat's head or whatever. But it was like more than that, which it's, I found this documentary so fascinating and disturbing at the same time. So I do recommend it.

Tanya:

It's a point in history and it's something to think about now because there's things that do go on now. Yeah. Maybe they're not quite as widespread, but yeah, you know, look around and there's things that people have that are affected by trends that maybe there's not. You know, it's it has its basis and other motives or other things. Yeah. Narratives that are maybe trying to be pushed or covered up. Yeah, and they mention it

Erin:

and they mention it at the end of the episode too, and we don't have to go into to that right now, but It is interesting.

Tanya:

Yeah, for sure. It was eye opening. But that does it for us. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Wicked Psychotherapist on Facebook. We are The Wicked Psychotherapists on Instagram. Subscribe, follow, write us a review. That always helps.

Erin:

And don't forget, stay wicked. And keep your mind well. All right. Have a good week, everybody. Bye bye.

Tanya:

Bye, guys. And stay away from Satan. Just kidding. Just kidding. Unless

Erin:

you're a Satanist. Then stay.

Tanya:

Do what you gotta do.

Erin:

Okay.

Tanya:

Take care guys. Bye.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas It's a good one.

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Erin

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Tanya Santos

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