Researchers from the United States and Germany, Wanda Karriker, Carol Rutz, Thorsten Becker and, Bettina Overcamp worked together to develop the three surveys. These international online surveys were for adult survivors (the EAS), for therapists, clergy, counselors and other persons that had worked professionally with at least one victim of extreme abuse (the Professional-Extreme Abuse Survey or P-EAS) and for caregivers of child survivors of extreme abuse and mind control (the Child-Extreme Abuse Survey or C-EAS). They were given consecutively over three three month periods in 2007.
The main reason the surveys were given was gather preliminary data on the type and extent of these extreme abuse accounts. The researchers wanted to generate a large number of responses, so they decide to announce and conduct an online survey. The survey questions were pretested, and all of the survey items were confirmed to have face validity. The target population of the study was defined by the researchers as survivors of extreme abuse.
Attacks
The researchers online servers experienced attacks at the beginning of the survey. The server that had the survey on it faced a lot of port scans at low and high ports and there were attempts to access non-existing server pages. These scans occurred on a large scale. The attacks used a great amount of bandwidth. The attacks lessened and after three weeks they almost ended. In the third month of the survey, there was an attack to hack into the server, but this attempt failed. There were also several attempts to get the private data of some technicians and surveyors. The first EAS survey however was successfully completed at the end of the first three month period.
Results
The three surveys gathered interesting results. Fourteen hundred and seventy-one participants from more than thirty countries answered at least one question of the first survey, the EAS, which was was given in both German and English. Sixty-nine percent of 257 respondents that reported secret mind control experiments on them when they were children also reported that they were abused in a cult. Sixty-four percent of 985 participants reported that they had memories of incest and 48% of 977 participants reported memories of extreme abuse before they looked for therapy.
Of the over 1000 participants in the EAS, 65% stated that they had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Higher percentages of this were found in the C-EAS and the P-EAS. High percentages of physical abuse, sexual abuse from multiple perpetrators and child pornography were found in all three surveys. In the C-EAS, medical evidence that was consistent with extreme abuse was found in 53% of 80 respondents, psychological symptoms consistent with extreme abuse were found in 91% of the 88 respondents and the symptoms reduced when the child was able to tell about the abuse in 78 respondents.
References
Becker, T; Karriker W; Overkamp B; Rutz, C (2008). “The extreme abuse surveys: Preliminary findings regarding dissociative identity disorder”, Forensic aspects of dissociative identity disorder. London: Karnac Books, 32-49. ISBN 1-855-75596-3
Rutz, C. Becker, T., Overkamp, B. & Karriker, W. (2008). Exploring Commonalities Reported by Adult Survivors of Extreme Abuse: Preliminary Empirical Findings. In Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations, J.R. Noblitt & P. S. Perskin (Eds), pp. 31- 84. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers.
