CHAPTER
20 – Dr Fisher and Recovered Memory Therapy
Carol’s medical notes
are horrendous, revealing a pattern of self-destructiveness at the hands of a
shadowy network of delusional therapists.
The records of Carol’s protracted psychotherapy are missing – yet her
therapists are alluded to time and time again by Carol’s doctors and
psychiatrists. The onset of Carol’s
terminal decline began in 1985 when Carol was aged 21 and working in full time
employment as a nurse. Carol complained
to her doctor about reoccurring headaches and was then referred on to a specialist
for further examination.
Mr I
Consultant
Ophthalmic Surgeon
5
November 1985
Thank
you for asking me to see this nurse who you saw recently, because of an ocular
problem but at the same time, she described intermittent headaches and you
noted a heart murmur. Her main worry is
about her vision and headaches, which she describes as right frontal headaches,
sometimes preceded by slight blurring of vision but without any definite
flashing lights. These attacks are quite
severe and may be associated with light sensitivity. She has tried analgesins
without benefit. Her symptoms have been
worse for the last few months, during which time she has been studying for her
finals which she has just taken, and at that time her attacks have occurred
once every week or so. During this
period, she has also been noted to have a rather labile blood pressure... I
gather previously her G.P. readings have been low normal. There is a moderate family history of
hypertension, and I gather one brother had possible migraine. She previously was a moderate smoker but has
given up recently.
On
examination she was slightly overweight and anxious, pulse 80 regular, blood
pressure 145/85, repeat 145/90. Heart sounds normal... Chest (was) clear. Rest
of the physical (was) examination normal including neurological examination.
I
feel the murmur is benign and of no haemodynamic significance. In addition her blood pressure seems labile
rather than definitely suggesting true hypertension. Her headaches could well represent migraine
but may well be associated with the recent tension of the run up to her
finals...
Mr
L
Consultant
Physician
To sum up, in 1985
Carol presented with nothing more than a common
headache – which appeared to be
symptomatic of migraine or examination stress as her studying intensified. The
‘brother’ who suffered from migraine was David.
He was admitted to hospital for tests. The headaches were diet-related
and he was advised to cut back on dairy products.
Apart from headaches,
the notes show that Carol’s health was otherwise unremarkable. She had mild
blood pressure, which was not thought to be serious. Carol’s headaches persisted, however, as is
made clear from the following (unsigned) letter:
23 June 1986
Dear
Mr L
Re:
Carol Felstead (DOB 08.06.64)
I
recently saw this 22 year-old nurse. Thank you for your letter and photocopies
of previous investigations. I note the
history of labile blood pressure. She
continues to have diffuse dull headaches, approximately once per week. There is no diurnal variation and although
she feels nauseated with the headache, there is no vomiting. There is no visual disturbance, nor aura, and
the headaches are poorly relieved by analgesics. She made no other complaints. There appears
to be no past history or family history of any significance.
Physical
examination was essentially normal and her blood pressure in the right arm was
120/85.
That statement,
‘there appears to be no past history or family history of any significance,’ is
a vital piece of evidence which demolishes the preposterous false history
summarized in the Life Assessment document.
There was no mention of Satanic Abuse, no mention of Carol being abused
and being impregnated by members of a Satanic cult, nor was there any suspicion
that Carol had been mute, neglected, maltreated or forced into child
prostitution. There is no grey area
here. Consultant doctors examined Carol
and concluded that her health was perfectly normal, and so was her childhood
and family history. From where, then, did those wild allegations about Satanic
Ritual Abuse and infanticide originate?
It is at this point that Dr Fisher enters the narrative.
The following letter
was the first in the notes to make reference to Dr Fisher’s influence over
Carol and to the early formation of a systemic smear campaign against us by Dr
Fisher and her associates who sought desperately to promote the concept of
recovered memory therapy.
Mr X
Macclesfield
D.G.H
27
November 1986
Re:
Carol Felstead DOB 8. 6. 64
This
22 year-old is a nurse, at present at Barnes Hospital.... In September, she
required to see Dr Fisher for psycho-sexual counselling about a family problem,
and I think these problems may have some bearing on her symptoms. It is difficult to say how much. Also in September, she saw Mrs T who gave her
a clean bill of health.
Thank
you for seeing her.
Mr
S
Consultant
Surgeon
So Carol was examined
by another medical consultant who could not find anything wrong with her. In fact Mrs T ‘gave Carol a clean bill of
health.’ That statement provides further independent evidence that Carol’s
health was perfectly normal, prior to receiving psychotherapy and psychiatric
input. In spite of concrete medical evidence to the contrary, Dr Fisher was
supposed to be treating Carol for a so-called ‘family problem’, the nature of
which is unspecified. That is not surprising because it didn’t exist.
The
term ‘psycho-sexual counselling’ is not defined in Carol’s notes. On the
surface, it appears to suggest that Carol was receiving counselling from Dr
Fisher for a sexual problem. But we now know that was not the case, because Dr
Fisher defined her treatment in interview with investigative journalist Will
Storr, published in the Observer Magazine
in December 2011. The passages quoted below are fundamental to understanding
the origins of Carol’s subsequent physical and mental collapse.
From the article:
Finally, we get to
the question of whether Carol’s memories of satanic abuse were recovered.
Initially Fisher refuses to speak about Carol. “I have a duty of confidentiality,
even after a patient has died. I was
never her psychiatrist or psychotherapist or anything like that.” She raises her voice. “I’m not a
psychotherapist, for God’s sake.”
Will
Storr: “According to her medical notes, she saw you for counselling,” I say.
Dr
Fisher: “No.”
Will
Storr: “I have the letter here, dated 27 November 1986, that says: ‘She
required to see Dr Fisher for psychosexual counselling.’”
There’s
a silence.
Dr
Fisher: “Psychosexual is the wrong term.... “
Will
Storr: “What’s the correct term?”
Dr
Fisher: “Uh, I really don’t know. People
come and tell you things that have happened to them.”
Will
Storr: “Things like abuse?”
Dr
Fisher: “Things that have happened to them,” she repeats crossly. “I’m not saying anything else. It’s not right that this woman’s privacy
should be breached in this way.”
Will
Storr: She’s shouting now.
Dr
Fisher: “She’s dead! She’s goddamned
dead.”
Will
Storr: “Was she (Dr Fisher) ever worried that Carol had lapsed into fantasy?”
Dr
Fisher: “Never, never.” she says.
Will
Storr: “By 1997,” I tell her, “Carol was claiming a government minister had
raped her with a claw hammer in Conservative Central Office.”
Dr
Fisher: “That’s not something I knew about,” she says. “It may have been
fantasy. I couldn’t say. In general she
was a common-sense woman.”
Will
Storr: “Are you aware of any evidence that any of Carol’s claims actually
happened?”
Dr
Fisher: “I never looked for any evidence.”
Will
Storr: “Then what made you believe her?”
Dr Fisher: “She’s not the only patient I’ve
had who told the same kind of stories.”
Will
Storr: “About Ritual Abuse?”
Dr
Fisher: “It turned out to be that, yes.
The people didn’t remember at first. They weren’t aware. They were memories they’d had a long time and
they just came out.”[i]
Let’s consider what
Dr Fisher said to Will Storr. At first
she pretended that she did not give Carol psychotherapy – conceding that point
only when the journalist quoted directly from Carol’s medical files. Dr Fisher admitted that she did not bother to
check Carol’s therapeutically-induced claims against the facts (“I never looked
for any evidence”), yet following Carol’s death she gave copies of Carol’s Life
Assessment to officers from the Metropolitan Police Service and Battersea
Coroner’s Court. It is worth reiterating
that the allegations contained in the Life Assessment were meant to have been
the defining traumas of Carol’s life:
At three years of
age, my mother smothered my sister who was born with Down’s syndrome; she sat
me on top of her and then set the house on fire... I became pregnant from the
age of eleven onwards and endured several abortions (as part of the abuse),
which were consequently sacrificed...
Another
document in Carol’s medical file alleged that Carol:
... Suffered
extensive physical and sexual abuse in the past.... She claimed she had disclosed her abuse to
someone at the age of 15 who was then killed in front of her by members of the
Cult....
But Dr Fisher did not
instigate even a rudimentary check to ascertain if these extraordinary claims
were valid.
Dr
Fisher’s statements to Will Storr about Carol are mind-boggling. She confirms
that, prior to receiving psychotherapy Carol could not remember being
abused. That is not surprising because
Carol wasn’t abused. In an earlier
interview published in The Sunday Times
newspaper in 2011, Dr Fisher told journalist, Daniel Foggo, that Carol had “no
knowledge” of any ritual abuse when she first saw her. “Very often” she said, “people who have had
difficult experiences repress them then they suddenly begin to come back in
dreams or flashbacks.”[ii]
Those
statements shed light on Dr Fisher’s delusional belief system. If Carol herself could not actually
‘remember’ being abused then who persuaded her that she was abused? Richard was
quick to pick up on this. “That showed,” he said, “that all of Carol’s problems
began and ended with her therapy.” As we
proceeded, and uncovered more and more evidence, we began to discover the
reality behind those words.
