A physiotherapist was sentenced on May 23 to a one-year suspended prison sentence, a fine of 20,000 euros and more than 300,000 euros in damages, for having extracted considerable sums from patients. These described a mechanism of mental control via “induced false memories”.
This 44-year-old physiotherapist was found guilty of abuse of weakness by the Paris Criminal Court. His prison sentence is suspended with probation, which includes a obligation to compensate the victims. The court also pronounced against her a prohibition to exercise his profession of physiotherapy for a period of three years.
In total, the defendant was ordered to pay more than 310,000 euros in damages to the victims or their relatives who joined as civil parties. The court also sentenced her to pay one euro to the departmental and national councils of physiotherapists, and 1,000 euros in damages to the ADFI (Association for the Defense of Families and the Individual) Paris Ile-de-France . Its president, Daniel Sisco, judged “Very important” that the guilt of the defendant has been admitted.
Victims relieved
At trial in February, the plaintiffs all recounted how the therapist induced them to have false memories of childhood sexual abuse, how they came to break up with those around them and pay large sums of money , sometimes several tens of thousands of euros (see below).
The defendant has never ceased to dispute the facts of which she is accused. Faced with the convergence of the prosecution testimonies, she simply conceded “the mistake” to have been “too close to these people”.
His lawyer, Maître Marie Dosé, felt that the court had “brought back a little sanity” in a matter in his eyes “instrumentalized” by certain civil parties and associations. She was not in a position to immediately indicate whether she would appeal.
One of the victims, Patricia Padovani, was pleased that the “grip” had been recognized. “Associations, we need them, they have a role to play”, she added. Lawyer for several civil parties, Me Olivier Morice considered that the court recognized that the defendant used a mechanism of “psychological subjection found in sectarian aberrations”.
Induced false memories?
Memory is moldable, modifiable, falsifiable. This is the reason why therapies specially designed to bring back “buried memories” are prohibited by many professional associations of psychologists, across the Channel or across the Atlantic.
The false memories induced, which can emerge in particular situations of psychological fragility and submission to authority (hypnosis sessions, psychoanalysis, even to another extent during police interrogations, etc.) have a reality proven by very much research in psychology. The “recovered memory therapies” are not to be confused with situations in which authentic memories suddenly resurface in certain contexts (return to the places of one’s childhood, for example).
Giving “unhealthy” money to “free it from the airwaves”
In the case of the physiotherapist’s patients, the false memories most often concerned acts of incest or abuse allegedly suffered during childhood. This is how one of the complainants wrongly accused her father of having raped her. The therapist “made me realize that my mother had tried to kill me when I was in her womb”said another…
In addition to the 100 euros in cash at each consultation, some patients gave a lot of money to their therapist. One, for example, paid him all of his severance pay: 75,000 euros.
According to the account of another patient, who had also been fired, the defendant asked her to get rid of this money who represented “security” and prevented him from moving forward. And if she wanted to give it to associations, she had to give him this money “unhealthy” for the “purify”, the “release waves”.
It’s hard to admit that you’re a victim
One of the members of the “group” gravitating around the therapist, described as sectarian, had sold her apartment to her for 61,000 euros, resold two years later seven times more expensive, without her finding anything to complain about (this person is not a civil party).
One of the patients had given large sums of cash to the therapist, resulting from the sale of stock options, which would be around 750,000 euros. This woman is a civil party, but refuses to be considered a victim. She had accused her parents of being at the head of a pedophile ring, spoke of orgies, child sacrifice, forced abortions, experiments on the brain, black magic…
At the end of the investigations into the defendant’s assets, given her high standard of living, the investigators believe, given her numerous trips to Thailand and Laos, that the money was invested or kept at the foreign.
the editorial staff of Allodocteurs.fr, with AFP