Between 1955 and 1967, the US Army conducted extensive LSD testing on soldiers at Edgewood Arsenal and other sites. Official reports, including the 2003 Veterans Health Initiative Report, have minimized the short- and long-term side effects of this testing, but the reports themselves document frequent and severe complications that the Army attributed directly to LSD exposure. Given renewed psychiatric interest in hallucinogens, the authors argue that the sanitized official account should be replaced with a more accurate description of the harm suffered by soldiers.
Individuals being treated for dissociative identity disorder sometimes report childhood involvement in organized, multi-perpetrator ritual abuse and describe being "programmed" by the perpetrators, feeling this programming is beyond their control. The author presents treatment strategies based on therapeutic neutrality, applicable regardless of assumptions about memory accuracy. In such cases, "cult alters" express allegiance to perpetrators and their ideology, while the host personality often feels a helpless victim, creating a victim-rescuer-perpetrator triangle. Perpetrator introjects can be engaged in therapy and become allies in recovery and integration.