Ralph Underwager

Ralph Underwager (28 July 1929 – 29 November 2003) was an American minister and psychologist who rose to prominence as a defense witness for adults accused of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s. Until his death in 2003, he was the Director of the Institute for Psychological Therapies, which he founded in 1974. He was also a founder of "Victims of Child Abuse Laws" (VOCAL), a lobby group which represented the interests of parents whose children had been removed from their care by social services over abuse allegations, and he was a founding member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

Founder of VOCAL

Underwager first appeared in court as a defence witness for two of the accused in the 1984 Jordan, Minnesota case, one of the earliest attempts to prosecute organised child sexual abuse in the United States. On the stand, Underwager alleged that the children’s testimony of abuse was being coerced by social workers who used Communist thought reform and brainwashing techniques to convince the children they had been abused. [Summit, R. C. "Ritualistic Child Abuse: A report on the seminar presented by Professor Roland Summit for the New South Wales Child Protection Council, Sydney", NSW Child Protection Council, 1994, p 14] The accused couple were acquitted, and they joined with Underwager to form "VOCAL", a lobby group for people who had been accused of child abuse by social services. [Hechler, D. The Battle and the Backlash: The Child Sexual Abuse War. Lexington, Massachusetts; Toronto, Lexington Books, 1988.]

Within a year of its establishment, VOCAL claimed 3000 members in 100 chapters across America. [Meinert, D. "Two-thirds of all child-abuse reports groundless, says study", The San Diego Union-Tribune, 1985, p1-6] VOCAL members picketed hospitals, courts and social service departments who they characerised as staffed by “Gestapo-like” “fanatics”, “quacks and zealots” who remove children solely based on “rumours”. [Formanek Jr, R. "Child Abuse Waning", The Record, 11 November 1985, p1, Gentry, C. and P. Basofin "Group's Ad calls HRS "Gestapo-like"", St Petersburg Times, 17 October 1989, p1, O'Morain, P. "Irish Group Is Linked To Opponents of Child Abuse Programmes In US", Irish Times, 25 June 1996, p7] Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, VOCAL made several attempts to have legislation passed that would limit the powers of child protection services. Nationally, VOCAL campaigned to lift the burden of proof in child protection cases to a criminal standard, which would effectively prevent social services from intervening in cases of child abuse unless a conviction had been obtained in court. [Shirk, M. "Fewer Cases of Abuse Confirmed", St Louis Post-Dispatch, 23 September 1990, p1] In Florida, VOCAL lobbied to restrict mandatory reporting requirements, and to limit the definition of physical abuse to serious brain damage, broken bones or missing teeth. [Emery, E. and R. Flack "Plan would overhaul child abuse reporting / Lawmaker seeks greater protection for parents", Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, 13 February 1991, p1] VOCAL criticized child abuse prevention programs claiming that they create sexually sophisticated children who might ‘misinterpret’ innocent touch from an adult. [ Chung, L. A. "Abuse Experts Clash About Child Witnesses", The San Francisco Chronicle, 1 February 1985, p25]

Career as a defence witness

Underwager was a prolific defence expert for people accused of child sexual abuse. By the late 1980s, he had appeared in court on behalf of defendants in child sexual abuse cases more than 200 times in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain. [Grant, L. "Tricks of the Memory", The Guardian, 25 April 1994, p8] In court and in the media, Underwager claimed that 60% of women sexually abused in childhood reported that the experience was good for them, [Lightfoot, L., "CHILD ABUSE EXPERT SAYS PAEDOPHILIA PART OF `GOD'S WILL' - DR RALPH UNDERWAGER.", The Sunday Times, 19 December 1993] he characterised child protection investigations as nothing less then an “assault on the family as an institution” [Duncan, D. "Children's testimony in sexual abuse cases remains controversial", The Seattle Times, 3 May 1987, p B9] and he alleged that 75% of mothers alleging sexual abuse in custody proceedings suffered from a "severe personality disorder" that prompted them to manufacture false allegations. [Dvorchak, R. "Custody Fights Use Sex Charge as Weapon", Arizona Republic, 22 August 1992, 1-A8] He claimed that forensic interviews with children inevitably lead the child to confabulate an account of satanic ritual abuse because the “fantasy world of children is filled with mayhem, murder, cannibalism, blood and gore”. [Struck, D. "Little Found to Substantiate Accounts of Bizarre, Satanic Child Abuse", The Baltimore Sun, 29 December 1986] He claimed that all forensic interviews with children provoked this sadistic sexual fantasy life, creating “psychotic” and sexualized children who were “ruined for life”. [Smith, L. "Truth Can Be Victim In Child Sex Abuse", Chicago Sun-Times, 13 September 1992, p 30]

In 1994, Underwager received upwards of CAN$18000 in court fees and expenses for a two-day appearance in a Canadian trial. ["Sexual abusers possibly could escape punishment. Expert witnesses discredit children's testimony", Hamilton Spectator, 1994, p8] However, as his expert testimony was increasingly rejected by the courts, it emerged that he required all his clients to sign a contract stating that they would pay his legal fees if he was sued for lying on the stand. [Calof, D. (1994). “From traumatic dissociation to repression: Historical origins of the ‘False Memory Syndrome’ hypothesis.” Treating Abuse Today Vol. 4. No. 4]

Research project by Anna Salter

Underwager was the subject of a research project by Dr Anna Salter in 1988, who reviewed the accuracy of his academic writings and the manner in which he presented this testimony in court. [Salter, A. "Accuracy of Expert Testimony in Child Sexual Abuse Cases: A Case Study of Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield", New England Association of Child Welfare Commissioners and Directors 1988.] She uncovered systematic misrepresentations of research in his writings, as well as outright fabrications, and she concluded that Underwager was a “hired gun who makes a living by deceiving judges about the state of medical knowledge and thus assisting child molesters to evade punishment” [22 F.3d 730 22 Media L. Rep. 1852. Ralph UNDERWAGER and Hollida Wakefield, Plaintiffs-Appellants v. Anna SALTER, et al., Defendants-Appellees., No. 93-2422.United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. Argued Dec. 10, 1993. Decided April 25, 1994] In response, Underwager filed several unsuccessful suits against Salter, and began a decade-long campaign of intimidation and entrapment including hiring a private detective, fake phone calls that Salter later found had been taped, and threatening letters. [Salter, A. "Confessions of Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learnt", Ethics & Behavior, 8, 2, 1998, 115-124]

Interview controversy

Underwager was forced to step down from the advisory board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and curtail his public activities after controversy arose over an interview he had given to "Paidika, the Journal of Paedophilia". He was accused of stating in this interview that the decriminalization of sexual contact involving an adult and a child was a legitimate goal. [Lightfoot, L., "CHILD ABUSE EXPERT SAYS PAEDOPHILIA PART OF `GOD'S WILL' - DR RALPH UNDERWAGER.", The Sunday Times, 19 December 1993] Underwager claimed that "radical feminists who have self-styled themselves as sex-abuse experts" had taken the interview out of context and misrepresented his answers, reiterating previous statements that he believed "sexual contact between an adult and a child is [n] ever acceptable nor can it ever be positive." [Underwager, Ralph, and Wakefield, Hollida. [http://www.tc.umn.edu/~under006/Library/Misinterpretation.html Misinterpretation of a Primary Prevention Effort] ]

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