Juxtaposition and Comparison of Temporal Relations

Paying close attention to temporal relations is often a very useful approach. Real or alleged temporal facts found in different places of a document, or in different documents, can be collected, juxtaposed, and compared. At what time did a certain event occur At what time did a certain person tell about this event – The analysis of temporal relations includes a large spectrum of techniques of different degrees of complexity. But even as regards the most simple pattern it seems to be a normal feature of the human cognitive apparatus to have immense difficulty in surveying more than two temporal relations, without the assistance of pencil and paper or other tools. And many written legal judgements clearly prove that judges are not more skilled than other people.

The table of the temporal relations that was presented at the beginning of this book, unambiguously reveals that Fanny Mollbeck "knew" what Elvira had experienced, before Elvira knew it herself. Consequently, Elvira's accusations against her father were not self-experienced events. They were fictive occurrences, which had been fabricated by Fanny Mollbeck. And Mollbeck was also the one who had indoctrinated Elvira into believing in them.

Even if this result were the only one I had achieved, my analytic approach would still be very powerful.

Other things proved by the time-table include the fact that Mollbeck had repeatedly lied about what Elvira had told her. And Elvira had no recollections of any sexual assault during the first police interrogation; and neither during the three preceding months. The absence of recollections was repeatedly tested during this temporal interval. Moreover, in the first police interrogation she was absolutely sure that no sexual assaults had occurred during the preceding 5½ years. Even her incest therapist testified that Elvira recounted no concrete events until after the first police interrogation. Moreover, when she finally got an image of her father lying on top of her, she asked herself whether such a thing had really happened.

During the first four police interrogations Elvira had no recollections of any of those crimes for which her father was soon afterwards convicted.

A different kind of temporal relations is that we can follow how Elvira's sham-recollections develop gradually over time. The early versions contain the typical misunderstandings of narratives concerned with things that are outside the narrator's world of experience. Elvira presented several non-sexual versions of the bedside event, before she has learned the "correct" version. She does the same with the consolation assault.

Mollbeck fabricated that Elvira had been hired out as a prostitute in sex clubs. In the beginning Elvira misunderstood this and said that in The Club of Deaf People there are lots of guys who rape her. I cannot see how we can escape the conclusion that the police officer was aware that Elvira did not tell the truth – and that she was equally aware of how to achieve a false conviction. She therefore carefully abstained from asking questions about who those deaf men were who had raped Elvira (e.g. so that they could be tried and convicted).

Things went so far that Elvira stated that the version she had told Mollbeck was not true, and she asked the police officer if she could accept accounts that were not true. And then Elvira recounted the same false story that she had told Mollbeck.

The police officer carefully abstained from asking what person had decided that this account was not true; and likewise from asking in what respects it was not true; and what different circumstances were true instead.

Since Mollbeck had invented the sexual events, Elvira's account could only have been false because it did not agree sufficiently closely with Mollbeck's fabrication. –Mollbeck should have been interrogated about the nature of the training session.

When Elvira stated that it was quite possible that the sexual assaults did not occur at all, the police officer applied a number of indefensible techniques in order to force her back into the role of an abuse victim.

The Mollbeck intervention pattern too is concerned with temporal relations. But this pattern is less easy to detect merely by juxtaposing and comparison. A special eye or a special gaze is needed. The crucial information is that important things will happen repeatedly when Mollbeck intervenes. On 1992-03-19 Elvira visited the general practitioner in the company of Mollbeck because of an entirely non-sexual ailment. Until this visit the general practitioner had entertained no suspicion that Elvira might have been sexually abused. But on the very next day she reported to the social services that both Elvira and Ingrid had probably been abused.

Here I shall list a few additional phenomena that it might be worth looking for, and which are connected to the temporal relations to a greater or lesser extent. We could look for turning points in the sequence of events, or for leaps, or for recurring patterns.

On 1992-04-22 Mollbeck met two social workers and communicated mendacious stories about what Elvira had allegedly told her (including the bedside event). From then on the social services firmly suspected sexual abuse.

Mollbeck's exact formulations were not audio-recorded. But she has said the same things to several persons or groups of persons. Unless we imagined that all of them had misunderstood her in exactly the same way, we can safely take for granted that she had really stated those things about sexual assaults by the father, which Elvira would later tell.

On 1992-06-11 Mollbeck followed Elvira to her incest therapist and was present during the entire session. This was the first documented occasion when Elvira accused her mother of also having abused her. In chapter 10 we saw that Mollbeck had fabricated all the accusations. It is therefore hard to doubt that the purpose of her presence was to ensure that Elvira delivered the right allegation.

Here I shall point out a serious error made by the therapist. Any responsible clinician knows that in some cases there is nothing wrong with the person who is referred for therapy. Instead there is something wrong with person who has referred him or her.

I once took a patient to a behaviour therapy clinic. I was treated in an off-hand way and was basically rejected. This is the correct approach. A clinician should in such a situation clearly demonstrate that he or she is not an ally of MS. The patient should feel free to say: "I do not think I need therapy, but this MS kept nagging about it."

In chapter 40 we shall examine some circumstances of the case of the girl with the phenomenal memory. During her testimony the psychiatrist involved in this case asked a rhetoric question: should she doubt a mother who had repeatedly complained about her daughter's lack of discipline – The only correct answer is that such doubt should always be raised, even as a matter of routine, and the doubt should be maintained until it has been refuted by the facts.





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Uppdaterad: 2009-11-19

Yakida