What made them falsely accuse their dads of sex abuse?

• Carol Felstead accused her father of impregnating her and running a satanic cult
• Her father Joseph believes Carol, who was found dead aged 41, would still be alive if she hadn't had therapy
• Maxine Berry, 45, falsely accused her father of abuse after regression therapy [...]

[Alan Whyte, a falsely accused father:] Yet despite all this, he says he doesn't wish his estranged daughter any harm: 'It is her therapist I am angry with. It is a disgrace he has been allowed to destroy our family like this.' [...] Since becoming popular in the U.S. in the Eighties, this therapy has been largely discredited because of its persistent association with what has been described as 'false memory syndrome', in which patients make untrue allegations - usually against their parents and involving sexual or physical abuse. 'Sadly, some psychotherapists are still using these dangerous techniques,' says Chris French, a psychology professor specialising in memory, at Goldsmiths, University of London.

'I [Maxine, 45] was worried about moving away from home,' she says. 'There was nothing seriously wrong, but I think the school counsellor felt out of their depth and referred me to a therapist at a private practice.' The decision led to hundreds of weekly sessions of regression therapy over the following four years, which caused Maxine to rewrite her happy childhood. 'I was given books on child abuse. As well as one-on-one sessions, I was put in group classes with women who said they had been abused. The therapists would holler at us, saying: "You know your father raped you." 'It was competitive. If one woman said she was raped, the rest of the group felt under pressure to come up with a worse allegation. The therapists kept asking me if my dad could have done something or saying: "You must remember this . . ." ' [...]

Names have been changed.

source: Article 'What made them falsely accuse their dads of sex abuse? How these women's claims were prompted by controversial 'regression' therapy' by Antonia Hoyle; www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4971972/What-falsely-accuse-dads-sex-abuse.html; Daily Mail Online; 12 October 2017