Kathy E <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
A psychotherapist being sued for $10 million for allegedly causing a
Katy woman to believe she had helped kill more than 100 babies practiced
in the "lunatic fringe of psychotherapy," the woman's attorney told
jurors Tuesday.
Attorney John Osborne said in his opening statement that Dr. Dorothy
Lurie did not practice "mainline psychotherapy," but a professionally
marginal regimen "that put patients under hypnosis and drugs to bring
things out."
Osborne is representing Kristi Jones, 35, in her lawsuit against Lurie,
who treated her between 1989 and 1994.
But Lurie's attorney, Bill Daw, told state district court jurors that
his client followed accepted professional techniques in treating Jones
for multiple-personality disorder.
He said Lurie has never used hypnosis.
"If my client was in the lunatic fringe, then the American Psychiatry
Association must now be considered the lunatic fringe because it has a
manual for multiple-personality disorder and how to treat it," Daw said.
The trial, which visiting state District Judge Pete Andrews said may
take up to two weeks, will center on the extent that therapists should
be held liable for following practices they believed to be acceptable.
Jones, who said she came to believe she had as many as 800 personalities
and ate the hearts of her own fetuses after being impregnated six times
by her father, sued her therapists in 1995 after dropping a lawsuit
charging her parents had subjected her to satanic rituals.
Jones initially sued some 20 therapists and doctors, Daw said, but all
the other cases have either been settled confidentially or dropped.
Osborne said a doctor who witnessed Lurie give Jones sodium amytal -- a
barbiturate that produces a hypnotic effect -- to "get to the bottom of
(Jones') Nazi programming" wrote a memo that the patient and therapist
had a "shared insanity."
The doctor threatened to quit the case unless Lurie stopped "this wild
abnormal method of therapy," Osborne said.
He also said Jones had no major psychological problems before she saw
Lurie, but the therapist helped turn Jones into "a basket case" after
Jones said she had been sexually abused at age 4 by a stepgrandfather.
"Dr. Lurie wrote," Osborne said, "that `The primary goal of my therapy
is for (Jones) to believe her memories are true, i.e., she was a
murderer and cannibal.' "
Because of her mental anguish, Osborne said, Jones has tried to kill
herself several times.
Daw said he would bring in "some of the finest psychiatrists in town" to
show Lurie followed accepted treatment procedure.
He said Lurie did not lead Jones to believe anything and that it was not
his client's job to confront Jones about her beliefs.
"My client did believe some horrible abuse was going on, but did she
ever believe the specifics? Did they ever discuss it in detail? No," Daw
said. "The kids (Jones' personalities) said they wanted (Jones) to
believe there was satanic activity, or we're gonna hurt her until she
believes us. To stop this, all Dorothy said is we should believe ... in
the abstract."
Lurie, 51, is principal of Hope Center Alternative School, a school in
the Montrose area for wayward youths. Her husband, Jean-Claude Lurie, is
vice president of operations for Whole Foods Markets.
She said she came to the Houston area in 1987 because her husband was
offered his present job. She completed a doctorate in school psychology
from New York University in 1986. She said she may have been a licensed
psychotherapist for one day before she first saw Jones.
--
Kathy E
"I can only please one person a day, today is NOT your day, and tomorrow
isn't looking too good for you either"
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