In a widely reported case, two Colorado therapists were sentenced to 16 years in prison each. They had conducted the so called "rebirthing" therapy on 10 year old Candace Newmaker because she had resisted forming a loving relationship with her adoptive mother. In this absolutely bogus therapy the child was smothered in a blanket, meant to simulate the womb, and taunted by the therapists to struggle free. At one point one of the therapists is heard to say on the videotape, which was made of the procedure, "You want to die, O.K., then die. Go ahead die right now." The girl screamed often for 40 minutes that she was having trouble breathing. Then she grew silent. After 30 minutes of silence she was unwrapped and emerged unconscious. She died the next day. Even before the therapists' trial ended the Colorado legislature had passed a law (called Candace's law) making "rebirthing" therapy illegal in the state.

    Recovered memory therapy is an equally bogus therapy, as noted social psychologist Carol Tavris has pointed out recently. We know that it has resulted in numbers of suicides, and untold numbers of devastated lives. It too ought to be declared illegal everywhere. And because new, harmful, bogus therapies are constantly emerging, no therapies ought to be tolerated that have not been scientifically shown to be safe and effective, as our movement has constantly urged. When will quality control come to the therapy field?

Information on Colorado case from The New York Times, June 19, 2001