The therapist who planted false memories

I speak to Huey, from the investigative podcast, Dangerous Memories, whose life was shattered by a 'holistic healer'

I binged Dangerous Memories, Tortoise Media’s investigative podcast series, in two days (whom you might be familiar with thanks to their early hit, Sweet Bobby.) For those two days, I could think and talk about nothing else.

Over six episodes, documentarian Grace Hughes-Hallet tells the story of three young artists, whose lives were devastated by a controversial therapist, Anne Craig. The London-based Craig - who described herself variously as a teacher of personal development and holistic healer - planted false memories of childhood sexual abuse in her patients. She isolated them from their friends, their families and society, where the only person they were allowed to speak to was her. (You can read Mick Brown’s 2018 original investigation, here.)

I couldn’t stop thinking about the bravery of the women who told their stories. Who had re-traced years of pain and trauma, in the hope that justice might be served. I wondered what it had been like to ‘work’ with this healer. About what it took to leave her. About the mark this experience might leave on your life.

One of the women in the podcast, Huey, kindly agreed to an interview. This is a condensed account of our conversation.

Huey, you met Anne in 2011. You were 23 years old. What drew you to her?

I was feeling very lost. I’d just moved back to London [from art school in Florence] and I felt very vulnerable. I’d heard of this therapist from a couple of people I knew. I came to her with a lot of shame and self-loathing and some quite typical childhood stuff. 

Can you remember that first session with her?

My first session comprised us sitting in opposite chairs facing one another. I had a piece of A4 paper on my lap and a biro. She asked me to draw the house I grew up in and asked me questions like “what happened in this house?” Anne told me that she was getting a very clear image of a black high chair and that something had happened to me in this chair.

This really shocked me as I had been raised with a black painted wooden highchair. She told me many times that something had happened to me whilst in that black high chair, but she did not know what it was. She brought this up many times over the years we worked together. I left the first session carrying a strong sense that something awful had happened to me, and a sense of impatience and anxiety to work out what it was.

What did you find so compelling about Anne?

To this day, I have never met another human with as much conviction and belief as Anne Craig. It was the most powerful thing to sit in front of someone who does not have a shred of self-doubt. 

She had an answer for absolutely everything. For instance, she would say something really insensitive and if I challenged her on it, she would say “Ahhhhh, Huey. I am showing you your mother. This is an opportunity to work on your mother. Let’s work on it.” It was never, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that”. It was, “Everything is a clue about how awful your parents are”. It was all evidence of how much I shouldn’t trust anyone other than her.

As [another of Anne’s clients] Tory explains on the podcast, Anne managed to teach us that doubts are part of the trauma - the deeper the doubt, the deeper the trauma. It was clever. She was clever.

You quickly get into an intense, 24/7 correspondence with Anne, where she is the only person you speak to. You stop contact with your family, your friends. You don’t see your mum for six years. Do you remember how it happened? Was it gradual, or all at once?

She did not command me to stop speaking to anyone at first. It was much more subtle than that. Over the course of the first year, I would be told that people who do this work are ‘from the heart’ and people who do not are ‘from the head’. Heart is good, head is bad, and people from the head want to block people like me from getting to the heart, and the light, because they do not have the courage to do this work themselves and to face their darkness.

And so I found myself wanting to distance myself from friends and family who I was being told would threaten my chances of healing and living the life she promised I would live, if I completed her work. I pulled away gradually but then at some stage I sent messages to anyone who reached out telling them that I was on a journey and needed time and space away from them. Anne would help me construct these messages and check over them before I sent them.  

What were your days like in those years?

I would wake up in the morning and take an hour to write down my dream. I would then analyse the dream [using methods provided by Anne] which would take 1-3 hours. Afterwards, I would call her, and while she was looking at that dream, she would give me work to do from the other dreams. By this point I wouldn’t have had breakfast. There were times I felt I could not stop for meals, because it was seen as blocking my emotions. 

If I didn’t have my part time job that afternoon, I would carry on writing. I’d go on a walk and I’d see all these signs: I’d overhear a conversation, or see the way a bird would land on a ball and it would all be a sign. I’d write about everything I saw - everything - to get to the deep meaning. Then I’d have another call with the other stuff she’d want me to work on. It was like that for six years. Every single day.

What’s so crazy is I didn’t have a second to breathe. My whole day was filled with this nothingness that was everything. 

Listening to the podcast, it feels like Anne wanted to be your entire world. Were you allowed to do anything other than talk to her, or journal for her?

I was not allowed to watch television, listen to the radio, read a book or a magazine. Everything was [considered] a distraction [from her journey.] I was once given an upgrade on my iPhone. That was a distraction and Anne said I would be tracked on it. I had to give it back to the shop, to be destroyed, and I used my old Nokia whilst still paying for the new iPhone contract. The only time I spoke to anyone other than Anne, was on a couple of afternoons a week when I taught art to kids, or briefly to my land lady.

How did you afford this daily therapy?

At the start I was paying for the sessions through money I earned as a portraitist. However, eight months into the work Anne told me that portrait work was from the head (as I was only painting peoples heads) and that this was keeping trapped in the head. I instantly gave up portrait painting, which I had spent the last four years training to do. I worked in a cafe instead and eventually ended up on benefits.

Anne charged me £100 for a session initially - which would last between three and four hours - which then went up to £120, which I paid for weekly. The work with her took up so much of my time and energy - it was all I focused on.

So it wasn’t a money spinner for her. One of the most shocking things I learned from the podcast is that as the law stands, anyone can call themselves a therapist. I think many of us don’t realise the differences between a psychotherapist, a psychologist and a psychiatrist. The latter two require extensive training. But a psychotherapist - and this isn’t to dismiss the thousands of extremely rigorous ones out there - is not a legally recognised or protected term. I could put a sign on my door today and start seeing patients tomorrow - with absolutely no training. I cannot get my head around that.

It’s shocking. No-one should be able to call themselves a psychotherapist without any training. I’ve since learned that it’s a major issue. I’ve met quite a few clinical psychologists who are having clients come in to them, saying, “I have just been working with a therapist for the last year and they’ve got me to believe I was sexually abused as a child” and the [clinical psychologist] then has to work through it all with them.

The Recovered Memory Movement (RMT), which begun in the 1970s and was scientifically discredited over 20 years ago, has a troubling history of planted memories of childhood sexual abuse. How long into seeing her did Anne begin ‘uncovering’ these memories - and what was the process like?

It happened from the start - say the example of the high chair. I had real memories of eating in the high chair and my mother still had the black high chair in her house and so I knew that chair was real. And in that real memory, Anne planted a seed that something terrible had happened to me in that chair. 

I would tell Anne all of my memories, tell her about all the members of my family and Anne would prompt questions relating to these memories and family members. For example she would tell me that she could sense there were things to uncover about my Grandfather, and suggest that he was an alcoholic. I would then be instructed to go home and write about my Grandfather as much as possible and see if any memories or information ‘popped out’.

The bigger and more extreme the conspiracies I would uncover, the kinder and more loving Anne would be. I would then of course start dreaming about the conspiracies I was writing about. Anne would tell me that the dreams held all of the truth and answers. Everything got woven in together and would support the narratives that she was suggesting to me. 

Anne would often be the one to tell me the graphic memories of abuse. We’d be in a session for hours and hours and I’d be crying, her telling me to look harder to find the memory, which I obviously couldn’t and so eventually, I’d be so tired, so upset, I’d ask her. What did she want me to see? She planted such terrifying images [which the podcast refrains from detailing]. It fucked with my head so much.

We had a four hour session once and afterwards, I was in this terrible pain. My guts were twisting and it felt like sulphur was trying to come up out of my mouth. I went to hospital but they couldn’t find anything wrong. It was a really terrifying three nights of this pain. That was one of my lowest point. 

Your parents tried everything. They wrote to parliament, they did interviews with the papers, they went to Anne’s house to try and talk to her, they try suing her. What’s really frustrating to listen to, is that even when the police investigate Anne, they can’t charge her with anything, because you are there of your own volition. 

From what I now know about this form of manipulation, even if they had kidnapped me, nothing would have got through. It had to come from me. The only way I would be free of Anne is if my light bulb came on and I chose to leave myself.

I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for your mum. She knows you are being psychologically brainwashed, but the police have to take your word for it.

I find it so shocking, in today’s world, that you can’t hold anyone accountable for coercive control, if it’s not an intimate or family relationship. My mum is petitioning to expand the legal definition of coercive control so that it includes professional settings - which has so far been denied in parliament.

During your last two and a half years with Anne - when things were at their very worst - you were a lodger in a woman named Lee’s house, in North West London. In the podcast, Lee describes how worried she was, and how confused. She could tell you were struggling - she speaks at one point about you burning your journals around the garden, as Anne had instructed; on another occasion, she finds you bashing the sofa cushions - but you couldn’t tell her anything about how and why you were living your life like you were. Anne swore you to secrecy about everything.

I was so mistrusting and distant when I was living with Lee. I remember at the start of living there I felt quite close to Lee and her two children and then Anne called me and told me that Lee was trying to block my spirit and my journey to the heart. She told me that every time Lee spoke to me and asked me how my day was, she was cutting me off from my spirit. I said, “What do you mean? I’m living with her, I can’t just ignore her if she asks me how my day was.” It was this command to never engage with anyone. To isolate isolate isolate. 

I think it was quite hard for Lee. I got very thin, because Anne’s philosophies made me so frightened of food. I think that really concerned Lee, having a young daughter. After two and a half years, she asked me to leave. Since doing the podcast, we had such a lovely chat on the phone.

That must have been cathartic - to be able to explain to Lee what you were going through at that time.

It was quite emotional. For her to understand it all. For me to say sorry and to answer all the questions she must have had. To be able to tell her that I was better now. That I was a mum. 

What has your process of recovery been like?

The worst thing about Anne’s practice is that it made me mistrust myself. Due to the intense psychological pressure she placed on me, I developed a form of OCD where I was plagued by random and catastrophic intrusive thoughts, which were very frightening. Anne would tell me that these thoughts were important and that I must write about them daily to find out what they meant. But this only made them worse and more frightening.

Once I finally got out of Anne’s practice, I saw a wonderful clinical psychologist and he was so refreshingly matter of fact. He explained that I had nothing to fear, that it was simply intrusive thoughts that often occur when we get stressed or very anxious. He explained that intrusive thoughts often range from random images to disturbing and violent ideas. Some people are more susceptible to them than others, but he reassured me that this didn’t mean I was mad or bad. He taught me how to cope with and manage intrusive thoughts.

Thankfully, it is now very rare for me to have them. But it took years of work before that realisation really sunk in. When I was seeing Anne, in response to my terrible fear-based thoughts, she would say, “This is all real, this is true, this has happened, this isn’t safe, you aren’t safe.” She would then start to weave and encourage a terrible narrative about my family.

You might not know the answer to this, or would prefer not to answer. But do you think Anne knew what she was doing? The pain she was causing you and the damage she was inflicting?

It’s a tricky one. There might have been times when she did and times when she didn’t. When my brain opens up to the possibility that she did know… It’s more painful to consider that she knew what she was doing. For someone to knowingly be that cruel.

[But there were clues] that she did know. When I had to go to hospital for my stomach, she called me and said, “Do not mention my name, do not say you were working with me”. Up until that moment, she had been heralding herself as a champion of her work. For her to call me and say this - I was so frightened. It was so confusing. She was the only person I had and I was in terrible pain and she was telling me to deny knowing her. Why would she have done that if she didn’t know what she was doing?

Anne maintained control by isolating you from everyone and everything. I can’t imagine the strength - after six years of that - that it took to walk away. 

I stopped speaking to Anne in the summer of 2017. When Anne was arrested she was told she could not contact any of her clients, but after six months all the charges were dropped. When we did resume contact, something had just changed. She stopped charging me for the sessions - I don’t remember why. I continued to work with Anne for another two years but there was a subtle shift. I started busking and becoming more financially independent and meeting people outside of the bubble I had been in with Anne.

One day I suggested that we spoke less - maybe once a week instead of every day. “Why don’t we just live our lives and then catch up as friends?” I said. “We’ll have more stuff to tell each other and just speak like normal friends do.” But she sounded hurt and suggested we cease all further contact. I spoke to her one last time after that.

It took a long while to get back in contact with my family. I met someone, and was to become a mother and he encouraged me to face my family and talk to them about my childhood. I began getting all these messages from old friends saying, “You’re back!” But I wasn’t, really, for a long time. I was quite mechanical. I think it’s taken a long time for my character to come back. It’s only now [almost seven years on] that my friends say that my tone of voice is starting to sound like it used to. 

It takes enormous bravery on your part, to re-trace the most harrowing years of your life. Have you been able to listen to the podcast?

I was dreading listening to it. I thought I was going to go into this trauma state. But from the moment I pressed play, I felt so at ease, because [producer] Gary and [writer/ host] Grace, have done such a good job. The first time I listened, I was digesting it and the second time, I was able to stand further back, without being on high alert, and actually absorb it.

Do you ever wonder, ‘why me’? 

I put it down to my vulnerability. I didn’t have healthy boundaries. I’ve since heard of a lot of people who went to Anne, for one session, and then never went back. They found there was something weird about her methods. Some people got out quickly. Some people are still suffering. 

Dr Alex Stein [a writer and educator specialising in the social psychology of ideological extremism and other dangerous social relationships] says that we are all susceptible to cult brainwashing. That it doesn’t matter how you were raised, or how vulnerable you are. She would say, “It can happen to anyone. It’s just bad luck.”

How does that make you feel? To consider that there was nothing you could have done differently? 

On some level it made me feel better. But it also scares me - this idea that it can happen to anyone. There are so many stories out there. I know of other investigations happening, at the moment. It doesn’t end with Anne. 

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If you are seeking help from a therapist, use the BACP Register to check that they are accredited and have received a minimum of 2-3 years training.

If you, or anyone you know, is suffering from coercive control, please contact Women’s Aid on helpline@womensaid.org.uk

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I sent a series of questions to Daniel Jennings, a partner at Shakespeare Martineau who represents Anne Craig. He who responded with the following comment:

"Following a lengthy investigation by the Metropolitan Police, all charges against Ms Craig were dropped in 2014.

Ms Craig believes this is yet another round of nefarious allegations indicative of those put to her previously, to cause her harm and damage. These allegations, and those of a similar nature, have continuously been presented to Ms Craig but, to date, have failed to be substantiated with factual evidence. For the avoidance of any doubt, Ms Craig vehemently denies all allegations that have been presented to her, and it is her position that there is no truth in any of the allegations.

It has previously been ruled in the High Court that claims against Ms Craig, of a similar nature to those alleged in this instance, were “ill founded”.

Ms Craig hopes this puts an end to a targeted campaign against her, which is believed to be coordinated by a third party, and has caused an unprecedented amount of distress and damage to her, and her family."

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