Editing Satanic panic (section)

===Patients' allegations===
The majority of adult testimonials were given by adults while they were undergoing [[psychotherapy]], in most cases they were undergoing therapy which was designed to elicit memories of SRA.<ref name=Frankfurter2003/>{{sfn |LaFontaine |1998 |p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=JBxfvDeQdmoC&pg=PA5 5]}} Therapists claimed that the pain which their patients felt, the internal consistency of their stories and the similarities of the allegations which were made by different patients all proved the existence of SRA, but despite this, the disclosures of patients never resulted in any corroboration;{{sfn |Victor |1993 |p=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/n105 86]}} The allegations which were obtained from the alleged victims by mental health practitioners all lacked verifiable evidence, they were entirely [[anecdotal evidence|anecdotal]] and they all involved incidents which occurred years or decades earlier.<ref>{{Citation |title=Final Report of the Task Force Studying Ritual Crime |publisher=Crime Commission Task Force Studying Ritual Criminal Activity |location=Richmond, VA |year=1991| url = https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/n290}} cited in Victor, 1993, pp. 263-264.</ref> The concern for therapists revolved around the pain of their clients, which is for them more important than the truth of their patients' statements.{{sfn |Bibby |1996 |pp=27–28}} A sample of 29 patients in a medical clinic reporting SRA found no corroboration of the claims in medical records or in discussion with family members.<ref name=Coons>{{cite journal |last=Coons |first=PM |title=Reports of satanic ritual abuse: further implications about pseudomemories |journal=Perceptual and Motor Skills |volume=78 |issue=3 Pt 2 |pages=1376–78 |date=June 1994 |pmid=7936968 |doi=10.2466/pms.1994.78.3c.1376|s2cid=46126363 }}</ref> and a survey of 2,709 American therapists found the majority of allegations of SRA came from only sixteen therapists, suggesting that the determining factor in a patient making allegations of SRA was the therapist's predisposition.{{sfn |Victor |1993 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/satanicpaniccrea00vict/page/n284 257–58]}} Further, the alleged similarities between patient accounts (particularly between adults and children) turned out to be illusory upon review, with adults describing far more elaborate, severe and bizarre abuse than children. Bette Bottoms, who reviewed hundreds of claims of adult and child abuse, described the ultimate evidence for the abuse as "astonishingly weak and ambiguous" particularly given the severity of the alleged abuse. Therapists however, were found to believe patients more as the allegations became more bizarre and severe.{{sfn |McNally |2003 |p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=88Axi0huzYwC&pg=PA238 238]}}

In cases in which patients made claims that were physically impossible, or in cases in which the evidence which was found by police is contradictory, the details which are reported will often change. If patients pointed to a spot where a body was buried, but no body was found and no earth was disturbed, therapists resort to [[special pleading]], saying that the patient was hypnotically programmed to direct investigators to the wrong location, or the patient was fooled by the cult into believing that a crime was not committed. If the alleged bodies were cremated and police point out that ordinary fires are inadequate to completely destroy a body, stories include special industrial furnaces. The patients' allegations change, and they creatively find "solutions" to objections.{{sfn|Showalter |1997 |p=[https://archive.org/details/hystorieshysteri00show_0/page/179 179–180]}}