@KitsuneVixi @0xabad1dea @afx Many years ago I worked as a therapist in a program treating juvenile sexual offenders. Annie Altman's claims, as related in this piece, are very familiar. The pattern of the rest of her family circling the wagons and joining their older child in denying the claims is also familiar. It was such a common pattern that we had form letters we would send to judges and probation officers; parts of the treatment program were made specifically to deal with this pattern.

That doesn't mean Annie is telling the truth, of course; fundamentally, sexual abuse is usually hidden because offenders don't want to get caught, and there are enough instances of false accusations (sometimes with apparent full belief that they were correct) that we can't say that every accusation that fits the description is accurate. However, research consistently shows that those numbers are heavily skewed so that, in the words of a former treatment colleague, if you just believe every accusation of child sexual abuse you will not be wrong very often.