Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story

I just saw the movie Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story for the 3rd time and I was again impressed by the courage and hard work of Shari Karney to change the law in order to protect incest victims. While it is true that the movie does not prove Ms. Karney's personal experience with incest we are told that the statue of limitations for her incest had run out years before and that she had not remembered them fully until she was hypnotized. She had no support from her sister or her mother either and it is very hard to stand up to a perpetrator with no one there to support you. Ms. Karney dealt with her perpetrator with her counselor as many incest survivors have to if the perpetrator is never brought to justice. That was certainly portrayed well in the movie. It is a movie that shows that women can win over incest and over the people that perpetrate acts of incest against them. It is an inspiring movie and one I would encourage anyone to watch it.

This movie takes the point of view that all recovered memories of sexual abuse are factual. In fact recovered memories, particularly ones recovered via hypnosis, are extremely prone to error and suggestion. And it is also a fact that therapists often encourage patients to remember sexual abuse even if the patient denies any abuse happened. This movie is more sexual abuse paranoia in the McMartin Day Care case vein and obviously slanted toward the opinion that sexual abuse is as common as blowing one's nose. No evidence that the main character was ever molested is ever offered except for some vague and unclear "memories" of her father. No corroboration of other family members is offered, but the fact that her sister did not agree with her is dismissed as denial on her part. It is possible that the story occurred in the way shown, but lack of correlating evidence or opposing POVs make the film a propaganda piece.

Much as I like Melissa Gilbert as an actress, what on earth was she doing in an overblown piece of political correctness like this one ? The story is repetitive and one tires of her tantrums and paranoia - incest is portrayed to be on every street corner and the whole thing is quite unbelievable. I've seen her in far better and more credible roles. The whole thing is really quite exaggerated and wearisome and there is no suspense or mystery at all to keep you on the edge of your seat. It is typical of the political correctness which has been reigning over America for the past ten years and whose current object of hate is incest and child molesting - in a few years time it will doubtlessly be something else. A film to be avoided at all costs !!

The battle of a lawyer to obtain the deletion of term of notice in sexual ill-treatment on the children. A strong denunciation of the incoherence of an American law. With Melissa Gilbert (" Little House on the Prairie ").

I am trying to do research on Shari Karney and her job for a counseling class to become a sexual assault counselor and there is no information on her at all on the internet. Does anyone know how I could find her on the internet. I need to do this project in concern with my choice of counseling and I cannot do the research if the story is not a true one. If this women does exist how can I obtain the information I need for my project. I need to find out what steps she took in creating the law and all the proceedings she used to do it. Who was involved with her and how did they find the right ways to go about getting the law passed. Is she planning on a national law for the whole United States or just for California. What gave her the strength to come forward and is she still healing for her abuse?