Barbara Snow (therapist)

In the 1980s Snow was a member of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists (AMCAP), and published research centered on the issue of sexual abuse.[3]

In collaboration with Teena Sorenson, Snow developed a framework for identifying four stages children typically go through when disclosing sexual abuse. According to the study, the first stage, Denial, occurs when a child claims the abuse did not happen. Disclosure is subdivided into two phase, tentative and active, which occurs when a child acknowledges the occurrence of abuse. Recant is a retraction of a prior disclosure. The final stage, reaffirm is the final reassertion that the abuse happened.[4]

From the 1980s Snow worked as the clinical director of the Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center in Salt Lake City.[5][6]

Snow was involved in a string of prosecutions in Utah during the 1980s. She led the investigation that in December 1986 convicted Arden Bullock of sexually abusing his children. The case was appealed to the Utah State Supreme Court in 1989, which upheld the conviction, but criticized Snow's "disturbing and irresponsible conduct."[6] Snow responded to the criticism by saying, "Probably the best statement is simply that the jury heard the information that I heard and they convicted him on felony counts, ... It was my role to offer the information that the children had offered me. I testified to what I had heard and what I had seen."[6]

She was the therapist in the middle of a high profile and controversial Alan Hadfield sex abuse case in 1987.[7][8][9] During the police investigation of the 1987 Hadfield case, children Snow treated as a therapist accused forty adults of being satanic ritual abusers of children.[10][11] The court placed an order that barred Gay Hadfield, the mother, from hiring Snow as their therapist.[12]

In 2002 Snow wrote an op-ed in the Deseret News defending her actions, writing, "Sexual predators are master manipulators. ... We cannot have it both ways, ... We cannot decry child abuse publicly and tolerate it privately if the offender is a white, upper-middle-class member of our religious congregation."[6]

In 2008 Snow was placed on probation by the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing, for violating the Utah codes of professional conduct and ethical principles defined by the National Association of Social Workers. The state alleged that Snow had convinced her relatives that they were victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse and military testing. State investigators allege that Snow provided fabricated notes from her sessions. Snow admitted to destroying her relative's computer.[13]

Snow was the therapist of noted mystic Teal Swan.

The daughter and son-in-law of Russell M. Nelson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were accused of participating in a Satanic Ritual Abuse ring in Bountiful Utah in 1985, and accused Nelson of using his influence to cover up the abuse.[14] Barbara Snow was the therapist of the accusers in the 1980s, a fact used by defense attorneys to discredit the both the lawsuit, and the therapeutic techniques used in uncovering the memories of the alleged abuse.[15]

• "Mild to Wild: Assessment and Treatment of Sexually Abused Children," AMCAP Journal 11 (Mar. 1985): 84-88
• "Ritualistic child abuse in a neighborhood setting" (Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 474-487)
• "How Children Tell: The Process of Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse," with Teena Sorenson, Child Welfare 1991