A statement issued by her publicist, Lizzie Grubman, says Phillips checked herself into the facility "after much thoughtful deliberation."
Grubman says Phillips is "looking forward to her recovery." The statement asks that people respect Phillips' privacy and the privacy of her family.
Phillips, of the pop group Wilson Phillips, is married to actor William Baldwin. The couple have three children.
She is the half-sister of former child actress Mackenzie Phillips, who claimed in a 2009 memoir that she had a decade-long sexual relationship with their father, pop star John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas.
Mackenzie Philips’s incestuous relationship with her father was something she had to admit the revelation of the fact that it was not actually consensual as she had earlier claimed it was.
In her memoir, “High on Arrival,” actress Mackenzie Phillips revealed details of her incestuous relationship with her father, which she called “consensual.”
“As I was writing the book, I thought, this word, it kept sitting wrong with me, but I used it for lack of a better word, and since then I’ve been schooled by thousands of incest survivors all across the world that there really is no such thing as consensual incest due to the inherent power a parent has over a child,” she said.
Realizing that incest is not the victim’s fault is a difficult process that happens through therapy and can take many years.
“They carry this kind of belief that they may have flirted, that they may have worn a bikini, all this stuff makes them feel, ‘I’m not really innocent,’ ” said Joanne Zucchetto, psychotherapist at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington post-traumatic disorders program.
By definition, incest is never consensual, although often the perpetrator will convince the victim otherwise, experts say. The power dynamics of the relationship between a parent and child are such that it’s always the parent’s responsibility to maintain normal boundaries, even if it’s the son or daughter who makes some kind of initial gesture, said Debra Borys, psychologist in Los Angeles, California.
Realizing that they are not to blame for the incident or incidents is necessary for recovery, but it is also anxiety-provoking, forcing them to confront the sadness surrounding the incestuous relationship, Zucchetto said.
“Part of therapy is to stop victimization by changing your perception of being somebody who is OK to be the slave for somebody else,” said Michael Salamon, psychologist and director of the Adult Development Center in Hewlett, New York.
Of the 60,000 sexual assault cases reported in 12 states in 2000, about 25 percent were committed by family members, according to a U.S. Bureau of Justice report. Family members were involved in about half of the sexual assault cases with victims younger than 11. More recent statistics are not available because the U.S. Census Bureau does not provide information about incest in its statistics on child abuse, sexual abuse and assault.
Zucchetto, who treats adult victims of incest, said therapy typically lasts five to seven years. Still, the timeframe varies widely from person to person, much as a physical injury, said Virginia Revere, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Mount Vernon, Virginia.
“Some people have better systems of rejuvenating than others,” Revere said.
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, Mackenzie Phillips is the daughter of John Phillips, lead singer of the The Mamas & the Papas, and his first wife, Susan Adams. She is the sister of Jeffrey Phillips and a half-sister of Tamerlane Phillips, actress Bijou Phillips and singer Chynna Phillips. She was named after her father’s friend and singer Scott McKenzie.
At age twelve, Phillips formed a band with three of her classmates and was spotted by a casting agent during one of their performances. She was given an audition for a role in the 1973 hit film American Graffiti, which she won.
In September 2009, Phillips’ memoir High on Arrival was released. Phillips appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for an hour-long interview. She told Winfrey that she first tried marijuana when she was 11 years old, and that her father did drugs with her and injected her with cocaine.
During the interview, Phillips read excerpts from her book. She said that at the age of 19, on the night before her first wedding, “I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father. “Both reportedly were under the influence of drugs at the time. Phillips then told Winfrey, “It became a consensual relationship, “describing her participation as “sort of Stockholm Syndrome, where you begin to love your captor.”
Phillips said the incestuous relationship had happened gradually for ten years, and that she ended it when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child. She stated that her father paid for her to have an abortion, “and I never let him touch me again.”
