Relatives said that she broke the news because the two girls, aged 15 and 11, were upset that Phillip Garrido was in prison. Psychologists are now helping Ms Dugard and her children to begin the process of adjusting to a new life, including coping with the truth about Mr Garrido.
Carl Probyn, Ms Dugard’s stepfather, who separated from her mother after the kidnapping, told ABC: “It’s going to take a lot of therapy for them. We’ re going to have to take it minute by minute. These girls are so fragile.
“Jaycee had to explain to them, like two days ago, that she had been kidnapped. They didn’t even know that. They are upset about this because that’s their father and he’s in jail.”
Ms Dugard, 29, and her daughters have begun counselling with a psychologist sent by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. The first steps will include in-depth interviews. Experts said that Jaycee had to come to terms with the fact that she had been forced to live as someone else for the past 18 years. Relatives also had to realise that she was no longer the 11-year-old girl who disappeared 18 years ago. The adjustment was further complicated by the children fathered by Mr Garrido.
Joann Behrman-Lippert, a psychologist who has researched child abductions, said: “For these children their father is still their father, no matter what has happened. It’s very complex and not a black-or-white situation.”
Ms Dugard was reunited with her mother last week and is staying at a secret location near San Francisco. Chris Campion, an FBI special agent who worked on the case and witnessed the reunion said: “It was a very emotional scene — both of them were overjoyed to be with each other again. The two daughters are probably as happy as Jaycee is to be part of this family.”
Yesterday it emerged that Garrido, convicted of the brutal kidnapping and rape of a 25-year-old woman in the late 1970s, believed that he had been cured of his sexual anger against women.
He wrote a a four-page manifesto of his philosophy and wanted the world to know how to overcome “aggressive sexual” desires through mind control. Two days before he was arrested he marched into the FBI office in San Francisco and handed over the document, in which he said he could cure other sexual predators.
"This information is designed to send a message to all branches of law enforcement, educators and therapists worldwide to know there is a powerful reason people are unable to control the impulses that drive humans to commit such dysfunctional acts," he wrote. The rambling manifesto, with frequent references to the Bible, says that he felt remorse for "the things I did in the past".
"Out of control behavior is everywhere, in every walk of life undermining the lives of its many victims. The degree to which we vividly imagine an experience determines how it is stored in our subconscious as reality. Here is where a sexual predator (or any poor behavior) reinforces its self (sic) as the negative self-image is moving itself towards the problem.
"Because of my background, I began to examine the issues of how certain behaviors cause a great deal of pain in myself and those who are victimized by those behaviors, especially our family and my wife," he wrote. It is not clear if "wife" refers to Nancy Garrido or to Jaycee.
