Images of Cult Healing

from GoldenMic - Thursday, September 18, 2003
accessed 4591 times

Images of Cult Healing

The author, raised in a Bible-based cult for 20 years, discusses a new method for helping cult-survivors deal with their trauma. Using principles from depth psychology and liberation psychology, he presents a rationale for a new kind of cult healing, then discusses its actual use in a recent Cult Survivors Workshop.

It is likely that many people enter and then leave new religious movements with no psychological damage, and that they then describe the experience as having enriched their lives, or at least having done no harm. However, many others are far more than self-excusing apostates, and instead have actually experienced themselves as having been profoundly injured by their participation in a destructive cult. In that sense, it is immaterial whether or not they have been brainwashed , or if they simply resent and regret the lost time and broken dreams; the damage is real, and it can be extensive.

For the self-described cult survivor , damage to the mind, body, and spirit is multi-faceted and it lasts for a long time. Many survivors, including me, have been betrayed and exploited by our trust in a leader who promised participation in a dream of personal salvation and glory. Using arcane doctrines and loaded language , the leader presented a seemingly comprehensive sacred science that justified any sacrifice in order to be among the chosen (Lifton, 1969/1989).

Cult survivors have many long-term symptoms from their abuse. Value systems are destroyed and distorted, and many victims report cognitive inflexibility, blunted affect, and long-term depressed moods and anxiety. They also note excessive guilt and shame, low self-esteem, and a general mistrust of others. They often spend many years in denial, avoiding thinking about their cult past even as they suffer the effects from that alienating and debilitating experience (Singer, 1995).

As a former member of a destructive cult, I have personally experienced the symptoms listed above, as have some 3,000 ex-members. My own work as a counselor for the last 20 years has been at least partially motivated by an attempt to understand and ameliorate the results of this damage. As I have experienced healing I have also tried to understand and identify the factors that have assisted me in this process, developing procedures that could be used by other cult survivors in their own healing. This work has resulted in the creation of a "survivors workshop", using principles from depth psychology and providing a safe container in which cult survivors can imagine and bear witness to their trauma, and helping them develop an image of themselves as capable of recovering from that trauma.

A particularly useful construct in working with cult survivors can be drawn from one of the most exciting new fields of study in depth psychology, Imaginal psychology . The goal of this approach is to help individuals relate to phenomenon in new ways, confronting and personally experiencing the deeper meaning and significance of that phenomenon. Imaginal research, however, does not stop at the investigation of the phenomena, but also accepts the premise that the phenomena is also attempting to engage with the investigator, that it seeks to be witnessed and understood as an autonomous entity.

In the new survivors workshop the cult experience itself is examined as an independent phenomenon that is attempting to tell each of us a story. Unlike other therapy with cult survivors, this perspective spends less time identifying, codifying, or explaining the motives of the cult or the cult leader. Currently, much of the excellent work being done in the field of cult-related counseling focuses on demonstrating the many ways that people are "brainwashed" and/or mentally controlled by their cult environment and leaders, and then attempts to provide new skills for post-cult independent living. While such work is important and beneficial, the new model spends less time discussing the motives and methods of the cult, and participants are instead encouraged to fully engage with their cult memories in order to understand what that experience is attempting to say to them about themselves and the world.

The pain and destructiveness of the cult experience is examined as a pathologized phenomenon that each survivor can use to "hear" from their own soul. Survivors are encouraged to fully remember and re-image the pain and the horror of their cult experience as an authentic statement from the soul, and encouraged to ask themselves: "What does my cult past tell me about myself, and my world? ... What needs doing?". A variety of techniques are used to encourage and support each participant as they process what they have undergone. Images of oppression, guilt, and pain are reinvigorated and remembered, and a narrative of the cult experience is established through pictures, drama, and mutually respectful communication. The themes and images are given voice, hosted by the participants and explored for their meaning and effect. Cult survivors begin listening to the margins of their own soul . This is a group of people who have become expert at living and introjecting the narcissistic vision of the leader, and the work is to help them develop or re-develop a capacity to hear from their own intuitive, subjective, and marginalized self.

The Workshop

In February 2003, I journeyed to Sacramento, California to conduct a three-day Cult Survivors Workshop. A few months earlier, an old friend and fellow former cult member had dropped by to discuss ways our cult experiences were continuing to have a negative effect upon him and his family. He was particularly concerned about his son, who had also spent many years at the cult, and who had been among those most brutalized and oppressed in childhood and early adolescence. Now, over ten years later, this young man continued to exhibit classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress, including an exaggerated startle response, distressing and intrusive recollections, avoidance of stimuli that resembled the trauma, dramatic mood swings, distorted thinking, and repeated attempts to "numb" himself through drug and alcohol abuse. My friend was very concerned at his sons ongoing difficulties in establishing a positive self-image and a sense of personal direction, and he recognized that this was resulting in feelings re-emergent hostility and anger in remembering the ways that he and many of his family and friends were abused and exploited by the cult. We agreed that a workshop might provide an opportunity for his son to begin examining and recovering from his cult experience, and that many of my friends large extended family and friends, also concerned about his sons difficulties, might also attend in support. We agreed to meet at my friends sprawling home in Sacramento, California along with 15-20 other ex-cult members. Each participant agreed to and signed an explanatory Informed Consent form.

The workshop included six three-hour sessions spread over three days, and only one participant had to miss two of the sessions. The workshop consisted of an interactive educational presentation, an artistic experiential project, and a creative drama exercise. There were also opening and closing discussions each day using the non-hierarchical group format known as "Council".

The Council process is based on the nationally renowned Way of Council (Zimmerman and Coyle, 1996), developed by the Ojai Foundation in Ojai, California. This group interaction model is an excellent method for developing soulful dialogue in a context of mutual respect and equally shared and authority-free leadership, extremely important for ex-cult members who have a history of being attacked, maligned, and exploited during their many hours in the cult's group interactions, prayer services, and "sharing (stripping) sessions".

The basics of the Council process are relatively simple and easy to learn, belying their power in creating a container in which soulful dialogue is quickly elicited and sustained. The leader notes that four basic practices are being encouraged by the process; speaking from the heart , listening from the heart , spontaneity , and brevity . The leader then explains the basic procedure.

Each session begins when members gather together in a circle. One participant is asked to volunteer to light a candle and make a dedication, defining the event as outside of normal discourse, and creating a sense of sacred space . Besides the candle in the center, there is also a talking piece (chosen from a number of small objects), and participants are asked to speak only when they are actually holding this object. After the dedication, the leader picks up the talking piece and asks members to consider an idea or question. Then, the first person who feels like responding picks up the piece and speaks to the issue. When finished, the speaker passes the talking piece to the person beside her, and the talking piece makes it way around the circle (usually left-to-right). The last respondent completes his comments and returns the talking piece to the center, and then any other participant may pick it up again to make any additional comments. It is understood that each participant will speak only from their own perspective, and that there will be no questions or dialogue in Council. It is also understood that each persons contribution is entirely voluntary and validated by all other participants, even if that contribution is the persons silent passing of the talking piece.

The Council process allowed members of the workshop to process each of their experiences, and allowed the narrative to emerge. Each Council began with the question: "In a word or phrase, how are you feeling right now?", and also included such questions as "What have you learned about yourself?", "What have you understood more clearly?", and "What are you going to do, specifically, as a result of this time?". As I have begun to expect from many hundreds of hours in Council, the comments were increasingly soulful and deep as members became more confident in the safety of the process, in the freedom from being distracted by questions and responses, and instead focused solely on each persons reaction to the question.

The first day of the workshop focused on an examination of the cult experience of each of the participants, using the framework provided by Steven Hassan (1990, 2000) BITE Model . The BITE Model looks at how cults control their members Behavior , Information , Thoughts , and Emotions . As the model was presented, the workshop participants began to recognize and articulate the many ways they had been subjected to systematic cognitive dissonance and personal disintegration.

The workshop participants discussed Behavior Control (Hassan, 1990, pp. 60-61 & 2000, pp. 46-48) in the cult. They spoke of the endless regulations upon their physical reality, noting that the women were required to wear long dresses, and everyone was forced to wear "covering" clothing designed to avoid and inhibit a recognition of sensuality. They discussed being moved from compound to compound at the leaders whim, never having an opportunity to form close attachments or routines, and often separating families (including parents and their children, and husbands from wives) and friends. They described the work assignments given to each member with no regard to their suitability for the task, and often deliberately designed to humiliate members and place them in situations where they felt incompetent, bored, or performing at odds with their own talents and interests. They also described the many hours of meetings, services, and restrictive schedules that inhibited creative and independent thinking, and many participants talked about times when they were placed on exhaustive work details under harsh and disciplinary authoritarian "elders" as punishment for any imagined transgression or spiritual infraction. Members noted how they had been assigned to specific elders and ordered to serve that elders every whim and directive, knowing that they would later be taken before the assembled elders and the cult leader to be castigated and reviled for errors in thinking and actions, "proof" of their spiritual immaturity and sinfulness. It was noted that this was a "no win" situation, since members could be rewarded for a behavior one day, only to be severely punished for the same behavior on another day, all due to their "spirit" or attitude in the doing of the task. Obedience became synonymous with godliness, and all orders by higher-ups were to be followed immediately and graciously, even if those same elders were known sadists, sexual deviates, or clearly disturbed individuals... obeying the elder was obeying the cult leader, and obeying the cult leader was obeying God.

Next, the workshop participants examined the issue of Information Control (Hassan, 1990, pp. 65-67 & 2000, pp. 48-49). They noted that there was little time for television or other media, and that their extreme isolation in rural northern California made it easy for the cult leadership to monitor and limit information from the evil, outside world. Participants remembered how they were frequently denied access to secret meetings where they later learned that their partners, children, relatives and friends were discussing situations and feelings that should have been discussed with them. Children were brought before the elders without their parents knowledge, and it didnt even occur to them to wonder why. Members were brought in without their partners to discuss every aspect of their private lives with the elders, and decisions were routinely made for and about people's lives, relationships, and occupations while they were not present. Elders were told all manner of private details about the intimate aspects of people's lives, while lesser people were not allowed to know about or question basic decisions being made about their living arrangements, relationship options, and their status in the community. Lying and the deliberate distortion of facts was frequently and routinely approved of in the cult, especially in order to fool outsiders about the benign nature of the cult and to verify any wild claim, prophecy, or memory by the cult leader. Information about ones friends and intimates was especially valued in the cult, proving ones loyalty and giving the eldership an even tighter strangle-hold of guilt and intimidation regarding the spied-upon and/or betrayed "sins" of the victim.

The ex-cult members also discussed Thought Control (Hassan, 1990, pp. 61-63 & 2000, pp. 50-52). They noted how the cult attempted to explain every kind of phenomena and experience in terms of "the three circles", an alliterative use of three inter-connected words to articulate the development, organization, and meaning of all things. Members who could not memorize and cleverly use these alliterations were considered un-spiritual. The cult leader also had many written tracts, often grammatically unintelligible, with strung-together biblical citations and references that were purported to illuminate "the message" of enlightenment. Participants talked about how foolish and inferior they felt when they could not find any logic to these words, and they noted how these supposed "truths" reduced the complexity of living into cliche's, stifling creative thought and inhibiting reflective and critical analysis. This "loaded language" made some members feel special, but it also taught them how to stop thinking and rely instead on the group's shared interpretation of reality.

The workshop participants also looked at Emotional Control (Hassan, 1990, pp. 63-65 & 2000, pp. 52-55) in the cult. They discussed how guilt and fear were constant features of their cult lives. Members described being taught to feel guilty for their own individuality, their family loyalties, and even for how their accomplishments "robbed" the leader of her rightful role as the sole repository of knowledge and glory. These ex-members also talked about how they were labeled as the liar , or the thief , or the self-server ... and how all of their friends and family would gather together with the cult leader in meetings to prove the existence and horror of a newly-discovered negative persona that seemed to have sprung from nowhere. Participants also recalled how they supported the distortions and lies being told during the labeling process, even as another part of their minds knew the feebleness of the so-called facts being extrapolated into a sick profile of shame, but fearing that their lack of support would subject them to negative labeling. They also discussed the ever-constant fear of making mistakes that would result in shaming, punishment, or isolation. They spoke of the confessions they made in a desperate attempt to regain the leaders approval, yet knowing that those same confessions only gave her more material to use against them the next time around. They also discussed the periodic use of extreme violence where the leader or her elders physically and emotionally assaulted them, and of their shame as they passively witnessed their loved ones being beaten, punished, isolated, and screamed at. They described feeling helpless and yet ever-hopeful that they might do some right thing that would make the fear go away for a few minutes or hours, but sick in the knowledge that it would soon be their turn once again.

The ex-adherents also discussed the other side of this horrible dance, periods when they felt the love, attention, and approval of the leader and the fierce determination to "do better" so they could become more worthy of her approval. They desribed the moments of ecstasy and enlightenment during long, hypnotic praising and singing services, periods when they allowed themselves to hope that they, too, might achieve the apparent enlightenment the leader so blithely promised them as a reward for continued service and devotion.

The next part of the workshop was an artistic exercise, allowing participants to actively re-imagine an aspect of their cult experience. Members were given a large sheet of poster paper and colored pens, and invited to "draw a picture that symbolizes you back then at the cult", and "another picture that symbolizes you now". Participants were then invited to discuss their drawings, and to tell the narrative of the images they had created. The images that emerged were both horrible and moving, as many participants were able to create images of "back then " that expressed bondage, violence, disassociation, isolation, rejection, helplessness, and a sense of being overwhelmed. However, some participants were able to draw memories of joy, and relationship, and of purposeful action while at the cult, but they then described those more positive drawings as illusions that were later shattered by the realization that they had been duped and exploited. Also, for many of the participants, the "now" expressions indicated ongoing disturbances and feelings of isolation, depression, and hostility. It was a surprise for many to realize that they continued to feel so strongly negative about their cult experiences, and some sense that they had spent all too many years minimizing and denying clearly powerful traumatic memories.

Most of the last two days of the workshop were spent in a series of dramatic reenactments of the cult experience, and an attempt to understand and re-image those experiences in a more productive and self-affirming way. The format was designed to reflect the principles of liberation psychology as expressed through the group processes developed by Augusto Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed (Boal, 1979). These processes are very democratic, based on consensus-building and power-sharing, where dramatic performances are designed to include the actors as spectators, and the spectators as actors, allowing all participants to imagine and discover what they are, and what they can become (Boal, 1995).

Participants re-enacted scenes from their cult past, and then the entire group worked to creatively reconfigure these remembered images into a new one where the protagonist could emerge with her dignity intact. It was heart-rending and disturbing to watch these scenes being played out, and some participants were shocked and shaken by the powerful emotions that were evoked. It was also disturbing for the participants as they began to realize that there was no realistic way to re-do their scenes that would result in a realistically positive outcome. The eventual group consensus was that there was simply no way to win in the paradoxical and diabolical cult environment, and that their only way out was when they actually left the cult-controlled environment. This also led to a strong shared consensus that the cult environment was not just a historical time and place, but that it was also an ongoing state of mind, and that each participant had areas of their own minds that continued to feel trapped by that evil past.

Conclusions

The Sacramento workshop was a powerful example of Imaginal Psychology in action, as participants worked together to discover and define the image of their cult past, and as their witnessing to those events and memories allowed them to find new meaning. Painful memories that had gone long-unimagined had not been denied their potency, and it was discovered that the attempt to silence these memories had only caused them to pathologize. Since the workshop, many of the participants have expressed an appreciation for the experience. Some have noted that they have felt less estranged from their own past, and that they now see themselves and their families more honestly, allowing forgiveness and healing to finally begin. Still others have expressed feeling mobilized to action in regards to their cult past, and have begun to write about and otherwise confront their feelings of anger at the cult. Some have even discussed considering taking direct action in terms of the cult, contacting them to express their anger and/or taking steps to see what they can do to explore ways the cult might continue to oppress others. New and deeper friendships have blossomed between some of the participants, and lines of communication have improved.

The cult of my past remains a defining image of terror and debilitation, but with each of five workshops it has become steadily less powerful and damaging. I believe that the imaging of these experiences has allowed me and others to bear witness to a phenomenon that would not consent to being silenced, and by giving it "voice" we have also made that voice less chaotic and invasive in our lives. Instead, the memories teach... and they give meaning... and they inspire compassion and an appreciation for life and beauty. These images, respected and embraced, provide a context for living each day purposefully and reflectively, impatient with lies and shallowness, and committed to an authentic soul-based living that does not accept easy answers to difficult questions, but appreciates the extraordinary gift of living life freely and independently, on ones own terms.

References

Boal, Augusto. (1979). Theatre of the oppressed (C.A. & M.L. McBride, Trans.). NY; Theatre Communications Group.

Boal, Augusto. (1995). The rainbow of desire A. Jackson, Trans.) NY; Routledge
Hassan, Steven. (1990). Combatting cult mind control. Rochester, NY: Park Street Press.

Hassan, Steven. (2000). Releasing the bonds. Somerville, MA: Freedom of Mind Press.

Lifton, R. (1969/1989). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Martella, M. (2001). Cult wounds and archetypal psychology. (Term paper, Archetypal Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2001).

Singer, M. (1995). Cults in our midst. San Francisco; Jossey-Bass.

Zimmerman, J. and Coyle, Virginia. (1996). The way of council. Las Vegas, NV; Bramble Books.