cult recovery 101

Post-Cult Problems: An Exit Counselor’s Perspective

Classification of Ex-Members

There are several classifications of ex-members, based on how they left the cult. Former members usually fit into one of the following:

1. Those who had interventions.

2. Those who left on their own, or walkaways

3. Those who were expelled, or castaways

Walkaways and castaways need the most help in understanding their recovery process. Former members who were cast out of a cult are especially vulnerable; often they feel inadequate, guilty, and angry.

Most cults respond to any criticism of the cult itself by turning the criticism around on the individual member. Whenever something is wrong, it’s not the leadership or the organization, it’s the individual.

Thus, when someone is told to leave a cult, that person carries a double load of guilt and shame. Sometimes walkaways also carry a sense of inadequacy. Often they can think through these feelings intellectually, but emotionally they are very difficult to handle.

Tools for Recovery

In my experience, the most helpful tool for recovering ex-cult members is learning what mind control is and how it was used by their specific cult. Understanding that there are residual effects from a mind control environment and that these effects are often transitory in nature helps diffuse the anxiety. Clients, especially walkaways and castaways, feel relieved when they learn that, given the situation, what they are experiencing is normal and that the effects will not last forever.

Also integral to the recovery process is developing an attitude that there are some positives to be gained from the cultic experience. When former members learn about mind control, they can use that understanding to sort through their cultic experience, to see how they came to change their behavior and beliefs as a result of mind control. They can then assess what out of that experience is good and valid for them to hold onto.

When former members live in an area where there is an active support group meeting, it is often helpful for them to participate. Support group meetings provide a safe place for ex-members to discuss concerns with others who are dealing with similar issues. In this environment, no one will look at them like they have two heads.

Common Issues in Post-Cult Recovery

Some of the recovery issues that keep recurring in my work with ex-cult

members are:

1. Sense of purposelessness, of being disconnected. They left a group that had a powerful purpose and intense drive; they miss the peak experiences produced from the intensity and the group dynamics.

2. Depression.

3. Grieving for other group members, for a sense of loss in their life.

4. Guilt. Former members will feel guilt for having gotten involved in the first place, for the people they recruited into the group, and for the things they did while in the group.

5. Anger. This will be felt toward the group and/or the leaders. At times this anger is misdirected toward themselves.

6. Alienation. They will feel alienation from the group, often from old friends (that is, those who were friends prior to their cult involvement), and sometimes from family.

7. Isolation. To ex-cult members, no one “out there” seems to understand what they’re going through, especially their families.

8. Distrust. This extends to group situations, and often to organized religion (if they were in a religious cult) or organizations in general (depending on the type of cult they were in). There is also a general distrust of their own ability to discern when or if they are being manipulated again. This dissipates after they learn more about mind control and begin to listen to their own inner voice again.

9. Fear of going crazy. This is especially common after “floating” experiences (see point 18 below for explanation of floating).

10. Fear that what the cult said would happen to them if they left actually might happen.

11. Tendency to think in terms of black and white, as conditioned by the cult. They need to practice looking for the gray areas.

12. Spiritualizing everything. This residual sometimes lasts for quite a while. Former members need to be encouraged to look for logical reasons why things happen and to deal with reality, to let go of their magical thinking.

13. Inability to make decisions. This characteristic reflects the dependency that was fostered by the cult.

14. Low self-esteem. This generally comes from those experiences common to most cults, where time and again members are told that they are worthless.

15. Embarrassment. This is an expression of the inability to talk about their experience, to explain how or why they got involved or what they had done during that time. It is often manifested by an intense feeling of being ill-at-ease in both social and work situations. Also, often there is a feeling of being out of synch with everyone else, of going through culture shock, from having lived in a closed environment and having been deprived of participating in everyday culture.

16. Employment and/or career problems. Former members face the dilemma of what to put on a resume to cover the blank years of cult membership.

17. Dissociation. This also has been fostered by the cult. Either active or passive, it is a period of not being in touch with reality or those around them, an inability to communicate.

18. Floating. These are flashbacks into the cult mind-set. It can also take on the effect of an intense emotional reaction that is inappropriate to the particular stimuli.

19. Nightmares. Some people also experience hallucinations or hearing voices. A small percentage of former members need hospitalization due to this type of residual.

20. Family issues.

21. Dependency issues.

22. Sexuality issues.

23. Spiritual (or philosophical) issues. Former members often face difficult questions: Where can I go to have my spiritual (or belief) needs met? What do I believe in now? What is there to believe in, trust in?

24. Inability to concentrate, short-term memory loss.

25. Re-emergence of pre-cult emotional or psychological issues.

26. Impatience with the recovery process.

In my experience, there is no difference in the aftereffects experienced by those people who had family interventions or those who walked away or were expelled from a cult. Most ex-cult members _ no matter the method of leaving the cult _ had some or all of these residuals. The difference is that the individuals who had interventions are more prepared to deal with them, and especially those who went to a rehab facility.

It is important to note and to bring to the attention of the ex-cult member that each individual’s recovery process is different and there is no “How To Recover from a Cultic Experience.” In fact, the desire for a quick and easy recovery may be in itself a residual effect of the cult.

Excerpted from “Post-cult Problems: An Exit Counselor’s Perspective” by Carol Giambalvo, in Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse, edited by Michael D. Langone (1993. W.W. Norton & Company.) Reprinted with permission. Also available from AFF, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Deprogramming, Exit Counseling, and Ethics: Clarifying the Confusion

Langone, Michael D., Ph.D., and Martin, Paul, Ph.D., “Deprogramming, Exit Counseling, and Ethics: Clarifying the Confusion,” Christian Research Journal, Winter 1993 (Reprinted with permission.)
In the late 1960s and early 1970s increasing numbers of parents began to observe and report striking and frightening changes in their young-adult children.  Formerly serious, high-achieving, well-adjusted students would suddenly drop out of school, shun their families and friends, and devote themselves completely to unusual groups that parents and others quickly identified as cults.  In many cases, parents also worried about their children’s physical well-being because of the groups’ dietary, health, work, or sexual practices.  Although evangelical parents obtained some information focused on doctrinal and historical issues from organizations such as theChristian Research Institute, parents who did not identify with evangelicalism had nowhere to turn and usually worried alone for long periods of time.  Gradually, they began to find and help each other.
Occasionally, these individuals would find a mental health professional or clergyman who sincerely listened to their concerns.  Parents would usually voice such observations as: “That’s not my kid;” “He talks like a robot, as though he were programmed;” “She was fine, but now she seems like a different person.”  Soon, these parents and professionals realized that they were observing a process akin to what was popularly known as brainwashing.  But they didn’t know what to do.  Their children wouldn’t listen, or their responses to all questions and complaints seemed programmed.  They sometimes succeeded in persuading their children to leave the groups, and the term “deprogramming” was used to describe the process of countering the cults’ “programming.”  Partly because of these successes, the cults’ antagonism toward parents hardened.  Parents found they could no longer gain access to their children.
Seeing no other options, some parents—with the help of former cult members—began to take their adult children off the street, bring them to secure places, and detain them there until they had listened to a detailed critique of the cultic group.  Frequently, these encounters lasted three days or more. But the process usually worked.  Hundreds of cult members renounced their cults.  In time, the term “deprogramming” came to be associated with this initially coercive process, even though originally “deprogramming” did not imply coercion.  Soon, a network of deprogrammers developed, with some even earning their living as deprogrammers.  Although most parents were ethically and emotionally conflicted over the deprogramming process, it seemed at the time to be their only option in a desperate situation. Hundreds of these parents felt as though deprogramming had brought their children back to life.  The ex-members felt that they had been liberated from a psychological prison.
Because deprogramming had come to be associated with coercion and confinement and because it so often worked (about two-thirds of the time), it caused quite a controversy.  Cults railed against it, in large part because it was effective in persuading their members to leave.  But even some cult critics denounced it on legal and ethical grounds.  Others additionally felt that a more sophisticated understanding of cults opened up alternatives to deprogramming.  These persons—some of whom were helping professionals or clergy—believed that parents tended to let their emotions dominate their actions.  They began to help parents with their distress and help them communicate more effectively, so that they would be able to persuade their children to speak with someone knowledgeable about cults.  The term “voluntary deprogramming” came to be associated with this process.  It soon became clear, however, the adjective “voluntary” did not remove the negative connotation “deprogramming” had acquired.  Gradually, the term “exit counseling” replaced “voluntary deprogramming.”   (Some exit counselors prefer the term “cult education consultant,” but that term has not yet caught on.)  Today, there are many exit counselings and few deprogrammings.
Exit counseling refers to a voluntary, intensive, time-limited, contractual educational process that emphasizes the respectful sharing of information with cultists.  Because some persons who perform deprogrammings like to call themselves “exit counselors,” the two terms are sometimes confused.  A recent [Christian ResearchJournal article on “exit counseling” angered many exit counselors in large part because it failed to stress the distinctions between exit counseling and deprogramming.
These distinctions, however, are important.  Deprogramming entails coercion and confinement.  In exit counseling the cultist is free to leave at any time.  Deprogramming typically costs $10,000 or more mainly because of the expense of a security team.  Exit counseling typically costs $2,000 to $4,000, including expenses, for a three-to-five day intervention, although cases requiring extensive research of little-known groups can cost much more.  Deprogramming, especially when it fails, entails considerable legal and psychological risk (e.g., a permanent alienation of the cultist from his or her family).  The psychological and legal risks in exit counseling are much smaller.  Although deprogrammers prepare families for the process, exit counselors tend to work more closely with families and expect them to contribute more to the process; that is, exit counseling requires that families establish a reasonable and respectful level of communication with their loved one before the exit counseling proper can begin.  Because they rely on coercion, which is generally viewed as unethical, deprogrammers’ critiques of the unethical practices of cults will tend to have less credibility with cultists than the critiques of exit counselors.  Neither the authors, the organizations for which they work, nor the publisher of this journal endorse involuntary deprogramming.
Ethical concerns obviously are much greater with regard to deprogramming than exit counseling.  Deprogramming advocates maintain that its coercive aspect is a regrettable but necessary step in freeing people from evil groups.  They point out that the law has long recognized that competing rights and needs can sometimes produce situations wherein an undesirable action might be necessary to prevent something worse.  This has often been called the “necessity” or “choice of evils” defense.  An example would be running a red light in order to get a bleeding person to a hospital.  Running the red light is a legal violation, but in such an emergency it would likely be deemed to have mitigating circumstances.  Obviously, with regard to deprogramming the central question is whether the evil to be countered is terrible enough to mitigate the culpability of the coercion.
Determining the ethical defensibility of a particular deprogramming is not always simple.  Generally speaking the most sensible cases will involve minor children, especially when the cult prevents parents from seeing or communicating with their child.  With regard to adults in cults, a reasonable likelihood of imminent danger to the life of the cultist is probably a critical factor in ethically defending a deprogramming.  Imminent danger, however, may not always be a sufficient justification of deprogramming because other interventions may be reasonable to pursue (e.g., obtaining a court order to remove the endangered person from the group).
Whether a particular judge or jury will accept the necessity defense for a deprogramming is a matter that is independent of, though related to, the ethical defensibility of the deprogramming.  A parent, for example, may believe that his or her child is in imminent danger, that an exit counseling is not possible, and that there is not sufficient time to obtain a court order. The parent’s opinion may be sufficiently reasonable, based on the facts of the case, to be ethically defensible.  However, a judge might reject the necessity defense because he or she believes that there had indeed been time to obtain a court order, or that it was reasonable to first attempt an exit counseling.  The judgment of the legal system determines the acceptability of a necessity defense, regardless of the ethical defensibility of a particular deprogramming, although the more ethically defensible a deprogramming is the more acceptable is the necessity defense likely to be.
Historically speaking, when deprogrammings have resulted in lawsuits or criminal charges, judges and juries have in many cases decided in favor of parents and deprogrammers.  In other cases courts have exonerated the parents but held the deprogrammers liable.  Occasionally, both parents and deprogrammers have been held liable.  Although there have been attempts to pass laws that would essentially sanction deprogrammings in advance, these attempts have failed repeatedly, in large part because many believe that such laws would create more serious problems than they would solve. Thus, the ethics and legality of deprogramming have been and continue to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
In order to evaluate the ethical and legal implications of intervening on behalf of a loved one, we suggest that families consider the following questions:
1.      Is the family’s decision based primarily on the welfare of the cultist, rather than entirely on their own psychological needs?
2.      Do they have adequate information to conclude that their loved one is indeed imperiled by a cultic group and that an intervention is warranted? Have they consulted with experts, including legal experts, if warranted? Before they implore their loved one to make an informed decision about cult affiliation, they ought to make sure they have made an informed decision about intervention.
3.      Have parents contemplating an ethically defensible deprogramming carefully considered whether there are any less restrictive options with a reasonably good chance of eliminating the imminent danger?  The greater the danger and the lower the probability of success of less restrictive alternatives, the more ethically defensible will be the deprogramming.
4.      In the case of deprogramming, is the family’s decision sufficiently well informed that they would be emotionally and intellectually able to defend it in court if need be?  Families should remember that they may have to demonstrate that the deprogramming was necessary, not merely that the cult is harmful.  Because not all jurisdictions and judges will accept the necessity defense, parents and/or deprogrammers may be charged with a crime regardless of the apparent “necessity” of the deprogramming.
5.      Have they carefully checked on the competence and integrity of those who may conduct the intervention?  Although many helpers are ethical and competent, we have heard reports indicating that some have exploited vulnerable families and/or may not be as competent as they claim, at least with regard to certain cases.  If families fail to investigate a prospective helper, they may be led to participate in an unethical and possibly illegal and ineffective intervention.
6.      Ethical helpers will not rush families to a decision (whether for deprogramming or exit counseling) merely because it meets the financial or emotional needs of the helper.  Most deprogrammers and exit counselors work hard to help cult members make informed decisions about their group affiliations.  Some, unfortunately, do not pay as much attention to their ethical obligation to make sure that the families with whom they work have made truly informed decisions.  If they did, there would, in our opinion, be even fewer deprogrammings than currently occur.
Dr. Langone is executive director of the American Family Foundation [publisher of The Cult Observer].  Dr. Martin is director of the Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center [and Chairman of the American Family Foundation’s Victim Assistance Committee].

This article first appeared in the Winter 1993 issue of the Christian Research Journal, 

P.O. Box 500San Juan CapistranoCalifornia 92693

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Rethinking the Classic ‘Obedience’ Studies

Pacific Standard
Tom Jacobs

Stanley Milgram’s 1961 obedience experiments and the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment are legendary. But new research adds new wrinkles to our understanding of allegiance and evil.

November 25, 2012

They are among the most famous of all psychological studies, and together they paint a dark portrait of human nature. Widely disseminated in the media, they spread the belief that people are prone to blindly follow authority figures—and will quickly become cruel and abusive when placed in positions of power.

It’s hard to overstate the impact of Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments of 1961, or the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. Yet in recent years, the conclusions derived from those studies have been, if not debunked, radically reinterpreted.

A new perspective—one that views human nature in a more nuanced light—is offered by psychologists Alex Haslam of the University of Queensland, Australia, and Stephen Reicher of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

In an essay published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, they argue that people will indeed comply with the questionable demands of authority figures—but only if they strongly identify with that person, and buy into the rightness of those beliefs.

In other words, we’re not unthinking automatons. Nor are we monsters waiting for permission for our dark sides to be unleashed. However, we are more susceptible to psychological manipulation than we may realize.

In Milgram’s study, members of the general public were placed in the role of “teacher” and told that a “learner” was in a nearby room. Each time the “learner” failed to correctly recall a word as part of a memory experiment, the “teacher” was told to administer an electrical shock.

As the “learner” kept making mistakes, the “teacher” was ordered to give him stronger and stronger jolts of electricity. If a participant hesitated, the experimenter—an authority figure wearing a white coat—instructed him to continue.

Somewhat amazingly, most people did so: 65 percent of participants continued to give stronger and stronger shocks until the experiment ended with the “learner” apparently unconscious. (The torture was entirely fictional; no actual shocks were administered.)

To a world still reeling from the question of why so many Germans obeyed orders and carried out Nazi atrocities, here was a clear answer: We are predisposed to obey authority figures.

The Stanford Prisoner Experiment, conducted a few years later, was equally unnerving. Students were randomly assigned to assume the role of either prisoner or guard in a “prison” set up in the university’s psychology department. As Haslam and Reicher note, “such was the abuse meted out to the prisoners by the guards that the study had to be terminated after just six days.”

Lead author Philip Zimbardo, who assumed the role of “prison superintendent” with a level of zeal he later found frightening, concluded that brutality was “a natural consequence of being in the uniform of a guard and asserting the power inherent in that role.”

So is all this proof of the “banality of evil,” to use historian Hannah Arendt’s memorable phrase? Not really, argue Haslam and Reicher. They point to their own work on the BBC Prison Study, which mimicked the seminal Stanford study.

They found that participants “did not conform automatically to their assigned role” as prisoner or guard. Rather, there was a period of resistance, which ultimately gave way to a “draconian” new hierarchy. Before becoming brutal, the participants needed time to assume their new identities, and internalize their role in the system.

Once they did so, “the hallmark of the tyrannical regime was not conformity, but creative leadership and engaged followership within a group of true believers,” they write. “This analysis mirrors recent conclusions about the Nazi tyranny.”

It also sounds familiar to anyone who has studied the rise of semi-autonomous terror cells in recent decades. Suicide bombers don’t give up their lives out of unthinking obedience to some religious or political figure; rather, they have gradually melded their identities with that of the group they’re in, and the cause it represents.

Similarly, the researchers argue, a close look at Milgram’s study suggests it really isn’t about blind obedience at all. Transcripts of the sessions show the participants are often torn by the instruction to administer stronger shocks. Direct orders to do so were far less effective than entreaties that they need to continue for the sake of the study.

These reluctant sadists kept “torturing” in response to appeals that they were doing important scientific work—work that would ultimately benefit mankind. Looked at in this way, it wasn’t some inherent evil or conformism that drove them forward, but rather a misplaced sense of idealism.

This interpretation is still quite unsettling, of course. If a person has has fully bought into a certain world view and believes he or she is acting on the side of right, this conviction “makes them work energetically and creatively to ensure its success,” Haslam and Reicher write.

So in the researchers’ view, the lesson of these two still-important studies isn’t about conformity or even cruelty per se. Rather, they reveal a dangerous two-step process, in which authority figures “advocate oppression of others,” and underlings, due in part to their own psychological makeup and personal histories, “identify with those authorities … who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

So we may not be inherently evil, but it appears many of us can be enticed into believing that a heinous act is, in fact, good and necessary. Perhaps the real lesson of these startling experiments is the importance of learning how to think critically.

The most effective antidote to evil may be rigorous skepticism.

From Deprogramming to Thought Reform Consultation


Presentation by Carol Giambalvo, Thought Reform Consultant
Panel of Discussants: Joseph Kelly, Thought Reform Consultant; Patrick Ryan, Thought Reform Consultant; Hana Whitfield, Thought Reform Consultant

AFF Conference,
Chicago, IL
November 1998

Deprogramming 

Early on, according to what some “old-timers” have told us, groups such as the Children of God allowed parental access — even visits to the group — until a number of parents were successful at convincing their adult children to leave the group. Then the Groups began severely restricting parental access. 


In the mid-1970s parents began reporting their adult children’s involvement in new religious (and some non-religious) groups that many call cults. They reported rapid personality changes and concerns that their loved ones were dropping out of school, shunning previous friends and family and devoting themselves full time to working for these strange new groups to which they pledged their total allegiance. Many parents concluded that their children had been brainwashed. 


Parents were doing what they could to rescue their children from what were perceived as dangerous situations. Through trial and error, the controversial process of deprogramming developed. In the 1970s it became the preferred means of rescuing a cult member, as to many it was perceived as the only way a cult member could leave a cult. As we witness today, this is a misperception as thousands of cult members walk away from cults annually. In fact, in very unofficial polls taken at conferences and AFF recovery workshops, the majority of people attending are walkaways. But at the time, families based their decisions on the prevailing information. And a good part of that decision was based on the fact that in some groups, members were zealously protected from parents, often having their names changed and moved from location to location. 


We must add here that not all deprogrammings were “rescue and hold” situations. There were some where the group member was free to leave at any time and there were some where ex-members sought voluntary deprogramming. 

But for our purpose today, and in our thinking, we will use the term deprogramming to mean an involuntary situation, exit counseling to mean a voluntary situation, and thought reform consultation to mean an entirely different approach and we will seek to explain the differences and the history. 

Media coverage — even to some extent today — hyped the drastic deprogramming approach and further spread the concept that it was parents’ best, if not only, option. 


Deprogramming was controversial because it involved forcing a group member to listen to people relate information not available in the cults. Some state legislatures  passed conservatorship legislation to legalize the process, one of which was vetoed by the governor. Later the opposition to deprogramming and the recognition of the effectiveness of less restrictive alternatives grew. 



In deprogramming, group members were sometimes abducted from the street; although more commonly they were simply prevented from leaving their homes or a vacation cabin or motel. Deprogramming often succeeded in extricating the family member from the cult; nevertheless it failed more often than many realized and sometimes lawsuits were filed against parents and deprogrammers. In a few cases arrests and prosecution resulted. 


The actual process of a deprogramming, as we see it, differs a great deal from voluntary exit counseling. Some of the ideas about cults and brainwashing prevalent at the time contributed to that process. It was believed that the hold of the brainwashing over the cognitive processes of a cult member needed to be broken — or “snapped” as some termed it — by means that would shock or frighten the cultist into thinking again. For that reason in some cases cult leader’s pictures were burned or there were highly confrontational interactions between deprogrammers and cultist. What was often sought was an emotionalresponse to the information, the shock, the fear, and the confrontation. There are horror stories — promoted most vehemently by the cults themselves — about restraint, beatings, and even rape. And we have to admit that we have met former members who have related to us their deprogramming experience — several of handcuffs, weapons wielded and sexual abuse. But thankfully, these are in the minority — and in our minds, never justified. Nevertheless, deprogramming helped to free many individuals held captive to destructive cults at a time when other alternatives did not seem viable. 

Exit Counseling 

Gradually, not only did the understanding of the process of thought reform grow, but the voluntary approach of exit counseling proved to be effective — and less risky psychologically as well as legally. A few individuals committed themselves to doing exit counseling and refused to do “involuntaries.” 

Even within the exit counseling field, further branching off has occurred. Some tend to be technique-oriented and/or advance a particular religious perspective. Others are information oriented. They introduce themselves as individuals with important information. Although they may have a preference regarding how the group member chooses to respond to that information, they take pains to avoid manipulating the group member. 


One model for the process is described in the book Exit Counseling: A Family Intervention. The primary difference in exit counseling is its voluntary nature but there are other differences as well. Much more emphasis is placed on assessment, using a pre-intervention interview and information form that enables the exit counselor to determine the concerns specific to the family and the group member and to weed out interventions wanted by families for an agenda not appropriate to the undertaking of a serious intervention in an individual’s life; for example, Johnny is about to marry someone in the group of a different race or culture or Johnny isn’t attending xyz church any longer. These examples, by the way, are few and far between. For the majority of the time we see responsible families seeking help for legitimate concerns. We need, however, to be careful that we are not placing those concerns there or exaggerating them. There are some situations where an intervention is not possible under the present conditions, for example the family has no access to the group member. Some families are referred to knowledgeable mental health professionals for some work prior to planning an intervention. Emphasis is placed on family communications with the group member and education about the specific group, what it teaches, what thought reform is and how it works, and the recovery process. 


The process itself differs from deprogramming, in our opinion, because it is a much more respectful approach, it is non-confrontational, the exit counselors have to prove their credibility, there is much moreinteraction with the information and it seeks a primary cognitiverather than a primary emotional response. Very seldom is a visible“snapping” moment seen — but a gradual increase in interest, interaction, and feedback with the information — often accompanied with an increase of interest in and interaction with the family. 


Let me also say here that exit counselors realize that an intervention is only the first step. If the person decides to leave the group there is a long road to recovery, that can take leaps and bounds if the individual is afforded the opportunity to attend Wellspring, but they need much more emotional, psychological and cognitive support and if there is no system set up for that support, it may be unethical to do an intervention. 

Thought Reform Consultation 

In the 1980s many attempts were made by individuals doing interventions to get together to find ways to improve our profession and ourselves. But a difficulty arose in the definition of exit counseling and deprogramming. Some helping organizations at the time contributed to that confusion by maintaining a position that there were voluntary and involuntary exit counseling and voluntary and involuntary deprogramming. As a result, without the ability to establish a clear-cut definition, at those meetings people who called themselves exit counselors but were doing involuntary deprogramming could not be excluded and our work to establish ethical guidelines and a more professional approach spun its wheels, so to speak. A group of individuals who had committed themselves to voluntary interventions only began to meet regularly to share ideas and information and to develop Ethical Standards. We formed an organization of Thought Reform Consultants and eventually published our Ethical Standards. 

Those Ethical Standards were patterned after the Ethical Codes or Standards of the following organizations: 

  • American Association for Marriage & Family Therapy
  • National Association of Social Workers
  • Standards for the Private Practice of Clinical Social Work
  • American Psychiatric Association
  • National Academy of Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselors
We worked diligently to combine those standards with some uniquely necessary to our profession. And we owe our gratitude to the following advisors for their professional support and encouragement: 


  • Margaret Singer, Ph. D.
  • Michael Langone, Ph. D.
  • Herbert Rosedale, Esq.
  • David Bardin, Esq. and Livia Bardin, M.S.W.
  • Bill Goldberg, M.S.W. & Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W.
  • Paul Martin, Ph. D.

Thought reform consultation involves much, much more family preparation. It is necessary for a 2-3 day, sometimes more, formal family preparation involving all members of the family team and all thought reform consultant team members. This formal preparation accomplishes the following: 

  • The family team experiences how they work together under pressure and how the thought reform consultants work together.
  • Enables the thought reform consulting team to observe how the family works together under pressure and who may or may not be appropriate for major roles in the intervention
  • Improves family communication with the group memberEnables the family to understand the culture of the group, its teachings and how thought reform techniques impact the group member
  • Prepares the family for how to communicate in the intervention and what practical arrangements should be made
  • Emphasizes the recovery process and their responsibility in it
  • Emphasizes the seriousness of an intervention and all its repercussions
  • Facilitates the family in making a fully informed decision about doing an intervention
  • Thought reform consultation involves even more assessment, as you see — and places much more responsibility on the family. 
  • They realize that a team is not just going to come in and perform some magical process and things will forever be okay. 
In both exit counseling and thought reform consulting, the purpose of the intervention is not to get someone out of a cult. While that may be a desired outcome, the purpose is to give the group member the information that enables them to make a fully informed choice.

Thought reform consultation involves much, much more family preparation. It is necessary for a 2-3 day, sometimes more, formal family preparation involving all members of the family team and all thought reform consultant team members. This formal preparation accomplishes the following: 


  • The family team experiences how they work together under pressure and how the thought reform consultants work together.
  • Enables the thought reform consulting team to observe how the family works together under pressure and who may or may not be appropriate for major roles in the intervention
  • Improves family communication with the group member
  • Enables the family to understand the culture of the group, its teachings and how thought reform techniques impact the group member
  • Prepares the family for how to communicate in the intervention and what practical arrangements should be made
  • Emphasizes the recovery process and their responsibility in it
  • Emphasizes the seriousness of an intervention and all its repercussions
  • Facilitates the family in making a fully informed decision about doing an intervention

Thought reform consultation involves even more assessment, as you see — and places much more responsibility on the family. They realize that a team is not just going to come in and perform some magical process and things will forever be okay. 

In both exit counseling and thought reform consulting, the purpose of the intervention is not to get someone out of a cult. While that may be a desired outcome, the purpose is to give the group member the information that enables them to make a fully informed choice.

How can I get my kid out of a cult?

Families and friends of a cult-involved person tend to ask the second question. Former group members and others interested in cults tend to ask the former question. However, since the answer to the latter question requires an understanding of the answer to the former question, we will first explain why people leave cults and then focus on the special problem of families and friends.

We suggest that before proceeding you review our answers to the questions:

  • What is a cult?
  • Why do people join cults?
  • Why Leaving is Difficult
Cults typically invade the normal boundaries of those who join, intruding on most aspects of the members’ lives. Over time, cult members give up more and more control to the leadership.

The social and psychological controls that are associated with “brainwashing” become most conspicuous after a person has spent some time in a highly manipulative and controlling cult. That is why Professor Benjamin Zablocki associates brainwashing with what he calls “exit costs.” In other words, the brainwashing associated with high-control cultic groups isn’t so much related to how people enter groups, but rather to the difficulty they have in leaving.

Lifton has described in detail the characteristics of environments that can achieve a totalistic level of control over people.

In committing to a high-control group, persons undergo a conversion experience in which their fundamental assumptions about self and world change. This is a deeper and more extensive change than we see in people who are merely obedient. An authoritarian leader seeks only compliance. A cult leader, however, seeks compliance and identity change. Cult members must do more than obey. They must believe in the rightness of what they are told to do.

When the cultic dynamic reaches its consummation, cult members act on their own; orders from leaders are superfluous. The members not only accept and believe in the system. They make the system part of themselves and carry it with them wherever they go. Professor Rod Dubrow-Marshall says: “So when group members sell their newspapers, raise money, persuade people to come to their events, sell their house and give the money to the group, etc.—they do these things because it reinforces the group identity that has become such an important part of their self-identity.”

For somebody so bonded to a group, departure that requires a rejection of the group is a form of psychological self-mutilation, a very high exit cost, to use Zablocki’s term.

Leaving

If the cost of exiting a cult is so high, why would people ever leave their groups? This is an important question to answer, for research indicates that most cult members do leave their groups, although the probability of leaving appears to decrease substantially after several years of membership.

First of all, groups vary tremendously on the dimension of control, and many are not so “heavy duty” that departure involves painfully high exit costs. Therefore, the question above will not apply to many cult members, although even in their less controlling situations, one must still ask, “Why leave?”

To answer our question, let us consider the field of forces impinging on cult members from their group and from the world outside the group. From both directions cult members may feel attractions and repulsions.

Attractions to the group may be positive. Examples include genuine friendships, a sense of purpose and belonging, a strong sense of superiority to those outside the group, and the comfort of blind obedience (in which one no longer has to deal with the stress of deciding).
Attractions may also be negative; that is, the person conforms to the group in order to avoid actual or anticipated pain. If, for example, leaders subject dissenting or doubting members to public humiliation, members will tend to comply, to stay close to the group, in order to avoid that punishment. Also, the group’s teachings may incline members to expect failure in and/or rejection by the outside world, should they leave the group. Sometimes these expectations include supernatural punishments (e.g., to spend eternity in hell). Moreover, to the extent members have made the group part of their own personality, rejecting the group would entail, as already noted, the pain of psychological self-mutilation, so members will hold fast to the group in order to avoid this psychic pain.

In the member’s mind, then, exiting the group will result in the loss of positive attractions and the addition of pain that could have been avoided by obeying leaders and remaining a loyal member. These are exit costs.

Other exit costs relate to repulsions from the outside world. These may consist of fears that the person has avoided by “leaving the world.” Examples include: fear of sexual intimacy, the expectation of failure in college, not measuring up to parental expectations, and the challenge of committing to a career. These too are exit costs, for the member must confront these fears if s/he leaves the group, which provides “noble” rationalizations for avoiding these fears in the mainstream world.

There are, however, exit benefits, and these may sometimes come to outweigh the exit costs.
One set of exit benefits includes attractions to the mainstream world, including emotional bonds, stifled interests, and the sense of freedom that the mainstream world may represent to cult members recoiling from the oppression of their demanding group life. Emotional bonds to loved ones and friends stay alive within the person, for they are at least partly autonomous of cognitive evaluations. However much the group’s ideology may denigrate the member’s “old life,” contacts with family and friends, may stimulate these emotional bonds and create an impulse—perhaps unconscious—to move toward the mainstream world.

Contacts with people outside the group may also rekindle old interests—artistic, intellectual, academic, career, sports—that were stifled or given up in order to meet the group’s demands. And the suffering a member experiences as a result of his/her attempts to conform to a demanding and sometimes punishing group environment may cause the outside world to look more and more attractive as a place of freedom. Paradoxically, then, the cumulative fears of what we earlier termed “negative attractions” may increase the strength of the outside world’s benefits.

This impulse to escape may be reinforced by repulsive forces within the cult. Examples include: doubts about beliefs, practices, and predictions of doom that do not come true; personality conflicts with other group members; boredom; exhaustion; and a growing awareness of the manipulative techniques employed to exploit the member.

The field of forces described above will vary greatly from individual to individual and will shift over time for each individual. Some may exit smoothly. But, at least in high control groups, many appear to leave with great difficulty. Indeed, one research study found that 42% of cult defectors left covertly (e.g., by sneaking out in the middle of the night). Indeed, it appears that for some cult members the pain of staying becomes so great that the pain of leaving constitutes relief.

It is no wonder, then, that research and clinical experience suggest that a large percentage of former cult members are in great distress when they leave their groups.

What does this mean for families and friends?

This analysis suggests that families and friends concerned about a loved one’s cult involvement should keep the following points in mind:

1.Families and friends can enhance their positive influence on a loved one by understanding the field of forces impinging on him/her and developing a strategy for altering the cost/benefit ratio of these forces.

2.Because the cult experience involves many complex interactions that change over time, simplistic assessments of a loved one’s situation and plans to change it are not likely to be helpful.

3.This complexity also means that persuading a loved one to leave a group is rarely easy.

4.It is often more realistic to set a goal of improving one’s relationship with the cult-involved loved one, rather than “getting him/her out” (which may, however, become a viable goal in the future).

We  has a variety of resources designed to help thoughtful families and friends understand and respond to the complexity of a loved one’s cult involvement.

However, because each case should be assessed individually, we can more effectively advise you on what resources to concentrate on, if we know a bit about your situation.

Coming Out of the Cults

Excerpted from “Coming Out of the Cults,” Psychology Today, January, 1979
Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.

Most ex-cult members we have seen struggle at one time or another with some or all of the following difficulties and problems. Not all have all of these problems, nor do most have them in severe and extended form.

Depression. With their 24-hour regime of ritual, work, worship, and community, the cults provide members with tasks and purpose. When members leave, a sense of meaninglessness often reappears. They must also deal with family and personal issues left unresolved at the time of conversion.

But former members have a variety of new losses to contend with. They often speak of their regret for the lost years and feel a loss of innocence and self-esteem if they come to believe that they were used, or that they wrongly surrendered their autonomy.

Loneliness. Leaving a cult also means leaving many friends, a brotherhood with common interests, the intimacy of sharing a very significant experience, and having to look for new friends in an uncomprehending or suspicious world.

Indecisiveness. Some groups prescribe virtually every activity: what and when to eat, wear, and do during the day and night, showering, defecating procedures, and sleep positions. The loss of a way of life in which everything is planned often creates a “future void” in which they must plan and execute all their tomorrows on their own. Certain individuals cannot put together any organized plan for taking care of themselves, whether problems involve a job, school, or social life. Some have to be urged to buy alarm clocks and notebooks in order to get up, get going, and plan their days.

Slipping into Altered States. Recruits are caught up in a round of long, repetitive lectures couched in hypnotic metaphors and exalted ideas, hours of chanting while half-awake, attention-focusing songs and games, and meditating. Several groups send their members to bed wearing headsets that pipe sermons into their ears as they sleep, after hours of listening to tapes of the leader’s exhortations while awake. These are all practices that tend to produce states of altered consciousness, exaltation, and suggestibility.

When they leave the cult, many members find that a variety of conditions—stress and conflict, a depressive low, certain significant words or ideas—can trigger a return to the trancelike state they knew in cult days. They report that they fall into the familiar, unshakable lethargy, and seem to hear bits of exhortations from cult speakers. These episodes of “floating”—like the flashbacks of drug users—are most frequent immediately after leaving the group, but can still occur weeks or months later.

Blurring of Mental Acuity. Most cult veterans report—and their families confirm—subtle cognitive inefficiencies and changes that take some time to pass. Many former cult members have to take simple jobs until they regain former levels of competence.

Fear of the Cult. Most of the groups work hard to prevent defections: some ex-members cite warnings of heavenly damnation for themselves, their ancestors, and their children. Since many cult veterans retain some residual belief in the cult doctrines, this alone can be a horrifying burden.

When members do leave, efforts to get them back reportedly range from moderate harassment to incidents involving the use of force. Many ex-members and their families secure unlisted phone numbers; some move away from known addresses; some even take assumed names in distant places.

Fear may be most acute for former members who have left a spouse or children behind in the cults that recruited couples and families. Any effort to make contact risks breaking the link completely. Often painful legal actions ensue over child custody or conservatorship between ex- and continuing adherents.

The Fishbowl Effect. A special problem is the constant watchfulness of family and friends, who are on the alert for any signs that the difficulties of real life will send the person back. Mild dissociation, deep preoccupations, temporary altered states of consciousness, and any positive talk about cult days can cause alarm in a former member’s family. Often the ex-member senses it, but neither side knows how to open up discussion.

New acquaintances and old friends can also trigger an ex-cult member’s feelings that people are staring, wondering why he/she joined such a group.

The Agonies of Explaining. Why one joined is difficult to tell anyone who is unfamiliar with cults. One has to describe the subtleties and power of the recruitment procedures and how one was indoctrinated. Most difficult of all is to try to explain why a person is unable simply to walk away from a cult, for that entails being able to give a long and sophisticated explanation of social and psychological coercion, influence, and control procedures.

Guilt. According to our informants, significant parts of cult activity are based on deception, particularly fund-raising and recruitment. The dishonesty is rationalized as being for the greater good of the cult or the person recruited. As they take up their personal consciences again, many ex-members feel great remorse over the lies they have told, and they frequently worry over how to right the wrongs they did.

Perplexities about Altruism. Many of these people want to find ways to put their altruism and energy back to work without becoming a pawn in another manipulative group. They wonder how they can properly select among the myriad contending organizations—social, religious, philanthropic, service-oriented, psychological—and remain their own boss.

Elite No More. “They get you to believing that they alone know how to save the world,” recalled one member. “You think you are in the vanguard of history . . . As the chosen, you are above the law . . . ” Clearly one of the more poignant comedowns of postgroup life is the end of feeling a chosen person, a member of an elite.

How Can Cults Harm People?

There are a wide variety of cults. Different people respond differently to the same environment. Therefore, not all people who have been in cults are harmed by the experience. But some, perhaps a majority, are harmed. Part of ICSA’s mission is to help these people, so our focus here is on this subgroup of cult members.


The testimonies of the thousands of people who have sought help after a cult experience suggests that the core of their subjective experience is a sense of abuse and betrayal. The group promised them something wonderful, but ultimately they received disillusionment and pain.

As noted in our answer to the question, “Why do people leave cults,” exiting a cult can involve much pain and suffering, in part because the group environment is so demanding and in part because the group becomes a part of the person’s identity.

Departure, then, is a form of psychic trauma. Indeed, many former cult members have been diagnosed with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).
However, even for those who don’t reach the level of PTSD, the pain can be severe. Among the problems ex-cult members have reported are (adapted from Giambalvo):

  • Sense of purposelessness, of being disconnected.
  • Depression.
  • Grieving for other group members, for a sense of loss in their life.
  • Guilt.
  • Anger.
  • Alienation.
  • Isolation.
  • Distrust.
  • Fear of going crazy.
  • Fear that what the cult said would happen to them if they left actually might happen.
  • Tendency to think in terms of black and white.
  • Tendency to spiritualize everything.
  • Difficulty making decisions.
  • Low self-esteem.
  • Embarrassment
  • Employment and/or career problems.
  • Dissociation.
  • Floating/flashbacks.
  • Nightmares.
  • Family conflicts.
  • Dependency issues.
  • Sexual problems.
  • Spiritual issues.
  • Inability to concentrate
  • Re-emergence of pre-cult emotional or psychological issues.
  • Impatience with the recovery process.

Even with professional help, it is not uncommon for ex-members to require one or two years to work through their problems and re-establish an identity and sense of purpose apart from their group.