The Church of England like many churches around the world has been facing an avalanche of sexual abuse stories in recent years. My paper is not to focus on the sensationalist side of these stories but rather to look at the way that some of these accounts have distinctive cultic elements.
A study published in Memory suggests that trigger warnings could actually be counterproductive and prolong effects of recalling a negative memory.
My Father Leader: A Parent Cult from Inside Out
The present talk reflects on my experience of 30 year being a follower of former Roman Catholic priest Fernando Karadima.
This talk is an opening, a crack to let light into considerations of racialized survivor experience with hopes to expand this conversation, and invitations to research the lives, challenges, healing journeys, and to visibilize the living bodies of cult survivors of color.
The aim of this presentation is to analyze the process by which former members recognized and named forms of control, experiences of abuse and experiences of violence during her or his life within a religious cultic group after leaving the group.
How do people get trapped in cults? One tool cults use is emotional and mental coercion to exercise undue influence keeping people stuck in the group. Even without physically holding people prisoner, it is possible to hold them by building a closed system of beliefs and isolating them from other ideas.
refers to attempts by cult leaders to manipulate their followers by creating an environment in which the cult members doubt their own thoughts, observations, interpretations, and memories.
I work with many people who were terrified about getting help again and waited for years to come for therapy or participate in my support group because their last counseling experience had been so traumatizing, abusive and manipulative.
It’s human nature to make up stories, and we all make up our own story. We piece it together with the events we feel shaped our lives. Once we have a fixed story, we learn to play the role of the protagonist.