Cult Recovery: Gaining Trust After Cult Exploitation

Uniting the Continents, Support for the Pacific Rim and Western USA

An ONLINE EVENT for Families, Former Members and Friends Affected by CULTIC Groups and Relationships.

• PACIFIC RIM | EUROPE - SEPTEMBER 12-13, 2020
• NORTH AMERICA - SEPTEMBER 11-12, 2020
• Event Information/Register

Lorna Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA

Cult Recovery: Gaining Trust After Cult Exploitation

Abstract

After cult involvement, former members may wonder if they can trust others not to betray or shame them. They may wonder if they can trust themselves. For first generation former cult members, cult trauma was an “assault of the unimaginable” (Ringstrom) upon their character, interests, and goals. Many have experienced shaming and deception. For recruits, these assaults may have led to their acceptance of an altered view of their ability to perceive truth. Former members who were born and raised in cults may have accepted their cult’s characterization of them as “bad” or “evil.” Helping ex-cult members gain trust in others includes reminding them of their right to be treated with dignity, which is the opposite of cult shaming. By contrasting dignity with shame, former cult members can both objectify their shaming experience and create a language for understanding that they did not merit the treatment they received. This understanding can serve as a bridge to and a model for future relationships.

Biography

Lorna Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA, Board member and past president of ICSA, is a clinical social worker/psychoanalyst and Director, Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies. In 1976, Lorna and Bill Goldberg began a support group in Englewood, New Jersey, which continues online at this time. Some of her recent articles include Goldberg, L. (2012). “Influence of a Charismatic Antisocial Cult Leader: Psychotherapy with an Ex-Cultist Prosecuted for Criminal Behavior,” International Journal of Cultic Studies, Vol.2, 15-24. Goldberg, L. (2011). “Diana, Leaving the Cult: Play Therapy in Childhood and Talk Therapy in Adolescence,” International Journal of Cultic Studies, Vol.2, 33-44. Lorna has co-written with Bill Goldberg, “Psychotherapy with Targeted Parents,” in Working with Alienated Children and Families (2012). She co-edited ICSA's Cult Recovery: A Clinician’s Guide to Working with Former Members and Their Families. (2017). She has written “Therapy with Former Members of Destructive Cults” in New Religious Movements and Counselling (2018). Website: blgoldberg.com Email: lorna@blgoldberg.com 

• PACIFIC RIM | EUROPE - SEPTEMBER 12-13, 2020
• NORTH AMERICA - SEPTEMBER 11-12, 2020
• Event Information/Register

Coercive Control, Cults, and Community Conference

February 22, 2020
Nashville, TN

Earn 6 CE hours and learn how we can heal and protect our communities.

Join host Debby Schriver and Steve Eichel, Dylesia Barner, Lorna Goldberg, Alsandria R., Bill Goldberg, and Ragan Schriver in a day of learning and discussion tailored to professionals who serve our communities—counselors, law enforcement officials, social workers, legal professionals.

• DATE: Sat., February 22, 2020
• TIME: 8:30am–4:30pm
• LOCATION: Tennessee State Museum, 1000 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., Nashville, TN 37208
• SPONSORS: The University of Tennessee College of Social Work, The International Cultic Studies Association

REGISTRATION: This is a FREE event however space is limited so registration is required.

There are Two Steps to Register:

STEP 1: Register at EventsXD here: https://portal.eventsxd.com/account/register

STEP 2:  Register for the event here: https://www2.eventsxd.com/event/10632/coercivecontrolcultsandcommunity/register

First Generation Parents and Second Generation Children

First Generation Parents and Second Generation Children
International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA)

Published on Nov 11, 2016
Lorna Goldberg

One of the most painful aspects of the cult experience is the undermining of the natural bond between parents who are in cults and their children. This presentation will explore the numerous techniques that cult leaders use to diminish the empathic connection between 37 parents and their children. The presenter also will discuss the powerful feelings that emerge when exiting a cult. How can those who leave the cult better deal with potentially crushing emotions? Often there is intense guilt on the part of the parents. On the other hand, there is often intense anger on the part of the second-generation adults. These emotions can be so overwhelming that former cult members can become unable to move towards a more satisfactory life. This presentation will contend that these post-cult feelings not only are the result of facing the reality of the cult experience; but, also, are a legacy of identification with the cult leader’s punitive and uncompassionate attitude, which results in a harsh conscience for cult members. The presenter will provide examples from her clinical work, from the support group that she facilitates with Bill Goldberg, from workshops with first generation parents, and from ICSA workshops with second-generation former cult members. All case material will be disguised.


https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=yfK_-_GrDwc

Philadelphia: Mental Health Issues in Cult-Related Interventions - A Report Mental-Health Issues in Cult-Related Interventions

Report by John Paul Lennon

Sunday, October 13, 2013, Sheraton Philadelphia University City Hotel, PA

In this special event, cult-intervention specialists and mental-health professionals discussed their roles in helping families and former members—in particular, how those roles work together and how they differ. The event was intended to be useful to former members of high-control groups or relationships, families concerned about an affected loved one, and helping professionals whose assistance families and former members sometimes seek.


Among the questions examined were the following:

• What assessment criteria should professionals consider to determine the appropriateness and feasibility of cult-related interventions?
• What criteria should professionals consider to determine the appropriateness of mental-health consultation and/or treatment?

Speakers included some of the leading exit counselors and mental-health professionals in this field:

• David Clark
• Steve K. D. Eichel, PhD, ABPP
• Lorna Goldberg, MSW, LCSW, PsyA
• William Goldberg, MSW, LCSW, PsyA
• Steven Hassan, MEd, LMHC, NCC
• Joseph Kelly
• Arnold Markowitz, LCSW
• Patrick Ryan
• Daniel Shaw, LCSW
• Joseph Szimhart

Information about these speakers is available on the ICSA website, www.icsahome.com


As ICSA President Steve Eichel noted in his closing remarks, this was a landmark occasion: the first time that exit counselors and mental-health professionals had sat down together and discussed their different approaches to helping cultic group members, former members, and families.

The meeting room was filled with about forty participants when the program opened just after 10:00 AM. A panel of intervention specialists—David Clark, Steven Hassan, Joseph Kelly, Patrick Ryan, and Joseph Szimhart—briefly presented its distinctive approaches. Several times panelists reiterated their shared belief that, rather than generalizing, it most important for professionals to be oriented to the particular individuals involved. There was agreement that the term "exit counseling" is hardly accurate because the field has moved away from intrusive actions—e.g., deprogramming, to what is now called thought-reform consultation. Some light bantering occurred as participants sought a more apt term, but without a consensus decision. What was agreed is that any intervention requires much background study by the professional, who also must prep the family in detail. To gather information on the cult-involved individual’s previous experiences and dynamics, most professionals have the family fill out detailed questionnaires.

The moderator, Lorna Goldberg, followed the interventionists’ presentations, gently and firmly leading them in dialog and later opening up the floor to the audience, whose members were eagerly waiting to contribute. The exchanges were lively and varied as participants sought answers to their pressing needs (they were loath to see lunchtime cut the discussion short).

After lunch, Steve Eichel, William Goldberg, Steven Hassan, Arnold Markowitz, and Daniel Shaw presented their mental-health perspectives. Of interest was the consensus among the various mental-health professionals regarding certain basic therapeutic goals: to open up and maintain communication between family members and the cult-involved person to strengthen those relationships; to be aware that cult involvement may exacerbate preexisting family tensions; that exited members should be assessed for personal safety and for postcult trauma, which requires specific therapeutic strategies.

The third part of the program was even more fascinating, as both sets of professionals formed a roundtable, and a general discussion ensued that revealed and fleshed out the complementarity between interventionists and therapists. The goal of professionals is no longer to get the member out of the cult, but rather to facilitate communication between the family and the cult-involved person. Interventionists agreed that exiting members generally need psychotherapy to help them process their leaving experience, continue healing, and consolidate their progress. Psychotherapists, for their part, acknowledged their limits regarding helping persons exit controversial groups. Moreover, they did not want to perform cult-exiting interventions of any kind, so as to protect their therapeutic relationship with the exiting or exited cult member.

The fourth stage of the program offered the audience an array of experts who were available to answer questions. Final remarks summarized the historic nature of this meeting and the satisfaction both sets of professionals felt with it. As the program drew to a close, members of the audience sought out experts for one-on-one help or more specific information. All seemed to benefit from the networking that such gatherings provide.

ICSA Today plans to publish presentations from this conference in a future issue.

John Paul Lennon, STL, MA, LPC, Board member, Regain Network (Religious Groups Awareness International Network). Mr. Lennon was a Legionary of Christ brother from 1961 to 1969 and an LC priest from 1969 to 1984. He served as a Diocesan priest from 1985 to 1989 and received an MA in Counseling from the Catholic University of America in 1989. For the past 10 years he has worked as a Child and Family Therapist in Arlington, Virginia. In 2008 he published a memoir, Our Father who art in bed, A Naive and Sentimental Dubliner in the Legion of Christ.

Special event:Mental Health Issues in Cult-Related Interventions

ICSA will conduct a special event in Philadelphia
October 13, 2013, 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM
Sheraton Philadelphia University City
(36th and Chestnut St.)

In this special event, cult intervention specialists and mental health professionals
will discuss their roles in helping families and former members, in particular how they work together and how they differ.


Among the questions to be examined are:

• What assessment criteria should be considered to determine the appropriateness and feasibility of cult-related interventions?
• What criteria should be considered to determine the appropriateness of mental health consultation and/or treatment?

This event should be useful to former members of high-control groups or relationships, families concerned about an affected loved one, and helping professionals whose assistance is sometimes sought by families and former members.

David Clark
Steve K. D. Eichel, PhD, ABPP
Lorna Goldberg, MSW, LCSW, PsyA
William Goldberg, MSW, LCSW, PsyA
Steven Hassan, Med, LMHC, NCC
Joseph Kelly
Arnold Markowitz, LCSW
Patrick Ryan
Daniel Shaw, LCSW
Joseph Szimhart


Speakers include some of the leading "exit counselors" and mental health professionals in this field biographical.

We hope you join us!

Please tell others and donate if you cannot attend.

Thank you.