Three cult-related exercises with a wider application

Steven Hassan's books Combating Cult Mind Control and Freedom of Mind contain much good advice about supporting and rehabilitating people who have escaped from destructive cults. People who want to help cult leavers and cult leavers who want to help themselves will find these books very useful.

I have mentioned some of Steve Hassan's suggestions in previous articles inspired by his books. Some of the techniques and practices that he promotes have a wider application: for example, people who have escaped from dysfunctional families - some of which can be very cultlike - and are trying to process the past and rehabilitate themselves may also find them worth trying. 

This article features and expands on three pieces of advice that are best followed in sequence: tell the story, rework the story and salvage as much as possible from the time spent in captivity. 

1) Telling the story
Steve Hassan says that cult leavers are stronger for being able to share their personal stories. He also says that the written word is a powerful medium of communication, and that writing the entire story down helps the writer to process and gain a better perspective on the experiences.

This is all very true, but the story-telling exercise may be very time consuming and it may be difficult to know where to start. 

This applies even more to people who are trying to come to terms with and move on from many years of neglect and ill-treatment at the hands of their families. People who are both cult leavers and members of dysfunctional families will have a lot of material to process.

A spreadsheet for topics and timelines provides a good structure and framework for the narrative, and using it to record key elements in someone's life may save time in the long run.

There are so many variables and different stories to tell that it is impossible to design a 'one size fits all' template. 

A good way to get the ball rolling is to set up column headings and sub-headings for basic, useful and important information. It is advisable to start with key items such as people, addresses, dates and milestones. Lists of elements such as food and clothes, schools and jobs, toys and pets, books and music, entertainment, outings and travel will help to fill out the picture of the past. Other categories could include accidents, illnesses and painful incidents such as a family breakup. Political events and news items that made a big impression may also be worth recording.

It is best to concentrate on one aspect at a time and follow it through in sequence over the years of dependency and captivity.

A few points about helping cult leavers

This is the fourth and final article inspired by exit-counsellor Steven Hassan's thought-provoking book Combating Cult Mind Control, his illuminating 'Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults'. 

The first article covers some of the interesting things that Steve Hassan has to say about how cults recruit people. 

The second article contains disturbing information about life inside cults.

The third article features a few of the useful points that he makes in connection with getting people out of cults.

I now want to highlight a few of his ideas about helping people who have left a cult. I have already produced an article about life after leaving a cult, but Steve Hassan's book has inspired some more commentary. 

Would-be helpers need to understand what they are up against and dealing with; Steve Hassan has some distressing and depressing information about this. 

Helpers also need to learn what to do about it; the book has some useful and encouraging suggestions about what works best when helping cult leavers rediscover and live from their real selves, recover from the abuse they have endured and make new, productive lives for themselves.

The worst comes first
Steve Hassan has a lot to say about the many and severe problems faced by cult leavers, the biggest of which is loss of identity. They may also be suffering from arrested development, they may behave in an inappropriately dependent way, their self-esteem may have been destroyed, their critical faculties may be atrophied, they may have memory loss and find it difficult to concentrate, they may have trouble making decisions and they may have serious adjustment problems.

They may also be living in fear of some kind of retaliation by the cult.

A few points about getting people out of cults

This is the third article inspired by exit-counsellor Steven  Hassan's book Combating Cult Mind Control, his 'Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults'. 

After covering some of the interesting things that Steve Hassan has to say about how cults recruit people and his disturbing information about life inside cults, I now want to highlight a few of the useful points that he makes in connection with getting people out of cults.

I have already produced an article about the difficulties of leaving a cult, but Steve Hassan's book has inspired some more commentary.

Three ways to get out of a cult
Steve Hassan comes straight to the point here:

“People leave a group in three basic ways: they walk out, they get kicked out (often in a very “burned-out" condition, both psychologically and physically), or they get counseled out.”

This summary is spot on. In addition, perhaps some people who are temporarily out from under the influence and away from other members may just decide not to go back. This is similar to but not quite the same as walking out; it could be that they mentally defected a while back and just waited for the right opportunity to cut the connection! 

Incidentally, Steve Hassan says that 'walk-aways' are often members who have been able to maintain contact with people outside the destructive cult; he also says that walk-aways make up the majority of cult leavers.

Counselling out: newcomers versus old-timers
When it comes to counselling people out, it may at first seem likely that the easiest candidates are those who have been members for only a short time and the most difficult those who have committed many years of their lives to the cause. 

Steve Hassan supports this idea:

“If I am contacted within the first few months of a recruitment, the prognosis for a successful exit within a year is extremely good. On the other hand, if the person has been in the group for ten years when I am contacted, it might be quite some time before an intervention can be successfully attempted...” 

A few points about life inside cults

Steven Hassan's chilling, depressing and best-selling book Combating Cult Mind Control was written from personal experience. It provides independent confirmation of and supporting evidence for some of the material in various cult articles.

The first article inspired by this book is about people who join cults; this one highlights some of the things that Steve Hassan has to say about life inside cults. He provides a lot of disturbing information about how cults control their members, information that people should be aware of before even considering joining certain groups and organisations.

B.I.T.E. The four elements of mind control 
Steve Hassan says that cults control four key elements of their members' lives: their Behaviour, the Information that they are given, their Thoughts and their Emotions. 

This systematic and comprehensive approach makes sense and is very effective. It is designed to prevent cult members from leaving – or even wanting to leave.

'BITE' makes me think of the attack-dog syndrome! 

Life as a cult member

In the worst cases, every aspect of cult members' day-to-day lives is controlled. 

They are ordered to eat less, sleep less and work harder. 

They are ordered to hand over their belongings and the contents of their bank accounts to the cult.

They are encouraged or instructed to break all contact with family and friends.

They are denied access to much non-cult reading material and information.

A few points about people who join cults

Steven Hassan's best-selling book Combating Cult Mind Control, which is described as a 'Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults', is a good starting point for people who want to learn something about cults. First published in 1988, it is still very relevant.

This book contains a lot of useful - not to mention depressing, disturbing, sinister and chilling - information and covers many cult-related topics.

Steven, aka Steve, Hassan is American; he is a former high-level member of the Unification Church or 'Moonies'. Much of what he says about this cult and his life inside it has a much wider application.

This article covers a few points of particular interest that Steve Hassan makes in connection with joining cults.

He says for example that the Moonies justify the use of deception to recruit new members. So do many if not most cult-like organisations. Misleading people, luring them somewhere under false pretences and downright brazen lying are common practices; some examples can be found in this article.

A key point about people who join cults
Steven Hassan makes a very good point here:

“It is important to remember that for the most part, people don't join cults. Culls recruit people.“

This is very true in the majority of cases. Most people who join cults do so only because they were approached and manipulated by unscrupulous members with recruitment targets to meet: they would not have sought out and joined the cult of their own inclination and free will.

Some cults however are very exclusive, at least in the early stages of their existence. They prefer quality to quantity and try to attract rather than target people. They make it difficult to join and they let the would-be members make all the running and prove themselves worthy. Of course, this could be a clever recruitment technique!