Deprogramming is a controversial tactic that seeks to dissuade someone from "strongly held convictions" such as religious beliefs. Deprogramming purports to assist a person who holds a particular belief system—of a kind considered harmful by those initiating the deprogramming—to change those beliefs and sever connections to the group associated with them. Typically, people identifying themselves as deprogrammers are hired by a person's relatives, often parents of adult children. The subject of the deprogramming is usually forced to undergo the procedure, which might last days or weeks, against their will.
Brainwashing is the controversial idea that the human mind can be altered or controlled against a person's will by manipulative psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subject's ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs.
Margaret Thaler Singer was an American clinical psychologist and researcher with her colleague Lyman Wynne on family communication. She was a prominent figure in the study of undue influence in social and religious contexts, and a proponent of the brainwashing theory of cults.
The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was an anti-cult organization founded by deprogrammer Ted Patrick that provided information on groups it considered "cults", as well as support and referrals to deprogrammers. It operated from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s in the United States.
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of psychohistory.
Steven Alan Hassan is an American mental health professional and author who specializes in the area of cults. He worked as a deprogrammer in the late 1970s, but since then has advocated a non-coercive form of exit counseling.
Cult is a term often applied to new religious movements and other social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and sometimes divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
The anti-cult movement, abbreviated ACM and also known as the countercult movement, consists of various governmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals that seek to raise awareness of religious groups that they consider to be "cults", uncover coercive practices used to attract and retain members, and help those who have become involved with harmful cult practices.
Steve K. D. Eichel is a psychologist known primarily for his work on destructive cults, coercive persuasion, mind control, brainwashing, and deprogramming. He is a former president of the Greater Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis and the 2006–07 president of the American Academy of Counseling Psychology, the national membership academy comprising American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) Board-certified counseling psychologists. In 2012 he was installed as the President of the Board of the International Cultic Studies Association.
Ronald M. Enroth was an American professor of sociology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and an evangelical Christian author of books concerning what he defined as "cults" and "new religious movements" and important figure in the Christian countercult movement.
Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Other Abusive Relationships is a study of cults and abusive relationships by Madeleine Landau Tobias, Janja Lalich, and Michael Langone. It was published by Hunter House Publishers in 1994. In 2006, the book was reissued as Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships.
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China is a non-fiction book by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of brainwashing.
Rick Alan Ross is an American deprogrammer, cult specialist, and founder and executive director of the nonprofit Cult Education Institute. He frequently appears in the news and other media discussing groups some consider cults. Ross has intervened in more than 500 deprogramming cases in various countries.
The Jason Scott case was a United States civil suit, brought against deprogrammer Rick Ross, two of his associates, and the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), for the abduction and failed deprogramming of Jason Scott, a member of the United Pentecostal Church International. Scott was eighteen years old at the time of the abduction and thus legally an adult. CAN was a co-defendant because a CAN contact person had referred Scott's mother to Rick Ross. In the trial, Jason Scott was represented by Kendrick Moxon, a prominent Scientologist attorney.
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control is a 2004 popular science book explaining mind control, brainwashing, thought reform and coercive persuasion by neuroscientist and physiologist Kathleen Taylor. It explains the neurological basis for reasoning and cognition in the brain, and proposes that the self is changeable, and describes the physiology of neurological pathways. It reviews case studies including Patty Hearst, the Manson Family, and the mass murder/suicide of members of Peoples Temple at Jonestown, and compares the techniques of influence used by cults to those of totalitarian and communist societies. It lays out a model FACET – Freedom, Agency, Complexity, Ends-not-means, and Thinking – which she believes can be used to negate the influence of brainwashing techniques.
Twisted Scriptures: Breaking Free from Churches That Abuse is a non-fiction book by Mary Alice Chrnalogar, published by Zondervan. Chrnalogar instructs readers on how to determine if a religious group is manipulative or abusive, and describes techniques of mind control. The book was first published in 1997 by publishers Whitaker House and Control Techniques, and republished in 2000 by Zondervan. A Spanish language edition was published in 2006 by Vida.
Dick Anthony was a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on the validity of brainwashing as a determiner of behavior, a prolific researcher of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.
Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change is a 1978 book written by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman which describes the authors' theory of religious conversion. They propose that "snapping" is a mental process through which a person is recruited by a cult or new religious movement, or leaves the group through deprogramming or exit counseling. Political ideological conversions are also included, with Patty Hearst given as an example.
The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-Cultists, and the New Religions is a 1980 nonfiction book on anti-cultism, deprogramming, and new religious movements (cults) by sociologists of religion Anson D. Shupe and David G. Bromley. A foreword was written by Joseph R. Gusfield. It was published by SAGE Publications in its Library of Social Research series as volume 113. Some have described the volume as a companion to their previous work, "Moonies" in America: Cult, Church, and Crusade (1979). Shupe and Bromley approach the anti-cult movement in the United States through a resource-mobilization lens.
Let Our Children Go! is a nonfiction book by Ted Patrick with Tom Dulack about Patrick's experience with cult deprogramming. It was first published in 1976 by E. P. Dutton, but was republished by Ballantine Books in 1977. The book alternates between sections written by Patrick and Dulack in describing encounters with cults including the Children of God, the Love Family, the Hare Krishna, and the Unification Church.
