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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, also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education, is the controversial theory that purports 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 new religious movements.
The term large-group awareness training (LGAT) refers to activities - usually offered by groups with links to the human potential movement - which claim to increase self-awareness and to bring about desirable transformations in individuals' personal lives. LGATs are unconventional; they often take place over several days, and may compromise participants' mental wellbeing.
Eileen Vartan Barker is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and has written studies about cults and new religious movements.
Steven Alan Hassan is an American writer and mental health counselor who specializes in the area of cults and new religious movements. He worked as a deprogrammer in the late 1970s, but since then has advocated a non-coercive form of exit counseling.
A cult is a group requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant outside the norms of society, which is typically led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader who tightly controls its members. It is in some contexts a pejorative term, also used for new religious movements and other social groups which are defined by their unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or their common interest in a particular person, object, or goal. This sense of the term is weakly defined – having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia – and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
David G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, specialized in sociology of religion and the academic study of new religious movements. He has written extensively about cults, new religious movements, apostasy, and the anti-cult movement.
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 cults, uncover coercive practices used to attract and retain members, and help those who have become involved with harmful cult practices.
Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse a 1995 book about counselling and therapeutic approaches for individuals exposed to coercive or harmful practices in cults. It is edited by Michael Langone, director of the anti-cult non-profit organization International Cultic Studies Association, and is published by W. W. Norton & Company. The book examines coercive cult practices through theories of social influence, cognitive psychology, and psychotherapy.
The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is a non-profit educational and anti-cult organization. It publishes the International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation, "ICSA Today", and other materials.
Stephen A. Kent is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He researches new religious movements (NRMs), and has published research on several such groups including the Children of God, the Church of Scientology, and other NRMs operating in Canada.
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.
Carol Giambalvo was an exit counselor who worked with Cult Awareness Network's New York office and chaired on the Cult Awareness Network's national board of directors from 1988 to 1991, and was also on the International Cultic Studies Association's board of directors headed its Recovery Programs, and was responsible for its outreach program. She co-founded reFOCUS, an anti-cult organization for ex-cult members in the United States.
The academic study of new religious movements is known as new religions studies (NRS). The study draws from the disciplines of anthropology, psychiatry, history, psychology, sociology, religious studies, and theology. Eileen Barker noted that there are five sources of information on new religious movements (NRMs): the information provided by such groups themselves, that provided by ex-members as well as the friends and relatives of members, organizations that collect information on NRMs, the mainstream media, and academics studying such phenomena.
Jean-Marie Abgrall is a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult consultant, graduate in criminal law and anti-cultist. He has been an expert witness and has been consulted in the investigations of cults. Abgrall is known as a proponent of brainwashing theories.
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, Ph.D., 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.
The APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC/DITPACT) was formed at the request of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1983. The APA asked Margaret Singer, a leading theorist in cults and coercive persuasion, to chair a task force to "expose cult methods and tactics". Some examples that led to the task force's creation were the Manson family murders, Patty Hearst kidnapping, and the Jonestown massacre.
Paul R. Martin (1946–2009) was a psychotherapist, licensed clinical psychologist, author, pastor, and director of the Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Ohio. He also worked in private practice in Athens, Ohio. Martin taught psychology, psychopharmacology, and the Biblical basis of behavior for five years at Geneva College, where he was a member of the department of psychology.
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.
References
- 1 2 Peter Clarke, ed. (2004). Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements. Routledge. p. 29. ISBN 978-1134499700 . Retrieved September 18, 2014.
- ↑ "Board of Directors". International Cultic Studies Association. ICSA. Retrieved September 19, 2014.
- ↑ Jamie Cresswell; Bryan Wilson (2012). New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response. Routledge. ISBN 978-1134636969.
- 1 2 Langone, Michael D., ed. (1994). Recovery from cults : help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse. New York: W.W. Norton. p. introduction. ISBN 978-0393701647.
- ↑ Cults Questions and Answers Langone, Michael, 1988 [ dead link ]
- ↑ Langone, Michael (May 1984). "To the reader". Cultic Studies Journal. 1 (1): 3.
- ↑ Langone, Michael (2002). "Introduction to Inaugural Issue". Cultic Studies Review. 1 (1): 5.
- ↑ Anthony, Dick (2001). "Tactical Ambiguity and Brainwashing Formulations: Science or Pseudo-Science?". In Zablocki, Benjamin; Robbins, Thomas (eds.). Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. University of Toronto Press. p. 303. ISBN 978-0-8020-8188-9.
- ↑ Anson D. Shupe; William A. Stacey; Susan E. Darnell (2000). Bad Pastors: Clergy Misconduct in Modern America . NYU Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0814781470.
- ↑ Anthony, Dick (1999). "Pseudoscience and Minority Religions: An Evaluation of the Brainwashing Theories of Jean-Marie Abgrall". Social Justice Research. 12 (4): 421–456. doi:10.1023/A:1022081411463. ISSN 0885-7466. S2CID 140454555.
