Description
Participation in cults has been claimed to:
break
up families
brainwash
people to gain and hold them as members
cause irreparable
psychological damage
Cult
Experience: Psychological Abuse, Distress, Personality Characteristics,
and Changes in Personal Relationships Cultic Studies Journal,
Vol. 15, No. 2, 1998
But membership in cults isn't uniformly oppressive and detrimental to mental
health. A comprehensive review of the recent literature found good evidence
that some of them are helpful to their adherents [1] Vaughan
[(2]also points out that many individuals who joined and
then left destructive groups reported that the experience contributed to
their wisdom and maturity through the process of empowering a sense of having
met the challenge by restoring their integrity. For the vast majority, such "radical
religious departures" are part of adolescent or young adult identity
exploration. Also since over 90% of persons who join new religious groups
leave within two years, Stephen Post,MD points out that "if brainwashing
goes on, it is extremely ineffective" (p. 373).
Stephen
Post,MD, Psychiatry Psychiatry
and ethics: the problematics of respect for religious meanings.Cult
Med Psychiatry 1993 Sep;17(3):363-83
Dr. Post also points out the need to distinguish socially
controversial new religious movements (NRMs) from cults,
even though distressed families have pressured mental
health professionals to assess the mental state of
recruits to such sects. While carrying a negative connotation
in the mental health field, cult also carries the non
pejorative meaning of a grouping of people for some
religious purpose. All religions originally began as
cults, and however mainstream they have eventually
become, the major world religions were originally perceived
as a threat to established customs and values.
It is also important to remember that the Peoples
Temple church which was responsible for the mass suicide
at Jonestown in Guyana was a mainline congregation
of a group called Disciples of Christ. At the time
it had about one million members. They were members
of the National Council of Churches. One of its lay
leaders was a prominent person in the California Council
of Churches. This group became identified as a cult
only after the death of the members who were in Guyana.
New Religious Movement is the term that sociologists
often use to refer to small religious groups that are
not destructive.
Nevertheless, some genuinely dangerous and destructive
groups do arise under the banner of religion. A recent
example is the Branch
Davidians.
Essay
on Definition of Cult by Michael Langone,PhD
The
Cult Threat: Real or Imagined Gordon Melton
 REQUIRED
QUIZ ITEM 7
New Religious Movements (NRMs)
According to The
Cult Threat: Real or Imagined, membership
in New Religious Movements is mainly in
odd retreat centers and country communes.
True
False
Record your answer for later insertion
into the Quiz. |
Associated
Clinical Problems
Nine factors have been associated with recruitment
into cults:
a) generalized ego-weakness and emotional vulnerability
b) propensities toward dissociative states
c) tenuous, deteriorated, or nonexistent family relations and support systems
d) inadequate means of dealing with exigencies of survival
e) history of severe child abuse or neglect
f) exposure to idiosyncratic or eccentric family patterns
g) proclivities toward or abuse of controlled substances
h) unmanageable and debilitating situational stress and crises
i) intolerable socioeconomic conditions.
Factors
related to susceptibility and recruitment by cults by Curtis JM, Curtis
MJ. Psychol Rep 1993 Oct;73(2):451-60
It can be difficult for mental health professionals
to determine what is a cult. In popular jargon "cult" carries
the implication that the group uses intimidation, coercion,
and indoctrination to systematically recruit, initiate,
and influence inductees.
Distinguishing between religious nonconformity and
mental disorders is an issue of cultural competence.
The first clinical concern is assessing whether the
group shows the signs of spiritual group pathology
that distinguish a misguided cult from wholesome spiritual
communities. Wellwood [3]lists
these characteristics of pathological communities:
:
The
leader has total power to validate or negate the
self-worth of the devotees, and uses this power extensively
The group is
held together by allegiance to a cause, a mission, and ideology
The leader keeps
his followers in line by manipulating emotions of hope and fear
"Groupthink" is
used to knit followers together
Cult leaders
are usually self-styled prophets who have not studied with great
teachers or undergone lengthy training or discipline
Treatment
In 1989, the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Psychiatry and
Religion called upon psychiatrists to help temper the anti-cult fanaticism
that often afflicts a distressed family. Yet mental health professionals
have been under pressure since the early 1980's, after the Jonestown massacre,
to sanction the forcible
deprogramming and involuntary hospitalization of
religious seekers who were 'turning East'.
Post SG Psychiatry
and ethics: the problematics of respect for religious meanings. Cult
Med Psychiatry 1993 Sep;17(3):363-83
"Exit counseling," which is less coercive, has largely
replaced "deprogramming."
Deprogramming,
Exit Counseling, and Ethics: Clarifying the Confusion by
Michael D. Langone, PhD and Paul Martin, PhD
Vaughan [2] has described a psychotherapeutic approach that
examines the psychological consequences of joining a group that purportedly
offers spiritual self-realization. This client centered approach does not evaluate
the relative merit of alternative spiritual practices or try to determine whether
the "teacher" is a true spiritual authority. She points out that
individuals may have any of a number of motivations for joining a group, ranging
from difficulty supporting themselves, to loneliness, to actualizing their
potential by progressing along a path of spiritual development. In therapy
with someone who has left, or who is considering joining or leaving a NRM or
cult, the client could be asked to consider the following questions:
What attracts me to this person?
Am I attracted to his or her power, showmanship, cleverness, achievements,
glamour, ideas?
Am I motivated by fear or love?
Is my response primarily physical excitement, emotional activation, intellectual
stimulation, or intuitive resonance?
What would persuade me to trust him/her more than myself?
Am I looking for a parent figure to relieve me of the responsibility for
my life?
Am I looking for a group where I feel I can belong and be taken care of in
return for doing what I am told?
What am I giving up?
Am I moving towards something I am drawn to, or am I running away from my
life as it is.
Often students transitioning from the "culture
of embeddedness" with their teachers into more
independent functioning seek psychotherapeutic help. Bogart
[4] has reviewed the various disturbances
and problems that can occur in the relationship between
a student and his/her spiritual teacher. (See case
example below.)
Case Examples
Separating
from a Guru-Greg Bogart,PhD
Anemia
and limping in a vegetarian adolescent by Chiron
R et al. Arch Pediatr 2001 Jan;8(1):62-5
REQUIRED
QUIZ ITEM 8
Cult and Diet
In Anemia
and limping in a vegetarian adolescent ,
the adolescent on the vegan diet imposed
by the cult was deficient in a) calcium
b) vitamin D c) vitamin B12 d) all of the
above
Record your answer for later insertion
into the Quiz. |
WWW LIBRARY of Religion
and Spirituality
The WWW LIBRARY
of Religion and Spirituality contains articles on cults and NRMs.
References
1 Rochford,E, Purvis,S
Eastman (1989). New religions, mental health, and
social control. In Lynn, Monty L. (Ed); Moberg, David
O. (Ed). Research in the social scientific study
of religion: A research annual, Vol. 1. (pp.
57-82.
2 Vaughan, F. (1987).
A question of balance: Health and pathology in new
religious movements. In Spiritual choices: The problem
of recognizing authentic paths to inner transformation.
D. Anthony, B. Ecker and K. Wilber. New York, Paragon
House: 265-282.
3 Welwood J (1987)
On Spiritual authority: Genuine and counterfeit In
Spiritual choices: The problem of recognizing authentic
paths to inner transformation. D. Anthony, B. Ecker
and K. Wilber. New York, Paragon House: 283-304.
4 Bogart, G. C. (1992).
Separating from a spiritual teacher. Journal of Transpersonal
Psychology, 24(1), 1-22).
