I  am a born-again Christian who has been studying the cults for nearly 12 years. In 1985, 1 was recruited into Lifespring and gained firsthand experience with being in a mind control group. In 1988, I started Answers Inc. as a formal outreach to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I did not make the connection between my Lifespring experience and the Witness recruitment practices until nearly a year later. Instead, I started by pointing out the errant theology and contradictions of the Watchtower. I became so skilled at argumentation that the Witnesses gave me the nickname "The Exorcist." While I found this flattering, my objective was to get people out of the group; not to win arguments.

I made a commitment to quit doing what didn’t work and started looking for what would. I stumbled onto the book, Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan. That discovery helped me to understand why I had been unsuccessful, and kicked off a round of learning that continues today. I am currently half-way through my Masters Degree in Psychotherapy and Counseling, am interning in a mental health clinic here in Minneapolis. I have come to understand the psychological dynamic used by these groups to impose their belief systems.

As Hassan’s book points out, the most effective way to work with someone in one of these groups is to show them how other, similar groups work. If you are able to develop rapport with them and share this information, they themselves will see the connection between their group and others. Once this occurs, the critical thinking process will be restarted and automatic defenses will lessen. They will then be able to process information about their group.

Understanding these things is important when attempting to help ex-members as well. When they are able to see the parallels between different groups, it takes the power out of left-over group teachings. Our ex-member support group is made successful by the presence of ex-members of several groups. As they discuss their experiences, the similarities become obvious, and openness to further exploration results. We do not share the Gospel with these ex-members until they specifically ask about it. Even then, great care is taken to understand their question and to answer it without adding more than they want to know. Most have been so abused, it takes months for a trusting relationship to develop. For these, the only witness they can receive is a lifestyle witness. Having confidence that the Lord can and does work through a nonverbal witness is foreign to most evangelicals. Yet there are numerous examples of Christ offering healing to people without a verbal witness. This is the pattern we have found to be effective. There are several "rules of thumb" I would offer for setting up a support group:

• Avoid being sucked into becoming a substitute for the cult activity. Your goal should be to create a safe, non-manipulative, non-judgmental place where ex-members can feel free to begin the healing process. The Answers support group meets only once a month even though it is often requested we meet more frequently. When we tried a more frequent schedule, the freshness of the meetings vanished and things began to feel forced.

• Allow ex-members to seek their own level of spiritual exploration and healing. People coming out of these groups will have experienced different levels of trauma as a result of the psychological and spiritual abuse they have suffered. Some will dive headlong into an exploration of the Gospel, others will never go near it again. It is your job as the facilitator to ensure that they can experience unconditional love in the support group even if they are unwilling or unable to seek a relationship with God.

• Keep support group discussions confined to subjects that a11 can relate to. An understanding of the manipulation used by these groups, the phobias, communication rules, conditional love, denial, double (secret) lifestyles, and the resulting fear, nightmares, trouble with relationships, difficulty with decision making, anger, depression and dozens of other topics can be related to by all.

• Set up secondary meetings to offer the riskier (in the mind of the ex-members) activities. It is in these sessions that the errors of the Watchtower can be discussed and Bible study can be undertaken. Care must be used to communicate that these are for those who feel ready for them.

• The most powerful process is simply to allow people to socialize with each other. Structuring the support group to consist of 50% learning activity and 50% unstructured socializing has worked well for us. This helps take the facilitator "off the hook" of feeling like they are responsible for making something happen. Remember, a support group is about people helping each other.

• Be prepared to gently reestablish subject matter boundaries if someone begins to monopolize the conversation and begins preaching (whether it is the Gospel or not). Your handling of these situations when they come up will be a direct influence on how safe the support group is perceived to be. Gentleness, firmness and timing are critical in reestablishing balanced participation without shaming.

• We have opened our group to ex-members as well as family and friends of current members. This provides for a healthy distribution of topics and gives the ex-members a chance to educate others on what it is like to be in one of these groups. Helping others to understand mind control is a powerful healing activity for ex-members.

• View turnover in the support group as healthy. If the group continues to grow larger and larger, you need to be concerned. When your objective is to create a healing place, people will move in, stabilize, and then move out. Avoid the temptation to tie support group effectiveness to size. If you must measure effectiveness, consider the following:

• Do participants feel free to come and go as needed?
  
• Are people reporting progress?
• Decreased feelings of guilt and fear.
• Willingness to let the support group structure be fluid and responsive to the people who show up, increasing tolerance for different personalities and orientations within the group, willingness to address personal growth issues.
• Do you, as a facilitator, feel free to let the group change and grow ... a willingness to look for what works rather than to have your ideas "succeed"? 

• The facilitator of the group will have to understand not only the theological issues involved, but also the manipulation processes that the participants have been subjected to. As a starter, you will want to read Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steve Hassan; Influence: The New Psychology of Modern Persuasion by Robert Cialdini; Churches That Abuse by Ronald Enroth; The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by Jeff VanVonderan and David Johnson. 

• The portion of the support group that is devoted to educational discussion can take a lot of different forms. Essentially, it might consist of showing a video tape and letting the ex-members discuss what they could relate to. We often take the time to put their observations on a chalk board so everyone can see the list grow. If the topic doesn't work, if it doesn't stimulate discussion, use the time to gather suggestions as to what to discuss during the next session. 

• Exercise caution if you do individual counseling. You will be dealing with people who are very comfortable in transferring dependency from their former group to you as an individual. This can be so flattering that unless you are aggressively watching for it, it will take you by surprise. A new dependent relationship arrests the recovery process and can cause even more trauma. 

• If you can find someone who is doing walk-away exit counseling on a regular basis, take the time and energy to learn the technique. We do nearly one per quarter and have seen some powerful things come out of these. 

The support group is to provide support. That support should ideally come from the people who are there for support. The most effective healing is open experienced through the process of helping others. If the facilitators can keep that focus and have confidence in the capability of the participants to help themselves and each other, the group will accomplish its intended purpose.

 Bruce L. Laughton

10438 Aquila Ave. S.

Bloominqton, MN 55438

reprinted from the Jul/Aug 1993 Free Minds Journal 

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