http://drdrew.com/132/


Cult tactic groups: It's such a difficult topic, most interviewers aren't even close to understanding the topic, and discussions usually end up going off on less-useful tangents.

This discussion with Dr. Drew is surprisingly good. I agree with the idea that mental health professionals, especially, need to be much better informed. It makes sense that they would be mis-diagnosing cult victims who come to them for help if they aren't fully aware of/don't understand coercive control/cult tactic groups.

We were trying to find a therapist for the Vegas exmos so I called one id been using to see if she thought she could be our deprogramming cult expert. Her comment: "well, yes I know all about that but cults aren't really that big of a thing and in reality its usually something else underneath."

OK. That just told me everything. You still don't get it at all. Her background isn't religious but since I'd been seeing her for almost a year, I thought she would be up to speed by now. Nope. She is still pretty certain that my problems leaving the church have more to do with childhood experiences--she is just sure we can uncover some repressed memories and clear this whole thing right up. I'm sorry but I didn't create the mormon church or the bite model. Don't try to invent things and make excuses for the organization. I know not everyone's experience is the same but mine was very cultish. My family was turbo tbm.

Do you want to have sex with one of your parents?....Ive had friends do the counselling thing and it seems to never work.

Yeah, in my opinion is the field of psychology still has a long way to go as "science". Including the meds part of it (....maybe even Especially the meds part...the woman in this interview is a good example).

I don't know if either of you have time to listen to the interview, but it is pretty refreshing. Dr. Drew agreeing that the ex-Church of Christ woman participating in the interview/discussion was misdiagnosed by therapists, she was actually told as part of her treatment at one point to reconnect with her cult contacts because they were "friends". The fact that the vast majority of mental health professionals really don't know much of anything about cults/coercive relationships/high demand groups is discussed.

This is why I will never stop flapping my trap about it...more people need to understand.

Thanks for posting the link to the interview. It was very interesting.

This was great. I especially liked the therapy idea Steve Hassan and the woman being interviewed mentioned near the end. It involved visualizing yourself using your present knowledge and views to dominate authority figures or group members who dominated you.

I imagine this could easily be applied to the needs of Ex-Mormons.

Many of us have had traumatizing experiences of being dominated from Mormon bishops, parents, youth leaders, general authorities, etc who used fear indoctrination and hypnotic environments at our most vulnerable points in our lives as children or during life transitions.

I can see how this visualization exercise done regularly could make some permanent positive cognitive changes. All we would have to do is identify a few major memories of being manipulated by a religious authority and then imagine responding with our present point of view.

I'm going to give it a try. Worth a shot, maybe my mission nightmares will finally go away?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2014 10:22PM by NoMoBlues.