Cult or culture
The further one moves in the direction of conservatism about the mind control issue, the more likely one is to find others who are terribly wary of the methods mind control "counselors" have been known to use. And, perhaps more fundamentally, they're wary of the means by which a mind control expert might decide who's okay and who's not among the astonishing array of New Religious Movements, churches and organizations that might be eligible for the label "destructive cult".
Marcia Rudin (2002) noted recently that many cultic groups today are not religious or spiritual in nature:
"They are also large group-awareness trainings, psychotherapy, business, political, and 'New Age' groups. Hence, cults appeal not only to the young 'counter-culture' seekers of the 1960s and 70s, but to older, affluent, established, 'normal' people as well. Rather than promising spiritual salvation or ultimate meaning they skillfully market themselves to a new clientele by offering sure financial success, happiness, social success, or self-fulfillment."
And the label of 'cult' comes closer to home than many psychologists would like.
Psychotherapy as cult
Fred Newman, the founder of the controversial brand of intervention he calls 'social therapy', centered in New York, has seen his fair share of accusations of this order. A number of web sites, newspapers and magazines, have carried articles, testimonials and pointed questions alleging highly irregular and ethically questionable behaviour. They suggest that too many social therapy recruits become involved in the recruitment of others to the political activities of Newman's International Workers Party (IWP), formerly the New Alliance Party (NAP).
Worse perhaps, is that several of the most damning allegations of Newman's controversial social therapy come from formerly very involved participants, trainee therapists and journalists.
New Therapist approached social therapists Lois Holzman and Newman for comment on the allegations, their responses to which are reproduced verbatim later in this feature.
Re-evaluation Counseling, also known as co-counseling or RC, has also been singled out as a potentially dangerous psychotherapy cult over the years, operating in some cases in a manner that engenders inappropriate dependence on the organization and control and manipulation by other members (Tourish and Irving, 2000).
But even with psychotherapy cults, which are potentially more easily subject to the ethical and legal guidelines of the profession, the line between appropriate influence and indoctrination becomes as hazy as it does with religious or spiritual institutions.
Comments Thomas J. Brady, a San Francisco psychiatrist specializing in child and adolescent psychiatry and forensic psychiatry: "In a milder version, media telling us we should be beautiful, thin, rich, and we deserve it all-that is a form of mind control. It's just that media messages are part of a cacophony of manipulations that tend to cancel themselves out, in some way, while retaining the fundamental concepts (thin, rich, beautiful). "
But, he adds, "Media don't isolate us, disorient us, sleep deprive or starve us." Or, if you'd like to explode the idea a little further:
"Psychiatrists certainly do [mind control] with their patients-how do you persuade a paranoid schizophrenic who is convinced his delusional system is just a fantasy. It's by manipulation (drugs, an isolated, consistent hospital environment where they are held against their will and restrained and sedated if they become too unruly. We have to balance freedoms, and protecting people from making the mistake of joining a cult borders on Big Brother, which in itself becomes it's own cult."
So, where does one draw the line. Or, more importantly, who should be drawing the line? The psychiatrists, the cult leaders, the deprogrammers or the member of the organisation?
Enter Deborah Layton, one of the few survivors of Jonestown, who managed to escape in 1978, just six months before 913 members of Jim Jones' organisation were found dead in their compound, poisoned by their own hand or shot to death by members of the cult.
New Therapist
Indispensable survival guide for the thinking therapist