Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and
Beliefs
By Steven Hassan
Reviewed by William Goldberg
Newton, MA: Freedom of Mind Press.
2012.ISBN-10: 0967068819 ISBN 13: 978-
0967068817 (paperback), $15.26
(Amazon.com) ASIN: B00IIB6KAM (Kindle
edition), $9.95 (Amazon.com). 268 pages.
When families of a cult member ask me for help
in dealing with their family member, we review
many variables together. Among other factors,
we look at the developmental history of the cult
member, the family dynamics, and the cult
member’s ability to admit that he or she has
been wrong in the past. Then I explain what I
think the appeal of the cult might be to this
particular cultist, and I offer the family advice
about how to deal with the situation. The
families usually leave my office with an
improved frame of mind because they are
leaving with a strategy for how they are going to
deal with an otherwise unfathomable situation.
In Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave
Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs, the
update of his second book, Releasing the Bonds
(2000), Steven Hassan provides his readers with
a similar service, but he does so in a
comprehensive publication that families can read
and reread, parse and discuss, underline and
study.
In this book, Hassan describes the phenomenon
of cult involvement and details his approach to
helping cult victims to leave. He also offers
practical advice to individuals who wish to help
a friend or family member. Hassan’s clear and
comprehensible book offers a blueprint for
families. Most importantly, readers will take
away from this book a strategy for how they are
going to deal with the cult situation.
Toward that end, Hassan demystifies the cult
experience. He points out, for example, that the
glassy-eyed, zombie-like look of many cult
members is the result of sleep deprivation, not
some supernatural frightening magic. He
suggests replacing the terms mind control and
brainwashing with the more descriptive, less
sensationalized terms social influence and
destructive influence. He recognizes that cultic
influence is on the continuum of instances of
influence that we all encounter every day.
Hassan explains his BITE model (Behavior
control, Information control, Thought control,
and Emotional control) by giving concrete,
understandable examples of how this control is
accomplished and how it is maintained in the
cult member. He uses clear examples both from
individuals whom he has met and from his
personal history as a former member of the
Unification Church.
He maintains that phobia induction is the single
most powerful technique for keeping cult
members dependent and obedient. He defines
the term, explains the dynamics of its use,
discusses how cult members are rendered
receptive to phobia installation, and gives
practical advice about how concerned family
members can counter it.
Hassan calls his approach the Strategic
Interactive Approach (SIA), which he explains
in this book. He claims that SIA is different
from exit counseling because of SIA’s emphasis
on the process of change, and its emphasis on
the identification of factors that can render
individuals more vulnerable to destructive
influences (e.g., family tension, unresolved
sexual issues, preexisting phobias). Although I
question whether Hassan’s emphasis on these
factors is as unique as he claims (other effective,
insightful exit counselors are also cognizant of
these issues), Hassan has rendered the service of
identifying and organizing the factors in written
form. He emphasizes that each family
constellation is unique and presents different
combinations of issues and scenarios, and he
explains how he would approach each
combination.
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Perhaps most importantly, Hassan offers good,
practical advice to families who have loved ones
in a cult. The advice he offers is the most useful
and practical aspect of this book, and it is the
reason the book is so valuable to family
members of individuals in cults. Hassan is aware
of the common mistakes that panicked family
members often make when they are speaking to
a cult member. Although there is no sure-fire
script to offer them, Hassan gives good advice.
He points out, for example, that the goal of the
discussion with the cult member is to build
rapport, which can then lead to further dialogue.
The goal is not to score debating points.
Outarguing a cult member with logic is of no
value if it leads to a shutting down of the
exchange. Hassan points out that the best
approach to helping someone leave a cult is to
make gradual, cumulative progress rather than
look for a knockout punch.
Hassan offers other strategies for keeping a
positive, productive dialogue flowing. He
recommends, for example, that family members
should not engage in a fruitless discussion of the
group’s doctrine, but instead should shift the
focus to the dynamics of other controlling
people and groups. Family members can discuss
the times they got caught up in a situation where
they felt out of control (e.g., overeating, alcohol
addiction, a controlling relationship).
Attacking the cult member’s beliefs and
affiliations will likely elicit a negative response
and a shutdown in communication. Finding
common areas of agreement can enable family
members to address the situation more subtly,
with less likelihood of backlash. To that end,
Hassan recommends that the family not demand
that the cult member read a book or article, with
the implication that the writing will enlighten the
cultist. Instead, they should suggest reading a
book or article together and discussing it
together. Obviously, this common-sense
approach is more likely to render the cultist
amenable to a productive discussion.
Hassan points out other communication
problems that impede a helpful dialogue. If one
wants to appeal to the precult personality
(which, in a previous book, Hassan called the
John-John as opposed to the John-Cultist
personality) it is wise to avoid using cult jargon
and buzz words that trigger the cult-personality
response. After each encounter with the cult
member, he recommends that family members
do an assessment to determine which exchanges
yielded positive results and which were
unproductive. Again, by offering this advice,
Hassan helps families who feel helpless and
bewildered to develop a strategy for dealing with
an otherwise overwhelming situation.
Hassan recognizes that most, if not all, cult
members harbor unconscious doubts about their
cult membership, but they don’t allow those
doubts to become conscious. They use thought-
terminating clichés or self-hypnotic techniques
to squelch these doubts. So he recommends
questions that can force cult members to
contemplate, even for a moment, the
consequences of their cult membership. Hassan
distinguishes between four types of people—
thinkers, feelers, doers, and believers, and
suggests questions one can ask of each of them.
This work includes some missteps. Some might
question that Hassan is “America’s leading cult
expert,” as the book’s cover claims. At times
Hassan might seem overly simplistic. For
example, he gives an example of one carefully
timed question dispelling a parent’s personality
issues. However, compared to the contribution
that Hassan makes to afflicted families with this
and his previous books, these flaws are minor.
Hassan is the most prolific of exit counselors or
interventionists. He is on the cutting edge of
cultic studies, and he writes with expertise and
experience. I hope that he will continue to
produce works such as Freedom of Mind, and
that in future works he will address some of the
questions that remain unanswered. For example,
what methods other than the SIA have merit?
Which cult members would not benefit from the
SIA? What would be the intervention of choice
for those individuals? The SIA requires a
dialogue between the cult member and the
family. How does he offer help to those families
who do not have access to the cultist? Each of
Hassan’s three books has expanded the field of
information for practitioners and concerned
family members. I look forward to learning from
his next book.
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