examining his “selfish” capitalistic motives in
small-group sessions led by the speaker.
Michael later learned that the speaker was the
leader of a tight-knit and isolated group.
Michael was eased into fraudulent activities to
further the group’s aims, activities that months
before would have made his skin crawl. One
day, he dropped by his girlfriend’s apartment.
Her bedroom door was open, and he could hear
that she was in bed with the leader, laughing
about how easy it was to recruit him. Michael
froze in the doorway, utterly shocked. Soon
after this experience, he left the group. Michael
had trouble sleeping for the next 5 years, and he
was alternately wary and angry in relationships.
He had seemingly random auditory flashbacks
of Linda’s laughter, and he was haunted by the
way he deceived others, as instructed, while he
was a part of the group. The few people he had
told about his months in this group didn’t seem
to grasp the gravity of what he had gone
through. They also kept looking for “why he got
taken so easily.”
Many think of trauma as a big event: war,
earthquakes, or hurricanes. But Peter and
Michael’s stories underscore that trauma is in
the body, not in the event (Levine, 1997 Levine,
2010). I am defining psychological trauma as
“the result of a frightening or shocking
experience or ongoing experiences that
overwhelm a person’s nervous system, causing
ongoing emotional dysregulation and faulty
memory integration of the thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, and body sensations of the event.”
Although Peter witnessed a horrible disaster, as
a volunteer firefighter he was prepared for
catastrophic situations. Peter’s strong
connection to his family served to help him in a
split second take care of himself and his brother
and flee toward home. He mobilized his energy
to take charge and consciously protect himself
from the frightening sights and sounds. At
home, he received immediate support and
respect for his actions.
Peter saw a disaster coming. He used his
energy, protected himself, and triumphed. He
tells his story with sadness and gratitude, and he
remembers the details in the order they occurred.
When we are not traumatized, the sensory,
imaginal, narrative, behavioral, and emotional
aspects of memory remain interconnected. The
memory survives with a positive view of the
self, and we are able to learn from the
experience (Shapiro, 2001).
Michael, in contrast, was traumatized. He was
unprepared and shocked by what he heard in the
doorway. The world was not as he thought it
was. The nervous-system shock was
involuntary, and it blocked or immobilized his
survival reactions to flee or fight.
This involuntary shut down, a common
antecedent for post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), is out of awareness and out of
conscious control. It is an ancient mammalian,
last-ditch reaction to danger (Levine, 2010
Porges, 2011). The organism shuts down,
freezes, and cannot move. It is in a state often
referred to as “tonic immobility” (Abrams,
Carleton, Taylor, &Asmundson, 2009 Bados,
Toribio, &Garcia-Grau, 2008 Brand, Lanius,
Vermetten, Lowenstein, &Spiegel, 2012 [p. 18]
Volchan et al., 2011). We see this response on
PBS nature programs when we watch predators
about to pounce on their prey. Just before the
lion pounces, the gazelle, with no time to run
and no match for this fight, collapses, still
energized but immobile. Michael was also
shocked by the betrayal. He suddenly saw and
felt the connection to Linda for what it was—
dangerous. Under these circumstances of frozen
high energy, neurobiological systems become
detached and unintegrated (Lanius, Lanius,
Fisher, &Ogden, 2006 Nijenhuis &den Boer,
2009 Van der Hart, Nijenhuis, &Steele, 2006).
It’s as if the gas and the brake are on at the same
time and it’s too much for the system to bear
(Napier, 2008). In some ways, the situation is
like a fuse that blows—too much disorganized
energy to hold, and there is a resulting
blankness, a felt absence or forgetting. In other
ways, it’s like a bomb that explodes, scattering
the experiential elements of the event to
disparate parts of the body and mind (Pain,
Bluhm, &Lanius, 2009). We call all of these
experiences dissociation, and these parts or
elements “get stuck.” A striking physical
example of this “stuckness” is phantom-limb
pain (Amano, Seiyama, &Toichi, 2013
Ramachandran &Hirstein, 1998). These
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014 13
small-group sessions led by the speaker.
Michael later learned that the speaker was the
leader of a tight-knit and isolated group.
Michael was eased into fraudulent activities to
further the group’s aims, activities that months
before would have made his skin crawl. One
day, he dropped by his girlfriend’s apartment.
Her bedroom door was open, and he could hear
that she was in bed with the leader, laughing
about how easy it was to recruit him. Michael
froze in the doorway, utterly shocked. Soon
after this experience, he left the group. Michael
had trouble sleeping for the next 5 years, and he
was alternately wary and angry in relationships.
He had seemingly random auditory flashbacks
of Linda’s laughter, and he was haunted by the
way he deceived others, as instructed, while he
was a part of the group. The few people he had
told about his months in this group didn’t seem
to grasp the gravity of what he had gone
through. They also kept looking for “why he got
taken so easily.”
Many think of trauma as a big event: war,
earthquakes, or hurricanes. But Peter and
Michael’s stories underscore that trauma is in
the body, not in the event (Levine, 1997 Levine,
2010). I am defining psychological trauma as
“the result of a frightening or shocking
experience or ongoing experiences that
overwhelm a person’s nervous system, causing
ongoing emotional dysregulation and faulty
memory integration of the thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, and body sensations of the event.”
Although Peter witnessed a horrible disaster, as
a volunteer firefighter he was prepared for
catastrophic situations. Peter’s strong
connection to his family served to help him in a
split second take care of himself and his brother
and flee toward home. He mobilized his energy
to take charge and consciously protect himself
from the frightening sights and sounds. At
home, he received immediate support and
respect for his actions.
Peter saw a disaster coming. He used his
energy, protected himself, and triumphed. He
tells his story with sadness and gratitude, and he
remembers the details in the order they occurred.
When we are not traumatized, the sensory,
imaginal, narrative, behavioral, and emotional
aspects of memory remain interconnected. The
memory survives with a positive view of the
self, and we are able to learn from the
experience (Shapiro, 2001).
Michael, in contrast, was traumatized. He was
unprepared and shocked by what he heard in the
doorway. The world was not as he thought it
was. The nervous-system shock was
involuntary, and it blocked or immobilized his
survival reactions to flee or fight.
This involuntary shut down, a common
antecedent for post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), is out of awareness and out of
conscious control. It is an ancient mammalian,
last-ditch reaction to danger (Levine, 2010
Porges, 2011). The organism shuts down,
freezes, and cannot move. It is in a state often
referred to as “tonic immobility” (Abrams,
Carleton, Taylor, &Asmundson, 2009 Bados,
Toribio, &Garcia-Grau, 2008 Brand, Lanius,
Vermetten, Lowenstein, &Spiegel, 2012 [p. 18]
Volchan et al., 2011). We see this response on
PBS nature programs when we watch predators
about to pounce on their prey. Just before the
lion pounces, the gazelle, with no time to run
and no match for this fight, collapses, still
energized but immobile. Michael was also
shocked by the betrayal. He suddenly saw and
felt the connection to Linda for what it was—
dangerous. Under these circumstances of frozen
high energy, neurobiological systems become
detached and unintegrated (Lanius, Lanius,
Fisher, &Ogden, 2006 Nijenhuis &den Boer,
2009 Van der Hart, Nijenhuis, &Steele, 2006).
It’s as if the gas and the brake are on at the same
time and it’s too much for the system to bear
(Napier, 2008). In some ways, the situation is
like a fuse that blows—too much disorganized
energy to hold, and there is a resulting
blankness, a felt absence or forgetting. In other
ways, it’s like a bomb that explodes, scattering
the experiential elements of the event to
disparate parts of the body and mind (Pain,
Bluhm, &Lanius, 2009). We call all of these
experiences dissociation, and these parts or
elements “get stuck.” A striking physical
example of this “stuckness” is phantom-limb
pain (Amano, Seiyama, &Toichi, 2013
Ramachandran &Hirstein, 1998). These
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014 13
