80 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010
Implications for Research and Practice
I have indicated three psychological occurrences
that contribute to shaping the identities of cult
members: 1) giving sense to traumatic
experiences 2) “external” composing of one’s
personal life story and 3) limiting of
possibilities for conducting inner dialogues.
These occurrences are not exclusively
characteristic of a cult environment. Giving
sense to traumatic experiences also seems to be
a specific occurrence in the context of
psychotherapy and close relationship support.
Personal “external” editing of life stories often
occurs in any extremely ideological system.
According to Hermans and Kempen (1993),
failures to conduct internal dialogues develop in
the context of improper socialization training.
Constructing a cult member’s identity is
probably based on these three nonspecific
phenomena.
Research Implications
It may be worth initiating empirical verification
of the theses presented by retrospectively
ascertaining whether cult members experienced
trauma to a greater extent prior to membership
than noncult members. Secondly, it would be
necessary to examine whether individuals who
joined cults had secure conditions for narrative
elaboration of traumatic experiences. According
to Pennebaker and Susman (1988), such
conditions facilitate the possibility of confiding
in or relating difficult experiences to loved ones
and trusted people. It can be expected that
people who join cults have fewer such
opportunities and are as a result more
susceptible to cult recruiters who present
themselves to be kind and are eager to patiently
hear out their potential followers. A useful tool
for examining both the subjective trauma of
various early-life experiences (to age 17) and the
possibility of vocalizing these experiences may
be the Childhood Traumatic Events Scale.
Further verification of the specific “narration-
creative” role of a cult environment may be
based on the analysis of written texts of current
cult members—for example, through the use of
the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)
program (Pennebaker, Booth, &Francis, 2007).
In accordance with the hypothesis of the
“internal” type of life auto-narration, the
testimony of the so-called “spiritual change” of
current cult members should be more saturated
in the ideological rhetoric of the cult
environment than in the testimonies of those
who have converted to extra-cultic religious
groups. Furthermore, in accordance with the
hypothesis of limited inner dialogue, it may be
supposed that auto-narrations of cult members
will contain fewer affective and less positively
affective references to universal extra-cultic
aspirations (i.e., relational, educational,
professional).
Practical Implications
A narrative conception of one’s identity
broadens the perspectives for understanding the
emergence of a cultic pseudo-identity and brings
with it a crucial psychotherapeutic implication.
The narrative notion presented here enables a
better understanding of why some ex-cult
members harbor maladaptive cult convictions
that significantly inhibit social reintegration for
many years after they have left the cult. If these
convictions are not consequences of trauma, but
rather serve to maintain an “improvised
solution,” they likely constitute a personal value
that is extremely difficult to undermine. In such
cases, psychotherapeutic work with ex-cult
members in the initial stages should focus on the
deconstruction of key internalized cult
convictions rather than on attempts to undermine
these convictions rationally.
Deconstruction of cult convictions that are
highly-resistant to change (and shaped on the
basis of powerful experiences in an ideological
context) is reliant on the identification of the
most difficult pre-cult experiences and
unrealized aspirations, together with the
complementary ideology of the cult. Some cult
ideas may be especially attractive precisely
because they seem to function ideally as
“positive solutions” to previously unresolved
personal problems. From here, the explanation
of the psychic connection to the cult is
appropriate, not in the category of the long-
lasting psycho-manipulative effects, but rather in
the category of “clinging to one’s own life-
Implications for Research and Practice
I have indicated three psychological occurrences
that contribute to shaping the identities of cult
members: 1) giving sense to traumatic
experiences 2) “external” composing of one’s
personal life story and 3) limiting of
possibilities for conducting inner dialogues.
These occurrences are not exclusively
characteristic of a cult environment. Giving
sense to traumatic experiences also seems to be
a specific occurrence in the context of
psychotherapy and close relationship support.
Personal “external” editing of life stories often
occurs in any extremely ideological system.
According to Hermans and Kempen (1993),
failures to conduct internal dialogues develop in
the context of improper socialization training.
Constructing a cult member’s identity is
probably based on these three nonspecific
phenomena.
Research Implications
It may be worth initiating empirical verification
of the theses presented by retrospectively
ascertaining whether cult members experienced
trauma to a greater extent prior to membership
than noncult members. Secondly, it would be
necessary to examine whether individuals who
joined cults had secure conditions for narrative
elaboration of traumatic experiences. According
to Pennebaker and Susman (1988), such
conditions facilitate the possibility of confiding
in or relating difficult experiences to loved ones
and trusted people. It can be expected that
people who join cults have fewer such
opportunities and are as a result more
susceptible to cult recruiters who present
themselves to be kind and are eager to patiently
hear out their potential followers. A useful tool
for examining both the subjective trauma of
various early-life experiences (to age 17) and the
possibility of vocalizing these experiences may
be the Childhood Traumatic Events Scale.
Further verification of the specific “narration-
creative” role of a cult environment may be
based on the analysis of written texts of current
cult members—for example, through the use of
the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)
program (Pennebaker, Booth, &Francis, 2007).
In accordance with the hypothesis of the
“internal” type of life auto-narration, the
testimony of the so-called “spiritual change” of
current cult members should be more saturated
in the ideological rhetoric of the cult
environment than in the testimonies of those
who have converted to extra-cultic religious
groups. Furthermore, in accordance with the
hypothesis of limited inner dialogue, it may be
supposed that auto-narrations of cult members
will contain fewer affective and less positively
affective references to universal extra-cultic
aspirations (i.e., relational, educational,
professional).
Practical Implications
A narrative conception of one’s identity
broadens the perspectives for understanding the
emergence of a cultic pseudo-identity and brings
with it a crucial psychotherapeutic implication.
The narrative notion presented here enables a
better understanding of why some ex-cult
members harbor maladaptive cult convictions
that significantly inhibit social reintegration for
many years after they have left the cult. If these
convictions are not consequences of trauma, but
rather serve to maintain an “improvised
solution,” they likely constitute a personal value
that is extremely difficult to undermine. In such
cases, psychotherapeutic work with ex-cult
members in the initial stages should focus on the
deconstruction of key internalized cult
convictions rather than on attempts to undermine
these convictions rationally.
Deconstruction of cult convictions that are
highly-resistant to change (and shaped on the
basis of powerful experiences in an ideological
context) is reliant on the identification of the
most difficult pre-cult experiences and
unrealized aspirations, together with the
complementary ideology of the cult. Some cult
ideas may be especially attractive precisely
because they seem to function ideally as
“positive solutions” to previously unresolved
personal problems. From here, the explanation
of the psychic connection to the cult is
appropriate, not in the category of the long-
lasting psycho-manipulative effects, but rather in
the category of “clinging to one’s own life-
