Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 5
Traumatic Abuse in Cults: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
Daniel Shaw, C.S.W.
Nationally Certified Psychoanalyst in Private Practice
New York City
Abstract
Using his own 10 year experience in Siddha Yoga under the leadership of
Gurumayi, the author presents psychoanalytic conceptualizations of
narcissism in an effort to develop a way of understanding cult leaders and
their followers, and especially of traumatic abuse in cults from the follower‘s
perspective. A psychoanalytically informed treatment approach for working
with recovering cult followers is proposed, consisting of providing: 1) an
understanding of the leader‘s extreme dependence on the follower‘s
submission and psychological enslavement 2) a clear and firm, detailed
understanding of the leader‘s abusiveness and 3) an exploration of
normative and/or traumatic developmental issues for the follower, as part of
a process of making sense of and giving meaning to the follower‘s experience.
When I began graduate school in social work in September of 1994, it had been just two
years since I moved out of the spiritual community, the ashram, I had lived and worked in
for more than 10 years, up until my 40th birthday. In those two post-ashram years, while
still considering myself devoted to the guru and the spiritual path I had chosen, I did a good
deal of soul searching, much of it through the process of psychotherapy. One of the uses I
made of psychotherapy was to explore my career options, and I eventually chose to seek
the necessary education and training to become a psychotherapist myself. In my first social
work field placement, many of the clients I was assigned described terrible histories of
physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in childhood, and in some cases were involved in
ongoing abuse, either as perpetrators or victims. Many of these clients were struggling to
recover from devastating addictions. Although my own life has been something of a bed of
roses in comparison with the suffering these clients have known, I soon discovered I had a
deeper connection to their experiences than I at first realized.
I had always portrayed my participation in Siddha Yoga (also known as SYDA), to myself
and others, as an idealistic commitment to a noble spiritual path, dedicated to spiritual
awakening and upliftment in the world. Just after school began, my perceptions were
shattered when I learned of an incident concerning a friend of mine, a young woman just
turned 21, who was sexually harassed in the ashram by one of its most powerful male
leaders. When she sought help from Gurumayi, the now 48-year-old female Indian guru
who is the head of the ashram, Gurumayi told the young woman, with contempt and
disdain, that she had brought the harassment upon herself. Through her chief assistant,
Gurumayi warned the young woman, ―don‘t ever tell anyone about this, especially not your
mother.‖ The woman‘s mother, who had made substantial donations to the ashram over
the years, was a long-time devotee of Gurumayi‘s. After two years of intense inner conflict,
the young woman finally did tell her story. As a result, many others began to speak out,
eventually contributing to an extensive exposé of SYDA in The New Yorker magazine
(Harris, 1994). Published just two months after I started graduate school, the article
revealed a Pandora‘s box of well-documented abuses by the leaders of SYDA that had been
going on for more than 20 years.
Traumatic Abuse in Cults: A Psychoanalytic Perspective
Daniel Shaw, C.S.W.
Nationally Certified Psychoanalyst in Private Practice
New York City
Abstract
Using his own 10 year experience in Siddha Yoga under the leadership of
Gurumayi, the author presents psychoanalytic conceptualizations of
narcissism in an effort to develop a way of understanding cult leaders and
their followers, and especially of traumatic abuse in cults from the follower‘s
perspective. A psychoanalytically informed treatment approach for working
with recovering cult followers is proposed, consisting of providing: 1) an
understanding of the leader‘s extreme dependence on the follower‘s
submission and psychological enslavement 2) a clear and firm, detailed
understanding of the leader‘s abusiveness and 3) an exploration of
normative and/or traumatic developmental issues for the follower, as part of
a process of making sense of and giving meaning to the follower‘s experience.
When I began graduate school in social work in September of 1994, it had been just two
years since I moved out of the spiritual community, the ashram, I had lived and worked in
for more than 10 years, up until my 40th birthday. In those two post-ashram years, while
still considering myself devoted to the guru and the spiritual path I had chosen, I did a good
deal of soul searching, much of it through the process of psychotherapy. One of the uses I
made of psychotherapy was to explore my career options, and I eventually chose to seek
the necessary education and training to become a psychotherapist myself. In my first social
work field placement, many of the clients I was assigned described terrible histories of
physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in childhood, and in some cases were involved in
ongoing abuse, either as perpetrators or victims. Many of these clients were struggling to
recover from devastating addictions. Although my own life has been something of a bed of
roses in comparison with the suffering these clients have known, I soon discovered I had a
deeper connection to their experiences than I at first realized.
I had always portrayed my participation in Siddha Yoga (also known as SYDA), to myself
and others, as an idealistic commitment to a noble spiritual path, dedicated to spiritual
awakening and upliftment in the world. Just after school began, my perceptions were
shattered when I learned of an incident concerning a friend of mine, a young woman just
turned 21, who was sexually harassed in the ashram by one of its most powerful male
leaders. When she sought help from Gurumayi, the now 48-year-old female Indian guru
who is the head of the ashram, Gurumayi told the young woman, with contempt and
disdain, that she had brought the harassment upon herself. Through her chief assistant,
Gurumayi warned the young woman, ―don‘t ever tell anyone about this, especially not your
mother.‖ The woman‘s mother, who had made substantial donations to the ashram over
the years, was a long-time devotee of Gurumayi‘s. After two years of intense inner conflict,
the young woman finally did tell her story. As a result, many others began to speak out,
eventually contributing to an extensive exposé of SYDA in The New Yorker magazine
(Harris, 1994). Published just two months after I started graduate school, the article
revealed a Pandora‘s box of well-documented abuses by the leaders of SYDA that had been
going on for more than 20 years.
