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provide him with the ―answer‖ about how to handle different situations. As I began to feel
uncomfortable about his emerging reliance on me, I reflected with him on how he seemed
to be expecting me to be the new authority in his life. I added that I felt that I would not be
helpful to him if I fell into that role. I told him that we could talk about alternative ways of
handing different situations, but he was going to have to figure out the best answer for
himself. At times, Tim expressed annoyance with me for not giving him ―the answer.‖ He
often said, ―You know what to do. I wish you would just tell me.‖ Although I could
empathize with his sense of frustration, I told him that he was capable of thinking things out
for himself. At times, I would also suggest that he use the support group, other cult
members, or clergy to focus on matters with which he was having difficulty.
It is common for those who have been in cultic groups to initially engage in an idealizing
transference, viewing the therapist as an all-knowing expert on every matter (Goldberg,
1993). Some former cultists initially present themselves as helpless and vulnerable people
who need the therapist‘s supposed omnipotent wisdom. As I have noted previously
(Goldberg, 1993), it is important not to play into this idealization by assuming the role of
expert or rescuer, and/or by violating therapeutic boundaries. In the cult, members were
encouraged to be passive, and idealization was encouraged past childhood, through
adolescence, and into adulthood. Cult members were treated as children and discouraged
from feeling as if they were competent. In therapy, I encourage former members to find
solutions and take actions on their own behalf. Breaking through the passive orientation to
life enhances their sense of self.
However, despite this initial passive presentation, I have found former cultists to be quite
resourceful in numerous ways. Tim figured out how to survive in a foreign country. He
escaped the more rigorous rituals and spent time in the kitchen where he was able to eat
well and gain maternal attention from the kitchen staff. He pretended to be asleep or got
involved in an activity away from the monastery as a way to avoid having to join
proselytizing campaigns. He traveled to other countries on his own. Although Tim was
floundering in the world outside the cult, he and I began to appreciate all the successful
ways that he had coped in the past. Instead of identifying himself as a lost soul, he began
to appreciate his strengths and develop his own answers.
Tim‘s emotional reactions were re-enacted with individuals from his present life many years
after he originally had experienced childhood trauma. [Freud noted that, instead of
remembering, unconscious mental assumptions and experiences with important early
relationships would be repeated in the transference (Freud, 1914).] In early sessions, Tim
focused on situations in which he seemed to transfer feelings and behaviors that he first had
experienced with his mother and the cult leaders to his wife. As I have noted previously, the
marital relationship, in all circumstances, provides a place in which the internal conflicts of
each partner can be externalized and expressed to the partner in one‘s interactions
(Goldberg, 2003). Initially, Tim‘s wife had been seen as a lifeline, a rescuer, who had given
him the opportunity to begin his life outside the cult. Later, she often was seen as the
powerful, punishing parent—an overbearing woman with ceaseless demands for perfection.
Spouses, and also therapists who deal with those who have been raised in abusive
situations, typically are either experienced as punishing or protecting individuals. This is
part of the power that former cultists believe they have. For now, Tim has expressed that he
sees me as a kind friend. Also, when I help him better deal with his emotions, he might
experience me as protecting. However, it has been important for me to help Tim talk about
how he feels when I do not give him ―the answer.‖ Tim experiences me as punishing at
those times. As I further explore this issue with him, I continue to point out that only he has
―the answer‖ for him.

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 11
One day, Tim came into a session and began telling me how his wife had asked him to do
tasks around the house over the week-end. He felt that he had to comply with her wishes,
but he resented doing so. In response to this situation, I saw my role with Tim as two-fold.
First, I would help him to reflect on his characteristic response—passivity—in the face of her
request. Therefore, I first pointed out that although Tim seemed to resent all the tasks his
wife requested, he always seemed to comply automatically. He said that he never realized
that he had a choice. This was the beginning of our examination of how his passivity,
learned from early childhood and reinforced by the cult, was playing out in his marriage and
might lead Tim to secretly rebel against her in some way.
Second, I asked him to think of, and I later suggested, some additional ways he might deal
with the demands of his wife or others. As we reflected on this, it became clear to Tim that
he could negotiate a middle ground, he could simply refuse, or he could tell his wife to do
the chores. He did not have to passively comply. Over time, Tim began to see that his wife
was not quite as unreasonable as he had seen her to be in the past. She was not as rigid as
his cult leader and parents had been.
Asserting himself with his wife and others was a difficult change for Tim. However, as he
became more assertive, he became less depressed and more hopeful about life and his
ability to influence others and he experienced some control over his life. This change in
behavior also helped him become less dependent.
Despite this new ability to assert himself, on occasion Tim continued to be flooded with
anger and resentment at his wife. Together we attempted to sort out how much of this
anger had to do with her. In describing his strong reactions to anything she asked him to
do, Tim began to get a sense that his reaction was not simply in response to her requests.
Sorting this out and talking about the first and earliest sources of his anger, as well as his
emerging ability to assert himself in new situations, helped him to defuse the intensity of his
reactions as well as his sense of powerlessness in life.
As with many of those with whom I have worked who have been raised in cults, Tim had
been poorly educated and was working well below his abilities. He began to focus on his
difficulty dealing with one of his bosses. He believed that he was being exploited, and
initially he felt that he was unable to change his situation. As we sorted out which of his
reactions were based on realistic appraisals of his boss, he began to observe that some of
these reactions might be coming from the past. This helped Tim negotiate with his boss
more successfully. Eventually, he left the company and developed his own business.
Although Tim worked hard in his new business, it initially was difficult for him to feel that he
had a right to charge a fair fee for his services. As we explored this reluctance, he
connected this to guilty feelings: He had no right to make a good living and become
successful. He believed that those attitudes were selfish and materialistic. He should serve
others. Tim perceived these attitudes as originating in the cult. However, upon reflection, he
began to discuss the cult‘s hypocrisy. Members were supposed to be self-sacrificing, while
leaders lived lavishly. In contrast to the black and white extremes of cult life, we explored
ways in which he could serve both others‘ needs and his own in his post-cult life.
Furthermore, I pointed out that perhaps his need not to charge the proper rate for his
services was helping him to continue to feel exploited, rather than letting him feel better
about life and the people in it. These were masochistic and paranoid attitudes from the cult,
which he continued to harbor.
In time, Tim began to consider that to be paid for doing a good job did not mean that he
was exploiting others subsequently, he began to feel less used by others in life. However,
in further examination of these attitudes, he also believed that in some way he did not
deserve a successful life. As with many former members of cults, he was left with a residue
of guilt about leaving a group that might have been the path of God. Therefore, he began to