Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 4
Raised in Cultic Groups: The Impact on the Development of
Certain Aspects of Character
Lorna Goldberg, M.S.W.
Abstract
Although a number of articles and books have been written on the effects of
cultic involvement on adult personalities (e.g., Lifton, 1961 Lalich, 2004
Conway and Siegelman, 1978 Hassan, 1988 West and Martin, 1994 Singer,
1995), little has been written on the impact of being raised in cults on the
development of individuals‘ character or personality style. In this article, I
identify several common personality characteristics that I have seen in those
individuals raised in cults, and I consider how the cult environment influences
the formation of these particular characteristics.
Introduction
Moore and Fine (1990) define character as
the enduring, patterned functioning of an individual. As perceived by others, it
is the person‘s habitual way of thinking, feeling, and acting. Understood
psychodynamically, character is the person‘s habitual mode of reconciling
intrapsychic conflicts…. A person‘s character is made up of an integrated
constellation of character traits…. Character is most closely related to the
concept of an individual‘s defensive style. (pp.37–38)
Chessick (1993) adds,
One‘s personality or character must be understood as a ―readout‖ displaying
compromise formations made by the ego between the demands of the id, the
superego, and external reality. So character traits are a mixture of drive
derivatives, defenses, and superego components. They may be thought of as
developing over time out of the attempt to resolve intrapsychic conflict. There
is also a growing body of evidence that genetic and constitutional factors play
an important role in supplying potentials that may or may not be used by
each individual in the development of character traits. (p. 50)
In therapy I have found that it is important to uncover the unconscious fantasies that
underlie these characterological ways of relating to others. With the uncovering of the
fantasy that is at the core of the character trait, the individual is able to begin to move
away from being invested in continuing this behavior.
In this paper, I will examine how the interplay between adolescent struggles and character
traits are affected by cult involvement. I will present two case examples to illustrate some
of these developmental struggles. The parents of my first case example became involved in
a cult during my client‘s childhood, while the parents of my second case example became
involved when my client was a young adolescent. Others who are born or raised in cults
might have different basic personality characteristics and might be affected in different, or
additional, ways than those I have described in this paper. Therefore, although this paper
emphasizes certain character traits, it is inevitable that some traits will not be included.
Influences on Personality Development
The child‘s personality is shaped both by temperament1 and the nature of the child‘s
experience of the parents or important objects in the child‘s life.2 The growing child develops
certain personality characteristics that are reflected in character traits in this process. Moore
and Fine (1990) state:

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 5
The parents serve as models for ego development and ego-ideal and
superego formation through the processes of introjection and identification.
How a person‘s developing character is affected by his or her parents depends
upon the stage of development at which crucial situations involving trauma
and conflict arise. It also depends upon whether the child adopts the parents‘
affirming or prohibiting attitudes and whether he or she seeks to be like or
unlike the parents. (p. 38)
Identification
In attempting to understand how some character traits are influenced to unfold as they do,
I also will look at the mechanism of identification. Some character traits appear to be
identifications made with others. Identification is a ―more mature level of internalization
[that] involves greater object differentiation and the process is more selective of the traits
internalized‖ (Moore and Fine, 1990).
In an attempt to explain certain transformations that occurred within the context of the
parent-child relationship, Freud first used identification as a dynamic concept. In Group
Psychology and Analysis of the Ego, Freud stated,
First, identification is the earliest expression of an emotional tie with an
object secondly, in a regressive way it becomes a substitute for a libidinal
object-tie, as it were by means of the introjection of the object into the ego
and thirdly, it may arise with every new perception of a common quality
shared with some other person who is not an object of the sexual instinct.
The more important this common quality the more successful may this partial
identification become and it may thus represent the beginning of a new tie.
(pp. 107-108)
Imitative Learning
More recently, the field of neurobiology through its use of imaging studies of the brain has
suggested an additional viewpoint on imitative learning. Imaging studies show that neurons
in certain areas of the brain are stimulated when a growing child perceives the emotions of
a parent. That is, by simply observing a parent‘s emotional state, certain areas of the child‘s
brain are activated. These areas would usually be stimulated by the child directly if he or
she were experiencing that emotion. Therefore, the discovery of the functions served by
mirror neurons may suggest a human readiness to imitate the behaviors of a parental
figure, and mirror neurons can be seen as building blocks used in the development of some
identifications (Olds, 2006).
Identifications also might occur by making loss of a loved object more tolerable. For
example, at bedtime, the child might sing to herself or her doll in the manner that her
mother sang to her. In this way, she is diminishing the impact of the loss of mother‘s
availability and is learning to give herself comfort.
Identification with the Aggressor
Although identifications are usually associated with love, identifications also are made
during experiences of danger. To lessen anxiety, children or adults might interject
characteristics of the anxiety-provoking object to cope with experiences of panic and
helplessness. Anna Freud described this kind of identification as ―identification with the
aggressor‖ (A. Freud, 1936). In this type of identification, the individual identifies with the
object‘s attitude by projecting danger onto the outside and away from the object. This is an
intrapsychic reaction to a real threat or actual traumatic experience. Emch (1944) further
theorizes that, in some cases, where one or both parents are ―unknowable‖ because of
unpredictable, violent, or chaotic behavior or prolonged absence, the child may imitate the