11 VOLUME 11 |ISSUE 2 |2020
Restoration
Exit costs can be massive. These include multiple and
profound losses: identity, purpose, shelter, property,
financial resources, and social ties, among many
others. Pandora’s Box of emotion opens, overflowing
with confusion, grief, anger, and loneliness. If the
victim has been in a severely isolating relationship
for an extensive period, she lacks social skills and
knowledge of popular culture, which can induce
senses of disorientation and disconnection. Her
boundaries have been violated to the point of
extinction, making it difficult to form new, safe, social
connections. Rebuilding her life involves moving
from dependency to self-determination, engaging in
critical thinking and decision-making, shedding her
pseudoidentity and reconnecting with her precult
personality, gathering material resources and social
capital, and much more. Finally, as she evolves from
victim to survivor, she will benefit from working
through her trauma with a well-trained therapist, and
perhaps a support group.
A new season began filled with
overwhelming challenges. The Group
abandoned me. In one decisive moment, I
lost my entire family, and Judy was appalled
at the cruelty. No longer defined by my
position on George’s chessboard, my
identity was shattered. I was chronically
exhausted, anxious, and grief-stricken.
Socially, I had no idea how to function, and
people found me strange. Slowly, the loss
of irreplaceable years to a con man and a lie
began to sink in, triggering shame, outrage,
and fantasies of revenge. Constructing
a new life from scratch would be a
monumental task. However, for the first time
in forever, I tasted precious freedom and
safety, and for those, I was immeasurably
grateful. (Burchard, 2020)
Cultic relationships are a rampant, cancerous social
problem. In contrast to healthy mutuality marked
by respect for human dignity, they are a one-way
street—a system of dominance and submission
in which, through violation of human rights,
malevolently intelligent abusers gain at the expense
of those they subjugate. My hope in writing this paper
is to help elucidate the nature of the abuse common
to cultic groups and interpersonal violence, so that we
may be more effective protecting potential victims
and holding perpetrators to account. n
Notes
[1] For simplicity in this article, I use he and associated gender
pronouns to indicate the abuser, and she and associated
gender pronouns to indicate the victim, although the abuser
may be either man or woman, and the victim may be either, as
well.
[2] The vignettes in this paper were adapted from my book The
Cult Next Door: A Manhattan Memoir (Burchard &Carlone, 2017)
for the ICSA Conversation, Domestic Violence in a Fabricated
Family: Reflecting on a Cult Next Door (January 2020, New York,
NY).
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical
manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American
Psychiatric Publishing.
Burchard, E. (2020, January). Domestic violence in a fabricated
family: Reflections on a cult next door. Presentation at ICSA
Conversations webinar series, New York, NY.
Burchard, E. R., &Carlone, J. L. (2017). The cult next door: A
Manhattan memoir. NJ: Two Poles Press, LLC.
Dutton, D. G., &Painter, S. (1993). Emotional attachments in
abusive relationships: A test of traumatic bonding theory. Violence
and Victims, 8(2), 105–120.
Hassan, S. (1990). Combatting cult mind control: The#1 best-selling
guide to protection, rescue, and recovery from destructive cults.
Rochester, VT: Park Street Press.
Hassan. S. (2016). Combating cult mind control: The #1 best-selling
guide to protection, rescue, and recovery from destructive cults.
Freedom of Mind Press.
Stein, A. (2017). Terror, love and brainwashing: Attachment in cults
and totalitarian systems. New York, NY: Routledge.
Walker, L. E. (2016). The battered woman syndrome. New York, NY:
Springer.
Zablocki, B. (2001). Towards a demystified and disinterested
scientific theory of brainwashing. In B. Zablocki &T. Robbins (Eds.),
Misunderstanding cults: Searching for objectivity in a controversial
field (pp. 159–214). Toronto, ON, CAN: University of Toronto Press.
About the Author
Elizabeth R. Burchard, LSW, is a
psychotherapist in Northern New Jersey. She
holds a BA in Biochemistry from Swarthmore
College and an MSW from Fordham University.
Elizabeth provides counseling for anxiety,
depression, trauma, marital and family
challenges, and domestic abuse. Based on her
personal experience in a small New Age cult (published in 2017
as The Cult Next Door: A Manhattan Memoir), she also presents
professionally on coercive control in one-on-one, family, and
cultic group settings. thecultnextdoor.com
elizabeth@thecultnextdoor.com n
Restoration
Exit costs can be massive. These include multiple and
profound losses: identity, purpose, shelter, property,
financial resources, and social ties, among many
others. Pandora’s Box of emotion opens, overflowing
with confusion, grief, anger, and loneliness. If the
victim has been in a severely isolating relationship
for an extensive period, she lacks social skills and
knowledge of popular culture, which can induce
senses of disorientation and disconnection. Her
boundaries have been violated to the point of
extinction, making it difficult to form new, safe, social
connections. Rebuilding her life involves moving
from dependency to self-determination, engaging in
critical thinking and decision-making, shedding her
pseudoidentity and reconnecting with her precult
personality, gathering material resources and social
capital, and much more. Finally, as she evolves from
victim to survivor, she will benefit from working
through her trauma with a well-trained therapist, and
perhaps a support group.
A new season began filled with
overwhelming challenges. The Group
abandoned me. In one decisive moment, I
lost my entire family, and Judy was appalled
at the cruelty. No longer defined by my
position on George’s chessboard, my
identity was shattered. I was chronically
exhausted, anxious, and grief-stricken.
Socially, I had no idea how to function, and
people found me strange. Slowly, the loss
of irreplaceable years to a con man and a lie
began to sink in, triggering shame, outrage,
and fantasies of revenge. Constructing
a new life from scratch would be a
monumental task. However, for the first time
in forever, I tasted precious freedom and
safety, and for those, I was immeasurably
grateful. (Burchard, 2020)
Cultic relationships are a rampant, cancerous social
problem. In contrast to healthy mutuality marked
by respect for human dignity, they are a one-way
street—a system of dominance and submission
in which, through violation of human rights,
malevolently intelligent abusers gain at the expense
of those they subjugate. My hope in writing this paper
is to help elucidate the nature of the abuse common
to cultic groups and interpersonal violence, so that we
may be more effective protecting potential victims
and holding perpetrators to account. n
Notes
[1] For simplicity in this article, I use he and associated gender
pronouns to indicate the abuser, and she and associated
gender pronouns to indicate the victim, although the abuser
may be either man or woman, and the victim may be either, as
well.
[2] The vignettes in this paper were adapted from my book The
Cult Next Door: A Manhattan Memoir (Burchard &Carlone, 2017)
for the ICSA Conversation, Domestic Violence in a Fabricated
Family: Reflecting on a Cult Next Door (January 2020, New York,
NY).
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical
manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American
Psychiatric Publishing.
Burchard, E. (2020, January). Domestic violence in a fabricated
family: Reflections on a cult next door. Presentation at ICSA
Conversations webinar series, New York, NY.
Burchard, E. R., &Carlone, J. L. (2017). The cult next door: A
Manhattan memoir. NJ: Two Poles Press, LLC.
Dutton, D. G., &Painter, S. (1993). Emotional attachments in
abusive relationships: A test of traumatic bonding theory. Violence
and Victims, 8(2), 105–120.
Hassan, S. (1990). Combatting cult mind control: The#1 best-selling
guide to protection, rescue, and recovery from destructive cults.
Rochester, VT: Park Street Press.
Hassan. S. (2016). Combating cult mind control: The #1 best-selling
guide to protection, rescue, and recovery from destructive cults.
Freedom of Mind Press.
Stein, A. (2017). Terror, love and brainwashing: Attachment in cults
and totalitarian systems. New York, NY: Routledge.
Walker, L. E. (2016). The battered woman syndrome. New York, NY:
Springer.
Zablocki, B. (2001). Towards a demystified and disinterested
scientific theory of brainwashing. In B. Zablocki &T. Robbins (Eds.),
Misunderstanding cults: Searching for objectivity in a controversial
field (pp. 159–214). Toronto, ON, CAN: University of Toronto Press.
About the Author
Elizabeth R. Burchard, LSW, is a
psychotherapist in Northern New Jersey. She
holds a BA in Biochemistry from Swarthmore
College and an MSW from Fordham University.
Elizabeth provides counseling for anxiety,
depression, trauma, marital and family
challenges, and domestic abuse. Based on her
personal experience in a small New Age cult (published in 2017
as The Cult Next Door: A Manhattan Memoir), she also presents
professionally on coercive control in one-on-one, family, and
cultic group settings. thecultnextdoor.com
elizabeth@thecultnextdoor.com n
