6 ICSA TODAY
with my sense of loss. From my therapist, I learned
to benignly investigate behavior and always treat
clients with respect. I also learned that if the therapist
helps clients to verbalize previously unacknowledged
or disavowed fantasies or
thoughts, individuals are better
able to gain access to and
rectify potentially undermining
unconscious beliefs. We all
carry around these beliefs or
assumptions about the true
meaning of events and about
the people who enter our
lives. Sometimes we’re wrong.
We often base our beliefs on
the way that we experienced
interactions with others in the past.
Therapy centers on helping clients become better aware
of the limiting effect of their assumptions and opens
up the possibility to them of other ways to interpret
events or view interactions. To gain access to their
beliefs, I not only listen to clients’ words and the stories
they are telling, but also comment on their nonverbal
cues such as a body movement or other actions they
take. For instance, I might notice and remark on how a
client’s body stiffens after I’ve said something, or I might
explore what it means when a client “forgets” a session.
I’ll also wonder about the timing of the onset of physical
symptoms clients might be experiencing for which
no medical cause is found. To engage clients’ critical
thinking, it also is useful for me to question them about
the terms they use in sessions because cults usually have
redefined the meaning of everyday words. By discovering
their cultic definitions, I gain insight into their worldviews
as former cult members.
Reading Freud, I learned how individuals transfer onto
the therapist feelings they originally experienced
with people important in their early childhood. I
particularly learned about
how, through transference,
leaders of groups could have
the power to change the
superego (conscience) of group
members.1 Cult leaders have a
great deal of influence, in part
because the recruits begin to
experience them as parental
figures. By focusing with all
my clients on transference reactions, I learn about their
early life experiences. Transference tells the story more
clearly than the remembered story each tells. In working
with former cult members, I began to understand
that I also might become a stand-in for a more recent
powerful figure from the past, the cult leader. Former cult
members might play out an aspect of their relationship
with the cult leader with their
spouses, with bosses at work, or
with me in sessions. It is important
for me as therapist to explore
these interactions and help the
clients see them as a repetition
of the past—sometimes the cult
past. I also encourage clients to
talk about their feelings of how
they experience me without my
“collapsing” or “retaliating,” to use
Winnicott’s words.2 I would add,
“without my inflating” to Winnicott’s list. This is a way for
clients to begin to explore the transference by seeing the
difference between my response and their transference
expectation.
Both my own therapist and all the experts I initially met
in the cult-related world served as positive figures for
me. They were encouraging models, and we need those
models in adulthood as well as when we are young. In
adulthood, they can help repair punitive and restrictive
experiences of childhood and reinforce good ones. They
also can help us move in positive new directions.
In my psychoanalytic training, I also learned to
better understand my clients through my own
countertransference reactions—that is, the feelings
that were stirred up inside me during therapy sessions.
As part of this process, I began to discover my own
characteristic tendencies as a therapist. For example, as
a new therapist, I had a tendency to want to rescue not
only my brother, but also my clients. In my own therapy,
I was able to understand the genesis and meaning of
this tendency and, hence, resolve the repetitive, often
undermining behavior. Although I am relieved that my
brother was rescued from a cult,
in time I learned that, for clients
to grow, they needed to rescue
themselves. Being rescued is
undermining to clients and
short-circuits their ability to think
things through for themselves
in their own time they gain a
sense of accomplishment from
providing their own answers.
Rescuing also reinforces the belief that someone else can
give them “the answer,” or that someone even might have
the answer to give.
I learned to benignly
investigate behavior
and always treat
clients with respect.
I first discovered the
world of cults when
my younger brother
became involved in
a cultic group.
with my sense of loss. From my therapist, I learned
to benignly investigate behavior and always treat
clients with respect. I also learned that if the therapist
helps clients to verbalize previously unacknowledged
or disavowed fantasies or
thoughts, individuals are better
able to gain access to and
rectify potentially undermining
unconscious beliefs. We all
carry around these beliefs or
assumptions about the true
meaning of events and about
the people who enter our
lives. Sometimes we’re wrong.
We often base our beliefs on
the way that we experienced
interactions with others in the past.
Therapy centers on helping clients become better aware
of the limiting effect of their assumptions and opens
up the possibility to them of other ways to interpret
events or view interactions. To gain access to their
beliefs, I not only listen to clients’ words and the stories
they are telling, but also comment on their nonverbal
cues such as a body movement or other actions they
take. For instance, I might notice and remark on how a
client’s body stiffens after I’ve said something, or I might
explore what it means when a client “forgets” a session.
I’ll also wonder about the timing of the onset of physical
symptoms clients might be experiencing for which
no medical cause is found. To engage clients’ critical
thinking, it also is useful for me to question them about
the terms they use in sessions because cults usually have
redefined the meaning of everyday words. By discovering
their cultic definitions, I gain insight into their worldviews
as former cult members.
Reading Freud, I learned how individuals transfer onto
the therapist feelings they originally experienced
with people important in their early childhood. I
particularly learned about
how, through transference,
leaders of groups could have
the power to change the
superego (conscience) of group
members.1 Cult leaders have a
great deal of influence, in part
because the recruits begin to
experience them as parental
figures. By focusing with all
my clients on transference reactions, I learn about their
early life experiences. Transference tells the story more
clearly than the remembered story each tells. In working
with former cult members, I began to understand
that I also might become a stand-in for a more recent
powerful figure from the past, the cult leader. Former cult
members might play out an aspect of their relationship
with the cult leader with their
spouses, with bosses at work, or
with me in sessions. It is important
for me as therapist to explore
these interactions and help the
clients see them as a repetition
of the past—sometimes the cult
past. I also encourage clients to
talk about their feelings of how
they experience me without my
“collapsing” or “retaliating,” to use
Winnicott’s words.2 I would add,
“without my inflating” to Winnicott’s list. This is a way for
clients to begin to explore the transference by seeing the
difference between my response and their transference
expectation.
Both my own therapist and all the experts I initially met
in the cult-related world served as positive figures for
me. They were encouraging models, and we need those
models in adulthood as well as when we are young. In
adulthood, they can help repair punitive and restrictive
experiences of childhood and reinforce good ones. They
also can help us move in positive new directions.
In my psychoanalytic training, I also learned to
better understand my clients through my own
countertransference reactions—that is, the feelings
that were stirred up inside me during therapy sessions.
As part of this process, I began to discover my own
characteristic tendencies as a therapist. For example, as
a new therapist, I had a tendency to want to rescue not
only my brother, but also my clients. In my own therapy,
I was able to understand the genesis and meaning of
this tendency and, hence, resolve the repetitive, often
undermining behavior. Although I am relieved that my
brother was rescued from a cult,
in time I learned that, for clients
to grow, they needed to rescue
themselves. Being rescued is
undermining to clients and
short-circuits their ability to think
things through for themselves
in their own time they gain a
sense of accomplishment from
providing their own answers.
Rescuing also reinforces the belief that someone else can
give them “the answer,” or that someone even might have
the answer to give.
I learned to benignly
investigate behavior
and always treat
clients with respect.
I first discovered the
world of cults when
my younger brother
became involved in
a cultic group.
