ICSA TODAY
challenging. Despite this challenge, a
person will never stop using stories to
create meaning and seek out belonging.
While it is true that there are countless
ways to interpret a person’s life events,8
when somebody leaves a cult he is most
likely enmeshed in what narrative therapy
cofounder Michael White has described as
the “problem-saturated” narrative.9 Will the
person be capable of discovering different
viewpoints of the stories he has lived
through? Viewpoints embedded in actual
events and with their own plotlines, but
that have probably never had the
supportive context necessary to allow
those plotlines to thicken?
The reauthoring of a narrative enables a
person to put emphasis on aligning his
stories with his lived experience,
and then infusing those stories
with meaning he has discovered.
These preferred stories are not
false accounts of a person’s life
rather, they are stories that have
become invisible to the person
when he has placed other
stories in the foreground of his
awareness. As mentioned earlier,
he has most likely done this to
reduce cognitive dissonance,
although it may also have
happened that he did not even
notice a particular version of an
event in his life that he now is
discovering as a result of being
listened to reflexively. The
purpose of discovering such
invisible stories is to allow a more
nuanced perspective of what has
happened to him—before, after,
and during his involvement in a
cult—to be discovered.
Reauthoring is the process of a
person looking back at neglected
story lines in his life with an open
mind, articulating them to a
nonmanipulative audience, and
rediscovering themes, values, and
preferences for living that he may have
disregarded previously.
Doing this successfully will depend largely
upon who the audience is it is the
storyteller’s audience who provides him
with the mirror he needs to allow different
emotions to emerge and attach
themselves to story content. If, for
example, a person who has joined a cult
and then left it after years of involvement
considers himself to be unable to stand up
for himself, that viewpoint can change if
he recovers a story from his precult life
that demonstrates initiative and
independent thinking. Such a story might
come from the audience of a sibling or
friend acting as a reflexive listener,
someone who can remind him of events
he may have forgotten.
Reflexive listening is critically important to
a person emerging from a cult experience
because it addresses this question: Can
someone listen to a leave-taker’s
experience without judgment, and
without attempting to steer him toward
another belief system? Doing so increases
the possibility that the storyteller will
become curious about his own life and
want to explore its possibilities. Research
done by Lerner and Teflock10 makes a
distinction between such exploratory
thought (an evenhanded consideration of
alternative perspectives) and confirmatory
thought (a one-sided attempt to
rationalize a particular perspective). They
point out that a person is more likely to
engage in the former if
a) his audience holds him accountable
for what he says
b) the views of his audience are
unknown and
c) the audience is well informed and
interested in accuracy.
When it comes to people who have left a
cult, a little open-hearted compassion
doesn’t do any harm either. Can the
leave-taker find such listeners? What he
needs most in reclaiming his life stories are
people who ask skillful questions that
support his efforts to view and explore his
life more broadly, not just within the
confines of his cultic experience. This
resource will serve as quite a contrast to
the fact that when the person’s stories
were “listened to” by authorities inside the
cult, the likelihood is that none of Lerner
and Teflock’s conditions were met.
The fact that stories can steer a person
either toward self-discovery or toward
acting against his own interest points out
the double-edged-sword quality of stories.
A person’s desire for belonging makes him
vulnerable to influence, including the
influence that comes when the way he
tells his stories seeks to please cult leaders.
Once outside the cult, a person is still likely
to seek to please his audience—even if
that audience no longer requires
compliance from him. But if the audiences
he speaks to meet the criteria
mentioned above, the storyteller
can choose different meanings.
He can see other aspects of
himself that may have been
neglected in tired, oft-repeated
versions of the same story. In
doing so, he opens up the
possibility of reauthoring his life
stories. Then he can navigate
toward a meaning that actually
coincides with what he wants and
how he wishes to live.
Reclaiming life stories after cult
immersion is also made difficult
by the fact that damage to the
identity of a leave-taker is
frequently the outcome of his
experience inside the cult (identity
as I am referring to it here is
inclusive of a person’s physical,
emotional, intellectual, and
spiritual universe). That damage
often translates into an inability
on the part of the leave-taker to
recognize that identity is not
static. Whatever identity he has adopted in
order to embrace cult life can be changed.
But reauthoring his stories in order to
rebuild his identity is a delicate process:
His postcult confusion may make him
reluctant to access the vulnerability he
needs to explore neglected story lines,
particularly if any trauma he’s experiencing
after his cult experience is making him
emotionally raw or numb to emotions
altogether. Confusion may also make him
feel ill-equipped to place trust in any
audience. He needs to do so if he is to
reauthor his identity and skilled exit
counselors, relatives, and friends who
understand this can provide him with
much-needed opportunities to engage in
this process. But other acquaintances, new
8
Reauthoring
is the process
of a person
looking back …
rediscovering
themes, values,
and preferences
for living…
challenging. Despite this challenge, a
person will never stop using stories to
create meaning and seek out belonging.
While it is true that there are countless
ways to interpret a person’s life events,8
when somebody leaves a cult he is most
likely enmeshed in what narrative therapy
cofounder Michael White has described as
the “problem-saturated” narrative.9 Will the
person be capable of discovering different
viewpoints of the stories he has lived
through? Viewpoints embedded in actual
events and with their own plotlines, but
that have probably never had the
supportive context necessary to allow
those plotlines to thicken?
The reauthoring of a narrative enables a
person to put emphasis on aligning his
stories with his lived experience,
and then infusing those stories
with meaning he has discovered.
These preferred stories are not
false accounts of a person’s life
rather, they are stories that have
become invisible to the person
when he has placed other
stories in the foreground of his
awareness. As mentioned earlier,
he has most likely done this to
reduce cognitive dissonance,
although it may also have
happened that he did not even
notice a particular version of an
event in his life that he now is
discovering as a result of being
listened to reflexively. The
purpose of discovering such
invisible stories is to allow a more
nuanced perspective of what has
happened to him—before, after,
and during his involvement in a
cult—to be discovered.
Reauthoring is the process of a
person looking back at neglected
story lines in his life with an open
mind, articulating them to a
nonmanipulative audience, and
rediscovering themes, values, and
preferences for living that he may have
disregarded previously.
Doing this successfully will depend largely
upon who the audience is it is the
storyteller’s audience who provides him
with the mirror he needs to allow different
emotions to emerge and attach
themselves to story content. If, for
example, a person who has joined a cult
and then left it after years of involvement
considers himself to be unable to stand up
for himself, that viewpoint can change if
he recovers a story from his precult life
that demonstrates initiative and
independent thinking. Such a story might
come from the audience of a sibling or
friend acting as a reflexive listener,
someone who can remind him of events
he may have forgotten.
Reflexive listening is critically important to
a person emerging from a cult experience
because it addresses this question: Can
someone listen to a leave-taker’s
experience without judgment, and
without attempting to steer him toward
another belief system? Doing so increases
the possibility that the storyteller will
become curious about his own life and
want to explore its possibilities. Research
done by Lerner and Teflock10 makes a
distinction between such exploratory
thought (an evenhanded consideration of
alternative perspectives) and confirmatory
thought (a one-sided attempt to
rationalize a particular perspective). They
point out that a person is more likely to
engage in the former if
a) his audience holds him accountable
for what he says
b) the views of his audience are
unknown and
c) the audience is well informed and
interested in accuracy.
When it comes to people who have left a
cult, a little open-hearted compassion
doesn’t do any harm either. Can the
leave-taker find such listeners? What he
needs most in reclaiming his life stories are
people who ask skillful questions that
support his efforts to view and explore his
life more broadly, not just within the
confines of his cultic experience. This
resource will serve as quite a contrast to
the fact that when the person’s stories
were “listened to” by authorities inside the
cult, the likelihood is that none of Lerner
and Teflock’s conditions were met.
The fact that stories can steer a person
either toward self-discovery or toward
acting against his own interest points out
the double-edged-sword quality of stories.
A person’s desire for belonging makes him
vulnerable to influence, including the
influence that comes when the way he
tells his stories seeks to please cult leaders.
Once outside the cult, a person is still likely
to seek to please his audience—even if
that audience no longer requires
compliance from him. But if the audiences
he speaks to meet the criteria
mentioned above, the storyteller
can choose different meanings.
He can see other aspects of
himself that may have been
neglected in tired, oft-repeated
versions of the same story. In
doing so, he opens up the
possibility of reauthoring his life
stories. Then he can navigate
toward a meaning that actually
coincides with what he wants and
how he wishes to live.
Reclaiming life stories after cult
immersion is also made difficult
by the fact that damage to the
identity of a leave-taker is
frequently the outcome of his
experience inside the cult (identity
as I am referring to it here is
inclusive of a person’s physical,
emotional, intellectual, and
spiritual universe). That damage
often translates into an inability
on the part of the leave-taker to
recognize that identity is not
static. Whatever identity he has adopted in
order to embrace cult life can be changed.
But reauthoring his stories in order to
rebuild his identity is a delicate process:
His postcult confusion may make him
reluctant to access the vulnerability he
needs to explore neglected story lines,
particularly if any trauma he’s experiencing
after his cult experience is making him
emotionally raw or numb to emotions
altogether. Confusion may also make him
feel ill-equipped to place trust in any
audience. He needs to do so if he is to
reauthor his identity and skilled exit
counselors, relatives, and friends who
understand this can provide him with
much-needed opportunities to engage in
this process. But other acquaintances, new
8
Reauthoring
is the process
of a person
looking back …
rediscovering
themes, values,
and preferences
for living…
