VOLUME 4 |NUMBER 2 |2013 5 4 ICSA TODAY
In all circumstances, including noncultic situations, the marital
relationship provides a place in which the inner conflicts of
each of the partners can play out in the interactions that occur.
Therapists who work with couples use several concepts to
explain the type of interactions that can exist between
marriage partners. Three of the interactions or dynamics that
operate between married partners are transference, projection,
and projective identification.
Transference operates in most important relationships. We can
explain this term, originally defined by Freud, as “the
displacement of patterns of feeling, thoughts, and behavior,
originally experienced in relation to significant figures during
childhood…,” and the projection of those patterns “…onto a
person involved in a current interpersonal relationship” (Moore
&Fine, 1990, p. 196). That is, all of us are constantly bringing to
new relationships feelings that we experienced originally with
important figures from early in life.
Therapists who work with couples become aware that at times
each partner views the other as a significant person from early
life, most typically a parental figure. However, I have come to
see that, sometimes, those who have left a cult situation begin
to view their respective partners in the way they regarded the
cult leader. This pattern is particularly true for those who have
spent many years in cults. Complicating matters further are the
therapists’ countertransference reactions when they are sitting
with couples who have left a cult. By countertranference, I am
referring to the feelings that the therapists bring to the clients,
based on the therapists’ own early life experiences. Therapists
can become aware of powerful feelings when they are working
with marital partners. It is important for therapists to have an
understanding of the source of these feelings: Are these
feelings that anyone who is with the couple can experience
(induced countertransference), or feelings that the therapists
feel (countertransference) because they are reexperiencing
feelings from childhood that they went through with their own
parents or others? For example, I might have become aware of
how I am put off by a former cult member who is arrogant or
dismissive to his or her partner. That reaction might be
“induced.”That is, any therapist might have the same reactions.
However, I also might have felt a need to jump in and “call” the
partner on the arrogant behavior and my tendency to do this
may stem from the way I reacted in childhood. Nevertheless,
despite my own countertransference tendency to be bothered
by arrogant people, it is more helpful not to jump in and,
instead, to examine how the client’s partner is responding. Is
the partner becoming angry, or is the partner tuning out
(dissociating)? If I notice that the partner is spacing out, I will
verbally note this behavior and ask that partner how he or she
is feeling at that moment. In doing this, I will begin to examine
the interaction that occurs between the two of them (arrogant
behavior and tuning-out response) and attempt to make them
more aware of a dynamic that occurs between them. My goal is
to help both partners begin to examine their own and their
spouse’s behavior, to better understand the emotions and
beliefs that are being played out between them in that
particular moment.
Here’s another example: Rob had grown up in a house with a
mother whom he experienced as caring, but somewhat
intrusive, very talkative, and boring. He dealt with her by
making his room into a fortress and escaping for hours into his
books. While at college, he became attracted to an esoteric cult
in the cult, his ability to distance himself served him fairly well.
However, it took him 10 years to be able to remove himself
from the increasing demands of the cult leader and leave.
After he married another former member from his group, Rob
tended to experience his wife as his malignant, self-serving
cult leader (recent transference figure) rather than as the
intrusive, but generally benign mother of his childhood (early
transference figure). Rob would hide his thoughts and feelings
from his wife because he expected her to “rip them to shreds”
as his cult leader had done. He came to recognize that,
although his wife, Rebecca, often pursued him when he
became aloof or secretive and sometimes even reacted to his
distancing with anger, she wasn’t particularly interested in
cutting him down. In fact, Rebecca tended to look up to Rob
and see him as much more knowledgeable than she was.
Meanwhile, as a result of the cult leader’s degradation,
Rebecca tended to see her own abilities as inferior to those of
others. Furthermore, in their cult, the appearance of
intelligence (mostly about cult doctrine) was highly valued
and so a cult aftereffect for some former members was a
tendency to intellectualize and use a large vocabulary. While
working with Rob and Rebecca, I became aware of my own
countertranference, and I came to see this as a reaction to
their intellectualization, including their use of esoteric words. I
decided to share with them my induced reaction that I was
sitting with intellectual heavyweights, which left me
wondering whether they would find me smart enough to
work with them. Rob and Rebecca were quite surprised by my
admission. However, it led them to consider and focus on how
they had felt the same way when they were in their cult, and,
in turn, how they might be coming across to people in their
present life.
Furthermore, transference reactions between spouses that
originate with their experiences with the cult leader are
intensified if one spouse was placed in a higher position in the
cult than the other spouse. Rebecca often would experience
her husband as a stand-in for the cult leader, particularly when
Rob continued to identify with the cult leader’s behavior and
sometimes he even spoke with the same inflection. This
response led Rebecca to continue to thwart her own ideas and
opinions after she left the cult. Gaining this understanding in
therapy allowed both individuals to examine their behavior,
begin to change, and begin to experience themselves more
authentically. Rob had a desire to change from being arrogant
like his cult leader because he could see how that behavior
would put off many other people in his present life, including
his friends and coworkers. Rebecca was able to see how she
held herself back, and how doing this was costly to her in
many new situations because it was difficult for others to see
all that she had to offer.
Cult paranoia leads many former members to fear that their
present partner is going to exploit them as they were
exploited in the cult. For example, cult leaders may have told
followers that they were loved, but love was a hollow word
when narcissistic and/or antisocial individuals who lacked true
capacity to love or feel concern for another human being used
it. Instead, the leaders used others to serve their own needs.
Many former cultists also rely on the defense of projection.
Projection has been defined as “a mental process whereby a
painful impulse or idea is attributed to the external world”
(Moore &Fine, 1990, p. 149). For example, at times, we are too
uncomfortable with a feeling to acknowledge it. Therefore, we
tend to place the feeling onto others. And if there is a conflict
about certain feelings we have, we may project those feelings
that we experience but consider forbidden onto our marital
partner. The cult leader made members feel as though they were
selfish for any expression of self-interest. The leader’s attitude
that a member should have no self-interest can be projected
onto the member’s marital partner. Therefore, former cultists
may believe that their partners do not want them to have
pleasures in life, or that their partners will be unwilling to
consider their desires. In part, this behavior also is a projection
of their conflicts about the enjoyment of pleasure after the cult.
Cult members might believe that they want pleasure, but
because it was forbidden for so long in the cult, they
unconsciously displace their discomfort about their desires and
project those feelings onto someone else. In effect, they think,
“Although I want pleasure, my spouse does not want me to be
pleased.”
If we return to the couple, we can see projection occurring and
intensifying as Rob becomes so guarded about sharing his
thoughts that Rebecca angrily demands information from him
(and thereby, becomes more intrusive). Therefore, Rob’s
unconscious inner conflicts are transferred and reenacted by his
partner in the marital relations.
I turn now to the concept of projective identification, which
originally was defined by Melanie Klein (1946). This is a
phenomenon in which one partner not only disowns
unacceptable thoughts, but also acts in such a manner that his
inner reality will be played out by the other partner. In this way,
an individual can expel (project) and remain in touch (through
identification) with some unacceptable aspect of himself. What
is the unacceptable part of Rob that is being played out? It’s
interesting that Rob married a woman who wanted to be close
to him. As their therapist, I wondered whether Rob
unconsciously recruited Rebecca to play out the side of him that
desired to be more intimate.
Therapy should attempt to provide a safe place for former cult
members to express their uncomfortable feelings—feelings that
would have been dangerous to express in the cult and that they
continue to experience as too dangerous to express within their
postcult marriage. When it appears that those uncomfortable
and unacceptable feelings are transferred or projected onto
their partners, the therapist can focus on the concept of
transference or the defenses of projection and projective
identification to help former cultists take ownership of
uncomfortable emotions. This acknowledgement can lead to
these individuals seeing their partners in a more positive way.
Needless to say, all marriages are difficult. In part, these
difficulties occur within the intensity of the marriage
relationship because individuals begin to experience their
partners as new versions of significant (usually parental) figures
from their past, or unacceptable parts of themselves. Former
cult members also can begin to discover in themselves harmful
(as well as positive) identifications or behaviors that were
influenced by their relationships with their parents. We all are
first influenced in our understanding of how married people
behave by watching our own parents. (Even when we
consciously or unconsciously strive to be the opposite of our
parents, our parents are influencing us because they are causing
us to move in the opposite direction from their behavior.) If we
also view our partner as a more recent parent figure—the
malignant, controlling, narcissistic cult leader, an additional
burden is placed on the marital relationship.
Therapy, unlike the promise of the cult, is not a magical place
where a relationship is transformed. It is crucial for the therapist
to explain that the goal of therapy is for the couple to adopt the
therapist’s attitude of benign investigation of behavior as their
approach to looking at their relationship outside of therapy.
That is, the goal of therapy is for the couple to be able to talk
over difficulties that emerge between them and consider how
transferences from their cult relationship and from their early
life might be impacting their attitudes toward one another. ■
References
Hassan, S. (1988). Combating cult mind control. Rochester, VT: Park Street
Press.
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 27, 99–110.
Lifton, R. (1961). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism. New York, NY:
The Norton Library.
Moore, B. E., &Fine, B. D. (1990). Psychoanalytic terms and concepts. New
Haven, CT and London, England: The American Psychoanalytic Association &
Yale University Press.
Singer, M. T., &Lalich, J. (1995). Cults in our midst. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Tobias, M. T., &Lalich, J. (1994). Captive hearts, captive minds. Almeda, CA:
Hunter House.
West, L. J., &Martin, P. (1998). Pseudo-identity and the treatment of the
personality change in victims of captivity and cults. In S. J. Lynn and J. Rhue
(Eds.), Dissociation (pp. 268–288). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
/
.
About the Author
Lorna Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA,
Board member (2003 to present) and past
president (2008 to 2012) of ICSA, is a
psychoanalyst in private practice and Dean
of Faculty at the Institute of Psychoanalytic
Studies. In 1976, she and her husband,
William Goldberg, began facilitating a
support group for former cult members
that continues to meet monthly in their
home in Englewood, New Jersey. Lorna and Bill received the Hall
of Fame Award from the authentic Cult Awareness Network in
1989 and the Leo J. Ryan Award from the Leo J. Ryan Foundation
in 1999. In 2009, Lorna received the Margaret T. Singer Award
from ICSA. Along with Rosanne Henry, she co-chaired ICSA’s
Mental Health Committee from 2003 to 2008. Lorna continues to
publish numerous articles about her therapeutic work with
former cult members in professional journals. She has authored a
book chapter on guidelines for therapists and co-authored with
Bill a chapter on psychotherapy with targeted parents. ■
ICSA_volume4Issue2_Final 8/9/13 8:31 PM Page 6
In all circumstances, including noncultic situations, the marital
relationship provides a place in which the inner conflicts of
each of the partners can play out in the interactions that occur.
Therapists who work with couples use several concepts to
explain the type of interactions that can exist between
marriage partners. Three of the interactions or dynamics that
operate between married partners are transference, projection,
and projective identification.
Transference operates in most important relationships. We can
explain this term, originally defined by Freud, as “the
displacement of patterns of feeling, thoughts, and behavior,
originally experienced in relation to significant figures during
childhood…,” and the projection of those patterns “…onto a
person involved in a current interpersonal relationship” (Moore
&Fine, 1990, p. 196). That is, all of us are constantly bringing to
new relationships feelings that we experienced originally with
important figures from early in life.
Therapists who work with couples become aware that at times
each partner views the other as a significant person from early
life, most typically a parental figure. However, I have come to
see that, sometimes, those who have left a cult situation begin
to view their respective partners in the way they regarded the
cult leader. This pattern is particularly true for those who have
spent many years in cults. Complicating matters further are the
therapists’ countertransference reactions when they are sitting
with couples who have left a cult. By countertranference, I am
referring to the feelings that the therapists bring to the clients,
based on the therapists’ own early life experiences. Therapists
can become aware of powerful feelings when they are working
with marital partners. It is important for therapists to have an
understanding of the source of these feelings: Are these
feelings that anyone who is with the couple can experience
(induced countertransference), or feelings that the therapists
feel (countertransference) because they are reexperiencing
feelings from childhood that they went through with their own
parents or others? For example, I might have become aware of
how I am put off by a former cult member who is arrogant or
dismissive to his or her partner. That reaction might be
“induced.”That is, any therapist might have the same reactions.
However, I also might have felt a need to jump in and “call” the
partner on the arrogant behavior and my tendency to do this
may stem from the way I reacted in childhood. Nevertheless,
despite my own countertransference tendency to be bothered
by arrogant people, it is more helpful not to jump in and,
instead, to examine how the client’s partner is responding. Is
the partner becoming angry, or is the partner tuning out
(dissociating)? If I notice that the partner is spacing out, I will
verbally note this behavior and ask that partner how he or she
is feeling at that moment. In doing this, I will begin to examine
the interaction that occurs between the two of them (arrogant
behavior and tuning-out response) and attempt to make them
more aware of a dynamic that occurs between them. My goal is
to help both partners begin to examine their own and their
spouse’s behavior, to better understand the emotions and
beliefs that are being played out between them in that
particular moment.
Here’s another example: Rob had grown up in a house with a
mother whom he experienced as caring, but somewhat
intrusive, very talkative, and boring. He dealt with her by
making his room into a fortress and escaping for hours into his
books. While at college, he became attracted to an esoteric cult
in the cult, his ability to distance himself served him fairly well.
However, it took him 10 years to be able to remove himself
from the increasing demands of the cult leader and leave.
After he married another former member from his group, Rob
tended to experience his wife as his malignant, self-serving
cult leader (recent transference figure) rather than as the
intrusive, but generally benign mother of his childhood (early
transference figure). Rob would hide his thoughts and feelings
from his wife because he expected her to “rip them to shreds”
as his cult leader had done. He came to recognize that,
although his wife, Rebecca, often pursued him when he
became aloof or secretive and sometimes even reacted to his
distancing with anger, she wasn’t particularly interested in
cutting him down. In fact, Rebecca tended to look up to Rob
and see him as much more knowledgeable than she was.
Meanwhile, as a result of the cult leader’s degradation,
Rebecca tended to see her own abilities as inferior to those of
others. Furthermore, in their cult, the appearance of
intelligence (mostly about cult doctrine) was highly valued
and so a cult aftereffect for some former members was a
tendency to intellectualize and use a large vocabulary. While
working with Rob and Rebecca, I became aware of my own
countertranference, and I came to see this as a reaction to
their intellectualization, including their use of esoteric words. I
decided to share with them my induced reaction that I was
sitting with intellectual heavyweights, which left me
wondering whether they would find me smart enough to
work with them. Rob and Rebecca were quite surprised by my
admission. However, it led them to consider and focus on how
they had felt the same way when they were in their cult, and,
in turn, how they might be coming across to people in their
present life.
Furthermore, transference reactions between spouses that
originate with their experiences with the cult leader are
intensified if one spouse was placed in a higher position in the
cult than the other spouse. Rebecca often would experience
her husband as a stand-in for the cult leader, particularly when
Rob continued to identify with the cult leader’s behavior and
sometimes he even spoke with the same inflection. This
response led Rebecca to continue to thwart her own ideas and
opinions after she left the cult. Gaining this understanding in
therapy allowed both individuals to examine their behavior,
begin to change, and begin to experience themselves more
authentically. Rob had a desire to change from being arrogant
like his cult leader because he could see how that behavior
would put off many other people in his present life, including
his friends and coworkers. Rebecca was able to see how she
held herself back, and how doing this was costly to her in
many new situations because it was difficult for others to see
all that she had to offer.
Cult paranoia leads many former members to fear that their
present partner is going to exploit them as they were
exploited in the cult. For example, cult leaders may have told
followers that they were loved, but love was a hollow word
when narcissistic and/or antisocial individuals who lacked true
capacity to love or feel concern for another human being used
it. Instead, the leaders used others to serve their own needs.
Many former cultists also rely on the defense of projection.
Projection has been defined as “a mental process whereby a
painful impulse or idea is attributed to the external world”
(Moore &Fine, 1990, p. 149). For example, at times, we are too
uncomfortable with a feeling to acknowledge it. Therefore, we
tend to place the feeling onto others. And if there is a conflict
about certain feelings we have, we may project those feelings
that we experience but consider forbidden onto our marital
partner. The cult leader made members feel as though they were
selfish for any expression of self-interest. The leader’s attitude
that a member should have no self-interest can be projected
onto the member’s marital partner. Therefore, former cultists
may believe that their partners do not want them to have
pleasures in life, or that their partners will be unwilling to
consider their desires. In part, this behavior also is a projection
of their conflicts about the enjoyment of pleasure after the cult.
Cult members might believe that they want pleasure, but
because it was forbidden for so long in the cult, they
unconsciously displace their discomfort about their desires and
project those feelings onto someone else. In effect, they think,
“Although I want pleasure, my spouse does not want me to be
pleased.”
If we return to the couple, we can see projection occurring and
intensifying as Rob becomes so guarded about sharing his
thoughts that Rebecca angrily demands information from him
(and thereby, becomes more intrusive). Therefore, Rob’s
unconscious inner conflicts are transferred and reenacted by his
partner in the marital relations.
I turn now to the concept of projective identification, which
originally was defined by Melanie Klein (1946). This is a
phenomenon in which one partner not only disowns
unacceptable thoughts, but also acts in such a manner that his
inner reality will be played out by the other partner. In this way,
an individual can expel (project) and remain in touch (through
identification) with some unacceptable aspect of himself. What
is the unacceptable part of Rob that is being played out? It’s
interesting that Rob married a woman who wanted to be close
to him. As their therapist, I wondered whether Rob
unconsciously recruited Rebecca to play out the side of him that
desired to be more intimate.
Therapy should attempt to provide a safe place for former cult
members to express their uncomfortable feelings—feelings that
would have been dangerous to express in the cult and that they
continue to experience as too dangerous to express within their
postcult marriage. When it appears that those uncomfortable
and unacceptable feelings are transferred or projected onto
their partners, the therapist can focus on the concept of
transference or the defenses of projection and projective
identification to help former cultists take ownership of
uncomfortable emotions. This acknowledgement can lead to
these individuals seeing their partners in a more positive way.
Needless to say, all marriages are difficult. In part, these
difficulties occur within the intensity of the marriage
relationship because individuals begin to experience their
partners as new versions of significant (usually parental) figures
from their past, or unacceptable parts of themselves. Former
cult members also can begin to discover in themselves harmful
(as well as positive) identifications or behaviors that were
influenced by their relationships with their parents. We all are
first influenced in our understanding of how married people
behave by watching our own parents. (Even when we
consciously or unconsciously strive to be the opposite of our
parents, our parents are influencing us because they are causing
us to move in the opposite direction from their behavior.) If we
also view our partner as a more recent parent figure—the
malignant, controlling, narcissistic cult leader, an additional
burden is placed on the marital relationship.
Therapy, unlike the promise of the cult, is not a magical place
where a relationship is transformed. It is crucial for the therapist
to explain that the goal of therapy is for the couple to adopt the
therapist’s attitude of benign investigation of behavior as their
approach to looking at their relationship outside of therapy.
That is, the goal of therapy is for the couple to be able to talk
over difficulties that emerge between them and consider how
transferences from their cult relationship and from their early
life might be impacting their attitudes toward one another. ■
References
Hassan, S. (1988). Combating cult mind control. Rochester, VT: Park Street
Press.
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 27, 99–110.
Lifton, R. (1961). Thought reform and the psychology of totalism. New York, NY:
The Norton Library.
Moore, B. E., &Fine, B. D. (1990). Psychoanalytic terms and concepts. New
Haven, CT and London, England: The American Psychoanalytic Association &
Yale University Press.
Singer, M. T., &Lalich, J. (1995). Cults in our midst. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Tobias, M. T., &Lalich, J. (1994). Captive hearts, captive minds. Almeda, CA:
Hunter House.
West, L. J., &Martin, P. (1998). Pseudo-identity and the treatment of the
personality change in victims of captivity and cults. In S. J. Lynn and J. Rhue
(Eds.), Dissociation (pp. 268–288). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
/
.
About the Author
Lorna Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA,
Board member (2003 to present) and past
president (2008 to 2012) of ICSA, is a
psychoanalyst in private practice and Dean
of Faculty at the Institute of Psychoanalytic
Studies. In 1976, she and her husband,
William Goldberg, began facilitating a
support group for former cult members
that continues to meet monthly in their
home in Englewood, New Jersey. Lorna and Bill received the Hall
of Fame Award from the authentic Cult Awareness Network in
1989 and the Leo J. Ryan Award from the Leo J. Ryan Foundation
in 1999. In 2009, Lorna received the Margaret T. Singer Award
from ICSA. Along with Rosanne Henry, she co-chaired ICSA’s
Mental Health Committee from 2003 to 2008. Lorna continues to
publish numerous articles about her therapeutic work with
former cult members in professional journals. She has authored a
book chapter on guidelines for therapists and co-authored with
Bill a chapter on psychotherapy with targeted parents. ■
ICSA_volume4Issue2_Final 8/9/13 8:31 PM Page 6
