Sweetheart 88.. I did not know any of this.. I did not read your outburst baby.. It is addictive.

I am retired and have one friend on the island ( My choice) so stay in the air and on computer..and watch TV.. and clean in between.

Being a Critic of Scientology isn’t for everyone… It just isn’t.. I have been at my breaking point more than once.. It plays on your emotions and your head..

It is a dangerous cult that destroys. Just so you know..I understand. The door is always open for you sweetheart.. I love those with soft hearts.. especially when it is with animals.

The thought of one dog .. being harmed in anyway absolutely sickens me.. that goes for all creatures.. Take my love with you and you know where you can find me.. Love baby

What I would suggest is to restore the person physically – sleep, a balanced diet and exercise – and then provide factual information about Scn. In my experience, if the conditioning is not undone first then it will obstruct counselling.

Once an individual has understood the reality of Hubbard’s deception (Miller did a pretty good job, and Blue Sky was designed for former members – who should check the references to their satisfaction – my Bunker pieces have almost all been deconstruction, too) and the exaggerated claims, they can move on to the ‘hypnotic’ effects of auditing. This is not as easy as it sounds – I still cannot recommend a straightforward and accurate textbook on hypnosis; many of them are little better than Hubbard. There was an excellent interview with Laurence Sugarman in a recent New Scientist, but otherwise it is the big, fat and overpriced Oxford Companion. Hubbard’s own equivocation about hypnosis is found in my own Never Believe a Hypnotist, but it makes no attempt to explain hypnosis.

With this in hand, it may be necessary to move on to counselling – I’m not keen on memory based, dream based or hypnotherapy forms for Scnists and agree absolutely that CBT is a better way to go (curious that both cognitive therapy and Dianetics grew out of General Semantics and the realisation that words are fundamental to our behaviour).

A therapist must be willing to understand the particular nature of the cult in which a client has been involved. There are very few therapists who have taken the time to understand this field. I’m recently impressed with Rachel Bernstein and have long made referrals to my dear friend Christian Szurko here in the UK.

But I do feel that most people will manage without counselling, just by learning the truth about Hubbard and the Tech. Only if the post-traumatic stress continues is counselling a necessity. Then I would recommend Ronnie Janof Bulman’s Shattered Assumptions which does indeed shatter some assumptions about counselling!

And thanks so much for bringing up this important issue.

Jon, thanks for posting, believe me, every day or two I search your Discus profile and read all you write!

Hi my Cece, Thank you made my afternoon.I will know all at the end of next week.For some reason I just recalled the fickle finger of fate from Carlson late night.No I am going for 100% positive results.It would be no fun if I could not play with you Degraded SPs anymore.Love Always

Ann you are a sweetheart 🙂 XO to you also. Hope all went well at the docs.

you will have…but it will be once I can visit a certain someone with a kindle that is not linked to me. I’m not able to have this on my accounts. The other books I’ve bought through used channels not traceable. It’s what I have to do for now.

I took an interest in CBT because a friend who suffers from depression and anxiety participated in a research project which concluded that it was as effective as drugs for some forms of mild depression. It’s not a cure-all – but then again, nothing is.

It seems to me that what you are describing is a form of specialised therapy. It’s not that existing therapies don’t work for ex-Scientologists – it’s that inappropriate therapies don’t work. If , for example an ex-Scientologist goes to someone who is good at treating mild generalised anxiety, but has no idea what his patient has gone through, they are unlikley to develop a productive relationship.

Your problem is that that aiding recovery from Scientology is a incredibly specialised field. I’m only suggesting that, if you are forced to invent your own therapy, general theoretical models will serve as a guide, and provide insights which would otherwise require years of trial and error.

I suspect that simply removing people from the closed and controlling social environment of Scientology, giving them time to think and form new relationships and supporting them will generally result in them starting to question what they had been told.

Trying to speed this process up must be a delicate process that could easily go wrong. There is also the delicate question of how far you go to try to prevent them jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire – what if they sign up for another controlling organisation?

It seems to me any complete treatment would have to address this problem too.

I’ve been a fan of Aaron Beck’s work since I read Love is Never Enough some 25 years ago. I’ve watched the development of cognitive behavioral therapy with interest, but I’m not convinced that it is a cure all for former Scnists – recent work has questioned the success of CBT (and indeed any other psychotherapy) with results pretty much around the same level as placebo. I think that there is such a thing as a ‘therapeutic personality’ – someone who is able to connect and become a transitional attachment figure (excuse the jargon!). I do think that the basic ideas of CBT should be part of everyone’s education and I’ve found them helpful.

I have not been tremendously impressed by therapists in general – I recommend very few including my good friend Christian Szurko who has helped thousands of people over the years. His talk at Toronto was inspiring and we have filmed a dozen hours of conversation since which we will probably release on You Tube.

I have known a number of former members whose experience of post-cult ‘therapy’ was harmful, especially when the therapist had no understanding of thought reform or cults. It takes experience to understand what approach is best for any given individual. The ‘one size fits all’ approach of Scientology is not valid. I’m fascinated by Patricia Crittenden’s Raising Parents which outlines the ways in which children learn to behave towards their care-givers (and beyond). This is a far more subtle approach than simple CBT and might well potentiate CBT.

All cults teach that good comes from the leader and bad is the fault of the member – it goes with the territory. The Tech always works, so when it doesn’t it is your fault…

If you can detach a person from the Org and then Hubbard and help them to reject any significant tenet they will often release themselves from the grip of the implants. i most often use the example of a second generation member who asked me if reality really is agreement. The next time we spoke, she had used scented laundry conditioner – we hadn’t talked about this aspect of Hubbard’s paranoia, so it was wonderful that she had hunted it out for herself. It is like seeing someone crack a shell that has confined their thinking and feeling – and I’ve seen it so many times in the three decades since i set out on this odyssey. This also means that people I spoke with long ago have been able to report on the success of our conversations many years later. My approach is information based – I only rarely recommend counselling beyond that rarely (for those abused in the cult, for the most part).

Cognitive behavorial therapy provides an excellent framework for the recovery process which you describe. Used to treat depression, it focusses on recognising and dispelling dysfunctional attitudes towards personal experiences.

it’s often struck me that Scientology undermines a believers self-determination by teaching him that anything good comes from Hubbard, and anything bad is their fault.

Feelings of not being in control of your own life are a factor in depression. This attitude is is systematically inculcated by Scientology so it is not surprising that Scientologists have problems after they leave.

Perhaps individual therapists might not understand the ‘cult’ experience – but the theoretical models which they use (CBT in particular) can enhance recovery. The only adaptation required is that the dysfunctional thinking that distorts an ex-Scientologists view of reality and negatively effects the state of mind of Scientologists is created by Scientology doctrine.

CBT would encourage ex-Scientologists not only to discard the doctrine, but also to practice recognising and discregarding the habits of thought that following that doctrine has conditioned them into – for example being wary of talking to ‘wogs’.

‘Bounded Choice’ is good ‘un, BTW.

You’re right – but Mark Rathbun did have the support of some good people when he left. His fervour was undiminished and he felt that Scientology was vital for the world to have any future. So did I, when I left – but my critical faculties had not been paralysed by years of evil activity in the name of good, while undergoing humiliation and trauma, so I was able to unscrew my head from Hubbard relatively easily. David Mayo went through a similar transition (though he hadn’t been in the harassment division) from urgent fervour to dismissal of the entire topic (he told me that once he’d seen OT III in 1968 he knew Hubbard was crazy … but it took 20 years before he abandoned OT III and several more before he abanonded the rest of the ‘Tech’).

I’m wary of involving ‘therapists’ in the recovery process, unless they are knowledgeable about both thought reform and Scn. They are few and far between. I think that open discussion of the tenets of the cult is the best way forward – whether with other former members or the uninitiated. Examining the beliefs – ARC, the 8 dynamics, the comm formula – the stuff in Fundamentals of Thought and Problems of Work – allows the individual to disobey those implanted assumptions about the world (for instance, raising communication does not necessarily raise affinity – we don’t like people more for shouting at us or shooting). The first step is to regain authority over your own beliefs – which means understanding that Hubbard made many pronouncements that are simply foolish. And who would follow a man who abused his followers so casually? Putting infants in the ship’s chain locker, overboarding, sleep deprivation, malnutrition, forced labour – not really the behaviour of a worthwhile leader!

And, yes, some join Scn to resolve their difficulties (I’ve yet to meet anyone who actually achieved this – the problems usually grow worse) or to help others – or to better scam others with the narcissistic sales types who abound in the cult. I personally wanted to save the world.

I agree that anyone can be vulnerable to recruitment (New Scientist tells me that 9 out of 10 people have a demonstrably irrational belief – I’d think the number is nearer to 10 out of 10!). I’ve written about this at some length in my last book – Opening Minds – dislocation from family, friends, a lover, an environment, work or anything else makes us open to new people and new beliefs.

And I also agree that it is a combination of social and individual factors – the social proof from the group is important. Janja Lalich’s Bounded Choice presents an original social model. Taken with Cults in Our Midst, which she co-authored with the late, great Margaret Singer most of the possibilities are explored. I think the tension between the group and the individual is important – Situationist explanations go a long way to explain our behaviour (Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect examines this thoroughly for bad behaviour) but I still believe in free will and personal responsibility. In some cases, a simple hypnotic induction will be enough to create profound change (the conversion experience that led to Conway and Siegelman’s ‘snapping’ notion), but this is usually bound up with social reinforcement.