Posted by Postal Carrier on October 03, 2005 at 12:54:44
In Reply to: Re: Traumatic Abuse in Cults: Part II posted by Postal Carrier on October 03, 2005 at 12:52:33:
Reprinted with permission from
Cultic Studies Review Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003
Traumatic Abuse in Cults: A Psychoanalytic Perspective, by Daniel Shaw, C.S.W.
Psychoanalyst in Private Practice
New York City
Conclusions
In my work with former cult members, my aim is to help them make sense of their experience in a way that feels meaningful. The psychoanalytically informed therapist will seek to facilitate former members’ ability to bear the many losses they have experienced, not the least of which is the loss of belief in the cult and its leader. Former members may also have guilt to bear, along with intense fears about their future. As they become better able to bear the many kinds of pain connected to their cult experience, they can begin to regain hope and belief in their own ability to go on living and growing. To facilitate these goals, I focus initially on developing a clear picture of the abuse and exploitation they have been subjected to in the cult. It can be helpful during this process for the follower to speculate about the psychology of the cult leader, using the psychoanalytic theories I have discussed here, to develop a plausible psychological understanding of the leader’s behavior. As the extent to which he has been manipulated and controlled becomes clearer to the former member, I will proceed to invite him to engage in a further psychological exploration of his own history, with the purpose of determining if there is any significant developmental trauma that may be connected to the cult involvement. If this is the case, there may be retraumatization that needs to be worked through as part of the exit and recovery process. There may also be ways in which earlier traumatization contributed to vulnerability to recruitment which can be helpful to understand, especially in terms of building healthy relationships in the future. When the personal context and meaning of the leader/follower relationship is illuminated fully in therapeutic work, the follower can come to feel confident that he can avoid painfully repetitive experiences, and instead create new relational experience.
Once the nature of the cult leader’s abuse has been elaborated and clarified, and a useful psychological explanation for her behavior has been developed, my focus in helping the former member make sense of his experience will oscillate between exploration of psychological factors emerging from the specific familial matrix of the individual, psychological factors arising from universal developmental issues, and social and cultural factors that may have specifically influenced the individual. Any of these factors, in an infinite variety of combinations and proportions, may be useful to consider when seeking to help former cult members make sense of their experience.
The community of professionals concerned with the destructive impact of cults is not monolithic. Neither is psychoanalysis. The theoretical formulations I have brought to bear on my work with former cult members are selected from a formidable variety of psychoanalytic theories, and represent personal choices that reflect personal values. Even if there were “one” correct psychoanalytic theory of cults, it would be only one of many theories from many other disciplines that could be relevant and useful. My contribution here is not meant to represent “the” position, psychoanalytic or other, on cult participation. Rather, I hope to generate interest in the potential for psychoanalytic therapy to be helpful to those who exit cults, and in the potential for psychoanalytic theories to be helpful to those who study cults.
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Notes
[1]There are those who would consider Freud a cult leader, and psychoanalysis, his invention, a cult (e.g., Storr [1996]). While I think that equating Sigmund Freud to, say, Jim Jones, is absurd on its face (and Storr takes far too complex a view to make so reductionist an assertion), it is true that generations of psychoanalytic thinkers following Freud have struggled to evaluate and reform residues of positivism, determinism, and authoritarianism in psychoanalytic theory and practice (see especially Fromm [1959], and Mitchell & Aron [1999]). Today, many increasingly prominent psychoanalytic schools are actively seeking to expose and reject authoritarianism in theory and treatment. These include the following contemporary schools: object relations, interpersonal, relational, intersubjective, postmodern, feminist, and contemporary self psychology, to name a few. In fact, one of the most radical critiques of psychoanalytic authoritarianism comes from one of the leaders of its most orthodox institutions, Owen Renik, the editor of Psychoanalytic Quarterly (see Renik, 1993).
[2]This dynamic is elaborated by Benjamin (1988) in her seminal study, written from a feminist psychoanalytic perspective, of the Hegelian master/slave dialectic in the pornography classic, “The Story of O” (pp. 51-84).