The ultimate goal in helping someone to leave a cultic group is to assist the person in re-evaluating the group and eventually make their own decision to leave. This is true whether the individual is a voluntary member or has been brought into the group against their will. It is essential to maintain the individual’s right to self-determination. Many cultic groups employ tactics to keep a person from leaving or to return anyone who has left. Coercive persuasion and thought reform influence an individual’s fundamental belief system and undermine their confidence in their free will and thought. Direct interventions with cultists are usually precipitated by family members who are seeking help.
This may include phone calls to professionals or hotlines for information and advice. In some cases, a family will stage a formal intervention where the individual is confronted by family members, and cult information is presented to him. While often effective in the short term, this approach may evoke a defensive reaction from the cult member and possibly cause further entrenchment in the group. When an intervention has been made, targeted individuals must have ongoing access to qualified helping professionals to find support and debrief. This is especially important in cases involving an exit from high demand, high control groups where a person’s entire belief system has been shattered.
Approaches to Cult Intervention
Cults are absorbing and controlling. They attempt to take all the time and resources for people. They cut people off from the world and communicate only by phone or mail. Some members work long hours and sleep very little to drain their willpower and make them more susceptible to control. They want to immobilize the person to the cult and restructure their personality, identity, and behavior. At this extreme stage, they use more direct methods of thought reform such as behavior and emotion control, information and thought control, and induce the person to put themselves above everything else. Past this is an organized plan involving kidnapping and re-confining runaways and people who oppose the cult. In short, all cults have a plan to gain followers and a plan to keep them committed.
No amount of exposure will change anything about the cult. Cults have enough experience with the opposition to have methods prepared to refute it. Since no one ever admits to losing an argument, a certainty of who is right will be determined by whoever has the last word. This leads to an argument of attrition and conflicting court orders. During the legal process, the cult will attempt to defame the cult opposition’s reputation, exhaust their financial resources, sue for harassment, and let the court battle drag on until the person gives up or dies. (Pitts, 1997)
Supporting Cult Victims and Their Families
This approach is the most ethical and practical way of dealing with the cult problem. It focuses on the welfare of the individual by providing emotional support and information that will enable him to make an informed choice. Crisis intervention for cult members and their families is essential. We need to develop a greater awareness of the problems cult involvement creates and what can be done to prevent it. This should be done through public education and by developing resources and referral services to assist those adjusting to non-cult life. This includes an online guide for ex-cult members seeking assistance through “recovery.” Professional service providers must develop a greater understanding of the cult phenomenon. It is often misunderstood or ignored as a minor problem affecting only a few individuals. This includes educating mental health professionals, school counselors, religious ministers, and law enforcement agencies. Self-help groups must also be developed to provide much-needed support for those who have lost loved ones to cults. An example of this is the mothers’ groups formed in Japan for parents of cult members. Those at risk of being victimized by cults could also be afforded some protection through education and increased awareness. A life skills course has been proposed for high school students, which teaches various critical thinking skills and methods for fact-checking.
This could allow them to analyze and evaluate the validity of what they are being taught in a potential recruitment situation. Recognizing deceptive recruitment and indoctrination techniques is another essential form of prevention. This could be taught to parents and educators to immunize young people with the ability to reject offers that are not in their best interests. With the upcoming expansion of the internet, resources can be made available on cult education and prevention for individuals to facilitate their learning. This may involve the development of a smartphone app with accessible access information and advice for various situations that people may encounter.
Legal and Ethical Considerations in Cult Interventions
In democratic societies where freedom of religion and belief are protected by law, it is usually not illegal to be a cult member, to recruit others, or to attempt to deprogram someone. Deprogramming against the cult member’s will, however, is sometimes the crime of “false imprisonment.” This is also true of so-called “involuntary” interventions in mental health contexts, even though a person’s decisions and actions to join and remain in a cult may be strongly influenced by dissonance and thought reform/coercive persuasion. Measures of pre-emptive legal action by concerned families are uncommon, but sometimes cults aggressively litigate against attempts to rescue members or occupy their time and attention so they cannot proselytize; such litigation may take the form of a restraining order or lawsuit. An attorney well-versed in cult-related cases is essential for any interventions likely to become legally contentious.
Legal and ethical principles in Western countries are among the most critical factors that persons contemplating cult interventions must consider. Cult interventions must be planned and implemented according to the law and consistent with widely accepted principles of morality and ethics. In cases where a person’s physical safety is at significant risk, technically illegal actions may be necessary. “Going underground,” so to speak, may sometimes be required to avoid detection by dangerous cult leaders when rescuing a brainwashed sect member.