Cult Recovery

Cults can do a number on people.

They turn you inside out, twist your values and dreams, and subvert the kindness of your heart to work against you. They cause all kinds of mayhem and supposedly do it with the best intentions.

What is a cult?

There are many ways to define a cult, but here’s how I do it.

A cult is any group that uses deception, coercion, manipulation, unethical/ ethical influence, mystification, grooming, love bombing, and/or other methods of control to get members of the group to further the goals of the group and/or its leader(s), often at the detriment of the members themselves.

When I say a cult can be any group, I mean any group. It can be a church, religious community, self-development group, therapy group, business, social group, political group, academic group, or even a family. Whenever people gather, a cultic dynamic can happen.

Cults can vary in their destructive influence. Some groups may be mildly cultish, while others are highly cultish. Like many things, a group’s cultishness is on a spectrum. No line is crossed that makes a group a cult. It is all a matter of degrees of destructiveness.

Leaving a cult is challenging.

Leaving a cult is a life-altering, disorienting, utterly confusing, dizzying event. It can take years to process your experience within a cult fully. Excising the destructive group’s beliefs out of your heart and mind is not quick.

Doubt, fear, anxiety, depression, feeling duped, humiliated, shamed, angry, and deeply hurt and sad are all common feelings.

Luckily, hope, exhilaration, courage, relief, a sense of freedom, strength, empowerment, and agency are also in the mix.

Cult recovery is possible.

Leaving a cultic group is one thing. It can happen in a day. Emotionally, mentally, and spiritually can take years. Cult recovery is a journey that covers all kinds of terrain – social, emotional, psychological, spiritual, vocational, financial, and ethical.

In counseling, you can traverse all this terrain at your own pace and in your own time. My job is to help you on your journey. I am familiar with the terrain, having walked much of it myself. I know the pitfalls and what getting lost and finding my way back is like.

It isn’t an easy journey, but it is certainly doable. My guess is if you survived living in a cultic group, you used to hard work. In leaving the group, you are open to taking risks and venturing into the unknown. All the things you have learned to serve the group’s cause can now be used to serve the cause of you.

You have left the group, and now you want the group to leave you. Contact me for a free 20-minute consultation on how I can help you find greater freedom.