Ashlen Hilliard - The Evolution of Cult Intervention Practices - Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have your own story of being in a
cult or a high control group.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
that you'd like to share.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Leave us a message on our hotline number at three
four seven eight six trust.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Or showed us an email at trust Me pod at
gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Trust me, trust me.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I'm like a swat person.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
I've never lied to you.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I never If you think that one person has all
the answers, don't welcome to trust Me. The podcast about
cults extreme belief in manipulation from two interveners who've actually
experienced it. I said that very weird. I won't pretend
I did it. I'm Lola Blanc.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
And I'm Megan Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
And today our guest is Ashlyn Hilliard. She's a cult
interventionist and founder of organization People Leave Cults, and she's
going to talk to us about her path to working
in cult intervention and recovery, her personal religious experience that
led her to this work, and how being around Mormons
and Utah interestingly woke her up, how she defines a
cult and why throwing around the accusation of cult isn't

(01:08):
always helpful.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
She'll tell us how cult intervention is different today than
it was in the seventies, how it used to involve
kidnapping and unethical practices, and how the modern version of
cult intervention that she practices under the guidance of former
guests Patrick Ryan and Joseph Kelly takes a harm reduction
approach plus red flags click out for when someone makes
promises that they can get your loved one out of

(01:30):
a cult, and when intervention practices themselves can become irresponsible
or cult like.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Ooh, I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
It's always such an interesting topic to me. It's like
when the attempts to help people in a cult themselves
become a cult, like endlessly fascinating.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
It's Russian dolls.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, it's Russian dolls, which for some reason just sounded
really cute to me when you said it. Happy New Year,
also to all you New Year Day.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
Happy New Year.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, this year is going to be interesting, and we're
going to be here looking at it.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
That is true, we will be here looking at it.
What the fuck? Twenty twenty four. I don't even know.
I don't even know. Megan was your cultiest thing today.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
My cultiest thing of the week is myself believing that
I'm going to stick to New Year's resolutions.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
M nice.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
I do it every year.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
I have a part of my brain that makes so
out there ideas and every year I completely believe them,
worship them, handover my being to them, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
And their resolutions, Like is it stuff that's like in
your control, like things you're going to do or stuff
that's like I hope this happens.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
This stuff that is in my control that I'm going
to do that.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
But that you don't well, I mean I don't either, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
No, And I mean it's stuff hope and maybe I
can put in some small little changes. But every year
I'm like, I make your resolution to not make a resolution,
and then I make all these bizarre promises and it's
just endless.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
What are the kinds of things you think you're gonna do?

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I'm gonna start getting up so early. Oh you wouldn't
even believe it's never gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
That's hilarious. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, So just stuff like that, you know, And I
don't know why I do it. There's some part of
me that needs it, and just recognizing that and our
and ourselves? What about you? What's the guiltiest thing that
happened to you this week?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Well, before I say that, I'm going to just comment
on what you just said, which is that like i've
I'm I have. I do a vision board every year
and I love doing it. I love making it like
exactly my esthetic and it like looks like a film
I would make, you know, and it's and I had
like whittled it down to just like like four five
five things and the years past so fast. Now then

(04:04):
I'm like, I literally just made one. What Like, what's
the point. There's no difference, like nothing, I'm just getting older.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Nothing is changing our little, our little positivity.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
But I but it's still nice, it's still fun. But
but literally this year past, this year felt like three
months to be max.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Oh it was a minute.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I do not like this part of growing up. If
years still feel long to you, I don't know. That
was so hard to say, enjoy it, savor it, take
your time so fast. Okay. My cultiest thing is that Facebook.
Have you heard this? Facebook is now doing this like

(04:48):
or Meta is now doing this, launching this thing where
they are launching AI profiles. No, so that there will
be bought profiles that are like official meta AI profiles
interacting with meta the way that humans do. Oh my gosh,

(05:10):
and yes, okay, can you can you? I hadn't heard
that term before. Can you say what that means?

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I mean, it's just that most of the things on
the Internet at this point are bots and not real people.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
So it's like a bot will post something and then
it will go viral, but everyone interacting with it is
also a bot.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
So there's just this whole social media landscape where there's
absolutely nothing social about it. Yes, that fucking scares me.
I mean I don't want to be like one of
those people who's like resisting the future or whatever, but
that is like already algorithms are shaping us to a
degree that I really really, that really really scares me,

(05:51):
as you know, given how much we think and talk
about manipulation and influence. Yeah, Like, so then there's gonna
be people who seem like real people but meta controls them.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
And yeah, why are they even saying that they're doing.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
This, I don't understand. I'm sure there's a reason. It
probably has to do with ad sales and making more money.
I would guess but I truly have no idea. If
somebody knows the answer, please tell me, because I only
read like an article in a half about it, so
I don't know that much. I love the half part.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
You were like, I'm done, that's enough. I wish I
had like the exact thing in front of me. If
only there were away I could look at it on
my computer. But I'm not going to. No, But I
there's this really funny post where somebody on Facebook is like, ah, fuck,
I have to find out hold on, hold.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
On, Okay, while you do that, what I'll say is
there are really fascinating statistics on how many viral posts
are bought, interacted with, and but also I think what
also becomes dangerous is, like what you see on Twitter
is there will be accounts that have a of followers,
and so they seem more reliable, they see more trustworthy,

(07:04):
like the real people. Yeah, and then misinformation spread through
those accounts. I'm not saying metas intending to spread disinformation,
although who fucking knows, but yeah, yeah, what was it
you were going to say?

Speaker 4 (07:15):
I can't find it?

Speaker 1 (07:16):
But basically there was just a there was a post
of a guy who's just like, does anybody want to
learn how to make a thousand dollars a week? I
just found out how it's obviously a bot. And then
this woman responds and she's like, Hi, I'm new here.
I don't have any friends. It's really hard for me
to make friends. Does anybody want to be my friend?
And that's a bot? And then another person responds and

(07:38):
it was like a Reddit posts a while back of
like dead Internet what this will look like, and it's
just all bots like saying their bot yeah and pc
shit to each other, and it was just really.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Creepy good Yeah, well, what I mean that has to okay? Again,
I don't know anything about this world, so I might
be talking completely out of my But in theory, that
seems like that would backfire because what then is going
to be happening. It seems is that advertisers who are
paying a ton of money to be seen on these

(08:11):
platforms are going to be seen by like won't that
water down their money their revenue income if everyone on
the app is fucking bought anyway, I don't know anything,
but I know I don't like it.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
I'm putting that on your grapes stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Please do.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Happy New yeark y'all.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
I feel like this conversation today was really enlightening. It
definitely taught me a lot, so.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
We hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Indeed, let's do it. Welcome Ashland to trust Me. Thanks
for being with us.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having
me on. I love you guys' podcast. And you've interviewed
so many wonderful friends and colleagues of mine on the platform. Two.
I loved your interview with Pat Ryan and Joseph Kelly.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
You did.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
They've been my mentors for years and years and I
worked with them pretty actively, So thank you for having
me on. It's a privilege to be on here.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
So you have an organization and it is called People
Leave Cults, And before we kind of talk about your work,
which is so amazing and I'm so excited to get
into it. I'd love to know how you came to
this work and what your own personal experiences were.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Sure. I was raised in a very religious household. I
was born into the Churches of Christ. And there's a
lot of different types of Churches of Christ. The United
Church of Christ is considered very progressive. For example, the
International Churches of Christ is considered one of the much

(09:51):
more culty variations of the Church of Christ. They had
like more of a cult leader Kit McKean. It's also
known as the Boston Movement, did a lot of Koreina
College campuses, and the group I came from was a
very small like sect within that, and it was then
it was referred to as the non Institutional Churches of Christ.

(10:11):
During the nineteen hundreds there was a split from the
mainstream Churches of Christ movement, and we're also known as
the Anties anti apostrophe s because our group was known
to be anti everything in that like the non institutional
Churches of Christ really believed that they were practicing first

(10:33):
century Christianity in the twenty first century. We have roots
back to the second Grade Awakening, around the same time
where Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses were coming to the scene.
Thomas Campbell and Barton W. Stone were like the main
sort of founders I guess you could call them of
the group during that time. Their sort of mission was,

(10:54):
you know, they were in this era where they looked
around them and they saw all these different sort of
charismatic groups popping up and they're like, well, we have
the Bible, and we have all these different splits and
variations on it. So like, what if we in essence
use the Bible and created a framework for interpreting the

(11:15):
Bible so that we can all reach the same conclusion
as to what the Bible's saying. The church I came
from was non denominational, whereas like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons,
they're denominational. They have like a central headquarters, they have
central leadership. Our group was more scattered, primarily in the
Bible Belt, and they just were local churches and the

(11:38):
money would stay, you know, for example, within the church,
they're not giving it to a headquarters. There's no like
established central leadership. But you could walk into a Church
of Christ that was affiliated with this group in Florida,
and walk into a Church of Christ affiliate with this
group in California, and the beliefs and interpretations would be
the same with people. It was kind of like being

(12:01):
raised in a non denominational denomination. So like the groups
are the same, but they're locally run. This group has
a lot of roots in history within my family. So
I'm like third generation on my mom's side, and I
was also a legacy student at the group's college. There's

(12:22):
a Christian college in Tampa, Florida for those within the group,
and it's called Florida College. I attended there, my mom
attended there, my grandmother attended there, and my grandmother even
worked for the college for many many years. It was
very like well known, and I guess sort of entangled

(12:43):
within my family system. And to make things even more complex,
it certainly was high control in that we had a
hard time looking at other churches who claimed to be
Christians and actually seeing them as Christians because they weren't
interpreting the Bible the same way that we were. And

(13:05):
that was really sad, even at an early age for me.
So one of the reasons why they're called the anties,
for example, is their interpretation with scripture is, well, there's
no guitar or piano mentioned in the New Testament used
during worship service, So if you introduce one, it's not

(13:26):
just a matter of church preference or meeting preference. That's
actually like inserting your own view into the Bible. That's
going against God's authority, and that then becomes a heaven
or Hell question. So your salvation can be at stake
if you introduce something into the New Testament that doesn't exist.

(13:50):
And because they only have himn songs and spiritual songs
with like your voice, we were known as like a
cappella only very strictly with these groups.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Would that trickle down to life outside of church itself
or was that just in service?

Speaker 3 (14:08):
It depended on the group and the family, to be
honest with you. My parents, for example, they loved the Gathers.
Oh my goodness. There was many a times where we
were in the car and we listened to the Gathers
and the gathers are like an old school gospel band, right,
and so they're playing instruments, they're singing hymns to them,

(14:29):
whereas other families they would avoid that entirely and they
would only listen to acapella. But certainly within the context
of the worship service. It was such a serious issue
that churches that had a piano or a guitar their
salvation actually could be at risk because of that. Wow
and so it was a very fundamentalist interpretation of the scripture.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
I relate a lot to that. The group that I
was raised in.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
My family was like, we would rather you be with
complete non believers than be with a kid from school
who like goes to one of those churches where they
sang and raise their hands and stuff. So it was, yeah,
it's very interesting to I hate other forms of Christianity
that much.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, in the way in which women in the role
of women within the group, you know, we weren't allowed
to participate in the service. It was a men run service.
Women could teach Bible classes up until a point. If
there was a kid who was like, let's say fourteen,
a male who was a boy who was baptized, she

(15:32):
then shouldn't be teaching him because he now has authority
over her. No way, And so oftentimes she would have
to bring in her husband into the Bible class to
be present, or so it was like couples teaching, or
like they would put in a male teacher at that
stage to teach a young man. It was very very

(15:52):
strict in that regard. So I attended the group's college
and got married, got my degree and left shortly after.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
And what was your degree in originally.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Communication, a bachelor's degree and of minor in biblical studies, okay, okay.
I was very into the exegesis of random old Testament books.
I was kind of nerdy like that. I really was
invested in learning as much as I could during that time.

(16:26):
And I think what made my sort of upbringing also
very complex was I was a military kid. We moved
every couple years. My dad was last stationed in Utah,
and I was raised in Utah from about fourth grade
through high school. Oh where actually like Caswell Fruit Heights area,

(16:47):
it's like twenty minutes north of Salt Lake City, very
old school, like old established Mormon pioneer town. And I
attended a high school there, which was massive, very very
Mormon area that I grew up in. And so from
a very young age, my Mormon friends, which I who

(17:08):
I loved and I had many of, they were trying
to convert me, and I was trying to.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Convert that right, right, So it.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Was such a sort of like abnormal thing to be
dealing with at such a young age, being raised in school.
I remember my first encounter in the fourth grade, and
I have hardly any other memories from that time. But
when I first my first day of school, I remember
a young kid coming up to me and asking before

(17:34):
my name was even asked, it was like, Hey, are
you warming and I was like, I didn't even know
what that meant yet. And I said no, and he said,
well you are, you just don't know it yet and
then proceeded to leave. And I that was a conversation
that really like stuck with me. What really helped me

(17:55):
in my transition out of my group was I had
to really, I think critically with interacting with my also
highly conservative Mormon friends. Interesting because I really decided to
immerse myself. I read and studied so much of their scripture,

(18:17):
their history. I became really really immersed in it because
I wanted to learn how to connect with them what
it all meant. And I think a little bit also
during that time, I was interested in trying to find
out how to have almost like evangelical conversations with them.
I think I was interested and seemed if I could

(18:37):
almost make a dent as a Christian in the Mormon care.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
You're like a lawyer, are you kind of like studying.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
To Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's dismantle what they're saying.
It wasn't great, but that that was I almost felt
like I had to in order to live in that
culture and just get by in the extreme minority. That's
a little bit about my upbringing.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
And yeah, how interesting too that such a large amount
of exposure to a different religion that can often become
very fundamental is a thing that sort of helped you
out of yours? And what was it about learning about
Mormonism that kind of woke you up a little bit?

Speaker 3 (19:20):
I think what it's sort of awakened in me was, oh,
my gosh, we're actually not that different. I saw them
as more high control, certainly more culty than like the
group I was in. But as I got older and
I saw sort of the juxtaposition between like their beliefs
and my beliefs, I was like, it's not all that different.

(19:42):
And that sort of prompted me to ask questions about
my own faith and great bringing. And it also taught me,
from a very i think early age to think really
critically about this stuff because I was forced to encounter
it every day.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
For listeners, Ashlynd knows my mother, of course she does.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
We'll talk about her at some point, I'm.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Sure, yes. But something you know she talks about a
lot is the importance of hearing other people's stories or
getting to, you know, having a point of reference, something
to compare your group too, being the thing that can
sort of wake you up as opposed to somebody telling
you you're wrong, just kind of like drawing, making those
connections for yourself and it sounds like that's kind of

(20:26):
what happened with you.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
We use that within the intervention world as well when
we have conversations with people who are in groups, and
I refer to that and as a third party processing,
it's much easier for people to provide commentary on other
people's experiences right, not so much their own right. And

(20:48):
when they do that, you can kind of hear and
listen to what their perspectives are on that, and they
will then in turn sort of start to connect the
dots in their own way during their own times. Yeah,
it's a very effective tool actually for people in groups.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Tell us about how you came to become a professional
in the cult intervention and recovery space.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Sure. So I graduated college moved back to Utah because
I missed being close to my family. I missed, you know,
being closer to my brother there. I also, I think
just kind of missed the culture of home. Like I
loved growing up there, even though it was challenging. I
loved the mountains. There was just so much about it

(21:41):
that I loved. And once I wasn't there, I was working,
you know, I was bartending for a bit, I was
working in restaurants. I was just trying to like figure
out what to do and apply for after just getting
a degree. Just getting a bachelor's degree out of college
was one of my most challenging times and actually finding
work because it's not quite a master's and you don't

(22:04):
have the experience, and so you're just kind of looking
for any entry level thing. And I was really interested
in helping other people who had been through some sort
of similar transition in their life, whether that was a
loss of community of faith crisis. And I started volunteering

(22:25):
at a nonprofit in the Salt Lake City Valley and
it was very very small. There was maybe like there
was like five employed staff when I was there, and
they brought me into talk to women in this nonprofit,
I should say, helped people who were exiting diverse Polygonist

(22:46):
communities all across the Western US, And they brought me
in to like speak to women who had left different
Polygamist groups. And when I say polygamists, I should probably
say for the listeners, this is Mormon fundamentalist in this groups.
So there's obviously a lot of history there as to
how that all happened. But these are people who decided

(23:07):
to keep practicing polygamy and felt that that was the
truest form of the Mormon faith to continue on into
the present day. And they noticed how I interacted with
the women, and you know, it's kind of like you
put survivors who've been in a high control group in
a room, and it doesn't matter what group they necessarily left,
or how extreme or not extreme, they find ways to

(23:29):
just get on, to just connect, to make jokes to like,
you know that you just kind of get each other.
They noticed that the people who worked at this nonprofit,
and so a job positioned open up to be a
case manager, and I applied and I got the job.
So I was one of like two case managers in
the Salt Lake City Valley working with women and children

(23:53):
and young boys who were fleeing these different groups. And
that involved working with people leaving the Kingston Clan, the
Apostolic United Brethren Communities, the FLDS, and of course there's
other smaller groups that are independent and yeah, so I

(24:13):
started working there and experienced very quickly what it's like
to work with cult survivors and crisis. I was getting
women to safe houses. I was pulling tracking devices out
from under their cars. I was with law enforcement. I
was getting gang stocked by the Kingston Clan late at
night p Lake City. I encountered so many things at

(24:37):
such an early age that was very unique. And I
absolutely loved the work. I loved the clients. I loved
just helping people get resources and get on their feet.
And I helped moms get their GEDs for the first time.
I mean I I just loved the work. It was

(25:00):
a very very dangerous work though, because men within these
communities they knew me, they knew my other case manager,
they did not like us, and so we experienced a
lot of threats and it kind of got to a
point where it was really nasty. Yeah, And so I
just I got involved with the International Cultic Studies Association

(25:21):
and I presented at a conference back in like twenty
eighteen in Philadelphia on my work, and a job positioned
open up with them, and a director was like, you
should apply for this thing, and so I did, and
I got hired to work for the International Cultic Studies Association,
and I worked there for about three and a half years.

(25:42):
They're one of the longer standing nonprofits that haven't been
sued into the ground by cults. Yeah, and so I
worked there for about three and a half years. Yeah.
So I worked for ICSA for about three and a
half years. That was a time where I really got
plugged in with professionals working all across the industry, lawyers

(26:03):
and then a health professionals, survivors or families who have
been around in cult recovery for many, many years. And
so I'm really grateful for my time spent there. I
was there for three and a half years. I was
director of events. I was running the workshops, the conferences,
my neurodivergence was put to the test. I was running
all the things, and I got my master's degree in

(26:29):
the psychology of course of control. I really wanted to
understand more about the psychology of radicalization, why people join
these groups, why they leave, why they stay. I met
Pat Ryan and Joseph Kelly also during that Manchester trip
back in twenty nineteen, and they are sort of veteran

(26:51):
cult interventionists. They've been in the field working with families
for over thirty five years or something crazy. We stayed
in touch and we just got really close, and I
knew that I wanted to be doing the work that
they were doing. I really missed doing more of the
intervention work. I was more so in like a administrative

(27:13):
director events role, and so I was looking for ways
to transition to do more of the intervention work with families.
But as you guys know, there's not a career path
for any of this, not at all. Like, if you
want to work with people who've left cults, you kind
of have to just figure out how to do that
and in which way do you want to go to

(27:34):
the therapy route? Do you want to go to the
social work route? And I had such unique experience in
Utah that they're like, we think that you could actually
really do this work and be really good at it. Yeah,
So I work alongside them on different cases. I started
people leave cults after getting my master's degree, and also
work with survivors who are out of groups for peer

(27:56):
support groups online and just want to help trioge them
to resources. Because I have so many connections with people
in the field, I don't want them to have to
put in a lot of work especially when they're in
crisis and just looking for help, and I'm happy to
do a consult with them and just be like, here
are some places where you can go.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
How long does it take you to kind of process
what you went through and be able to help other people.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
So I did a really poor job at that when
I started out in Utah. I think because I was
working with a population where it made me feel like
my experiences weren't all that bad. I didn't experience child
underage marriage, I didn't experience a lack of education, I
didn't experience poverty to the degree that these people did.

(28:44):
And so I think because it's so easy for helpers
and social workers to just pour ourselves into other people
in crisis, I really did poorly and didn't do a
good job at addressing my own stuff until probably when
I was working at ICSA was when I got to
a place of like, Okay, my safety is not at

(29:07):
risk like it used to be. I have a full
time job. Now I can now take some time start
the therapeutic process. What would have been the better route
would be to do that first before helping other people,
because oftentimes, when survivors aren't healed themselves, we in the

(29:27):
process can do harm, even unknowingly when we're working with
other survivors, And so that was something that I learned
in real time was just But I think part of
it too was I kind of needed the time and
separation to work with other people who had been through
it for me to almost have the perspective of, oh,

(29:49):
these are things that I need to still work on
and I need to think about. Yeah, I just I
was so young. I was in my early twenties and
we're still trying to figure out who we are anyways,
you know, and I think, like, I think I kind
of needed that time and re established safety to like
do more deep dives in therapy into my own experience.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
How do you define a cult?

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Sure, so I actually really like my favorite definition is
probably the longest one that's available, and it was west
In Langoni who authored this definition many many years ago.
I think it was back in the eighties that I

(30:34):
have cited on my website that they provided this definition.
A cult can be defined as excessive devotion to a person, idea,
or thing. It is usually a group in that it's
more than one person that adheres to this or I

(30:56):
kind of think of it as too like. Obviously, domestic
violence relationships can very cult like. And that's two. The
group prioritizes its group beliefs and practices over individual autonomy,
or there's a restriction of autonomy essentially, and that can
be done through course of practices and doctrination. So that's like,

(31:22):
in very very simplistic terms, how I shorten the very
large definition and you can look at that very long
definition on my site on the what is a cult tab?
My sort of perspective on cults. It may not be
the most popular perspective. I think the term cult is very,
very complex. It's very nuanced. There's not one agreed upon

(31:44):
definition in the field as to what a cult is,
although we have many good definitions. I care more so
about not whether a group is labeled as a cult
or not a cult. I care more so about the
individual's experience. Did they have a cultic relationship with the

(32:07):
person or group in question right, and if so, how
like how were they harmed? And one of the reasons
why I sort of approach it that way is because
defining a cult is just half of the puzzle for
me in seeing how maybe groups line up with that definition,
how they use course of control and doctrination and things
like that. But I think the other half is just

(32:31):
everyone's experience and groups are so diverse. Like I worked
with women who were involved in polygamist groups who felt
like their experience was relatively good, they just lacked resources
and they needed more resources for their kids. And then
I worked with women who were trafficked as young girls
to be married and had horrific experiences of abuse. And

(32:54):
everyone's experiences is so diverse. And that doesn't mean that
these groups aren't harmful. I certainly classify them as you know, harmful.
But the term cult can also be used as such
a thought stopping technique, as Robert J. Liften coins it,
it's like just labeling someone as a Democrat or Republican
or you know. It's like it's one of those terms

(33:14):
that can make people defensive, shut down the conversation. And
so I like to leave it up to survivors as
to how they want to define their experience. If the
term cult is empowering for them, that's wonderful. If it
is a harmful label for them or just doesn't sit well,
we don't have to use it. And I think that's

(33:37):
prioritizing their autonomy and the recovery process.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Something that we've talked about on here a lot that
you may be referenced on your website a little bit
is when the term is used pejoratively, it can actually
dehumanize and further stigmatize people who really are actually in
need of help. And sometimes the sort of anti cult

(34:00):
folks can themselves become cult like in there, yes.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yes it fits into this framework, or you or here's
the ways, and your group is a cult because it
fits into this model or because it fits into this framework.
And I just have a hard time with that, because again,
we're putting very specific boundaries around not just groups, but
people's experiences in doing so, and I think there's room

(34:26):
for both. I always encourage survivors to look at many
different models, see what works, see what doesn't, and like
be really critical of them. Like it's okay to say,
you know, this model doesn't fit my experience or this
framework doesn't fit my experience. I want to help instilled
sort of the critical thinking of that. I don't want
to tell people what their experiences should be defined as, right,

(34:46):
And when we work with families who have loved ones
in groups, we tell them to take the word cult
out of their vocabulary entirely. So we oftentimes just use
terms like abusive group, high control, group, course, or relationship
because sometimes families have unknowingly done harm in the process

(35:07):
of telling their loved one we think you're in a cult, right,
and we know that. Oftentimes people put in that position,
who are in groups will dig their heels in deeper.
They'll try to prove them otherwise, or the group has
told them already, They've prepared them for that argument of Look,
people are going to tell you that you're in a cult,
and this is why we're not one.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
What to you is the distinction between a belief or
a group that we think is weird and one that
is actually coercive or high control, whether it's religious, political,
or otherwise.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
Sure, you know, obviously there's a lot of weird beliefs.
I have several, I think we all do, Megan, I
do want to know one of your weird beliefs go further.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
I mean, just you know, I believe we're in it.
We live in a simulation.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
Yeah, So that's that's fine, that's your your that's your like,
you know, belief. So if the belief is interfering with
your ability to have a well functioning life within society,
within yourself, Like if you're having a really hard time
with your mental health because of that belief structure or system,

(36:21):
that causes concern for me. And I think when you
say simulation, I actually can I use this as an
example because I think it's a leading example. I think
where I have seen that go in a very bad
way is, for example, when QAnon was at its height
and there was that sort of part of QAnon where

(36:42):
they believe Joe Biden was a lizard person the White
House is a set that became more than just a
conspiracy or a belief. It became well, I don't know
what's actually real in life anymore, and they needed more
immediate psycheaatric crisis care. And so that was sort of

(37:03):
the turning point for some folks, sadly who were that's
when the belief became a point of crisis. I also
think beyond just functioning mental health is will the group
allow you to prioritize yourself at any point during the

(37:24):
belief process. So if something isn't feeling right, if something
isn't sitting right, can you say I don't agree with
that point or I actually disagree with that perspective and
still find community within that group or system without being punished,

(37:44):
without being shunned, without you know, facing yeah, like any
sort of negativity, or like there should be a fluidity
or flexibility I feel like in beliefs, because beliefs can
change the change from person to person, from group to group,
from place to place. And so if you change your

(38:07):
belief or say, you know, I think this one sits
well with me, but this one doesn't, okay, then you're out.
That's a very unhealthy I feel like form of belief structure,
and I think that is the structure that often leads
to cults or high control groups is when people say,
you have to adhere to this, even if it's to your.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
Own detriment and no questions.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
No questions. Right, If it's to your own detriment and
it's not prioritizing your mental health or your needs, that
is a red flag for me. And that's what I
try to talk to people a lot about. Cults can
be absolutely destructive, and at the same time, what makes
them so complex is cults can also be life saving
to certain people and at certain points in their life

(38:53):
so that's the sort of paradox we have to work within.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Politically speaking, this accusation gets thrown around a lot. Obviously
there are political cults who are literally physically present together.
That does happen, But typically I think this term is
sort of used for entire political parties or ideas. And
I also get a lot of comments about how Democrats

(39:27):
are unicult, or how liberals are in a cult, or
how leftists are in a cult. You know, just like
depending on where somebody is on the political spectrum, Neoliberalism
is a cult, Republicans are like everybody thinks everybody else
is a cult. Yes, politically right now.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
The two party system has like kind of forced us
to slightly be in one.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
I think this, yeah, And I think when it does
sort of put us in different factions automatically, it is
very complicated. And what you're saying, Lola, is a perfect
example of how term cult is being used as a
thought stopping technique. Like they're Republican, they're in a cult
where they voted for Trump. They're in a cult, or

(40:09):
they're progressive, they're woke, they're in a cult, the cult
of wokeism. Right, you know, we've all heard.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
That and it's NonStop.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Can absolutely be extremes on either side. I like to
go back to again the definition of mental health. How
it's affecting how we're interpreting and interacting with people who
share diversities and opinion I think is really important. Obviously,
your own safety and mental health shouldn't be in detriment.
So for example, if you have a family member who

(40:38):
is a white supremacist and you don't feel safe or
comfortable interacting with them, that's a very valid reason to
not interact with them. But for other people who are
more I think there's just a lot of people who
are sort of in the gray and maybe don't know
how to look at the system and how to vote.
And I think there's more people out there than not

(41:02):
and looking for ways to connect and still be in
community and look for ways to help our neighbors. I
think is really important. And I worry about social media
just really putting people in such extreme echo chambers.

Speaker 4 (41:18):
That's insane.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah, I really really worry about that.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
To be honest with you, the scariest part for me,
and we talk about this all the time, is that
the comments are curated to.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
Like you, you.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Know, so like your your world belief is just constantly
being confirmed to like I scrolled at the comments and
I know that's wild. So yeah, the social media thing
is just such a I know it is.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
It's you want to talk about a simulation.

Speaker 4 (41:45):
That exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
It's very very hard. And after the election, I really
tried to be off social media as much as possible
and just like be in the world and why still
interacting with folks and just living Hollywood normally. And and
you know, from an intervention perspective, I've had cases where
it's certainly extreme, right where you have families who lost

(42:11):
a loved one to sort of the Q and on
stuff for a while, and that's less and less now
than it was back then. But I've also worked with
families who, like I had a family who had a
loved one in like a very culty left group and
I actually like it had a very like established leader

(42:33):
and like structure and demands and all this stuff. They
were very secretive and actually joined the group to get
eyes on the loved one who was in and see
what I could find out. And I learned I was
able to learn a lot about the structure and and
so it exists on both sides.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
I think the level of black and white thinking that
we are engaging with as well when characterizing people who
are not in our group is important to consider. Like
if we if our group is telling us that everybody
else is in a cult, that also is something to investigate.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
And that's where it kind of becomes the pejorative use
is when we look at you know, oh, democrats are
in a cult, or you know, if you believe in
any aspect of wocism, you're in a cult. Like it,
that's when it becomes sort of that term to put
other people down, and like it just limits conversation and
puts people on the defensive. Yeah, again, it's so nuanced,

(43:33):
but we're not taught to think this nuanced about stuff, and.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
It's not comfortable, and like it requires stopping and thinking,
which our brains do not like to do because we
take mental shortcuts to conserve energy in our minds. Like yeah,
and holding contradiction is hard, but it's also so important.
I would love to now talk a little bit about
the intervention work and some of the philosophies that you

(43:58):
kind of employ in that work, because you know, we
talked about this obviously in our interview with Patrick and Joe.
But it's been a minute. So for those who haven't
heard that, cult intervention today is very different from our
traditional idea of cult deprogramming from like the seventies. Can
you explain what sort of the differences.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yes, So, the cult intervention field, this largely got kicked
off around the time of Jonestown. Sadly, I think that
families who saw what happened in Jonestown, which was extremely tragic,
if they had a kid who they thought was maybe

(44:39):
involved in a cult like group, they were worried that
the same thing would happen to them of what happened
at Jonestown, And there wasn't a ton of information back
in like the seventies as to like how to help
someone who they believed was in a harmful group or relationship,
and so programming was what was done, and it was

(45:06):
highly unethical, It was very sad It contributed to a
lot of trauma. It was a course of practice that
started in the mid nineteen seventies and ended in the
early nineteen nineties. So it involved like highly confrontational methods
to share or force information upon a cult involved person

(45:31):
in order to elicit an emotional response. The father of
de programming his name was Ted Patrick, and he would
hire different teams to go out and oftentimes kidnap people
who were in these groups. They would be thrown into vans.
They actually feared for their lives. Some of them thought
that they were going to die because they didn't know

(45:51):
what was going on. And they would take them to
different hotel rooms or cabins or places and would forcibly
share inform about why the group is bad. And the
theory behind this was that if they extracted them from
their cultic environment that they would just snap. They would
like come out of this like hypnotic state of being

(46:13):
in a cult. And obviously that doesn't work for a
lot of reasons. But horrific stuff happened during that time.
I mean, there was a young woman I did a
story on this on Instagram named Stephanie who was her
parents hired a programmer because she was in a lesbian relationship.
So it also affected queer folks. And Stephanie's story was

(46:36):
horrific in that the men who programmed her, she said
that she was raped by them. So it's horrible the
stuff that happened during that time. There was a lot
of lawsuits. It really informed people like Pat and Joe,
So Pat Ryan and Joseph Kelly had left groups around

(46:58):
the time that there programming was happening. They left groups
all on their own. And it's not perfect research, but
research shows us that most people who join groups leave
them on their own for different reasons. Megan, you left
a group, Lola, you left a group. I left a group.
It was all for different reasons.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
And no one kidnapped us, and.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
No one kidnapped us. That's exactly right. At some point,
our shelf of doubts or cognitive dissonance, it breaks, and
it's different for everybody, and there's different reasons why everyone leaves.
There was a research study that was done and there
was ninety four parents who completed this questionnaire. But out

(47:35):
of the different cases, sixty eight percent of people were
forcibly abducted. Thirty seven percent of those too programmed returned
back to the cult, which is very high. The programming
took an average of eight and a half days, which
is crazy to think about that someone is like in
a room being a program for eight and a half days.

(47:57):
Ten out of sixty two programming ended up in very
substantial lawsuits, and there was more. There was way more
than just ten. But this is just within the survey
that was done. And even like people like Rick Ross
who runs a cult education institute, he keeps a lot
of really good group archives. He participated into programmings and
was sued back in the day. So there was a

(48:18):
lot of people who were still on the scene who
participated or were involved in some way into programmings. Pat
and Joe were like, there has to be a better way.
This is ridiculous, this is so much harm being contributed here.
What they did was they wanted to create like a
ethical criteria sort of also like a competency criteria. So

(48:44):
they started to distinguish professionals who wanted to work more
ethically as exit counselors back in like the nineteen eighties,
so parents knew if they hired an exit counselor, they're
not going to kidnap their kid like a programmer would.
And so they started using the term exit counseling to
view the approaches more voluntary and educational and ethical. But

(49:10):
there was also an additional problem in that anyone could
claim to be an exit counselor, like anyone can claim
to do that and also exit counseling into programming. It
was still during that time where like programming was the norm,
so the terms were used interchangeably, and so the labels
failed to indicate someone's actions, educations and ethics. So in

(49:35):
a move to professionalize the label in the field and
establish competency criteria, Carol Giambalvo, Joseph Kelly, Patrick Ryan, and
Madeline Tobias developed ethical standards in the nineteen nineties for
what they call thought reform consultants, and you can actually

(49:56):
look up the ethical criteria for Thought Reform Consolltants, and
they wrote ethical standards and talked about insights into the
principles and practical applications of thought reform through open dialogue,
educational resources, and personal testimonies that adheres to legal and

(50:19):
ethical standards, ensuring a respectful and informative experience. So their
ethical standards were patterned off of ethical codes for like
the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, National Association
of Social Workers, Standards for a Private Practice of Clinical
social Workers, American Psychiatric Association. And they also took a

(50:43):
very radical stance, and that was the purpose of exit
counseling or thought reform consultation was actually not to get
someone out of a cult. That may be the desired
outcome for families, but the purpose was to give the
group member the inform nation that enables them to make
a fully informed choice.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
What does that look like? What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Like?

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Can you actually intervene with someone who is in a
coercive group?

Speaker 3 (51:12):
So, in Layman's terms, what that looks like? Now, Pat
Ryan and Joseph Kelly's approach since like the nineties, into
programmings ended in the early nineteen nineties. So again just
to summarize, the label went from to programming to exit
counseling to thought reform consultation. And our sort of modern

(51:35):
approach is cult intervention specialists. The thing is is when
you think of Google and SEO, people don't google thought
reform consults because they know what that means. So I'm like,
let's just be cult intervention specialists ided here to this
code of ethics. So that's what we do. And our
approach when we work with families is to do no

(51:56):
harm so the individual, and what we mean by that
is we only recommend moving forward to interventions if there's
truly opportunities. And if it makes sense when we say
we do no harm is we work very slowly. We

(52:16):
see if we can affect change within the current family system.
The family members already have established rapport, even if it's
not great with the person who's in the cultic group
or relationship, they already have a connection, and if they don't,
we work first to rebuild the connection or to find
ways to rebuild the relationship. Sometimes families inadvertently contribute more

(52:39):
harm just because they don't know how to talk to
someone who's in a cult, and that's why we get
called into help. And so we see how much work
we can do, either via coaching or what messages we
can send through the family to their loved one to
see what will be effective. It's a much more low
risk approach than doing an intervention. And when I say intervention,

(53:07):
people think we talk about drug and alcohol interventions. Addiction
is not the same. That's being indoctrinated into a high
control group, and so it's actually a very different thing.
I have done interventions with Pat and Joe, and with interventions,
what makes it different is the person who's involved in

(53:27):
the group wants to actually talk to us we don't
force ourselves to talk with them. They have to want
to participate and get to know us and talk to
us in order for that to happen. Now setting the
stage for a good opening, that's a totally different sort
of set of preparation. But I've done interventions with Pat

(53:50):
and Joe before where we talked to someone who was
away from let's just say, an abusive relationship for a
period of time. We had a history of going back
to the relationship, and so we had a good window
where they wanted to meet us and talk with us,
and we were able to share pretty openly about our
own experiences within groups because it was so different from

(54:15):
their actual circumstance and being in an abusive one on
one relationship that they were really curious about our experiences,
and so using our own stories is again that third
party processing, like we talked about earlier, as a tool
to teach them certain concepts that were applicable to their situation.

(54:36):
It was actually quite effective, and a lot of the
intervention process is the rapport building. Like we when we
come in to do an intervention, we're not doing it
against the person who's involved. We're actually coming in and
telling the cult involved love one. Hey, we've been in groups. Two,

(54:58):
We've had lots of good experiences in groups too. How
can we help your family understand you better? So that's
the approach that we take, and it yields a way
less defensive. It then gets the whole family involved because
they then see us as allies and we can explore
quite openly their concerns, the loved one's concerns, and a

(55:22):
much less defensive atmosphere. And what we do do is
we prep families for this process. We tell them, you know,
this is kind of how the intervention looks and works,
and here are some questions you can ask us that
we think would be really good for your loved one
to like hear. So some of it is kind of
scripted out, but it's also like very intentional in like

(55:46):
the questions that we're like we're trying to Basically, when
it comes to interventions, you need the loved one to
put the pieces together themselves. You can't spoon feed someone
in a cult that kind of information. And so how
do we select effective messages to sort of talk about
in an open format? Pat Ryan talks a lot about

(56:09):
he had on the show he left his cult. Shortly after,
back in like the eighties, his dad called him and
he said, your sister's involved in this crazy Christian group.
It was back then, I think it was the Way International,
and he's I guess the dad called in a de
programmer because that was just common what they did. And

(56:32):
I don't think she was abducted though in this instance
or anything horrible like that. But the person came in
the sort of programmer and he asked Pat to be
involved in his sister's to programming. That is still a
part of a Hindu group at this point, and it
was through watching his sister's sort of deprogramming that helped

(56:54):
him decide to leave his own group because it wasn't
at all directed towards him have to be on the defensive, right,
It was, you know, directed towards another person. And he's
sitting there listening to what the person's talking about. He's like,
oh shit, like I think I'm in my own.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
Wow, it's amazing how that happens.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
Yeah, So we we only do interventions if it makes sense,
if there's an opening. Most of the work we do
we work within the family system because knowing that most
people leave cults on their own, How can we make
the family system a safe and supportive place again for
that person to exit too, How do we make the
family system a place where they can be received without

(57:39):
feeling guilt or shame for being involved in a group.
So that's I would say, the majority of the work
that we do.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
So it's more about reducing conflict between the family members
about it, and as they rebuild that relationship together, that
can create a safer space to exit if they if
and when they're ready.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
It's a harm reduction model.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
And if there's an accidental deconstruction, then.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Oop, that's exactly right, it's a harm reduction model. I
think the trickier part is families hire us thinking that
we can just get their loved one out of a group,
and part of the work we do is educating them
about why that's not We don't have the magic words
to just tell someone to leave a cult, and how

(58:28):
we can respect their autonomy through the process, and so
it takes a lot of education. And also the families
have to be willing to change what they're currently doing,
which can be hard because what they're doing has not
been working, or else they wouldn't have contacted us. And
so families have to be open to us bringing in

(58:50):
a therapist to work with them, to receiving feedback and criticism,
to being challenged by us on certain things. I think
that's the hardest buy in I think for families is
they think they have an idea as to how cults work.
They just want their loved one out, But there may

(59:13):
have been some very valid reasons as to why they're
loved one enjoying that group in the first place. So
we have to kind of like it's just a very
it's a much more investive process and requires change, and
like also the families accepting more personal responsibility, if that
makes sense, And so it's not an easy fix.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
It's work for everyone.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
One of the dangers of the sort of cult intervention
space is that there are people and families who are
in such a vulnerable place and so desperate and willing
to spend all their money and try whatever it takes.
And it's so crucial that there be accountability within the

(01:00:05):
community of the intervention folks. Can you talk a little
bit about what that can look like.

Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
Yeah, so it doesn't become another cult.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
Exactly, Yeah, especially because there's not a career path towards
becoming a cult intervention specialist. As a cult intervention specialist
as defined by the code of ethics that I adhere to.
In that patent Joe adhere to, there are requirements in
that we have a responsibility as consultants towards professionalism, so

(01:00:38):
we're required to give a portion of our time to
related work for which there is little or no financial return.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Love.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
I volunteer and run a meetup out here in Portland,
and I even volunteer to run a conference out here
in Portland this past year to get education and resources
out to survivors and helping professionals. So that's one criteria.
Another criteria is we have an obligation to continued professional growth.

(01:01:07):
We have to be an active participation with other fellow
consultants as well as participation in research and public education programs.
And I do that. I actively work when we have
families who come to us. I never take a case
by myself. Pat and Joe also don't either unless it's

(01:01:29):
a situation where there's like very specific hourly work, like
could you provide research or information on this right, But
when it comes to giving any type of advice or strategy,
I work alongside a specialized team. It doesn't have to
always involve Pat and Joe. Sometimes I just pull in

(01:01:50):
Joe on a case. And we also like to bring
in a therapist, even if it's just for a few
hours during the assessment, to work with families. Joe and
I are more of the strategic consultants who come in
and we're doing cult recovery and education, and we're doing
the strategy as to how to move forward. Someone like

(01:02:10):
a mental health professional can come in and check in
on the family, how are they doing with all this information,
and also work a little bit with like family systems therapy,
if you know what I mean, like working within the
family dynamics. So I see that as an opportunity for
accountability and collaboration. So I never take cases by myself.

(01:02:33):
And it also reflects our code of ethics that we
adhere to. And you know, we have to go through
continuous efforts also to improve our practices, teaching services and research.
Me getting my masters in the psychology of course of control.
I have research that's pending publication. My experience working directly

(01:02:54):
with survivors going on seven years now, I think is
really important. And so yeah, it's tricky in that like
we're basically consultants at the end of the day, but
we don't work.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Alone either well. And one of the things we talk
about a lot here is this idea of like easy
answers and certainty. Part of the reason that cults can
be so powerful is because they often will provide you
some of those answers and some of that certainty. But
real life doesn't necessarily work like that, And the same
thing is true in the cult intervention space when there

(01:03:30):
are promises being made, there's certainty that this will work
and you will get them out. Like that is irresponsible
language because that is also not how actual reality. Necessarily
we cannot control outcomes of other people.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
It only just contributes to more harm. Right, If someone
tells you that they can get your loved one out
of a cult in six months run, yeah, yeah, it's
not realistic in that these situations are so psychodynamic. Someone's
cult involvement can change from day to day to week
to week to month to month, Like we don't know
when they're going to leave or the circumstances surrounding that,

(01:04:08):
and also you're not going to be the sort of
it contributes to like saviorism. I feel like the sort
of viroism complex where you can be the person who
solves this complex problem. And the way I want to
look at it is we're just sort of one cog
in the machine for people and their experiences. People are

(01:04:30):
having their own little experiences in cults. They love it,
they hate it, they're exhausted, they're doing great. You know,
it's all over the place, and so they're on their
own track. And messages that we can send through the family,
you know, certainly can help, you know, with their own

(01:04:51):
progression through the group. But promising that you can get
someone out of a cult, or that if you're hired
on a case that you just you can't. It's unethical
to make those promises. And I'm very clear with families
from the beginning are where we stand on this ethical
stuff and what we can and can't do. And also

(01:05:12):
we work a part of a team, like we are
in this as a team with the family, we like,
we're all invested on this. Yeah. I see a big
part of my work as just helping families not feel
alone in the process.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Yeah. Again, you can really repeat some of these cult
dynamics when someone is presenting themselves as the ultimate authority
on what will or will not happen, how it will
or will not work. We just we just don't know.
We can we can do our best to facilitate information
and you know, support, but we don't have the answers.
And if an interventionist to saying that they do have

(01:05:47):
the answers, that that is just another example of a
cult dynamic happening.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
We don't even give specific advice until after an eight
hour assessment families. We need to know as much information
as possible. We do interviews with individuals, we get detailed
intake forms, We spend hours working with the family to
understand the situation before we give any kind of specific
advice as to how to move forward. I can give

(01:06:14):
people general advice like don't criticize the group, take the
word cult out of your language, and things like that,
but we move very slowly and that's part of our
do no harm approach. People who move very quickly towards
just gathering the whole family and doing an intervention I

(01:06:35):
think is one of the most high risk approaches you
can take, because if that fails, that can do a
lot more harm and that can make the family system
enemies through that individual. So if you move towards an
in person confrontation as like the first step or the
second step. That is something that worries me as well. Right,

(01:06:58):
it's just so high risk.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Hearing you say is another thing that comes up frequently
with many of our guests, which is just that, like
the direct attack on the belief system or on the
leader or group often has the opposite effect that we want.
And because it's so you know, it's so much a
part of the person's identity, and if you are attacking

(01:07:20):
their identity, their community, the people that they love, that
can often just make them, you know, push them further away.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Yeah, individuals and groups have been trained to counter your
arguments from the group itself.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Right, Yeah, yeah, So can you share some strategies that
have been effective in helping people rebuild their identities after
leaving a group? Who am I now? What am I now?
Do I believe?

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
Oh? After leaving a group? Margaret Singer talks a lot
about how cult recovery is sort of this like too
pronged approach. Therapeutic sources are extremely important for people. Having
really good therapy is important. But I also add the

(01:08:10):
caveat that there are some people who have been involved
in therapy cults or who have had an abusive relationship
with a therapist and therapy may not be right for them,
and that's okay. Therapy is not the only right way,
and there's a lot of talk about finding also a
cult informed therapist. The reality is they can be very

(01:08:32):
expensive because this is highly specialized. Many of them don't
take insurance, and that's not a criticism of them. I
certainly understand the problems with insurance right now and all
of that, but I always encourage people that being in groups,

(01:08:52):
being in a cultic environment, experiencing indoctrination. There's actually a
DSM category for people who've been in cults, and it's
identified other under under other disassociative disorders due to the
identity disturbance that cults can leave, and it's like prolonged

(01:09:15):
identity disturbance.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
And for people who don't know what the DSM is,
that's the sort of it's.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
Kind of like the Mental health Bible exactly, like it's
what therapists are trained a reference for mental health categorizations
and things like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
That, and it's evolving still. Obviously we are this is
not a complete science, but it's the general go to
Diagnostic Manual exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
And because of this DSM categorization under other unspecified disassociative
disorders due to prolonged identity disturbance. Most people who've been
in cults have complex trauma and c PTSD is not
an official sort of diagnosis like an and other parts
of the world. PTSD is right, So most of us

(01:10:04):
who've been in cults have PTSD to some extent. And
so what I encourage survivors is to find a therapist
who knows and works really well with people who have
complex trauma. So if you can't afford like a cult
specific therapist, or if there's not in your state, there

(01:10:27):
are a lot of therapists who do really good work
with complex trauma, and you know, we can help either
educate them or provide them with some resources if they
want to learn more about cults. But complex trauma is
something that I always encourage. If you're looking for therapy
you can't afford or you can't find cult specific therapists,

(01:10:47):
look for someone good in complex trauma.

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
That is such solid advice.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because most of us have that PTSD
label due Tom and we can also present our therapists
with that DSM diagnostic criterion and say I was involved
in this, this is what I deal with and a
lot of survivors deal with dissociation in some way. And secondly,

(01:11:14):
going back to Margaret Singer and cult recovery, psycho education
is huge in recovery, and that's the work that I
do and I focus on is providing It's basically what
we're doing right now. We're doing education. We're talking about
how it applies to the cultic experience, how influence works,

(01:11:36):
you know. How I feel like through the process of
psycho education, we can start to give ourselves a lot
more compassion through what we've been through because we did
what we had to do in order to survive whatever
dynamic we were in, and sometimes it wasn't even by
choice for those who were born or raised right. And

(01:12:00):
I think it gives survivors more of a strength based
approach to sort of view their experience through. And we
can look at our experiences and learn from psycho education,
like the value of learning about this stuff and feeling
safer as we continue into the future, feeling more equipped

(01:12:21):
through having this knowledge, and like finding community with others
who also have been through it too and who get it.
So I think psycho education, therapeutic support, and community can
really really make a difference for survivors navigating life after
a cult. And that's the work that I try to
do through people leave cults, is provide different resources across

(01:12:43):
all of those spectrums.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
Amazing, amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
Yeah, you really demystify a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
Yeah, my goal is to demystify this stuff because I
think cult recovery can be kind of scary, understandably, so
to engage with and know where to start. We get overwhelmed.
And then sometimes we only have extreme experiences that are
in the media and like we're like, well, how do
we fit into this? And right, And I think there's

(01:13:10):
a lot of de mystification that can happen through education
and I love then, and I think like it just
gives our brain different frameworks to view our experience through
and that helps with healing, Like the brain wants to heal.

Speaker 4 (01:13:26):
Yeah, I love that that brain wants to heal.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
The brain wants to heal. It's true, It's true.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
My brain certainly does so badly. I was gonna say, yeah,
when you don't have a name for I mean, they say,
if you name it, you contame it. When you don't
have a name or a framework of understanding for what
has happened to you or what's currently going on in
your brain, it makes it feel so much bigger and
scarier and like you're alone. You know, it's just this

(01:13:54):
overwhelm that can happen. But once you can start of
start to sort of fit it into terms and like, oh,
this is a thing, this is a common dynamic. I
had that happen in a relationship I was in that
was emotionally abusive, and I wasn't familiar with emotional abuse.
I thought abuse had to only be physical. And my
therapist at the time gave me a book on called

(01:14:15):
The Berbly Abusive Relationship, and reading it changed everything for
me because I was like, oh no, wonder, I felt
crazy all the time, Oh no, wonder. I kept hoping
that if I could just say it in the right way,
he would understand. And because in the relationship, I didn't
have any of that language, and I just was confused

(01:14:35):
all the time and felt off kilter, like something was
just off in my reality all the time, and I
didn't know why. So once I had that language, it
was like a light bulb going on and helped me
and integrate that experience into my story and you know,
it's not this like a morphous, weird, confusing thing that
happened that feels like it's my.

Speaker 4 (01:14:56):
Fault, rung of the ladder.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, and that's true obviously
with mental health stuff as well, when we have a
disorder or are struggling with mental illness in some way,
and having psycho education about that also can make a
huge difference. So completely agree, is all My point.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Is, Yeah, it's really important work, and you're doing a
fantastic job.

Speaker 3 (01:15:22):
Thank you. I'm excited. I have been invited to go
back to speak to a high school in my area.
I love talking to young kids about how this stuff
works and what it is, and they ask such good questions,
and man, this is the stuff that we need criteria
on in school, is like influence, indoctrination, like what to

(01:15:46):
look out for abuse, Like this is the stuff that
young people need to know, and they're just not getting
through social media and other formats right now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
If anything, it's the opposite and social media yeah yeah yeah.
And so where can people find more about you and
your work?

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Sure, people leave cults dot com. I offer cult intervention
for families and cult recovery consults for survivors, and I
am also on Instagram and Facebook. I don't post as
much as I should just because I'm so busy with

(01:16:26):
consults sometimes, but I try to post when I can.
And if you're in Portland organ and you want to
attend our free meetups that I help volunteer, you can
go to safe Portland dot org and find out our
meeting schedule there. So that's where you can find me.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Okay, thanks to Ashland for joining us and Megan, I
have a thought on this one, and I want what
let me know your thoughts on my thought, okay, which
it just to me this idea that intervention really has
to be more about harm reduction and allowing people to
come to their own conclusions. It all comes back to

(01:17:04):
this idea that you just really cannot control other people,
right right, you like, And the only way to remove
someone from a high control group is to is to
totally relinquish control and not have any say in it whatsoever, basically, right,
which is so maddening because you're like, but this is
for your own good, but it's like, but no, they

(01:17:26):
people have to reach their own conclusions.

Speaker 4 (01:17:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
I mean it's as simple as like just letting your
I don't know, like letting your friend's.

Speaker 4 (01:17:34):
Kids date bad people, you know what I mean, where
you're like, no, this is bad.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
I've already dated this kind of kid when I was
your age, and like, it's.

Speaker 4 (01:17:44):
Has to happen. It just has to be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:17:47):
That doesn't really make sense, does it?

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
I think it does?

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
My only frame of reference for this in my head
right now is Gilmore Girls. Neither of us are parents, obviously,
but I would like to be one day and watching
Gilmour Girls.

Speaker 4 (01:18:02):
Laura taught me a lot about it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
Laura, I has to accept that Rory wants to date
Deane and she's going to do whatever she wants, and
she has to learn her lessons on her own. I'm
actually dealing with a little bit of this dynamic in
my personal life right now, which I won't get into
great detail about. But I have to accept that I
do not have control over another person's actions, even when

(01:18:26):
everybody knows what would be best for that situation.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Yeah, and of course what the stakes just get higher
and hire when it comes to high control groups and
if somebody is like, you know, giving away all of
their money, and on.

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
Death Store it's so much harder.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
It's just yeah, it's yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:43):
I really loved the Eating Disorder episode we did a
week ago or something about like connecting people to their
own inner resources.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
Yeah, but then you know, to Devil's Advocate myself alway
is I think about Derek Black, who is now Adrian Black.
But for those who did not hear the episode with her,
our Derek Black was the title of the recent episode,
and she was a former basically white supremacist poster child,
and what we talked about on the episode was sort
of the two pronged approach that worked for her. And

(01:19:17):
there have been a few guests where somebody did say
to them, this is fucking crazy, what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
And with Adrian, it was like she had the people
who are kind to her and that was really what
she needed. But there also were people who were making
her feel stupid for being a white supremacist, and she
was saying that kind It was kind of that combination
of both. So really, yeah, I guess like harm reduction
does seem to be the most effective. Every professional, every

(01:19:45):
ethical professional in the field basically says this, and there
are countless examples of it at the same time, Depending
on who the person is in their lives and in
the person's life, sometimes being like what the fuck are
you doing? Can work.

Speaker 4 (01:19:59):
Yeah, there's there's no cookie cutter approach.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
I guess, but I guess. You can say what the
fuck and then they still have to come to their
own conclusions. You can't say what the fuck now you
have to listen to me. You could be like, what
the fuck? Okay, I guess I'll still be in your life,
But Dann, the shit's crazy, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:20:14):
Yeah, yeah, you know. We don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
We don't know, but we're we're interested in finding out exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
That is the theme of this intro and out tro today.
We don't know anything mm hmm, but we do know
that we hope you guys have a happy new year,
had a happy new year.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
And hopefully we're gonna have a strong year ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:20:40):
Thank you so much for being a listener, and.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
As always, remember to follow your gut, watch out for
ad flax.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
And never ever trust me.

Speaker 4 (01:20:50):
Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
Trust me. As produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Steve Delemator.

Speaker 4 (01:20:58):
With special thanks to Stacy pear and our.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
Theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Twitter at trust Me Cultpod, or on TikTok at trust
Me Cult Podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Bebraham
Hicks on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
Remember to rate and review and spread the word.

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Ashlen Hilliard - The Evolution of Cult Intervention Practices

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ashlen Hilliard - The Evolution of Cult Intervention Practices