Response from an Anti-Scientologist

On my other blog, I just received an irate response from an anti-Scientologist. I repost it here because it is a good example of some of the fallacies engaged in. I'm not suggesting that all anti-Scientologists are this way but I have seen more than one instance where this sort of attitude is displayed by over-zealous anti-Scientology activists, eager to pounce at the first sign anyone in Scientology has died. She writes:

The only thing you are apparently professional about, Ms. Pignotti, is lying. There are plenty of documented cases that illustrate how the scientology cult works to withhold medical care from its parishioners. Here are just a few examples: http://www.tampabay.com/news/article976561.ece
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cultxpt
Why you continue to alter the facts about scientology is beyond me. When real people die, such as Lisa McPherson, Kyle Brennan and Jett Travolta, these are not "anecdotal stories", but actual cases of neglect and abuse. In the end when the cult of scientology is exposed and punished for lives damaged, abused and even lost, you will be exposed for what you really are, an ignorant debunker of the truth.

My response:

Ms. Zell appears to have missed my point, which is that generalizations from cases such as Lisa McPherson are not necessarily warranted because we do not have nearly enough information about Jett Travolta's death to jump to the kinds of conclusions she jumps to.
Ms. Zell apparently has the lay use of the word "anecdote" confused with the way the word is used by social scientists. An anecdote, in the way I am using the term, doesn't mean that the incident did not happen. Have a look at the Wikipedia article on "anecdotal evidence" for a better understanding, Elizabeth. There are two definitions of the term and I am using the second one:
"(2) Evidence, which may itself be true and verifiable, used to deduce a conclusion which does not follow from it, usually by generalizing from an insufficient amount of evidence."
Ms. Zell and other overly-zealous anti-Scientologists are deducing unwarranted conclusions in this manner.
What happened to Lisa McPherson is not necessarily comparable to what happened to Jett Travolta. Her posting is a prime example of how anti-cult activists quickly jump to unwarranted conclusions in the face of very little evidence. I have not denied that there are any "documented cases". My point is that what happened with Lisa McPherson is a completely different situation from what happened with Jett Travolta.
On the contrary, Elizabeth, I am not "altering facts". I am awaiting facts, noting what facts we simply do not have and may never have and refraining from jumping to unfounded conclusions, something you apparently, in your zeal for a cause, are incapable of doing.

Observe how Ms. Zell has already made up her mind what the truth is about Jett Travolta, thus I am a "liar" from her perspective. At the end of the day, I agree with Harvard Psychology Professor Richard McNally who wrote that the best form of advocacy is to discover the facts about an issue, rather than attempting to turn an "ought" into an "is". We do not know the facts about what happened with Jett Travolta.

"Symptom Lists can be Powerful Things"

As one self-proclaimed cult expert's website states, "symptom lists can be powerful things". Indeed they can, although not in the sense that particular website author means it. Symptom checklists such as the one presented on that website are notorious for leading people into believing they have syndromes that lack good research support. A well-known example of this were the checklists published that supposedly indicated people had repressed memories of sexual abuse, which were laundry lists of symptoms that just about anybody could be experiencing for a variety of reasons. For example, people with weight problems were told that this meant they had repressed memories of sexual abuse, ignoring the many other reasons a person might have a weight problem. People who had such symptoms were then subjected to years and years of therapy that may have ended up doing them more harm than good.

Something similar is occurring with the alleged "post-cult syndrome" where a wide variety of symptoms that could have a number of possible causes are attributed to an ex-cult member's past cult experience. There is no solid evidence for such a "syndrome" and I would highly recommend that the therapy consumer beware of websites claiming such and posting lists of symptoms, repeatedly offering an icon for people to click on, claiming that help starts by contacting the therapist.

There is no good evidence that most people who have been in cults need specialized "post cult" therapy which has become a cottage industry for certain ex-cult members. First of all, such symptoms can be the product of suggestion. As someone who walked out of Scientology, I never had some of the symptoms such as "floating" because I walked out on my own and didn't go anywhere near any anti-cult organization for 12 years and thus never knew I was supposed to "float". Later when I participated in research and took the Dissociative Experiences Scale, I scored very low on it meaning I do not have dissociative symptoms (although even a high score on the DES does not necessarily mean the person has a clinical problem with dissociation). Granted, this is an anecdote, but so are the reported experiences of people who claim to be suffering from this "syndrome". There are anecdotes of people who have suffered greatly and anecdotes of people who have done just fine without therapy and have not had such symptoms. However, the studies done have all too often focused on the people who were exposed to descriptions of post cult "syndrome" and were seeking help -- a very biased sample that did not include people who did not know about the "syndrome".

The claims therapists make about so many people having these symptoms are based mainly on people who seek out their help for their cult experience. How about the many people who did not seek therapy, who felt no need to do so and are doing just fine? We don't hear about those people because therapists never see them. The problem now is that people who are walking out of groups on their own and surfing the web could be influenced by the websites suggesting all these symptoms and I am concerned that these checklists could become self-fulfilling prophecies, just as the checklists for repressed memories of sexual abuse were for so many people in the 1990s.

The other possibility is that people could be actually experiencing those symptoms for reasons that have nothing to do with the cult experience. The average age of onset for a number of disorders is late teens, early 20s, which is the same time many people get involved in cults (although of course there are others who get involved at a much older age). If the person's cult experience coincides with the onset of symptoms, we cannot say that the cult caused it. The person may have developed the symptoms anyway. The only way for people to know is to be assessed by a skilled mental professional who bases his or her practice on actual evidence rather than being mainly focused on unsubstantiated "syndromes". Also beware of people claiming their practice is "evidence-based" who then refer to studies that are published by organizations with a vested interest in the form of therapy, rather than an independent peer-reviewed journal (the blooming cottage industry of "e-therapy" appears to be doing this, hyping benefits that have yet to be independently established by researchers who have nothing to gain financially).

Debunking Hypnosis Myths

Certain anti-cultists buy into some long-debunked myths about hypnosis. Compare this recent posting to this Scientific American article that debunks some of these myths, especially the myth that there is some kind of "trance" state people can be put in where they can be "mind controlled".

Arnie Lerma claims:

Dianetics used MANY covert Hypnosis techniques including The Confusion technique - links on Lermanet.com Exposing the CON index page
And advanced technique for deep trance induction that merely requires that you cause another person to repetitively imagine something (anything) that IS NOT REALLY THERE.

The state of being in a hypnotic trance may also be characterized as extreme relaxation, it is very pleasant, 'floaty' and pain-free... in TR0 we were TRICKED into going into a hypnotic trance while we practiced for hours staying awake and looking alert... what Hubbard told us was "anaten" and "somatics" are all the items listed as the symptoms and/or milestone markers for deepness of trance state.. Ill post the list in a few days...

Consider while reading this the promises AND if they were JUST promises why were they repeated so many times.. Consider Hubbard's choice and use of the word "CLEAR" as a noun, as a future condition promised AND consider its' COMMAND value to the subconscious.....!!

All this is debunked in the recent Scientific American article. A large body of literature on hypnosis has been unable to document any kind of special "trance" state and there is no evidence that hypnosis has this sort of power over people and their so-called "subconscious".

However, instead of looking at current data, Lerma chooses to refer to an outdated 1956 handbook by a science fiction writer, A E Van Vogt that makes all kinds of arbitrary, unsupported assertions, stating them as if they were facts that Lerma appears to uncritically swallow whole. Sounds like someone needs to come up to present time and look at current research. It doesn't require hypnosis or any kind of special "trance" state for the placebo effect to have an impact on someone. In fact, what the much more recent actual research (as opposed to the proclamations of a sci fi writer) have shown is that people respond just as well to suggestions outside of hypnosis as they do under hypnosis. Of course, one trick of the pseudoscientists is to expand the definition of hypnosis so it includes just about everything in life, to it can then be invoked any time they want to show someone was under undue influence of hypnosis.

Although I never brought into some of the more extreme versions Lerma appears to buy into, I once bought into the theory that people are put into a "trance" state during Scientology's TR-0 that makes them more suggestible to whatever else goes on. This was before I became aware of the large body of literature on hypnosis that thankfully, one of the researchers on hypnosis cited in the Scientific American Article, Steven Jay Lynn, made me aware of. I had the opportunity to have a chat with Lynn on this topic and I later read, wrote and published a review of his excellent book on the empirical evidence on hypnosis, entitled Essentials of Clinical Hypnosis: An Evidence-Based Approach. I highly recommend people read this book, along with the Scientific American article to get a more accurate picture of what hypnosis can do and not do.

People might want to take me to task for citing someone such as Lerma who is so easy to refute. However, if one looks at the writings of other self proclaimed cult experts such as Steve Hassan, the claims are not much different. In his books, Hassan has cited the writings of famous proponents of hypnosis such as Milton Erikson, who's work, although it has far more acceptance among certain therapists, really has no more scientific validity than Scientology. Again, Lynn's book refutes much of what is claimed by such "cult experts".

Sanctified Snake Oil

The following passage is from an article entitled "Sanctified Snake Oil": Ideology, Junk Science and Social Work Practice by Susan Sarnoff, published 1999, in the journal Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services. She mentioned nothing whatsoever about cults or "anti-cults in the article, but people can read it and see if it might fit at least some behavior we witness. Quote from p. 397:

THE SNAKE OIL PARADIGM
1. Frame the subject so that it cannot be opposed.
2. Once the issue is defined, stretch the concept as broadly as possible in order to:
a.) Increase the size of the “target” group;
b.) Make the problem appear to be universal;
c.) Make the problem appear to be of crisis proportions.
3. Consider anyone who resists identification with the target group to be “in denial,” in order to:
a.) Define all “sufferers” as in need of “treatment;”
b.) Make treatment seem more effective because many of the treated will not suffer from the problem or will have a mild, easily treatable degree of the problem, and non-improvement can be blamed on denial.
4. Identify “poster children” who “suffer” from the problem but are appealing to the public (e.g., completely innocent and in no way responsible for their circumstances).
5. Use anecdotal evidence (preferably about “poster children”) and single, dramatic cases to publicize the problem.
6. Use biased or “cooked” data — if forced to present any statistical proof of the problem.
7. Confuse goals and processes.
8. Confuse satisfaction with effectiveness.
9. Ignore unintended consequences and never admit that they might emanate from the “solution.”
10. If criticized for any of the above, attack the opponents instead of their positions.
THE SANCTIFICATION PARADIGM MEDIA
1. Write “human interest” stories on single, extreme cases, suggesting that they are “typical” of the problem.
2. Publish statistics without consulting source data or confirming accuracy.
3. Oversimplify complex issues and policies.
4. Publish the results of research studies without discussing the methodology of the research (e.g., samples, controls).
5. “Bury” corrections and retractions in back pages and small print. (Sarnoff, 1997, p. 397)

[there is more about government funding that does not apply to the topic discussed in this blog, as there has been little of that, at least thus far]

There is also a book of the same title. These are points that people who get wrapped up in causes would do well to pay attention to.
Here's another quote from the same article:

Academic Analysis follows where the argument leads, but activism wants only support for a predetermined direction. Academic researchers are intrigued by the structure of arguments whereas activists only want to win them. (J.M. Ellis, 1997, Literature Lost, quoted in the above-article on p. 407)

More food for thought that could explain some of the ongoing differences between academic scholars and anti-cult activists. But the question remains, are anti-cult activists "winning" their arguments in the long run? We also have a statement by Harvard Psychology Professor Richard J. McNally, at the conclusion of his book, Remembering Trauma where he was discussing some of the politics and controversies in the trauma field (p. 285):

Ultimately, the best form of advocacy is a commitment to pursuing the truth about trauma, wherever it may lead us.

That is my motto when it comes to studying the groups known as "cults" or whatever is being advocated for. Reading Professor McNally's book was one of my catalysts for re-thinking this entire issue.

New List Serv: Anti-Cult Controversies

I have just begun a new list serv you are all invited to join called Anti-Cult Controversies. To join, go to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AntiCultControversies