Post-Cult Therapy: Buyer Beware

International Cultic Studies Association is an organization that educates people on the subject of cults. I want to begin by clarifying that overall, this is an organization that I support that has many positive features, including an honest effort to make a scholarly study of cults and I applaud and support their outreach to former members of cults. There are few places where such people can turn.

However, that being said, I do have a criticism and area of disagreement that I am going to describe in this posting, which contains my opinions on the matter in question. In their effort to be open to all points of views, they may be leaving people thinking that every therapist on their referral list is someone who comes highly recommended. In other words, people might assume that by virtue of being on that list, the person can automatically be trusted. On their website, they have a list of mental health professionals who offer help to people who have left cults and feel they are having problems and issues to resolve. [Although a representative from ICSA read this blog and informed me this was not a "referral list" and was meant to be only a listing of people who have written books or spoken at their conferences (and I have edited this article accordingly) the fact remains that when people's names are listed on a particular website, it implies that the organization approves of what they do. Otherwise, it would seem to me that it would be irresponsible to list people with their contact info and have them speaking at conferences and selling their books. It is interesting to note that the list does not include current cult members who have spoken at conferences, so obviously there is some limitation on this list] Many of these people are indeed very good at what they do and have helped people. What some people may not realize, however, is that some are offering highly questionable interventions, such as neurolinguistic programming (NLP) for which unsupported claims are being made and ICSA does not appear to have a problem with that, as long as they are up front in their bios about it. Their philosophy seems to be, let the consumer make an informed choice and while I too am very much in favor of informed choices, the problem is that when an NLP therapist is listed, it implies that ICSA approves of NLP and has no problem with it. For instance, one therapist, Arthur Buchman, runs an NLP company and promotes something he calls "The Instant Optimist". At the upcoming ICSA conference in the New York City area, he will be presenting: The Instant Optimist: Positive Psychology Meets Cult Recovery. He fails to mention in the abstract that his "Instant Optimist" is part of his NLP company, although he does list it in his bio.

Mr. Buchman makes claims on his website where first of all, he presents what in my opinion is a very unbalanced picture of the research on optimists without going into the growing body of research that contradicts the research on the benefits of optimism, that was only correlational to begin with. It is a highly controversial area, but one would never know this to read his abstract. What this means is that just because two things co-occur, for example optimism and living longer, does not mean that being optimistic causes a person to live longer. Correlation is not causality. One common example used in research classes that gets the point across is that there is a correlation between the sale of ice cream and crime, but that does not mean that eating ice cream causes crime. A third variable, the season (summer), was responsible for both.

He then proceeds to leap to the unwarranted conclusion that to get these benefits, one should do his "instant optimist" techniques. Mr. Buchman provides no references to any randomized controlled trials supporting the benefits of his NLP-based techniques. Instead, in his ICSA abstract, he refers to the approaches of Martin Seligman and not only makes claims for those that go far above and beyond what the studies actually showed but then he makes the highly unwarranted leap that his "instant" NLP techniques will provide benefits of giving you a "permanently positive attitude". Whether that is even desirable is highly questionable. Many cult members also seem to have a permanently positive attitude. Even in the face of all the abuse they have to endure, the ones who stay in long-term are ever optimistic that things will get better while the more pessimistic people have long since faced reality, left the abusive situation and are much happier as a result. The real issue here is being realistic, rather than creating the false dichotomy of optimism=good; pessimism=bad.

The lesson to be learned here is buyer beware. In the past, associations that provide referrals to people were very careful about who they referred to but now, it seems that anything goes in the name of so-called diversity. I say "so-called" because I am all for diversity when it comes to not discriminating against someone on the basis of race, creed, age, civil status, sexual orientation, and the like. However, when it comes to treatments being offered we need to discriminate, meaning that when a person's wellbeing is at stake, we need to be selective in what we endorse. I made my disagreement clear to members of ICSA. However, Mr. Buchman chose to brush off my concerns with a metaphor, implying that I was still in the cult mindset for daring to question the basis for his quick fix claims.

Mr. Buchman also bills himself as an "American Psychologist" even though he does not hold a PhD in psychology, a requirement to be called a psychologist in the United States. Mr. Buchman has an MA in psychology, which is sufficient for him to be licensed in Denmark as a psychologist, the country where he practices and he is originally from the United States. The problem is, calling himself an "American Psychologist" is ambiguous. It has two possible meanings and could lead people to believe that he is considered a psychologist in the United States, when in fact he does not meet the prerequisites to be considered such, lacking a PhD. Again, when feedback was given to him about his, he did not respond in any way other than to use a metaphor that implied his critics were behaving as cultists.

My point in posting this is to caution people to be careful when choosing a mental health professional, even one who is listed on a website such as ICSA's. If you are interviewing a potential therapist, question them about the claims he or she makes and if the person starts telling you a story and giving you metaphors rather than answering your question directly, this is an NLP technique that is being used. If a therapist evades addressing questions and concerns, that is a major red flag, regardless of what websites they are listed on or where they present. I would run as fast and as far away from such a person as possible.

Also, beware of any therapist who posts so-called post cult syndrome symptom checklists. The symptoms on such checklists could be caused by many factors other than a cult involvement. This will be the topic of a future posting.