"Uniting The Continents: Support For The Pacific Rim'' -- An Online Event for Families, Former Members and Friends Affected by Cultic Groups and Relationships.
About
This event will offer an opportunity for organizations to share their collective knowledge and experience -- across many continents. The conference includes twelve plus, fifty-minute sessions and a three-hour Former Member Workshop.
Where Online Event - Zoom
When
Pacific Rim/Europe: September 12/13, 2020, Saturday/Sunday
- Sydney (9 am - 3 pm)
- Beijing (7 am - 1 pm)
- Hong Kong (7 am - 1 pm)
- New Zealand (11 am - 5 pm)
- Singapore (7 am - 1 pm)
- Tokyo (8 am - 2 pm)
- UK ( 1 am - 6 am)
North America: September 11/12, 2020, Friday/Saturday
- US-East Coast (7 pm - 1 am)
- Central Time (6 pm - midnight)
- Mountain Time (5 pm - 11 pm)
- West Coast (4 pm - 10 pm)
- Hawaii (1 pm - 7 pm)
Speakers/Talks
Jill Aebi-Mytton, BSc, MSc, CPsychol, AFBPsS DPsych
That's not me”: An Exploration of Multi-Generation Adult leavers
Abstract
In the language in the cultic studies arena we hear the categories ‘First Generation Adult’ (SGA) and ‘Second Generation Adult’ (SGA). These categories do not always fit our experiences. Where do I belong if actually I am third or fourth generation. This can be a confusing situation and can leave a former member feeling left out, as I experienced when I first began to explore this area.
This talk will focus on the development of the concept of ‘Multi Generation Adults’ (MGA) and why it is important to consider this group as different from yet similar to SGAs. The talk will explore this idea and will be illustrated by case studies.
Rachel Bernstein, MSed, LMFT
From Surviving to Thriving After Leaving - Steps to Take on the Road to Recovery
Abstract
People who have left highly toxic environments deal with a lot of confusion, anger, sadness, fear, loss, isolation, and at times post trauma reactions. These factors make it difficult to know where to start and what to address first when you need to rebuild your life while also needing to get support for your emotions. Taking all that on while you need to tend to the practical issues of re-entering the world and working to regain the confidence you need to make decisions and move forward can cause people to give up because it is all too much.
It becomes easier when it is broken down into steps that you can take (and steps that you can guide loved ones to take who are in these situations too). We will go over a step-by-step plan for your healing and managing the practical issues of everyday life, but it's important to not stop there. Once you feel your feet more firmly planted, it's important to try to move towards feeling good, feeling joy, having a real sense of accomplishment and a strengthened self-concept that comes from knowing you have survived something that could have destroyed you but you were just too determined not to let it!
Rachel Bernstein, MSed, LMFT
Unique Ways to Help your Loved One in a Cult or Manipulative Relationship
Abstract
Unique situations sometimes require unique approaches. When faced with a loved one in a cult or a controlling relationship, there are many ways people intervene that feel instinctively right but cause the person to move farther away from you, more deeply connected to those who are harming them, and less trusting of you and others who are trying to help. It often requires a different approach to make the impact you want to make here.
After many years of working with families and friends of those in cults and highly controlling relationships, I have learned what techniques work better than others, and I want to share them with you.
Sometimes when people consult with me, they feel they have already "blown it", so to speak, by saying or doing the wrong thing and they are either losing touch or have lost touched with their loved one as a result and become the enemy. I will also cover how to mend those fractures and rebuild trust so there is greater communication with them and then a higher chance of being able to truly intervene.
Linda Dubrow-Marshall, PhD, Reg. MBACP (Accred.), Rod Dubrow-Marshall, PhD, MBPsS
The Spectrum of Coercive Control in Cults, Extremist Groups and Abusive Relationships
Abstract
This talk will examine contemporary understandings of coercive control in relationships and groups and will explain how the psychology of coercion and abuse operates across the contexts of cults, extremist groups, domestic violence, trafficking and gangs. It will also outline how changes to the law across a range of jurisdictions reflects increased understanding of how coercion and undue influence works psychologically across these contexts. An analysis will be provided of how a heightened dialogue between practitioners and researchers across the fields of intimate partner violence, trafficking, cults and extremist groups is leading to enhanced appreciation of commonalities in the process of psychological indoctrination and practice responses. Positive implications for prevention, exit, recovery and rehabilitation will also be discussed, including how to properly safeguard those who are vulnerable, and recommendations for policy and practice will additionally be outlined.
Lorna Goldberg, LCSW, PsyA
Cult Recovery: Gaining Trust After Cult Exploitation
Abstract
After cult involvement, former members may wonder if they can trust others not to betray or shame them. They may wonder if they can trust themselves. For first generation former cult members, cult trauma was an “assault of the unimaginable” (Ringstrom) upon their character, interests, and goals. Many have experienced shaming and deception. For recruits, these assaults may have led to their acceptance of an altered view of their ability to perceive truth. Former members who were born and raised in cults may have accepted their cult’s characterization of them as “bad” or “evil.” Helping ex-cult members gain trust in others includes reminding them of their right to be treated with dignity, which is the opposite of cult shaming. By contrasting dignity with shame, former cult members can both objectify their shaming experience and create a language for understanding that they did not merit the treatment they received. This understanding can serve as a bridge to and a model for future relationships.
Ashlen Hilliard
Can cults be leaderless? How a high-control environment can occur in the absence of a de facto leader
Abstract
It is routine for abusive churches to justify their cult-like treatment of members based on adherence to historic Christian beliefs, or to claimed affinity with well-known, trusted denominations and religious organizations.
This talk will focus on how unhealthy Christian churches can become de facto cults, the role controlling theology can play in creating a high-pressure environment in which people adopt group prejudices, and conclude with questions you can raise about a group to help evaluate spiritual abuse, the potential for it, or if high-control scenarios already exist.
The context for this discussion will pull from reflections of being a born and raised former member of a fundamentalist Christian sect.
Dr Gillie Jenkinson, PhD
Cult Recovery: What helps former members recover?
Abstract
Many former cult members struggle to recover, and some take years before they are able to move on from their experiences. Gillie Jenkinson has spent over 20 years working with former members and studying what helps them recover. In this session she will share some key insights for former members and their therapists, and practical issues for facing the recovery process. This is informed by her practice and by her doctoral research in which she interviewed 29 former members in depth and mapped out the four Phases of Recovery and Growth.
Nitai Joseph, MSc
The Restoration of Individual Ideological Power: Making Sense of the Cultic Abuse Experience
Abstract
Central to the long-term abuse experienced in cultic settings is the co-opting of a person’s ability to make sense of their own experience – what has been called their ideological power. These distorted systems of meaning redefine and conceal harm, first from the one experiencing it and, secondarily, from others. In this presentation, Nitai Joseph will use the non-stigmatizing Power Threat Meaning Framework to analyze cultic involvement; focusing on the role of ideological power. Former members and those concerned for them can benefit from understanding how leaders and groups hijack individual reasoning, how that co-opted sense-making allows harm to perpetuate, and the role reclaiming meaning-making plays when recovering or supporting someone’s recovery from cultic experiences.
Joseph Kelly
Building Bridges: Improving Communication Across Worldviews, How to Stay Connected with A Cult Involved Loved One
Abstract
This talk will explain how the information gathered by cultic research organizations can be useful to parents. I will also explain why parents also need other information, particularly information relating to their child’s personal history, psychological issues, family relationships, and specific ways of relating to group members and the leader. Information that is both broad and deep can enable parents to understand how their group-involved child sees the world. This understanding permits parents to formulate an ethical and informed strategy for improving their relationship with their child possibly helping him/her reevaluate a group involvement.
Yuval Laor, PhD
The Neurobiology of 'Awe' in Cult Recruitment
Abstract
Awe is an unusual emotion. When a strong awe experience is combined with the right expectations, assumptions and context, the consequences can be a sudden religious conversion. This is why understanding this emotion is critical to understanding the process of cult recruitment.
This lecture will focus on insights about awe that can be drawn from examining temporal lobe epilepsy, a neurological condition that causes frequent awe experiences. Looking at the functions of the brain’s temporal lobes may explain why awe feels the way it does, as well as the connection between awe and perceptual vastness, the auditory and vestibular senses, and the feelings of relevance and importance. We will then see how this can shed light on the triggers of awe which are anything that is judged as being sufficiently anomalous — these include: celebrities, trauma, hypomanic symptoms caused by love bombing, hallucinations, vast things, and perceived “miracles.”
Patrick Ryan
Why People Join, Stay and Leave Groups, A Cult Model
Abstract
Parents are likely to benefit from information about the beliefs, practices, and history of the group their loved one has joined. Research suggests that, in the West, hundreds of thousands of individuals join and leave cultic groups each year. Research studies also suggest that at least a sizable minority of those who join cultic groups are adversely affected. The families of these group members, tend to become concerned about their loved one‘s group involvement. This session will help family members concerned about a loved one‘s cult involvement or its aftereffects, learn how to assess their situations more effectively. Among the topics to be discussed are: Why people join and leave high-control, abusive groups.
Joseph Szimhart
CULTS and DEATH: A new look at Ernest Becker’s 1973 book, The Denial of Death
Abstract
The authors of The Worm at the Core (2015) proved through decades of experiments Becker’s breakthrough insights into the essential impact that human awareness of death has on human cultures. Becker won a Pulitzer Prize for Denial of Death in 1974. Using the keen psychoanalytic corrections that Otto Rank provided to advance Freudian theory coupled with the existential philosophy of Kierkegaard, Becker argued that to sustain self-esteem, we need heroes and the symbolic world provided by religion, science, and the arts to stay sane and flourish. Using Becker’s analysis, I will discuss how our reality as humans requires that we not only survive as natural creatures, but also are driven to create symbolic worlds with “immortality projects.” As I wrote in my memoir (Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and me), “cult activity has driven human social evolution,” for better and for worse.
Doni Whitsett, PhD, LCSW
Neurobiology of sexual abuse: stress, trauma, and resilience
Abstract
This presentation will provide neurobiological understanding of sexual abuse, from traumatic sexualization to suggestions for healing. Included is a discussion of abuse as “coerced consent,” a common sexual experience within the context of controlling and intimidating relationships and “cults.”
Fee for two-day event: $195/US
Sponsoring and Supporting Organizations
This event will offer an opportunity for organizations to share their collective knowledge and experience -- across many continents.
The conference will have fourteen plus, fifty-minute sessions and one three-hour former member workshop.
More Information: https://www.cultnews101.com/p/uniting-continents-support-for-pacific.html
Saturday, 9/12, Sydney | |
9:00 am - 9:05 am | Conference Opening Session |
9:10 am - 9:50 am | Why People Join, Stay and Leave Groups, A Cult Model
Patrick Ryan |
10:00 am - 10:50 am | Building Bridges: Improving Communication Across Worldviews, How to Stay Connected with A Cult Involved Loved One
Joseph Kelly |
11:00 am - 11:50 am | Cults and Death: A new look at Ernest Becker's Denial of Death
Joseph Szimhart |
12:00 pm - 12:50 pm | Unique Ways to Help your Loved One in a Cult or Manipulative Relationship
Rachel Bernstein LMFT, MSEd |
1:00 pm - 1:50 pm | The Neurobiology of 'Awe' in Cult Recruitment
Yuval Laor, PhD |
2:00 pm - 2:55 pm | The Spectrum of Coercive Control in Cults, Extremist Groups and Abusive Relationships
Linda Dubrow-Marshall, PhD, MBACP (Accred.), Rod Dubrow-Marshall, PhD, MBPsS |
2:55 pm - 3:00 pm | Day One Closing |
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Sunday, 9/13, Sydney | Track One |
9:00 am - 9:05 am | Conference Opening Day-Two |
9:05 am - 9:50 am | Cult Recovery: Gaining Trust After Cult Exploitation
Lorna Goldberg, L.C.S.W., Psy.A. |
10:00 am - 10:50 am | Cult Recovery: What helps former members recover?
Gillie Jenkinson, PhD |
11:00 am - 11:50 am | Can cults be leaderless? How a high-control environment can occur in the absence of a de facto leader.
Ashlen Hilliard |
12:00 pm - 12:50 pm | Recovering from Sexual Abuse in Cults, what we can learn from Neurobiology
Doni Whitsett, PhD, LCSW |
1:00 pm - 1:50 pm | From Surviving to Thriving After Leaving - Steps to Take on the Road to Recovery
Rachel Bernstein LMFT, MSEd |
2:00 pm - 2:55 pm | Resources
Presentation by each organization on Programs and Resources |
2:55 pm - 3:00 pm | Day Two Closing |
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Sunday, 9/13, Sydney | Track Two |
9:05 am - 9:50 am | The Restoration of Individual Ideological Power: Making Sense of the Cultic Abuse Experience
Nitai Joseph, MSc |
Sunday
10:00 am - 12:50 pm | Former Member Workshop
Co-presenters: Rachel Bernstein LMFT, MSEd, Ashlen Hilliard, Doni Whitsett, PhD, LCSW, Nitai Joseph, MSc |
1:00 pm - 1:50 pm | “That's not me”: An Exploration of Multi-Generation Adult leavers"
Jill Aebi-Mytton, BSc, MSc, CPsychol, AFBPsS DPsych
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Registration:
US
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cultmediation/398763
Australia
CIFS: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cifsaustralia/399167
UK
RETIRN-UK:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/retirnuk/402214
Webpage(s):
