Characteristics of Post-Cult Traumatic Stress Disorder

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ex-l

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Characteristics of Post-Cult Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post10 Mar 2015

'The Unique Characteristics of Post Cult PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and Suggested Therapeutic Approaches' ... a paper presented by Denis Healy at the ICSA Annual Conference in 2014 ... immediately throws up many states ex-BKs will recognise.
Bateson’s double bind ...

“if you’re not getting this, it’s not because my (the cult leaders) dogma is wrong, it's because you are just not trying hard enough”
“Traumatised people suffer damage to the basic structures of self. They lose trust in themselves, in other people, and in God. Their self-esteem is assaulted by experiences of humiliation, guilt and helplessness. Their capacity for intimacy is compromised by intense and contradictory feelings of need and fear. The identity they have formed prior to the trauma is irrevocably destroyed.”

- Herman

The author asserts that 'Post-cult Post Traumatic Stress Disorder' is a unique form of complex PTSD and, with this knowledge incorporated with understandings in neuroscience, recommends appropriate therapeutic approaches.

I offer a summary. The paper might be useful for an ex- seeking therapy.

I find it interesting how what BKs might call "the disciplines" are basically framed as "cult induced phobias", e.g. we would include not eating non-BK foods, touch, sex, seeing signs of Destruction all around etc, and that hypnosis is listed as "a therapeutic approaches to avoid at all cost". I had good experiences with it. Also ...
“People who go into a dissociative state (meditation or "Yoga") at the time of the traumatic incident are among those most likely to develop long-lasting PTSD”

- Cardena & Speigel

That's basically what we were encouraged to do ... "more Yoga!"

He even notes how due to the lack of critical thinking, the prefrontal cortex “muscle” (brain) in cult adherents “atrophies”.

There's some terms I am not sure of, like "Hypervigilant" but I presume it applies to the BK habit of watching every thought and action. Nor do I know what "sensorimotor therapy" is.

Post-cult PTSD

Multiple traumatic events; frequently involving coercion.
    • Incorporates multiple incidents of hyperarousal (emotionally aroused, easily startled – “flight or fight”)
    • And multiple incidents of hypoarousal (“freeze”, submission)
Hyperarousal: A combination of phobias and generalised anxiety
    • Experienced physiologically as an increased “startle response” to general stimuli
    • Also experienced as an intense response to stimuli related to the traumatic event(s)
    • Includes hypervigilance – “an elevated baseline of arousal: their bodies are always on the alert to danger

Uniqueness of cult induced hyperarousal

Cult members are consistently maintained in a highly structured state of hyperarousal via Bateson’s double bind ... “if you’re not getting this, it’s not because my (the cult leaders) dogma is wrong, its because you are just not trying hard enough”
    • Public confessions by cult members
    • Poorly defined and ever changing boundaries
    • Accompanied by sleep and food deprivation ... and many other structured practices.

Cult induced hypoarousal

Cult members are also consistently held in a highly structured state of hypoarousal through extensive sessions of meditation, chanting and hypnotic guided sessions.
    • Many phobias are deliberately installed by the cult leader(s) during these vulnerable altered states
    • Consistent repetition of these phobic threats
    • Phobias frequently relate to catastrophic events if the person
    leaves the cult
    • Also frequently directed at vulnerabilities uncovered during public confession sessions
Herman constriction

Differing terminology to describe this phenomenon:
    • Constriction and numbing (Herman)
    • Floating (Lalich & Tobias) Dissociation (Lifton, Martin et al, Singer)
    • Splitting (Lifton)
Similar to primitive “freeze” states, submission, limb passivity.

Similar to hypnotic states
    • Surrender of voluntary action
    • Suspension of initiative and critical judgement
    • Subjective detachment or calm
    • Enhanced perception of imagery
    • Detachment from your body (“depersonalisation”)
    • The world seems unreal (“derealisation”)
    • “A change in the sense of time” (Herman)
    • Motor weakness – paralysis, ataxia, numbing (Ogden et al)
As a result of participation in extensive periods of hypoarousal (meditation, chanting, hypnotic guided sessions, food & sleep deprivation), cult members have greater predisposition to dissociation, leading to an increased likelihood of long-lasting PTSD
- Lalich & Tobias


Unique post cult symptoms of “floating” between pre- cult and post cult identities/personalities has been noted by multiple authors: “doubling”, “false self”, “adaptation”, “pseudo-personality”, “altered persona”, “double self”, “new identity”, “surrender their identity”, “cult pseudo personality” (“someone being inside me”).

Loss of sense of safety
    • Been abused by people in positions of power
    • Have a predisposition to be influenced by authority figures
    • Highly reactive to a wide range of triggers with phobic avoidance of triggers
    • Readily dissociate
    • Float between pre-, in- cult and post cult personality
    • Hypervigilant
Disempowered
    • Lack of critical thinking – prefrontal cortex “muscle” has “atrophied”
    • Similarly, unable to make decisions.
    • Operating from implicit memory
    • Predisposed for “speech centre” to shutdown
    • Frequently in limbic state with limbic “muscle” overused
    • Can display motor symptoms of numbness, paralysis and ataxia.
Therapeutic approaches to avoid at all cost
    • Not hypnosis: re-traumatise
    • Not meditation: re-traumatise
    • Diagnosis : disempowering
    • Decision-making on their behalf : disempowering
    • Acting as authority figure: triggering and disempowering
    • Ignoring power imbalance: re-traumatise
    • When operating in limbic state: (“flight fight freeze”) is not possible to connect with another person... Running away from!
    • Means they can’t be “open enough” to hear therapists words accurately.
    • Also “speech centre” may be impaired
    • This makes it difficult for “talking therapies” to be effective
    initially.
“Talk therapy tends to address the explicit, verbally accessible components of trauma. They emphasise the role of narrative, emotional expression and meaning making, none of which is readily available to a person operating essentially in the limbic state”
- Ogden et al

It is therefore recommended that the entry point of therapeutic interventions for former cult members is initially sensorimotor therapy subsequently integrated with “talk therapies”.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Characteristics of Post-Cult Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post11 Mar 2015

ex-l: There’s some terms I am not sure of, like "Hypervigilant" but I presume it applies to the BK habit of watching every thought and action. Nor do I know what "sensorimotor therapy" is.

Yes, hypervigilant would mean exactly that.

Sensorimotor” are the two types of nervous systems.

Sensory nerves are the ones that send information to the brain, motor nerves are the ones that send from the brain to the limbs and organs etc.

This advice -
It is therefore recommended that the entry point of therapeutic interventions for former cult members is initially sensorimotor therapy subsequently integrated with “talk therapies”.

- explains why so many have had such little success with passive therapies, talking therapies or medications.

It also goes directly to the advice many here have given to other ex-BKs experiencing difficulties in post-cult life, which is to get active in new activities, especially tactile ones and to get physical.

Sensory-motor therapy is basically responding to sensory input aesthetically (literally "through the senses") and output, physically - activity through the senses. React to visual beauty and ugliness, note the quality of sound, to touch, to taste and speak loudly and softly, angrily and peacefully -and create through the various senses too. It known in educational circles that the quicker and better best learning is done when more of the senses are engaged.

e.g. the practice in Taoist Yoga is to explore the range of being in all areas, in Buddhist Yoga, thinking/minding is considered the 6th sense, and the practice is to consider all thoughts and emotions equally, love, hate, stupor, confusion, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings etc. Vippassana means ”Really clearly seeing [each and everything as it is]”
He who is not busy being born is busy dying - Bob Dylan -" It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleedin’"
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ex-l

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Re: Characteristics of Post-Cult Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post11 Mar 2015

Pink Panther wrote:Sensory-motor therapy is basically responding to sensory input ...

Making people feel again? Ground them in reality?

That's interesting ... basically what we have been saying for years - in that aspect - from a purely intuitive/experiential/untutored point of view is correct.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Characteristics of Post-Cult Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post12 Mar 2015

Yes. There is a definite insulation layer of padding that we can put around ourselves, a psycho-somatic buffer zone. (Somatic too because many people allow themselves to become obese as a buffer, and/or hide behind thick glasses, always hide under ”unflattering" clothing etc)

Who or what ”I” am is essentially determined by what I am not (when was the last time anyone could even think, ”I am not this body” without a body !! ;) ).

Where do I make contact with the rest of the universe? Generally wholistic ways of life are concerned with the boundaries or the reach established by our senses.

Do I begin and end in my mind, in my body, in my clan and with my land/environment (how many indigenous peoples identify) , with my language group, or the world, or all of nature?

To be sure, BK practice of withdrawal of "self-boundaries” i.e. turtle-like, away from the world and away from one’s senses, is quite the opposite to "cosmic consciousness” or ”being one with the universe” or ”the Tao”, let alone beign a ”whole" human being.


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