Article: Psychotherapy as a Cult

Somehow escaped my prior browsing. Quite thought provoking.

Janov's Reflections on the Human Condition: Psychotherapy as a Cult

Excerpt: "We want the rock of Gibraltar. Why? So we can relax, submit, be guided and taken care of. Lovely. And when we get that daddy and mommy that should have been, we stay in therapy. It is then a permanent act-out on both their parts. The doctor gets the glory and adulation, while the patient gets a kind, concerned doctor/parent. It is addictive for both and that is why it lasts and lasts. And never does the doctor call the patient on his act out; he encourages it; you must come three times a week instead of two, blah blah. It encourages dependence, which is not what we want at all."

You know, I kind of always thought this was a myth. Or a stereotype. Or, at best, representative of the way psychoanalysis/therapy was run fifty years ago. I guess it's a lot more widespread than I thought. I guess I'm luckier than I thought that I didn't run into one of these whackjobs.

I worried about it, sort of--or at least avoided therapy for a while because I had myself pegged for the type who would idealize a therapist like some 12 year old crushing for teacher. Maybe that would have happened if I'd gotten a "Doctor-Father-God."

Instead I got "Some guy with a ****** office."

I remember being shockingly underwhelmed.

I remember reading an article once called "Finding the right therapist is like finding a soul mate." If I'd taken that to heart, I might have dropped "some guy with a ****** office" in search of "doctor-father-god."

That might be a dangerous sentiment.

I was interested in the author's point of view until he started talking about how the therapy approach he practices is different and the therapist is not the expert and clients are truly encouraged to get out of therapy. I'm not saying that is not true; I have no experience with primal therapy. But I know many therapists and approaches that consider the client an expert in his/her own life, and many clients do actually need long-term therapy. Of course there will always be therapists who are exploiting clients emotionally, financially, and in other ways, and of course there will always be clients who will just act out a relational pattern with a therapist who encourages codependence instead of helping the client understand the experience and decide for oneself how to lead a happier life. As in any line of work, some people just don't care or can't do a better job, and that is very unfortunate given the sensitive nature of this particular type of work. But it seems unfair and misguided to generalize this to all or almost all psychotherapy except for the one that the author practices.

IDK. I kinda feel like we're getting to the stage where you're hell bent on making a point that people have clearly said they find invalidating and over-generalised.
There can be cultish type behaviour and cultures in many, many areas of society, and perhaps psychotherapy is no exception. Indeed there is also sexual abuse by psychotherapists but nobody would say 'psychotherapy as a platform for sexual abuse'.
Yes, anybody who has experienced any type of abuse in therapy including gas lighting, emotional, sexual abuse or whatever else deserves a voice and empathy, however not at the expense of the truth, which is that this is a minority of cases. Scaremongering is unhelpful.
I had a bad experience in therapy where I was hurt terribly, and I am and will always remain, an advocate for the rights of clients and a critic of bad therapists, but you know what? I've also had (and continue to have) a great experience in therapy, and it would be a real shame for the message of what a healing experience therapy can be to be drowned out by the negative (and very valid) experiences of some of the users of this forum.

Sounds like a cult selling itself by denouncing anyone who practices in any other way. Perhaps not the best article to prove your point?

Personally, I must assert that I find BudFox's points the opposite of invalidating and over-generalized. Generalizing that "people" as a group find it to be such is a bit overbearing, isn't it? Anyway, the premise presented here is incredibly valid, considering that grandiosity and god-complex are major occupational hazards for those in the profession (i.e. eventually dealt with by most practitioners to some or another degree of severity).

How could BudFox's interests and line of thinking on the topic be any more invalidating or counterproductive than that of people who defend therapy as having magical powers that mere clients are best off receiving even blindly (about which I am frequently biting my own tongue out of respect for others' opinions)? As a fan of good therapy, I don't find examinations of what bad therapy is to be invalidating in the least, only grounding, and an aid to good reasoning and consideration. That is, in my own personal opinion and estimation, which I expect in their specificity to positively contribute to the array of knowledge and idea-sharing that we manifest here.

Quote from article: "So what are the markings of a cult and a guru who runs it? Absolute authority and someone without faults. The leader is a know it all, who runs your life and tells you how to live. Who demands obedience. Someone who does not trust you thinking for yourself. Someone who knows what is in your unconscious and interprets it for you; this teaches you to mistrust yourself and doubt your previous thoughts; submission to the leader’s thoughts. Never to question him or his beliefs even though it can lead to your deterioration…. A military mindset. Accepting a new moral orientation. An absolute belief in the leader’s theory. Believing he has a special wisdom and knows the secrets of the universe. Best if you know nothing of the leader’s life so that he remains a mystery (nearly always a “he”).. . . "

If your therapy is conducted in the manner stated above or if your therapist acts in the manner described above, I would strongly urge you to seek help elsewhere. My own personal experience in therapy (three different therapists over a period of time and interrupted at different points due to life situations) is NOTHING like what the author describes in the above paragraph.

On the basis of how the author/therapist describes and defines a "cult", my therapy experience does not fit the description, and therefore, my own therapy experience is not an cult experience. That doesn't mean of course that someone else's experience of therapy and a therapist can't fit the author's definition of a cult. It is an individual thing and only the person IN therapy can define or say whether or not their own personal experience fits the definition.

Huh. Therapy as cult or religion could be an interesting idea, as a search for "truth" through confession, as a practice, that kind of thing. But I don't really accept the comparison between the therapist and the cult leader as someone who claims to know best, demands obedience, etc... Maybe there's some Ts who think they know everything and tell clients what to do, but that does not describe my therapy experience or my T at all.

The author of this article sounds like he is a member of a cult himself, to be honest.

You may or may not appreciate this article, but it is a research article rather than more of an editorial. I think it's informative and gives a good picture of what practices in psychotherapy actually constitute a "cult".

Psychotherapy Cults - an Ethical Analysis - International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA)

Well, the article you've shared has specifically to do with cultic groups that use some variety of ideas from psychotherapy as a tool for making members dependent on them, however I think that's quite different than the idea that the article Bud shared presents, which is that a cult-like environment can be fostered even in individual therapy. I'm sure that author has had equally valid personal experience which has given him the perspective he presents. (And personally I do not see any particular suggestion evidenced through his writing of his being in a cult, although if he's had that experience it could certainly have enhanced his perspective -- not invalidated it...)

I have a friend who is totally locked in to a relationship with someone who doesn't work, who claims to be a psychic and requires him to go through all kinds of hypnotic activities, chanting and the like, and who dominates him to no end. He works three jobs and sleeps in his car, while she kicks back in a giant house that he pays for. I consider him to be in a cult even though it's a cult of one, in a sense. Which is just to say, cultic realities can be manifested in any situation, and certainly someone who is looked upon for psychological direction is uniquely positioned to take similar advantage should they be so inclined, even if their only objective is the receipt of a client's dependence on them.

There are some who consider the author of the original article and his practices a cult:

primal therapy criticism

The article is interesting. It seems to be written by the guy who developed Primal Therapy (and says it's not the same thing as Primal Scream Therapy Warning: Primal Therapy is not "Primal Scream" Therapy"). I had no idea he was still around, but apparently he is. I suspect some of this article is at least in part influenced by old-school notions of psychotherapy that were en vogue when he was developing his ideas. There seems to have been some accusations of cultiness around his own work, but perhaps that is as they say on their website, about unauthorized practitioners using some of his ideas improperly.

I am interested and curious about the culty aspects of therapy, because I'm kind of interested in cults and what draws people to them. None of this resonates at all with my experience of therapy, which is uncultlike, and my therapist and I both tend toward anti-authoritarianism so that kind of dynamic just doesn't appear. He'd make a really lousy guru even if I were looking for one. But I think these discussions have been interesting to see everyone's responses.

A fascinating article on there! Thanks for that.

Another person who always strikes me as really like a cult guru is Byron Katie. I realize she doesn't sell herself as a psychotherapist, but she seems to be using a small bit of CBT in a strangely repetitive way, while adopting an unnaturally beatific persona. She seems very popular though, so perhaps it's my own perception that is skewed, because I don't understand how people could think she's giving good advice.

But I think it's not unwise to be skeptical and cautious about who we entrust with our psychological difficulties. Some people are more vulnerable to authority figures than others, and there are people who will take advantage of this, for various reasons. That said, therapy with a trustworthy person can be enormously helpful, and I think it's as good to be aware of that as it is to be aware of potential pitfalls.

Fair enough! He practices a type of therapy that has been labeled by some as being cultic and it may very well occur that way for people.. and he also offers a perspective on how other types of therapy could be cultic in nature: I still think it's valuable perspective.

I once managed to get in touch with a very famous hypnotist, after having spent a dangerous amount of time in a group that I didn't realize was cultic (it's considered a psychotherapy cult in the way that Lauliza's article referenced), which had used things like hypnotic suggestion to create psychological anchors in such a way that continually retriggered the effects of trauma and which created dependence on their organization; once I'd severed ties I found that I could not undo what they had done. So I was wondering what the opinion of this illustrious hypnotist might be on whether it was possible, under the right circumstances, to use hypnosis to undo it. It was interesting because he told me that I shouldn't talk to anyone using hypnosis ever again, and that if I was currently in communication with anyone like that I should discontinue communication immediately.. and he didn't disclude himself from the explanation. I was glad to take that particular advice at face value, despite that it left my recovery travelling on a very slow road.

Many things are cult like (and I have never figured out the difference in cult versus religion) - the military (in the u.s. -west point and the other service academies, the marines, etc - submit to authority, can't quit, shaming group activities, indoctrination of belief systems, physical mistreatment of members etc), football teams (the things they do to keep young men whacking the snot out of themselves and others, shaming if quitting or getting injured, elevating coaches to god-like status etc) and others (those two areas just come to immediate mind for me).
Some therapy movements are more clearly borrowing from the cult - like psychology than others I believe - but it certainly has some elements just like many groups people join - perhaps humans are attracted to such in varying degrees.
I think it is interesting to think about whether I fully agree or not.
I think of western medicine/mds/psychiarists as more dangerous even than psychotherapy/therapists - not unuseful at times - but certainly its non-benign nature is something for a client to bear in mind before submitting to or dallying or dabbling in it - regardless of how one labels it. And it sells itself, in my opinion, as a lot more benign and risk free than it is.

Anything could arguably be a cult, from aromatherapy to acupuncture to religions that are millennia old. So I don't find the article particularly compelling.

That said, there are cultic aspects to psychotherapy. It can be a little bit of a creepy relationship. Many therapists embrace those aspects of it (just reading some stories on PC, for instance), but clearly many shun them. For instance, I've never seen a therapist who didn't want me to know that this was a temporary relationship, even if it took a couple years to reach my goals. I've also never met one interested in becoming some kind of parent figure to me, not even No. 1 with her attachment stuff.

But can psychotherapy categorically be said to be a cult? No. But I don't have a problem with anyone trying to make the argument it is.

Also, may I point out there's a permanent thread for interesting articles on psychotherapy under the Stickies part? Might post this there if you haven't already.

That thread is just for posting, if I understand correctly - not discussing. So if one wants to discuss it would still go here is my interpretation (I am not positive I have it correct - just how I understood it)

Yeah, I know...was thinking more for archival purposes. Or selfish purposes - I find the search function can be unreliable on here.

The language used in the article (calling the therapist doctor and he for eg) suggests that it's pretty dated--and I don't just mean because language has evolved to be more inclusive.

The reality that psychotherapy is now a female-dominated profession and that most psychotherapists are not medical doctors (or even PhDs) both reflects and engenders a huge change in the way that therapy is practiced. The authority from on high aspect that is discussed? I've never encountered it in any of my myriad psychotherapy experiences. Three times a week? Are you kidding? Almost no one can do therapy that way even if they want to. I could go on and on.

We can thank feminism, other liberation movements, post modernism and queer theory as well as the vocal survivors of psychiatric abuse and many others for those profound changes. I really don't think what that author describes is at all in keeping with how most psychotherapy is practiced today.

I suspect it is the author himself who is dated - the article has a publication date of 2012.

Well the part, "Someone who knows what is in your unconscious and interprets it for you" is what my last therapist was all about and I'm no longer seeing him. It became a ****** game, a staring contest and an environment where I eventually couldn't even talk yet it was insisted that I just say ANYTHING or "whatever comes to mind" so he could tap into my unconscious.

This therapist would not do a bit to engage conversation and was silent almost all the time, things I brought up that should have prompted more questioning only brought more staring and the only question I ever got was "do you have any more thoughts on that?"

By the way, I'm back in therapy and my new T is NOTHING like this at all. The new T has asked me more questions in the first couple visits than my last T ever asked me in months.

Hell bent? I mentioned the cult thing in passing in another thread, then posted the above article, without any commentary of my own other than saying it is thought provoking. I did not write the article. Your response is your own.

Oh, that's awful. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I had NO IDEA any T's were still like that.

Yea for sure, you could say he is discrediting one form to sell another. But still, doesn't that amount to a sort of ad-hominen attack, going after the messenger instead of the message? His argument about therapy as cult either holds up or it does not. I think parts of it absolutely do. Also he's not the only one making the comparison.

I dunno, it makes sense to me. The very nature of therapy requires some of the same assumptions and realities. One person seeking help from another, sometimes in a state of significant vulnerability and confusion, the expectation that the client will defer or submit to the T (not always but clearly this is common), the process largely playing out in isolation.