Destructive Cult - Emotional Harm

Emotional Harm

Some researchers describe the term "destructive cult" more broadly, and include emotional abuse along with physical abuse as a defining characteristic. Steven Hassan, author of the book Combatting Cult Mind Control, defines the term as such: "A destructive cult is a pyramid-shaped authoritarian regime with a person or group of people that have dictatorial control. It uses deception in recruiting new members (e.g. people are NOT told up front what the group is, what the group actually believes and what will be expected of them if they become members)."

Psychologist Michael Langone, executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association, defines a destructive cult as "a highly manipulative group which exploits and sometimes physically and/or psychologically damages members and recruits." In the book Into the Rabbit Hole contributor Randall Waters cites psychiatrist Robert Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, specifically Lifton's "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform", as criteria to identify a destructive cult.

In Perfected Mind Control - The Unauthorized Black Book of Hypnotic Mind Control author J. K. Ellis also cites Lifton's criteria, writing: "If most of Robert Lifton's eight point model of thought reform is being used in a cult organization, it is most likely a dangerous and destructive cult." In a statement which Congressman Leo J. Ryan later read into the Congressional Record, Dr. John Gordon Clark cited totalitarian systems of governance and an emphasis on money making as characteristics of a destructive cult. Dr. Clark later authored the work Destructive Cult Conversion: Theory, Research and Practice.

In Cults and the Family the authors cite Shapiro, who defines a "destructive cultism" as a sociopathic syndrome, whose distinctive qualities include: "behavioral and personality changes, loss of personal identity, cessation of scholastic activities, estrangement from family, disinterest in society and pronounced mental control and enslavement by cult leaders." In The Ethics of Touch: The Hands-on Practitioner's Guide To Creating a Professional, Safe and Enduring Practice, the authors describe their version of destructive cult characteristics in a section on "Cult Mind Control Abuse."

In the book, a destructive cult is seen as being either "religious, political, 'therapeutic' or business" and they state that it can cause trauma-related symptoms such as dissociative disorder. In Dr. Susan Gregg's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Spiritual Healing, she cites three main signs of a destructive cult, including giving up one's individuality, having their relationships with friends and family threatened, and being asked to donate large sums of money to the group. In his work Lethal Violence, the criteria of a destructive cult environment is compared to that of battered woman defence.