 Posted Wednesday, April 09, 2008 7:39 PM
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| I saw a cult expert interviewed on Larry King regarding the polygamist group in the news recently. I checked out the website and it looked like a useful resource for someone possibly needing help dealing with their experiences in the Christian Science Church. The article even discusses the lack of information regular therapists have about these groups and that the patient has to spend most of their time educating the therapist on the belief system. There are several options to seek therapy. Two of them involve get this... going to Boston and one is where they will come to you. I don't have any other information other than what is listed on the website. I just thought it may be a helpful resource for anyone who wanted to look into it. The rest of the site is pretty interesting too. If anyone knows anymore about Freedom of Mind I would be interested to know about it. Here is the site: http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/help/onesself/
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Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008 8:22 PM
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| Freedom of Mind is run by Steve Hassan, a well-known expert on mind control and cult counseling. I met him when I used to attend conferences run by the the International Cultic Studies Association, an organization dedicated to studying cults, educating the public about them, and helping people recover from them (the ICSA used to be called the American Family Foundation). Steve is currently on the editorial board for ICSA's journal "Cultic Studies Review," and he has written a couple of books. Combatting Cult Mind Control is a classic, and while I don't think his second book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves sold as widely, I also found it very good. The ICSA is a trustworthy organization, as is Freedom of Mind and, of course, Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, the cult rehab center where I found so much help in the 1990's (for details, see my personal story on the main Christian Way web site). The web sites for all these organizations give good information about mind control, how to identify its effects in people, and how to recover from it. Steve lives in the Boston area and I visited him for a chat when I was there in about 2002. I haven't seen him since them or read his book since about that time. As I recall, my reservation about his treatment style was that he offers hypnosis, a practice with I avoid. (I can't imagine him using it as a treatment tool unless his client agrees.) I think he would be a good counseling resource for someone living in the Boston area. By the way, Steve is familiar with CS. Besides our private conversation, my book, and whatever other information he has gathered on the subject, I'm pretty certain he was in the audience for the hour-long talk entitled "Christian Science and Children" that I gave a national conference in 2001.
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