Alexandra Stein - Trauma bonding and cults

[Patience]

Dr Alexandra Stein explains how charismatic leaders operate and where they get their ideas from.  She is not talking about Molyneux or Freedomain Radio, but comparisons could be made with the techniques used in some of the organisations she describes.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/harm-reduction/2012/08/23/trauma-bonding-and-cults
       

[Elucidated]

Good find - fascinating. Around 28 minutes, she talks about the key thing that tells you a group you are in is dangerous, is if it tries to isolate you from friends and family.

Wow - shunned when you leave and becoming like a non-person.

[Prodigal son]

Thanks for posting this. I found the talk to be extremely enlightening. I was especially interested in the hypothesis concerning attachment or imperfect attachment, and also the idea of almost enforced dissociation as a means of control. This is something that echoes my experience not so much of my childhood, but rather of my adult life prior to becoming involved with FDR and something that, counterintuitively (perhaps because I am older than most true believers) my exposure to FDR eventually helped me to overcome - initially as a direct trade (which might explain my initial attraction), and finally in the form of complete release. I suspect I am atypical in this regard though.

[Prodigal son]

Wow - shunned when you leave and becoming like a non-person.

Indeed. I remember hearing members (true believers) who had left and spoken against the organisation being described as "train wrecks" as though some terrible event had overtaken them and completely smashed them up - they became like non-people because they had seen the light and turned away.

[Lone Ranger]

This is entertaining for me, since my hubby is prolly related to one of the cult leaders mentioned there.