New Religious Movements and Counselling

Academic, Professional and Personal Perspectives

Sarah Harvey, Silke Steidinger, James A. Beckford, Sarah Harvey, Silke Steidinger, James A. Beckford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317088080
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Counseling

There are many different ways in which minority religions and counselling may interact. In some cases there can be antagonism between counselling services and minority religions, with each suspecting they are ideologically threatened by the other, but it can be argued that the most common relationship is one of ignorance – mental health professionals do not pay much attention to religion and often do not ask or consider their client's religious affiliation. To date, the understanding of this relationship has focused on the 'anti-cult movement' and the perceived need for members of minority religions to undergo some form of 'exit counselling'. In line with the series, this volume takes a non-judgemental approach and instead highlights the variety of issues, religious groups and counselling approaches that are relevant at the interface between minority religion and counselling.

The volume is divided into four parts: Part I offers perspectives on counselling from different professions; Part II offers chapters from the field leaders directly involved in counselling former members of minority religions; Part III offers unique personal accounts by members and former members of a number of different new religions; while Part IV offers chapters on some of the most pertinent current issues in the counselling/minority religions fields, written by new and established academics. In every section, the volume seeks to explore different permutations of the counsellor-client relationship when religious identities are taken into account. This includes not only 'secular' therapists counselling former members of religion, but the complexities of the former member turned counsellor, as well as counselling practised both within religious movements and by religious movements that offer counselling services to the 'outside' world.

1 Minority religions and counselling

An overview

James A. Beckford and Sarah Harvey

The web of relationships between minority religions and counselling is dense and fascinating. In some cases, there are antagonism and suspicion between them, with each side accusing the other of being hostile. More often the relationship is one of ignorance, especially as counsellors and other mental health practitioners tend to avoid paying much attention to religion in general or to their clients’ religious views and commitments. At the same time, many minority religions discourage their followers from seeking help from ‘secular’ counsellors. In other words, neither side is ‘literate’ about – or sensitive to – what the other has to offer. Misunderstandings, talking at cross purposes and stand-offs are not uncommon. An additional complication is that some minority religions – just like mainstream faith organisations – have developed their own forms of counselling and pastoral care which are grounded in their particular beliefs and values. Some may even present themselves primarily as counselling or therapeutic groups. This can exacerbate tensions with counsellors who are unsympathetic to some or all minority religions.

All the contributors to this volume aim to bring their professional expertise and personal experience to bear on the complicated and evolving web of relationships between minority religions and counselling. They come from widely differing backgrounds, and their different ways of looking at the interactions between religion and counselling are not all compatible with each other. There is pain, and there is puzzlement, but there is also pride in having overcome serious difficulties. The mixture of accounts given by counsellors, clients and their close relatives as well as by academic researchers is unique and, in places, troubling to popular preconceptions or prejudices.

The origins of this book can be found in preparations for a one-day seminar held in London on 18 May 2013 by Inform (Information Network Focus on Religious Movements).¹ The preliminary discussions among Inform’s Governors and members of its research staff recognised that questions about counselling had run like a hidden thread through many of the activities in which Inform had been involved since its foundation by Professor Eileen Barker in 1988. For, although Inform has never offered to provide counselling, it was quite common for enquirers to ask for advice about the counselling services and providers that might be available to people affected in a wide variety of ways by minority religions, new religious movements (NRMs) or ‘cults’. Indeed, numerous participants in Inform’s twice-yearly public seminars and occasional conferences had talked about counselling from different points of view. And Inform’s researchers had sometimes had dealings with counsellors while conducting their investigations into how individuals, families and therapists had been affected by minority religions, as well as with counsellors who had allegedly recruited their clients into religious or spiritual movements. The decision to devote a seminar specifically to counselling and NRMs was, therefore, a recognition of the importance of tackling the many issues that arise in the interplay between them.

In keeping with Inform’s commitment to providing a public space for discussion of all issues concerning NRMs, this book provides a platform for views that are not necessarily shared by all contributors or indeed by all researchers at Inform. Like all of the volumes in the Routledge-Inform series on Minority Religions and Spiritual Movements, this book is unique in its presentation of different perspectives on a certain issue, in this case counselling. As a result, the voices of members of certain movements are juxtaposed to those of ex-members, opponents or critics, counsellors and academics. Some of the narratives are personal; others are more analytical; and yet others suggest practical advice.² But there is a shared concern with the ethical and practical issues that arise when people who are, or have been, affected by minority religions engage with counsellors and vice versa – and when minority religions themselves engage in activities that may qualify as counselling. This all helps to make the book unique for bringing together such a variety of perspectives and voices.

Minority religions, ‘brainwashing’ and counselling

Minority religions or NRMs are anything but uniform or monolithic (Barker 1989, 2013). Their diversity and changeableness are beyond doubt. And so is their tendency to be caught up in a range of controversies which put them in the headlines from time to time (Beckford 1985, 1993). These controversies arise from allegations that NRMs are responsible for actions and processes that are either illegal or immoral. Journalists and programme makers typically portray NRMs as controversial for reasons that include authoritarian forms of leadership, economic exploitation of members, sexual abuse by leaders, political intrigue and abuse of members’ children. Common to most such allegations is the charge that leaders exercise influence and power over their followers in ways that are excessive, fraudulent and unaccountable. ‘Brainwashing’, ‘coercive persuasion’, ‘mental manipulation’ and ‘mind control’ are just a few of the popular catch-all terms that have been used to characterise the processes whereby undue influence is supposedly wielded in NRMs (Hassan 1988) – terms that are forcefully rejected by scholars such as Robbins and Anthony (1979, 1982), Bromley and Richardson (1983) and Barker (1984). And right at the centre of these controversies is the general accusation that such abuse of influence and power generates so much distress for members, ex-members and their close relatives or friends that they turn for help to – or are referred to – counselling and therapy.

Beginning in the 1960s in the USA, these claims about brainwashing and mind control in NRMs became powerful drivers of campaigns and movements to monitor, control or outlaw the activities of religious and spiritual groups often labelled as ‘cults’ or ‘destructive cults’.³ Powerful support came from psychologists (Singer 1979) and psychiatrists (Clark 1979; West and Singer 1980; Clark et al. 1981; West 1990) who, in turn, had drawn inspiration from the work of the distinguished American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton’s (1961) book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism as practised by communist forces on allied prisoners during the Korean War and on prisoners held in China in the 1950s. The influence of these ideas was strong in predominantly Christian ‘counter-cult’ movements (Chryssides 1999; Cowan 2002) as well as in non-religious ‘anti-cult’ campaigns (Introvigne 1995).⁴ These ideas about brainwashing also shaped the various forms of counselling and psychotherapy that developed in connection with attempts to provide a rationale for the forcible removal of members from NRMs (kidnapping and ‘deprogramming’), to offer arguments that might help members to make their own decision to leave the movements (‘exit counselling’) and to assist ex-members and their close relatives and friends to recover from the experience of membership (‘thought reform counselling’) (Langone 1993). Arguments about brainwashing have also led to legal controversies in various parts of the world (Richardson 1996) and to disputes about the deployment of brainwashing claims in official reports on NRMs in Europe (Richardson and Introvigne 2001). Yet, notions of brainwashing still have their defenders (Zablocki 2001; Kent 2008). And no truce has yet been signed in the so-called cult wars (Gallagher 2016).

Therapies and controversies

A further twist in the argument occurs at this point. In an inversion of claims that counselling and psychotherapy can facilitate recovery from the distress allegedly inflicted by controversial NRMs, it is also charged that those NRMs which offer their own forms of counselling or therapy to their own members are only likely to do so as a way of reinforcing their undue influence. In short, controversial NRMs are widely accused of, on the one hand, causing the kind of distress that requires the assistance of counsellors and, on the other, of practising forms of counselling that blight their members’ lives (Singer, Temerlin and Langone 1990). Even relatively non-controversial religious and spiritual groups can find themselves implicated in public disputes about the merits or demerits of any of the therapies that they offer if they depart from prevailing norms of biomedical paradigms and practices. The interface between NRMs and counselling is truly complex and contentious. There may even be rivalry between them (Kilbourne and Richardson 1984).

Many of the chapters in this book explore the interface between NRMs and counselling but they also raise broader questions about the varieties of ‘counselling’ on offer and the highly variable extent to which counsellors, like psychiatrists, are trained to take account of the religious and the spiritual in their therapeutic practice. According to a British psychiatrist, psychiatry has

traditionally held a certain antipathy towards religion … Where religion has been addressed by clinicians, it has been generally in terms of its differential diagnosis from psychopathology. Clinicians are far less religious than the patients who consult them. There is a ‘religiosity gap’ between the two groups.

(Dein 2009: 1)

Nevertheless, in recent decades, many psychotherapists and counsellors – especially in the USA⁵ – have come to recognise the importance of engaging with their clients’ expressed religious beliefs and experiences (Blando 2006; Koenig 2013). Some also argue that it can be helpful for therapists to communicate their own religious viewpoints to clients in certain circumstances provided that they do not seek to impose their faith on them (West 2011, 2012). Indeed, Kenneth Pargament (2007: 9), among many other distinguished authorities, offers ‘a number of good reasons to take the spiritual dimension of life far more seriously and to integrate it far more fully into the process of psychotherapy’. And a ‘position statement’ issued by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK (2013: 6) recognises that

there is now a sufficient body of evidence to suggest that spirituality and religion are at least factors about which psychiatrists should be knowledgeable, insofar as they have an impact on the aetiology, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Further, an ability to handle spiritual and religious issues sensitively and empathically has a significant potential impact upon the relationship between psychiatrist and patient.

In the opinion of a French observer of British psychiatry (Champion 2013: 17), we should now be talking about a ‘new presence’ of the religious in psychiatry and mental health care.

But a number of contributors to this volume show that problems can arise if therapists or counsellors wish to challenge clients’ spiritual or religious beliefs and practices. Further difficulties arise if spiritual or religious material is introduced into therapy in ways that could be considered problematic for clients, therapists or their supervisors. The training and supervision of therapists or counsellors therefore has a direct bearing on how these problems are framed and managed. Particularly difficult issues have arisen in connection with, for example, allegations that counsellors or medical doctors have ‘coached’ clients to concoct and to disclose false memories of distress supposedly suffered at the hands of unscrupulous leaders of minority religions or so-called Satanic abusers (La Fontaine 1998, 2003).⁶

But questions are often raised about how therapists or counsellors can acquire the information needed for them to make sound judgements about the advisability or inadvisability of trying to integrate religion and spirituality into therapy, especially with regard to the diversity of expressions of religions and spiritualities found in many countries (Ruff and Elliott 2016). Other questions are raised by contributors to this volume about the advisability or inadvisability of practising therapies tailored specifically for people adversely affected by minority religions. There is no doubt, then, that the controversies are not only about NRMs; they can also arise in connection with other forms of religion and spirituality as well as with the very theories and practice of counselling.

Changing contexts

It is also important to recognise that the societal contexts in which debates about minority religions and counselling have developed have changed in several significant respects. First, the twenty-first century has seen the blossoming of popular interest in a wide swath of beliefs, experiences and activities categorised as ‘spiritual’ (Spalek and Imtoual 2008; Cadge and Konieczny 2014). This is an extremely vague category which includes all manner of New Age sensitivities, alternative therapies, holistic diets, astrological predictions and fitness regimes. It may be an exaggeration to think of these developments as a ‘spiritual revolution’ (Heelas and Woodhead 2005), but there is no doubt that awareness of them has seeped into aspects of mainstream life such as employment (Grant, O’Neil and Stephens 2004), health care (Orchard 2001; Culliford 2002), nursing (Gilliat-Ray 2003), ecological movements (Bloch 1998; Kearns 2007) and sports (Parry et al. 2007). As a result, levels of familiarity with the spiritualities conveyed by many new and minority religious groups have increased to the point where they are less likely to be regarded as weird or threatening than was the case when NRMs were really new. Indeed, some forms of counselling and therapy now embody aspects of spirituality previously stigmatised as ‘cultic’ or ‘New Agey’, thereby aggravating concerns in some quarters about encroachments of mammon into spirituality (Carrette and King 2005). But in general, a process of rapprochement is taking place between spiritualities, new and minority religions and the everyday world in many liberal democracies – albeit slowly, unevenly and in the face of persistent objections.

A second contextual change involves the growth of religious and spiritual diversity, notably in countries that have experienced immigration from parts of the world where liberal forms of Christianity are not the dominant expressions of religion. The global circulation of students, workers and accompanying family members mainly from East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America has not only boosted religious diversity in Europe, North America and Australasia, but has also created successive generations of descendants who are continuing to put down ‘religious roots’ in their countries of settlement (Beckford 2015). Equally important are the global electronic media and networks which now cut across national boundaries, disseminating religions and spiritualities that find themselves ‘at home’ virtually everywhere in the world. This nourishes all manner of both original and hybrid versions of cultural traditions, aspects of which can find their way into host cultures where they continue to evolve. Neo-Hindu movements and strands of Kabbalah are prime examples of these developments (Altglas 2005, 2014). And these global flows of religions and spiritualities have, in turn, helped to shape new ideas about health and well-being. Again, some of the results have given rise to concerns about abuse and exploitation, thereby boosting the demand for counselling and therapies. But, on the other hand, innovative ideas about religions and spiritualities have also flowed into novel forms of counselling and therapy such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (Crane 2009; Herbert and Forman 2011) or Ayurvedic Yoga and self-healing (Stiles 2007). The increase of all these aspects of religious and spiritual diversity in the early twenty-first century has gone some way towards blunting the sharp antagonism that was widely levelled against new and minority religious movements in the final third of the twentieth century. In effect, the would-be target of anti-cult sentiment has become so broad, diffuse and embedded in everyday life that it largely evades serious censure in many countries – with the notable exceptions of countries such as China, Russia and France where moral pan...