Articles on the ICSA Website 

The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is a global network of researchers, mental health professionals, educators, former members, families, and others interested in understanding psychological manipulation, coercive control, cultic dynamics, and high-control groups.​ Founded in 1979, ICSA provides research, education, professional resources, conferences, and support-related information concerning the experiences of people affected by cultic and high-control environments.​ I am a member of ICSA and am listed in ICSA’s Service Provider Directory.

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I chose the articles below because they may be particularly helpful for people exploring religious trauma, deconstruction, the lasting effects of growing up in a high-control religion, religious residue, shunning, family and relationship difficulties, purity culture, and recovery after leaving a high-control religious environment.

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Understanding the Impact of High Control / High Demand Religions, Groups & Cults ​

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Born or Raised in High-Demand Groups: Developmental Considerations

-- Leona Furnari

This article examines how growing up within a high-demand environment can affect important developmental tasks involving trust, autonomy, initiative, identity, boundaries, and emotional development. It also considers the particular challenges faced by people who were born into these environments and therefore have no pre-group identity to which they can simply return.

Read the article on the ICSA website

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The Unique Characteristics of Post-Cult PTSD and Suggested Therapeutic Approaches

-- Dennis Patrick Healy

This article explores trauma responses that can occur following involvement in a high-control environment, including fear conditioning, triggers, hyperarousal, dissociation, and disruptions to identity. It can be particularly helpful for understanding why psychological and emotional reactions may continue even after a person's beliefs have changed.

Read the article on the ICSA website 

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Eight Criteria for Thought Reform in Cults

-- Robert Jay Lifton, MD

This article examines Robert Jay Lifton's framework for understanding thought reform and coercive influence. Particularly relevant to high-control religious environments are concepts such as the demand for purity, confession, loaded language, unquestionable doctrine, and the subordination of individual experience to the group's belief system.

It can help readers recognize how concepts of purity, guilt, confession, and moral self-monitoring can become mechanisms of psychological and behavioral control within some high-control environments.

Read the article on the ICSA website

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Childhood & Parenting in High Control Groups 

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Impact on Children Born Into or Raised in a Cultic Group

-- Ashley Allen

This article examines the potential effects of high-control environments on attachment, family relationships, independent thinking, emotional expression, creativity, identity development, hypervigilance, and self-trust. It also explores the particular difficulties experienced by people for whom the group represented their entire childhood world.

Read the article on the ICSA website

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​Religious Residue 

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Raised in Cultic Groups: The Impact on the Development of Certain Aspects of Character

-- Lorna Goldberg​

This article explores how beliefs, fears, guilt, shame, and patterns of thinking that were internalized within a high-control religious environment can continue to influence a person long after leaving. The article illustrates an important aspect of religious residue: changing what you believe intellectually does not necessarily mean that the emotional, psychological, and behavioral effects of those beliefs disappear at the same time. Goldberg describes how internalized religious messages can continue to influence self-worth, guilt, fear, relationships, decision-making, and the ability to experience pleasure and autonomy after leaving.

Read the article on the ICSA website

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Leaving & Deconstruction 

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The Heart of Cult Recovery: Compassion for the Self

-- Daniel Shaw

Shaw explores some of the psychological work that can follow separation from a high-control environment, particularly the process of recognizing internalized shame and developing greater trust in one's own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and judgment. The article can be especially relevant during deconstruction, when previously unquestioned beliefs and external sources of authority are being reconsidered and a person is beginning to determine what they believe and value.

Read the article on the ICSA website

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Shunning, Family & Relationships 

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Second-Generation Religious Cult Survivors: Implications for Counselors

-- Cyndi H. Matthews, PhD

This article explores the interpersonal and relational challenges experienced by people raised in high-control religious environments, including difficulties involving family relationships, trust, identity, social connection, and adjustment to life outside the group.​​ It is particularly relevant to shunning and the fear of shunning. For some people, questioning or leaving a high-control religion can mean risking relationships with parents, siblings, extended family, friends, and the only community they have ever known. The possibility of losing these relationships can make questioning and deconstruction extraordinarily difficult, even when a person's beliefs have already begun to change. These challenges can also become particularly significant when a person changes or leaves their religion while a spouse, parents, siblings, children, or other important people in their life continue to believe.

Read the article on the ICSA website

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Purity Culture & Sexuality 

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Dominance and Submission: The Psychosexual Exploitation of Women in Cults

-- Janja Lalich, PhD

Lalich examines how authoritarian and high-control environments can extend their influence into sexuality, intimate relationships, marriage, gender roles, and reproduction. She explains how spiritual or ideological authority can be used to undermine sexual autonomy and normalize submission, particularly for women.​ The article provides a useful framework for understanding how religious authority, gender expectations, sexual rules, and ideas about submission can become intertwined, as well as how shame, guilt, and self-blame may continue after leaving a high-control environment.

Read the article on the ICSA website

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​These articles are provided for educational purposes. Inclusion of an article does not imply that every high-control religious experience is the same or that every individual will experience the effects described. These resources are intended to provide information and different perspectives for people exploring their experiences with religion, deconstruction, and recovery.​​​​​​​​

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