Psychological Manipulation Groups (Cults): A case report, diagnosis, evaluation and treatment Vega González1, Laura Merino1, Juanjo Santamaría1, Elena Montero1, Marga Cano1,2 and Teresa Fernandez1,2 1 Atención e Investigación de Socioadicciones (AIS); 2 Hospital de Sant Jaume i Santa Magdalena de Mataró Introduction What is AIS? Atención e Investigación en Socioadicciones (AIS), is a mental health organization in Spain that provides information and advice on cults and behavioral adicctions. AIS has focused its therapeutic activity on the disturbances provoked by cultism. At present, is recognized as a public health service at Catalonia. The number of clinical visits carried out the last year was 845. Mind control used by Psychological Manipulation Groups (Cults) implies the control and exploitation of one person over others, in order to obtain any own benefit. They use mental control techniques, anxious dependency and coercive persuasion (Chambers, Langone, Dole y Grice, 1994). In that poster we describe a case report, meeting the criteria for a mind control situation treated with Exit Counseling (Hassan, 1990) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Group Dependence Disorder (Diagnostic Criteria) (AIS, 2001), 7 of the next criteria: Excessive time dedicated to group and tends to increase progressively Excessive decrease of time dedicated to the family, work or social relationships Manifests intense affiliation feelings towards the group and its members Changes in attitude towards people in his previous environment: • Cold and distanced attitude • Lies • Hostile attitudes Unmeasured self-criticism of his pre-cult past Conceding the group an excessive importance, which is in disagreement with reality Tolerates and justifies personal exploitation Experiences of maniform euphoria or enthusiasm Tendency to a monothematic discourse Behavioral changes that stand out that are in accordance to group norms or habits: • In dressing or personal care • In hobbies • In language • In sexual behavior • In eating patterns Case Report Treatment Women, 60 years old, university degree on Chemistry, married, 2 daughters. At 39 years old, she established contact with a yoga practice group. Trough the years, the teacher used psychological manipulation techniques on her students. During 21 years, the patient, and the other adepts, gave the teacher (group leader) great amounts of money, insulated herself from her family and other social supports, and increasingly went on more retreats with the group leader. 1.- Family counseling/information and guideline. Objective: understand the problem and make the patient therapeutic attendance easier (Exit Counseling) (3 sessions) Resultados The initial petition was done by the family. They were worried because the patient was asking for great amounts of money to family and friends. In the first visit of the patient, she present with mental confusion, denial problem, resistance to treatment, changes in sleeping and eating patterns, economic problems and she meet criteria for Group Dependence Disorder. Evaluation 3.- Exit Counseling (advising and support on leaving the group) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Cognitive restructuring, stimulus control, selfregistration, training on social skills, relapse prevention,...) (4 – 5 sessions) 4.- Symptom management in the post cult phase (Exit Counseling+CBT): Depression, loneliness, negative self-image, anxiety, feelings of guilt, autonomy, altered states of consciousness, rancor and fear of sect, justification,... (At present) Results Exhaustive Case History, diagnostic criteria: Group Dependence Disorder (1st Sessions). Psychometric tests: GPA (Group Psychological Abuse scale) (Almendros, Carrobles, Rodríguez-Carballeira, Jansà, 2003) (cut-off point=81), SCL-90R, TCI-R. Functional analysis of patient behavior. GPA 2.- Therapeutic alliance, motivational interviewing and legal issues (4 - 5 sessions) SUBMISSION MENTAL CONTROL EXPLOITATION TOTAL 32 36 21 89 TCI-R Conclusions • More controlled, specific and clinical research is needed to clarify the psychological characteristics of cult members, in order to improve the prevention and treatment of cult members. Exit Counseling combined with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seems to be effective treating people with Group Dependence Disorder. SCL-90-R 200 2,5 160 2 120 1,5 80 1 40 0,5 0 0 After six months of treatment, patient GDD symptomatology is lower. She have no contact with the group. Now, patient can keep a distance and elaborate critical opinions regarding the person controlling her, without justifying her actions. The subject shows capacity to speak about manipulation and express critical opinions about it. Soon, retest measures will be applied in order to asses the patient evolution. SCL-90 Scr Normative Scr • Future research should use valid structured interviews and questionnaires, with well-established reliabilities and psychometric properties on adequate pre-post treatment sample groups. Research groups should take into account, the difficulty obtaining valid data, due the cult members characteristics. • Due these characteristics and the difficulty obtaining reliable data, the results about personality traits and psychopathology in actual or former cult members are inconsistent. Nowadays, AIS is strengthen the research area in order to carry out rigorous research about this topic. Referencias bibliográficas AIS. (1994) “Totalitarismo y voracidad. Una aproximación interdisciplinaria al “fenómeno sectario” en Cataluña”. AIS & SCS (Eds.) Cubero, P. (2001). "El sectarismo como trastorno psiquiátrico".. Libro de Ponencias I Jornadas sobre el trastorno de dependencia grupal en los grupos de manipulación psicológica. Barcelona: 17-24. Almendros, C.; Carrobles, J.A.; Rodríguez-Carballeira, A.; Jansà, J.M. (2003). Psychometric properties of the spanish version of the Group Psychological Abuse Scale. Cultic Studies Review, 2(3), 1-20. Chambers, W.V.; Langone, M.D.; Dole, A.; Grice, J. (1994). The Group Psychological Abuse Scale: a measure of varieties of cultic abuse. Cultic Studies Journal, 11(1), 88-117. Hassan, S. (1991). Strategic intervention therapy: A new form of exit-counseling which is better than deprogramming. Unpublished paper. © AIS. http://www.ais-info.org/ e-mails: Vega González [email protected]; [email protected]