How cults undermine growing trust

For survivors, support workers and network friends

If you are a counsellor or friend of an SRM survivor and this survivor is taking serious steps to break away from the perpetrator network (cult), the cult will go to great lengths to undermine the survivor's slowly and vulnerably growing trust in you as a person and counsellor (or friend).  It is important for you as a counsellor/friend to be aware of this. It can help a survivor if he or she notices that you are aware of this. You can show this, for example, by occasionally mentioning that you understand that it is dangerous for the dadernetwork if he or she builds a good relationship with you. And that he or she can feel free to share this if it causes unpleasant situations within the dadernetwork. Deeper personality parts will sometimes listen in on such conversations and, over time, these kinds of open comments may give them the courage to talk about it.

As a survivor, it is also important to pay attention to this in your inner system. The undermining work of cults is aimed at parts of the person that are often not yet familiar with the ‘normal world’ (including your counsellor or supportive friends) and are therefore very vulnerable to the lies and misleading images and texts of cults. Below, I would like to mention a few ways that we encounter in practice, but there are many more.  

One of the methods used by cults is to make audio recordings of, for example, the counsellor in private situations, such as when you are being unreasonable towards your spouse or children, or when you are feeling down and confide in a friend. These audio recordings are then played to a survivor. The suggestion is then, for example, that you cannot stand being with the survivor or that you will certainly lose your patience with her or him and abandon him or her. We see time and again in our work that this network of perpetrators has the technical capabilities to eavesdrop on telephone calls, for example. I myself have experienced many times that a survivor knew information about me that I had only shared with my husband, for example in the bedroom, or that I had only shared in a telephone conversation with someone.

Another way that cults undermine trust is by using the voice or re-enactment of the care provider in situations where the survivor is being tortured. An excerpt from a telephone conversation I once had with the police was played over and over again during a torture session that one of my clients underwent, suggesting that I had betrayed her. Even if you are not from a cult, it is not difficult to imagine how, in this way, the therapist's voice becomes associated with betrayal and pain for some parts of the person. And that it takes a lot of therapy time and effort to break through this conditioning in these parts of the person.

A client also told me how a lookalike of mine watched from a distance on several occasions when she was being tortured in the cult. Although some parts of her knew that it couldn't have been me, due to minor differences in movement, for example, other parts were deeply convinced that it had indeed been me. Such an ‘undercurrent’ of deep mistrust in a client's personality system naturally makes it extremely difficult to maintain the slowly growing trust in the care provider.

Another method used by cults to undermine survivors is to send photographs or videos of you, your counsellor or network friend, in conversation with someone who knows the survivor from the cult as a perpetrator or fellow victim/perpetrator. This gives the survivor (or parts of their personality) a great sense of insecurity, especially if the cult suggests that you are talking about him or her.

For us readers who are not from a cult background, like myself, it is very important that we realise what an enormous psychological and mental battle a survivor must fight in order to continue building trust. How intensely exhausting must it be when, with a divided inner world, you have to ask yourself many times a week, ‘Is this video real or not, is this photo accurate, am I overlooking something? And then the next question: am I going to share this with my counsellor or not? And how am I going to do that? Am I going to try to fish for clues as to whether it could be true, or am I going to ask her directly? How will she react? Will she get angry with me, or will I see doubt in her eyes? How should I interpret her reaction? These are all dilemmas that come on top of everything else that is already going on.  As a result, mistrust sometimes wins out over trust and, out of desperation and despair, a part of the person ends up going to the cult after all.

As a support worker/network friend, you cannot prevent all situations. You may be approached in all sorts of places, such as the supermarket or church, by someone you have no idea is also involved in a cult. You may also meet people at family gatherings or birthday parties who are fellow victims or perpetrators, without you knowing it.  Some things you can prevent, e.g. when I realised that a survivor had received photos of me running and smiling broadly at a passer-by who was anonymous to me (but a perpetrator to her), I taught myself to react more modestly to people I don't know.  This example is not intended as a general rule for all carers and friends of survivors. Everyone must make their own assessment in this regard. The place you have in a survivor's life also makes a big difference. As a rule of thumb, the closer you are to the survivor, the greater the impact of unpleasant photos or videos about you on that person.

If you are a survivor, it is good to realise that it may be crystal clear to you (or parts of you) that someone is a cult perpetrator or victim. And it may be that you (or parts of you) cannot imagine that an outsider cannot see this, e.g. because you pick up on gestures that someone makes and because you have experienced the enormous cruelty of this person first-hand. It may be very difficult for you to imagine that someone else cannot also read the insincerity of, for example, a Christian leader from his face. Try to remember that you grew up in a very different world than your counsellor or network friend, and be patient with them. And try to remember, with every photo or video that the cult sends you to fuel your distrust of your counsellor or network friend: Why are they so eager to put your counsellor or network friend in a bad light? What does it cost the cult for you to take steps to free yourself from their horribly criminal world? And what sincere love has your social worker or network friend already shown you, even if he or she makes mistakes? As crazy as it may sound to someone from the ‘normal world’, I know that for (parts of) you as a survivor, it is an enormous task to learn to see the difference between someone with a good heart who makes mistakes and someone with a bad heart who deliberately and intentionally abuses you.  Yet it is vitally important to learn that difference. My advice to you is to ask God for His light and truth (Psalm 43) again and again. You desperately need it.

To myself and to you as carers and friends of a survivor, I would like to say, let Jeshua, who loved His own to the end, be our powerful example time and time again. Unlike Jesus, we make mistakes, which sometimes make it even more difficult for survivors to learn to trust. But just like Jesus, we can learn to love to the end, through cult lies and ‘normal’ relational misunderstandings and clashes.

Hang in there!

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