One Couple's Story...

The experience below comes from one of the family members in our Family Support Group. While every story is unique, group members find support through sharing common concerns. To find out more about our support groups meeting in New York City, contact us at (212) 632-4640 or info@cultclinic.org

Ten years ago when our then 25 year old son told us he "needed space" and that we were "negative" we were hurt but thought it was part of normal separation... his journey to become his own man. It wasn't until a year later, after he had broken up with his girlfriend, cut off all contact from us, his friends and the rest of our family, did we learn what really happened.

Our son was an aspiring advertising salesman working in a very good firm. His supervisor had given him some less than stellar reviews and he was anxious to improve. So when she suggested he take some courses to improve his business skills he was ready. She directed him to a business self-help course. That was the beginning of his descent into what we now believe was a business/psycho-therapeutic cult.

To say that we were devastated is putting it mildly. We didn't know what happened—all we knew was our bright, handsome, caring and ambitious son had stopped all contact with those who loved him, moved out of his apartment (without leaving a forwarding address where he could be located), left his job and moved to California. All our attempts to contact him, to see if he was okay and to make sense of what was happening led us nowhere. It was through our exhaustive efforts to understand what had happened to our family that we found the Cult Clinic Family Support Group.

The Family Support Group is made up of people with stories similar to ours—families whose sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and spouses who, in varying degrees, have cut off from them. Each one of these stories was ours—except most of them had a religious focus—not the business/psycho-therapeutic form that ensnared our son.

It was through the Family Support Group that we began to understand mind control and deceptive techniques, and how destructive groups use it on vulnerable individuals for their own purposes. We learned alot, but education is only a piece of what the group has done for us. The Cult Clinic Family Support Group has allowed us the opportunity to talk with others who are and have gone through what we are going through. Most people just don't understand how someone gets involved in a cult—we didn't until it happened to us. They judge the victim (our son): "there must have been something wrong with him... no self-esteem... weak..." and/or us: "they must have done something wrong... dysfunctional... weren't good parents..." Our friends and members of our family try to understand but still don't get it. It really is hard to understand.

The Cult Clinic Family Support Group is a confidential group of regular ordinary people who are struggling to make sense of what happened to their family. We share our fears and concerns for our loved ones and we encourage and support each other in a non-judgmental way. It is a safe place where we can explore our feelings about how this destructive group (cult) has impacted and changed our lives. It is a place where we help each other, where we learn to cope, hope, go on and even laugh again.