Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a
Speaker 1: cult or a high control group.
Speaker 2: Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
Speaker 2: that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three
Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.
Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.
Speaker 1: Or showed us an email at trust Me pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Trust me, trust me.
Speaker 3: I'm like a swat person.
Speaker 4: I've never lied to you.
Speaker 2: I never If you think that one person has all
Speaker 2: the answers, don't welcome to trust Me. The podcast about
Speaker 2: cults extreme belief in manipulation from two interveners who've actually
Speaker 2: experienced it. I said that very weird. I won't pretend
Speaker 2: I did it. I'm Lola Blanc.
Speaker 4: And I'm Megan Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: And today our guest is Ashlyn Hilliard. She's a cult
Speaker 2: interventionist and founder of organization People Leave Cults, and she's
Speaker 2: going to talk to us about her path to working
Speaker 2: in cult intervention and recovery, her personal religious experience that
Speaker 2: led her to this work, and how being around Mormons
Speaker 2: and Utah interestingly woke her up, how she defines a
Speaker 2: cult and why throwing around the accusation of cult isn't
Speaker 2: always helpful.
Speaker 1: She'll tell us how cult intervention is different today than
Speaker 1: it was in the seventies, how it used to involve
Speaker 1: kidnapping and unethical practices, and how the modern version of
Speaker 1: cult intervention that she practices under the guidance of former
Speaker 1: guests Patrick Ryan and Joseph Kelly takes a harm reduction
Speaker 1: approach plus red flags click out for when someone makes
Speaker 1: promises that they can get your loved one out of
Speaker 1: a cult, and when intervention practices themselves can become irresponsible
Speaker 1: or cult like.
Speaker 4: Ooh, I love it.
Speaker 2: It's always such an interesting topic to me. It's like
Speaker 2: when the attempts to help people in a cult themselves
Speaker 2: become a cult, like endlessly fascinating.
Speaker 4: It's Russian dolls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Russian dolls, which for some reason just sounded
Speaker 2: really cute to me when you said it. Happy New Year,
Speaker 2: also to all you New Year Day.
Speaker 4: Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this year is going to be interesting, and we're
Speaker 1: going to be here looking at it.
Speaker 2: That is true, we will be here looking at it.
Speaker 2: What the fuck? Twenty twenty four. I don't even know.
Speaker 2: I don't even know. Megan was your cultiest thing today.
Speaker 1: My cultiest thing of the week is myself believing that
Speaker 1: I'm going to stick to New Year's resolutions.
Speaker 2: M nice.
Speaker 4: I do it every year.
Speaker 1: I have a part of my brain that makes so
Speaker 1: out there ideas and every year I completely believe them,
Speaker 1: worship them, handover my being to them, and yeah.
Speaker 2: And their resolutions, Like is it stuff that's like in
Speaker 2: your control, like things you're going to do or stuff
Speaker 2: that's like I hope this happens.
Speaker 4: This stuff that is in my control that I'm going
Speaker 4: to do that.
Speaker 2: But that you don't well, I mean I don't either, Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, And I mean it's stuff hope and maybe I
Speaker 1: can put in some small little changes. But every year
Speaker 1: I'm like, I make your resolution to not make a resolution,
Speaker 1: and then I make all these bizarre promises and it's
Speaker 1: just endless.
Speaker 2: What are the kinds of things you think you're gonna do?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start getting up so early. Oh you wouldn't
Speaker 1: even believe it's never gonna happen.
Speaker 2: That's hilarious. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So just stuff like that, you know, And I
Speaker 4: don't know why I do it. There's some part of
Speaker 4: me that needs it, and just recognizing that and our
Speaker 4: and ourselves? What about you? What's the guiltiest thing that
Speaker 4: happened to you this week?
Speaker 2: Well, before I say that, I'm going to just comment
Speaker 2: on what you just said, which is that like i've
Speaker 2: I'm I have. I do a vision board every year
Speaker 2: and I love doing it. I love making it like
Speaker 2: exactly my esthetic and it like looks like a film
Speaker 2: I would make, you know, and it's and I had
Speaker 2: like whittled it down to just like like four five
Speaker 2: five things and the years past so fast. Now then
Speaker 2: I'm like, I literally just made one. What Like, what's
Speaker 2: the point. There's no difference, like nothing, I'm just getting older.
Speaker 1: Nothing is changing our little, our little positivity.
Speaker 2: But I but it's still nice, it's still fun. But
Speaker 2: but literally this year past, this year felt like three
Speaker 2: months to be max.
Speaker 4: Oh it was a minute.
Speaker 2: I do not like this part of growing up. If
Speaker 2: years still feel long to you, I don't know. That
Speaker 2: was so hard to say, enjoy it, savor it, take
Speaker 2: your time so fast. Okay. My cultiest thing is that Facebook.
Speaker 2: Have you heard this? Facebook is now doing this like
Speaker 2: or Meta is now doing this, launching this thing where
Speaker 2: they are launching AI profiles. No, so that there will
Speaker 2: be bought profiles that are like official meta AI profiles
Speaker 2: interacting with meta the way that humans do. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: and yes, okay, can you can you? I hadn't heard
Speaker 2: that term before. Can you say what that means?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just that most of the things on
Speaker 1: the Internet at this point are bots and not real people.
Speaker 2: So it's like a bot will post something and then
Speaker 2: it will go viral, but everyone interacting with it is
Speaker 2: also a bot.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there's just this whole social media landscape where there's
Speaker 2: absolutely nothing social about it. Yes, that fucking scares me.
Speaker 2: I mean I don't want to be like one of
Speaker 2: those people who's like resisting the future or whatever, but
Speaker 2: that is like already algorithms are shaping us to a
Speaker 2: degree that I really really, that really really scares me,
Speaker 2: as you know, given how much we think and talk
Speaker 2: about manipulation and influence. Yeah, Like, so then there's gonna
Speaker 2: be people who seem like real people but meta controls them.
Speaker 4: And yeah, why are they even saying that they're doing.
Speaker 2: This, I don't understand. I'm sure there's a reason. It
Speaker 2: probably has to do with ad sales and making more money.
Speaker 2: I would guess but I truly have no idea. If
Speaker 2: somebody knows the answer, please tell me, because I only
Speaker 2: read like an article in a half about it, so
Speaker 2: I don't know that much. I love the half part.
Speaker 1: You were like, I'm done, that's enough. I wish I
Speaker 1: had like the exact thing in front of me. If
Speaker 1: only there were away I could look at it on
Speaker 1: my computer. But I'm not going to. No, But I
Speaker 1: there's this really funny post where somebody on Facebook is like, ah, fuck,
Speaker 1: I have to find out hold on, hold.
Speaker 2: On, Okay, while you do that, what I'll say is
Speaker 2: there are really fascinating statistics on how many viral posts
Speaker 2: are bought, interacted with, and but also I think what
Speaker 2: also becomes dangerous is, like what you see on Twitter
Speaker 2: is there will be accounts that have a of followers,
Speaker 2: and so they seem more reliable, they see more trustworthy,
Speaker 2: like the real people. Yeah, and then misinformation spread through
Speaker 2: those accounts. I'm not saying metas intending to spread disinformation,
Speaker 2: although who fucking knows, but yeah, yeah, what was it
Speaker 2: you were going to say?
Speaker 4: I can't find it?
Speaker 1: But basically there was just a there was a post
Speaker 1: of a guy who's just like, does anybody want to
Speaker 1: learn how to make a thousand dollars a week? I
Speaker 1: just found out how it's obviously a bot. And then
Speaker 1: this woman responds and she's like, Hi, I'm new here.
Speaker 1: I don't have any friends. It's really hard for me
Speaker 1: to make friends. Does anybody want to be my friend?
Speaker 1: And that's a bot? And then another person responds and
Speaker 1: it was like a Reddit posts a while back of
Speaker 1: like dead Internet what this will look like, and it's
Speaker 1: just all bots like saying their bot yeah and pc
Speaker 1: shit to each other, and it was just really.
Speaker 2: Creepy good Yeah, well, what I mean that has to okay? Again,
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about this world, so I might
Speaker 2: be talking completely out of my But in theory, that
Speaker 2: seems like that would backfire because what then is going
Speaker 2: to be happening. It seems is that advertisers who are
Speaker 2: paying a ton of money to be seen on these
Speaker 2: platforms are going to be seen by like won't that
Speaker 2: water down their money their revenue income if everyone on
Speaker 2: the app is fucking bought anyway, I don't know anything,
Speaker 2: but I know I don't like it.
Speaker 4: I'm putting that on your grapes stuff.
Speaker 2: Please do.
Speaker 3: Happy New yeark y'all.
Speaker 1: I feel like this conversation today was really enlightening. It
Speaker 1: definitely taught me a lot, so.
Speaker 4: We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, let's do it. Welcome Ashland to trust Me. Thanks
Speaker 2: for being with us.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having
Speaker 3: me on. I love you guys' podcast. And you've interviewed
Speaker 3: so many wonderful friends and colleagues of mine on the platform. Two.
Speaker 3: I loved your interview with Pat Ryan and Joseph Kelly.
Speaker 1: You did.
Speaker 3: They've been my mentors for years and years and I
Speaker 3: worked with them pretty actively, So thank you for having
Speaker 3: me on. It's a privilege to be on here.
Speaker 2: So you have an organization and it is called People
Speaker 2: Leave Cults, And before we kind of talk about your work,
Speaker 2: which is so amazing and I'm so excited to get
Speaker 2: into it. I'd love to know how you came to
Speaker 2: this work and what your own personal experiences were.
Speaker 3: Sure. I was raised in a very religious household. I
Speaker 3: was born into the Churches of Christ. And there's a
Speaker 3: lot of different types of Churches of Christ. The United
Speaker 3: Church of Christ is considered very progressive. For example, the
Speaker 3: International Churches of Christ is considered one of the much
Speaker 3: more culty variations of the Church of Christ. They had
Speaker 3: like more of a cult leader Kit McKean. It's also
Speaker 3: known as the Boston Movement, did a lot of Koreina
Speaker 3: College campuses, and the group I came from was a
Speaker 3: very small like sect within that, and it was then
Speaker 3: it was referred to as the non Institutional Churches of Christ.
Speaker 3: During the nineteen hundreds there was a split from the
Speaker 3: mainstream Churches of Christ movement, and we're also known as
Speaker 3: the Anties anti apostrophe s because our group was known
Speaker 3: to be anti everything in that like the non institutional
Speaker 3: Churches of Christ really believed that they were practicing first
Speaker 3: century Christianity in the twenty first century. We have roots
Speaker 3: back to the second Grade Awakening, around the same time
Speaker 3: where Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses were coming to the scene.
Speaker 3: Thomas Campbell and Barton W. Stone were like the main
Speaker 3: sort of founders I guess you could call them of
Speaker 3: the group during that time. Their sort of mission was,
Speaker 3: you know, they were in this era where they looked
Speaker 3: around them and they saw all these different sort of
Speaker 3: charismatic groups popping up and they're like, well, we have
Speaker 3: the Bible, and we have all these different splits and
Speaker 3: variations on it. So like, what if we in essence
Speaker 3: use the Bible and created a framework for interpreting the
Speaker 3: Bible so that we can all reach the same conclusion
Speaker 3: as to what the Bible's saying. The church I came
Speaker 3: from was non denominational, whereas like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons,
Speaker 3: they're denominational. They have like a central headquarters, they have
Speaker 3: central leadership. Our group was more scattered, primarily in the
Speaker 3: Bible Belt, and they just were local churches and the
Speaker 3: money would stay, you know, for example, within the church,
Speaker 3: they're not giving it to a headquarters. There's no like
Speaker 3: established central leadership. But you could walk into a Church
Speaker 3: of Christ that was affiliated with this group in Florida,
Speaker 3: and walk into a Church of Christ affiliate with this
Speaker 3: group in California, and the beliefs and interpretations would be
Speaker 3: the same with people. It was kind of like being
Speaker 3: raised in a non denominational denomination. So like the groups
Speaker 3: are the same, but they're locally run. This group has
Speaker 3: a lot of roots in history within my family. So
Speaker 3: I'm like third generation on my mom's side, and I
Speaker 3: was also a legacy student at the group's college. There's
Speaker 3: a Christian college in Tampa, Florida for those within the group,
Speaker 3: and it's called Florida College. I attended there, my mom
Speaker 3: attended there, my grandmother attended there, and my grandmother even
Speaker 3: worked for the college for many many years. It was
Speaker 3: very like well known, and I guess sort of entangled
Speaker 3: within my family system. And to make things even more complex,
Speaker 3: it certainly was high control in that we had a
Speaker 3: hard time looking at other churches who claimed to be
Speaker 3: Christians and actually seeing them as Christians because they weren't
Speaker 3: interpreting the Bible the same way that we were. And
Speaker 3: that was really sad, even at an early age for me.
Speaker 3: So one of the reasons why they're called the anties,
Speaker 3: for example, is their interpretation with scripture is, well, there's
Speaker 3: no guitar or piano mentioned in the New Testament used
Speaker 3: during worship service, So if you introduce one, it's not
Speaker 3: just a matter of church preference or meeting preference. That's
Speaker 3: actually like inserting your own view into the Bible. That's
Speaker 3: going against God's authority, and that then becomes a heaven
Speaker 3: or Hell question. So your salvation can be at stake
Speaker 3: if you introduce something into the New Testament that doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: And because they only have himn songs and spiritual songs
Speaker 3: with like your voice, we were known as like a
Speaker 3: cappella only very strictly with these groups.
Speaker 2: Would that trickle down to life outside of church itself
Speaker 2: or was that just in service?
Speaker 3: It depended on the group and the family, to be
Speaker 3: honest with you. My parents, for example, they loved the Gathers.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. There was many a times where we
Speaker 3: were in the car and we listened to the Gathers
Speaker 3: and the gathers are like an old school gospel band, right,
Speaker 3: and so they're playing instruments, they're singing hymns to them,
Speaker 3: whereas other families they would avoid that entirely and they
Speaker 3: would only listen to acapella. But certainly within the context
Speaker 3: of the worship service. It was such a serious issue
Speaker 3: that churches that had a piano or a guitar their
Speaker 3: salvation actually could be at risk because of that. Wow
Speaker 3: and so it was a very fundamentalist interpretation of the scripture.
Speaker 4: I relate a lot to that. The group that I
Speaker 4: was raised in.
Speaker 1: My family was like, we would rather you be with
Speaker 1: complete non believers than be with a kid from school
Speaker 1: who like goes to one of those churches where they
Speaker 1: sang and raise their hands and stuff. So it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting to I hate other forms of Christianity
Speaker 1: that much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the way in which women in the role
Speaker 3: of women within the group, you know, we weren't allowed
Speaker 3: to participate in the service. It was a men run service.
Speaker 3: Women could teach Bible classes up until a point. If
Speaker 3: there was a kid who was like, let's say fourteen,
Speaker 3: a male who was a boy who was baptized, she
Speaker 3: then shouldn't be teaching him because he now has authority
Speaker 3: over her. No way, And so oftentimes she would have
Speaker 3: to bring in her husband into the Bible class to
Speaker 3: be present, or so it was like couples teaching, or
Speaker 3: like they would put in a male teacher at that
Speaker 3: stage to teach a young man. It was very very
Speaker 3: strict in that regard. So I attended the group's college
Speaker 3: and got married, got my degree and left shortly after.
Speaker 2: And what was your degree in originally.
Speaker 3: Communication, a bachelor's degree and of minor in biblical studies, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: I was very into the exegesis of random old Testament books.
Speaker 3: I was kind of nerdy like that. I really was
Speaker 3: invested in learning as much as I could during that time.
Speaker 3: And I think what made my sort of upbringing also
Speaker 3: very complex was I was a military kid. We moved
Speaker 3: every couple years. My dad was last stationed in Utah,
Speaker 3: and I was raised in Utah from about fourth grade
Speaker 3: through high school. Oh where actually like Caswell Fruit Heights area,
Speaker 3: it's like twenty minutes north of Salt Lake City, very
Speaker 3: old school, like old established Mormon pioneer town. And I
Speaker 3: attended a high school there, which was massive, very very
Speaker 3: Mormon area that I grew up in. And so from
Speaker 3: a very young age, my Mormon friends, which I who
Speaker 3: I loved and I had many of, they were trying
Speaker 3: to convert me, and I was trying to.
Speaker 2: Convert that right, right, So it.
Speaker 3: Was such a sort of like abnormal thing to be
Speaker 3: dealing with at such a young age, being raised in school.
Speaker 3: I remember my first encounter in the fourth grade, and
Speaker 3: I have hardly any other memories from that time. But
Speaker 3: when I first my first day of school, I remember
Speaker 3: a young kid coming up to me and asking before
Speaker 3: my name was even asked, it was like, Hey, are
Speaker 3: you warming and I was like, I didn't even know
Speaker 3: what that meant yet. And I said no, and he said,
Speaker 3: well you are, you just don't know it yet and
Speaker 3: then proceeded to leave. And I that was a conversation
Speaker 3: that really like stuck with me. What really helped me
Speaker 3: in my transition out of my group was I had
Speaker 3: to really, I think critically with interacting with my also
Speaker 3: highly conservative Mormon friends. Interesting because I really decided to
Speaker 3: immerse myself. I read and studied so much of their scripture,
Speaker 3: their history. I became really really immersed in it because
Speaker 3: I wanted to learn how to connect with them what
Speaker 3: it all meant. And I think a little bit also
Speaker 3: during that time, I was interested in trying to find
Speaker 3: out how to have almost like evangelical conversations with them.
Speaker 3: I think I was interested and seemed if I could
Speaker 3: almost make a dent as a Christian in the Mormon care.
Speaker 4: You're like a lawyer, are you kind of like studying.
Speaker 3: To Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's dismantle what they're saying.
Speaker 3: It wasn't great, but that that was I almost felt
Speaker 3: like I had to in order to live in that
Speaker 3: culture and just get by in the extreme minority. That's
Speaker 3: a little bit about my upbringing.
Speaker 2: And yeah, how interesting too that such a large amount
Speaker 2: of exposure to a different religion that can often become
Speaker 2: very fundamental is a thing that sort of helped you
Speaker 2: out of yours? And what was it about learning about
Speaker 2: Mormonism that kind of woke you up a little bit?
Speaker 3: I think what it's sort of awakened in me was, oh,
Speaker 3: my gosh, we're actually not that different. I saw them
Speaker 3: as more high control, certainly more culty than like the
Speaker 3: group I was in. But as I got older and
Speaker 3: I saw sort of the juxtaposition between like their beliefs
Speaker 3: and my beliefs, I was like, it's not all that different.
Speaker 3: And that sort of prompted me to ask questions about
Speaker 3: my own faith and great bringing. And it also taught me,
Speaker 3: from a very i think early age to think really
Speaker 3: critically about this stuff because I was forced to encounter
Speaker 3: it every day.
Speaker 2: For listeners, Ashlynd knows my mother, of course she does.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about her at some point, I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure, yes. But something you know she talks about a
Speaker 2: lot is the importance of hearing other people's stories or
Speaker 2: getting to, you know, having a point of reference, something
Speaker 2: to compare your group too, being the thing that can
Speaker 2: sort of wake you up as opposed to somebody telling
Speaker 2: you you're wrong, just kind of like drawing, making those
Speaker 2: connections for yourself and it sounds like that's kind of
Speaker 2: what happened with you.
Speaker 3: We use that within the intervention world as well when
Speaker 3: we have conversations with people who are in groups, and
Speaker 3: I refer to that and as a third party processing,
Speaker 3: it's much easier for people to provide commentary on other
Speaker 3: people's experiences right, not so much their own right. And
Speaker 3: when they do that, you can kind of hear and
Speaker 3: listen to what their perspectives are on that, and they
Speaker 3: will then in turn sort of start to connect the
Speaker 3: dots in their own way during their own times. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a very effective tool actually for people in groups.
Speaker 2: Tell us about how you came to become a professional
Speaker 2: in the cult intervention and recovery space.
Speaker 3: Sure. So I graduated college moved back to Utah because
Speaker 3: I missed being close to my family. I missed, you know,
Speaker 3: being closer to my brother there. I also, I think
Speaker 3: just kind of missed the culture of home. Like I
Speaker 3: loved growing up there, even though it was challenging. I
Speaker 3: loved the mountains. There was just so much about it
Speaker 3: that I loved. And once I wasn't there, I was working,
Speaker 3: you know, I was bartending for a bit, I was
Speaker 3: working in restaurants. I was just trying to like figure
Speaker 3: out what to do and apply for after just getting
Speaker 3: a degree. Just getting a bachelor's degree out of college
Speaker 3: was one of my most challenging times and actually finding
Speaker 3: work because it's not quite a master's and you don't
Speaker 3: have the experience, and so you're just kind of looking
Speaker 3: for any entry level thing. And I was really interested
Speaker 3: in helping other people who had been through some sort
Speaker 3: of similar transition in their life, whether that was a
Speaker 3: loss of community of faith crisis. And I started volunteering
Speaker 3: at a nonprofit in the Salt Lake City Valley and
Speaker 3: it was very very small. There was maybe like there
Speaker 3: was like five employed staff when I was there, and
Speaker 3: they brought me into talk to women in this nonprofit,
Speaker 3: I should say, helped people who were exiting diverse Polygonist
Speaker 3: communities all across the Western US, And they brought me
Speaker 3: in to like speak to women who had left different
Speaker 3: Polygamist groups. And when I say polygamists, I should probably
Speaker 3: say for the listeners, this is Mormon fundamentalist in this groups.
Speaker 3: So there's obviously a lot of history there as to
Speaker 3: how that all happened. But these are people who decided
Speaker 3: to keep practicing polygamy and felt that that was the
Speaker 3: truest form of the Mormon faith to continue on into
Speaker 3: the present day. And they noticed how I interacted with
Speaker 3: the women, and you know, it's kind of like you
Speaker 3: put survivors who've been in a high control group in
Speaker 3: a room, and it doesn't matter what group they necessarily left,
Speaker 3: or how extreme or not extreme, they find ways to
Speaker 3: just get on, to just connect, to make jokes to like,
Speaker 3: you know that you just kind of get each other.
Speaker 3: They noticed that the people who worked at this nonprofit,
Speaker 3: and so a job positioned open up to be a
Speaker 3: case manager, and I applied and I got the job.
Speaker 3: So I was one of like two case managers in
Speaker 3: the Salt Lake City Valley working with women and children
Speaker 3: and young boys who were fleeing these different groups. And
Speaker 3: that involved working with people leaving the Kingston Clan, the
Speaker 3: Apostolic United Brethren Communities, the FLDS, and of course there's
Speaker 3: other smaller groups that are independent and yeah, so I
Speaker 3: started working there and experienced very quickly what it's like
Speaker 3: to work with cult survivors and crisis. I was getting
Speaker 3: women to safe houses. I was pulling tracking devices out
Speaker 3: from under their cars. I was with law enforcement. I
Speaker 3: was getting gang stocked by the Kingston Clan late at
Speaker 3: night p Lake City. I encountered so many things at
Speaker 3: such an early age that was very unique. And I
Speaker 3: absolutely loved the work. I loved the clients. I loved
Speaker 3: just helping people get resources and get on their feet.
Speaker 3: And I helped moms get their GEDs for the first time.
Speaker 3: I mean I I just loved the work. It was
Speaker 3: a very very dangerous work though, because men within these
Speaker 3: communities they knew me, they knew my other case manager,
Speaker 3: they did not like us, and so we experienced a
Speaker 3: lot of threats and it kind of got to a
Speaker 3: point where it was really nasty. Yeah, And so I
Speaker 3: just I got involved with the International Cultic Studies Association
Speaker 3: and I presented at a conference back in like twenty
Speaker 3: eighteen in Philadelphia on my work, and a job positioned
Speaker 3: open up with them, and a director was like, you
Speaker 3: should apply for this thing, and so I did, and
Speaker 3: I got hired to work for the International Cultic Studies Association,
Speaker 3: and I worked there for about three and a half years.
Speaker 3: They're one of the longer standing nonprofits that haven't been
Speaker 3: sued into the ground by cults. Yeah, and so I
Speaker 3: worked there for about three and a half years. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I worked for ICSA for about three and a
Speaker 3: half years. That was a time where I really got
Speaker 3: plugged in with professionals working all across the industry, lawyers
Speaker 3: and then a health professionals, survivors or families who have
Speaker 3: been around in cult recovery for many, many years. And
Speaker 3: so I'm really grateful for my time spent there. I
Speaker 3: was there for three and a half years. I was
Speaker 3: director of events. I was running the workshops, the conferences,
Speaker 3: my neurodivergence was put to the test. I was running
Speaker 3: all the things, and I got my master's degree in
Speaker 3: the psychology of course of control. I really wanted to
Speaker 3: understand more about the psychology of radicalization, why people join
Speaker 3: these groups, why they leave, why they stay. I met
Speaker 3: Pat Ryan and Joseph Kelly also during that Manchester trip
Speaker 3: back in twenty nineteen, and they are sort of veteran
Speaker 3: cult interventionists. They've been in the field working with families
Speaker 3: for over thirty five years or something crazy. We stayed
Speaker 3: in touch and we just got really close, and I
Speaker 3: knew that I wanted to be doing the work that
Speaker 3: they were doing. I really missed doing more of the
Speaker 3: intervention work. I was more so in like a administrative
Speaker 3: director events role, and so I was looking for ways
Speaker 3: to transition to do more of the intervention work with families.
Speaker 3: But as you guys know, there's not a career path
Speaker 3: for any of this, not at all. Like, if you
Speaker 3: want to work with people who've left cults, you kind
Speaker 3: of have to just figure out how to do that
Speaker 3: and in which way do you want to go to
Speaker 3: the therapy route? Do you want to go to the
Speaker 3: social work route? And I had such unique experience in
Speaker 3: Utah that they're like, we think that you could actually
Speaker 3: really do this work and be really good at it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I work alongside them on different cases. I started
Speaker 3: people leave cults after getting my master's degree, and also
Speaker 3: work with survivors who are out of groups for peer
Speaker 3: support groups online and just want to help trioge them
Speaker 3: to resources. Because I have so many connections with people
Speaker 3: in the field, I don't want them to have to
Speaker 3: put in a lot of work especially when they're in
Speaker 3: crisis and just looking for help, and I'm happy to
Speaker 3: do a consult with them and just be like, here
Speaker 3: are some places where you can go.
Speaker 1: How long does it take you to kind of process
Speaker 1: what you went through and be able to help other people.
Speaker 3: So I did a really poor job at that when
Speaker 3: I started out in Utah. I think because I was
Speaker 3: working with a population where it made me feel like
Speaker 3: my experiences weren't all that bad. I didn't experience child
Speaker 3: underage marriage, I didn't experience a lack of education, I
Speaker 3: didn't experience poverty to the degree that these people did.
Speaker 3: And so I think because it's so easy for helpers
Speaker 3: and social workers to just pour ourselves into other people
Speaker 3: in crisis, I really did poorly and didn't do a
Speaker 3: good job at addressing my own stuff until probably when
Speaker 3: I was working at ICSA was when I got to
Speaker 3: a place of like, Okay, my safety is not at
Speaker 3: risk like it used to be. I have a full
Speaker 3: time job. Now I can now take some time start
Speaker 3: the therapeutic process. What would have been the better route
Speaker 3: would be to do that first before helping other people,
Speaker 3: because oftentimes, when survivors aren't healed themselves, we in the
Speaker 3: process can do harm, even unknowingly when we're working with
Speaker 3: other survivors, And so that was something that I learned
Speaker 3: in real time was just But I think part of
Speaker 3: it too was I kind of needed the time and
Speaker 3: separation to work with other people who had been through
Speaker 3: it for me to almost have the perspective of, oh,
Speaker 3: these are things that I need to still work on
Speaker 3: and I need to think about. Yeah, I just I
Speaker 3: was so young. I was in my early twenties and
Speaker 3: we're still trying to figure out who we are anyways,
Speaker 3: you know, and I think, like, I think I kind
Speaker 3: of needed that time and re established safety to like
Speaker 3: do more deep dives in therapy into my own experience.
Speaker 2: How do you define a cult?
Speaker 3: Sure, so I actually really like my favorite definition is
Speaker 3: probably the longest one that's available, and it was west
Speaker 3: In Langoni who authored this definition many many years ago.
Speaker 3: I think it was back in the eighties that I
Speaker 3: have cited on my website that they provided this definition.
Speaker 3: A cult can be defined as excessive devotion to a person, idea,
Speaker 3: or thing. It is usually a group in that it's
Speaker 3: more than one person that adheres to this or I
Speaker 3: kind of think of it as too like. Obviously, domestic
Speaker 3: violence relationships can very cult like. And that's two. The
Speaker 3: group prioritizes its group beliefs and practices over individual autonomy,
Speaker 3: or there's a restriction of autonomy essentially, and that can
Speaker 3: be done through course of practices and doctrination. So that's like,
Speaker 3: in very very simplistic terms, how I shorten the very
Speaker 3: large definition and you can look at that very long
Speaker 3: definition on my site on the what is a cult tab?
Speaker 3: My sort of perspective on cults. It may not be
Speaker 3: the most popular perspective. I think the term cult is very,
Speaker 3: very complex. It's very nuanced. There's not one agreed upon
Speaker 3: definition in the field as to what a cult is,
Speaker 3: although we have many good definitions. I care more so
Speaker 3: about not whether a group is labeled as a cult
Speaker 3: or not a cult. I care more so about the
Speaker 3: individual's experience. Did they have a cultic relationship with the
Speaker 3: person or group in question right, and if so, how
Speaker 3: like how were they harmed? And one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why I sort of approach it that way is because
Speaker 3: defining a cult is just half of the puzzle for
Speaker 3: me in seeing how maybe groups line up with that definition,
Speaker 3: how they use course of control and doctrination and things
Speaker 3: like that. But I think the other half is just
Speaker 3: everyone's experience and groups are so diverse. Like I worked
Speaker 3: with women who were involved in polygamist groups who felt
Speaker 3: like their experience was relatively good, they just lacked resources
Speaker 3: and they needed more resources for their kids. And then
Speaker 3: I worked with women who were trafficked as young girls
Speaker 3: to be married and had horrific experiences of abuse. And
Speaker 3: everyone's experiences is so diverse. And that doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: these groups aren't harmful. I certainly classify them as you know, harmful.
Speaker 3: But the term cult can also be used as such
Speaker 3: a thought stopping technique, as Robert J. Liften coins it,
Speaker 3: it's like just labeling someone as a Democrat or Republican
Speaker 3: or you know. It's like it's one of those terms
Speaker 3: that can make people defensive, shut down the conversation. And
Speaker 3: so I like to leave it up to survivors as
Speaker 3: to how they want to define their experience. If the
Speaker 3: term cult is empowering for them, that's wonderful. If it
Speaker 3: is a harmful label for them or just doesn't sit well,
Speaker 3: we don't have to use it. And I think that's
Speaker 3: prioritizing their autonomy and the recovery process.
Speaker 2: Something that we've talked about on here a lot that
Speaker 2: you may be referenced on your website a little bit
Speaker 2: is when the term is used pejoratively, it can actually
Speaker 2: dehumanize and further stigmatize people who really are actually in
Speaker 2: need of help. And sometimes the sort of anti cult
Speaker 2: folks can themselves become cult like in there, yes.
Speaker 3: Yes it fits into this framework, or you or here's
Speaker 3: the ways, and your group is a cult because it
Speaker 3: fits into this model or because it fits into this framework.
Speaker 3: And I just have a hard time with that, because again,
Speaker 3: we're putting very specific boundaries around not just groups, but
Speaker 3: people's experiences in doing so, and I think there's room
Speaker 3: for both. I always encourage survivors to look at many
Speaker 3: different models, see what works, see what doesn't, and like
Speaker 3: be really critical of them. Like it's okay to say,
Speaker 3: you know, this model doesn't fit my experience or this
Speaker 3: framework doesn't fit my experience. I want to help instilled
Speaker 3: sort of the critical thinking of that. I don't want
Speaker 3: to tell people what their experiences should be defined as, right,
Speaker 3: And when we work with families who have loved ones
Speaker 3: in groups, we tell them to take the word cult
Speaker 3: out of their vocabulary entirely. So we oftentimes just use
Speaker 3: terms like abusive group, high control, group, course, or relationship
Speaker 3: because sometimes families have unknowingly done harm in the process
Speaker 3: of telling their loved one we think you're in a cult, right,
Speaker 3: and we know that. Oftentimes people put in that position,
Speaker 3: who are in groups will dig their heels in deeper.
Speaker 3: They'll try to prove them otherwise, or the group has
Speaker 3: told them already, They've prepared them for that argument of Look,
Speaker 3: people are going to tell you that you're in a cult,
Speaker 3: and this is why we're not one.
Speaker 2: What to you is the distinction between a belief or
Speaker 2: a group that we think is weird and one that
Speaker 2: is actually coercive or high control, whether it's religious, political,
Speaker 2: or otherwise.
Speaker 3: Sure, you know, obviously there's a lot of weird beliefs.
Speaker 3: I have several, I think we all do, Megan, I
Speaker 3: do want to know one of your weird beliefs go further.
Speaker 4: I mean, just you know, I believe we're in it.
Speaker 4: We live in a simulation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's that's fine, that's your your that's your like,
Speaker 3: you know, belief. So if the belief is interfering with
Speaker 3: your ability to have a well functioning life within society,
Speaker 3: within yourself, Like if you're having a really hard time
Speaker 3: with your mental health because of that belief structure or system,
Speaker 3: that causes concern for me. And I think when you
Speaker 3: say simulation, I actually can I use this as an
Speaker 3: example because I think it's a leading example. I think
Speaker 3: where I have seen that go in a very bad
Speaker 3: way is, for example, when QAnon was at its height
Speaker 3: and there was that sort of part of QAnon where
Speaker 3: they believe Joe Biden was a lizard person the White
Speaker 3: House is a set that became more than just a
Speaker 3: conspiracy or a belief. It became well, I don't know
Speaker 3: what's actually real in life anymore, and they needed more
Speaker 3: immediate psycheaatric crisis care. And so that was sort of
Speaker 3: the turning point for some folks, sadly who were that's
Speaker 3: when the belief became a point of crisis. I also
Speaker 3: think beyond just functioning mental health is will the group
Speaker 3: allow you to prioritize yourself at any point during the
Speaker 3: belief process. So if something isn't feeling right, if something
Speaker 3: isn't sitting right, can you say I don't agree with
Speaker 3: that point or I actually disagree with that perspective and
Speaker 3: still find community within that group or system without being punished,
Speaker 3: without being shunned, without you know, facing yeah, like any
Speaker 3: sort of negativity, or like there should be a fluidity
Speaker 3: or flexibility I feel like in beliefs, because beliefs can
Speaker 3: change the change from person to person, from group to group,
Speaker 3: from place to place. And so if you change your
Speaker 3: belief or say, you know, I think this one sits
Speaker 3: well with me, but this one doesn't, okay, then you're out.
Speaker 3: That's a very unhealthy I feel like form of belief structure,
Speaker 3: and I think that is the structure that often leads
Speaker 3: to cults or high control groups is when people say,
Speaker 3: you have to adhere to this, even if it's to your.
Speaker 4: Own detriment and no questions.
Speaker 3: No questions. Right, If it's to your own detriment and
Speaker 3: it's not prioritizing your mental health or your needs, that
Speaker 3: is a red flag for me. And that's what I
Speaker 3: try to talk to people a lot about. Cults can
Speaker 3: be absolutely destructive, and at the same time, what makes
Speaker 3: them so complex is cults can also be life saving
Speaker 3: to certain people and at certain points in their life
Speaker 3: so that's the sort of paradox we have to work within.
Speaker 2: Politically speaking, this accusation gets thrown around a lot. Obviously
Speaker 2: there are political cults who are literally physically present together.
Speaker 2: That does happen, But typically I think this term is
Speaker 2: sort of used for entire political parties or ideas. And
Speaker 2: I also get a lot of comments about how Democrats
Speaker 2: are unicult, or how liberals are in a cult, or
Speaker 2: how leftists are in a cult. You know, just like
Speaker 2: depending on where somebody is on the political spectrum, Neoliberalism
Speaker 2: is a cult, Republicans are like everybody thinks everybody else
Speaker 2: is a cult. Yes, politically right now.
Speaker 1: The two party system has like kind of forced us
Speaker 1: to slightly be in one.
Speaker 3: I think this, yeah, And I think when it does
Speaker 3: sort of put us in different factions automatically, it is
Speaker 3: very complicated. And what you're saying, Lola, is a perfect
Speaker 3: example of how term cult is being used as a
Speaker 3: thought stopping technique. Like they're Republican, they're in a cult
Speaker 3: where they voted for Trump. They're in a cult, or
Speaker 3: they're progressive, they're woke, they're in a cult, the cult
Speaker 3: of wokeism. Right, you know, we've all heard.
Speaker 2: That and it's NonStop.
Speaker 3: Can absolutely be extremes on either side. I like to
Speaker 3: go back to again the definition of mental health. How
Speaker 3: it's affecting how we're interpreting and interacting with people who
Speaker 3: share diversities and opinion I think is really important. Obviously,
Speaker 3: your own safety and mental health shouldn't be in detriment.
Speaker 3: So for example, if you have a family member who
Speaker 3: is a white supremacist and you don't feel safe or
Speaker 3: comfortable interacting with them, that's a very valid reason to
Speaker 3: not interact with them. But for other people who are
Speaker 3: more I think there's just a lot of people who
Speaker 3: are sort of in the gray and maybe don't know
Speaker 3: how to look at the system and how to vote.
Speaker 3: And I think there's more people out there than not
Speaker 3: and looking for ways to connect and still be in
Speaker 3: community and look for ways to help our neighbors. I
Speaker 3: think is really important. And I worry about social media
Speaker 3: just really putting people in such extreme echo chambers.
Speaker 4: That's insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really really worry about that.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, the scariest part for me,
Speaker 1: and we talk about this all the time, is that
Speaker 1: the comments are curated to.
Speaker 4: Like you, you.
Speaker 1: Know, so like your your world belief is just constantly
Speaker 1: being confirmed to like I scrolled at the comments and
Speaker 1: I know that's wild. So yeah, the social media thing
Speaker 1: is just such a I know it is.
Speaker 3: It's you want to talk about a simulation.
Speaker 4: That exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: It's very very hard. And after the election, I really
Speaker 3: tried to be off social media as much as possible
Speaker 3: and just like be in the world and why still
Speaker 3: interacting with folks and just living Hollywood normally. And and
Speaker 3: you know, from an intervention perspective, I've had cases where
Speaker 3: it's certainly extreme, right where you have families who lost
Speaker 3: a loved one to sort of the Q and on
Speaker 3: stuff for a while, and that's less and less now
Speaker 3: than it was back then. But I've also worked with
Speaker 3: families who, like I had a family who had a
Speaker 3: loved one in like a very culty left group and
Speaker 3: I actually like it had a very like established leader
Speaker 3: and like structure and demands and all this stuff. They
Speaker 3: were very secretive and actually joined the group to get
Speaker 3: eyes on the loved one who was in and see
Speaker 3: what I could find out. And I learned I was
Speaker 3: able to learn a lot about the structure and and
Speaker 3: so it exists on both sides.
Speaker 2: I think the level of black and white thinking that
Speaker 2: we are engaging with as well when characterizing people who
Speaker 2: are not in our group is important to consider. Like
Speaker 2: if we if our group is telling us that everybody
Speaker 2: else is in a cult, that also is something to investigate.
Speaker 3: And that's where it kind of becomes the pejorative use
Speaker 3: is when we look at you know, oh, democrats are
Speaker 3: in a cult, or you know, if you believe in
Speaker 3: any aspect of wocism, you're in a cult. Like it,
Speaker 3: that's when it becomes sort of that term to put
Speaker 3: other people down, and like it just limits conversation and
Speaker 3: puts people on the defensive. Yeah, again, it's so nuanced,
Speaker 3: but we're not taught to think this nuanced about stuff, and.
Speaker 2: It's not comfortable, and like it requires stopping and thinking,
Speaker 2: which our brains do not like to do because we
Speaker 2: take mental shortcuts to conserve energy in our minds. Like yeah,
Speaker 2: and holding contradiction is hard, but it's also so important.
Speaker 2: I would love to now talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: the intervention work and some of the philosophies that you
Speaker 2: kind of employ in that work, because you know, we
Speaker 2: talked about this obviously in our interview with Patrick and Joe.
Speaker 2: But it's been a minute. So for those who haven't
Speaker 2: heard that, cult intervention today is very different from our
Speaker 2: traditional idea of cult deprogramming from like the seventies. Can
Speaker 2: you explain what sort of the differences.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, the cult intervention field, this largely got kicked
Speaker 3: off around the time of Jonestown. Sadly, I think that
Speaker 3: families who saw what happened in Jonestown, which was extremely tragic,
Speaker 3: if they had a kid who they thought was maybe
Speaker 3: involved in a cult like group, they were worried that
Speaker 3: the same thing would happen to them of what happened
Speaker 3: at Jonestown, And there wasn't a ton of information back
Speaker 3: in like the seventies as to like how to help
Speaker 3: someone who they believed was in a harmful group or relationship,
Speaker 3: and so programming was what was done, and it was
Speaker 3: highly unethical, It was very sad It contributed to a
Speaker 3: lot of trauma. It was a course of practice that
Speaker 3: started in the mid nineteen seventies and ended in the
Speaker 3: early nineteen nineties. So it involved like highly confrontational methods
Speaker 3: to share or force information upon a cult involved person
Speaker 3: in order to elicit an emotional response. The father of
Speaker 3: de programming his name was Ted Patrick, and he would
Speaker 3: hire different teams to go out and oftentimes kidnap people
Speaker 3: who were in these groups. They would be thrown into vans.
Speaker 3: They actually feared for their lives. Some of them thought
Speaker 3: that they were going to die because they didn't know
Speaker 3: what was going on. And they would take them to
Speaker 3: different hotel rooms or cabins or places and would forcibly
Speaker 3: share inform about why the group is bad. And the
Speaker 3: theory behind this was that if they extracted them from
Speaker 3: their cultic environment that they would just snap. They would
Speaker 3: like come out of this like hypnotic state of being
Speaker 3: in a cult. And obviously that doesn't work for a
Speaker 3: lot of reasons. But horrific stuff happened during that time.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was a young woman I did a
Speaker 3: story on this on Instagram named Stephanie who was her
Speaker 3: parents hired a programmer because she was in a lesbian relationship.
Speaker 3: So it also affected queer folks. And Stephanie's story was
Speaker 3: horrific in that the men who programmed her, she said
Speaker 3: that she was raped by them. So it's horrible the
Speaker 3: stuff that happened during that time. There was a lot
Speaker 3: of lawsuits. It really informed people like Pat and Joe,
Speaker 3: So Pat Ryan and Joseph Kelly had left groups around
Speaker 3: the time that there programming was happening. They left groups
Speaker 3: all on their own. And it's not perfect research, but
Speaker 3: research shows us that most people who join groups leave
Speaker 3: them on their own for different reasons. Megan, you left
Speaker 3: a group, Lola, you left a group. I left a group.
Speaker 3: It was all for different reasons.
Speaker 4: And no one kidnapped us, and.
Speaker 3: No one kidnapped us. That's exactly right. At some point,
Speaker 3: our shelf of doubts or cognitive dissonance, it breaks, and
Speaker 3: it's different for everybody, and there's different reasons why everyone leaves.
Speaker 3: There was a research study that was done and there
Speaker 3: was ninety four parents who completed this questionnaire. But out
Speaker 3: of the different cases, sixty eight percent of people were
Speaker 3: forcibly abducted. Thirty seven percent of those too programmed returned
Speaker 3: back to the cult, which is very high. The programming
Speaker 3: took an average of eight and a half days, which
Speaker 3: is crazy to think about that someone is like in
Speaker 3: a room being a program for eight and a half days.
Speaker 3: Ten out of sixty two programming ended up in very
Speaker 3: substantial lawsuits, and there was more. There was way more
Speaker 3: than just ten. But this is just within the survey
Speaker 3: that was done. And even like people like Rick Ross
Speaker 3: who runs a cult education institute, he keeps a lot
Speaker 3: of really good group archives. He participated into programmings and
Speaker 3: was sued back in the day. So there was a
Speaker 3: lot of people who were still on the scene who
Speaker 3: participated or were involved in some way into programmings. Pat
Speaker 3: and Joe were like, there has to be a better way.
Speaker 3: This is ridiculous, this is so much harm being contributed here.
Speaker 3: What they did was they wanted to create like a
Speaker 3: ethical criteria sort of also like a competency criteria. So
Speaker 3: they started to distinguish professionals who wanted to work more
Speaker 3: ethically as exit counselors back in like the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 3: so parents knew if they hired an exit counselor, they're
Speaker 3: not going to kidnap their kid like a programmer would.
Speaker 3: And so they started using the term exit counseling to
Speaker 3: view the approaches more voluntary and educational and ethical. But
Speaker 3: there was also an additional problem in that anyone could
Speaker 3: claim to be an exit counselor, like anyone can claim
Speaker 3: to do that and also exit counseling into programming. It
Speaker 3: was still during that time where like programming was the norm,
Speaker 3: so the terms were used interchangeably, and so the labels
Speaker 3: failed to indicate someone's actions, educations and ethics. So in
Speaker 3: a move to professionalize the label in the field and
Speaker 3: establish competency criteria, Carol Giambalvo, Joseph Kelly, Patrick Ryan, and
Speaker 3: Madeline Tobias developed ethical standards in the nineteen nineties for
Speaker 3: what they call thought reform consultants, and you can actually
Speaker 3: look up the ethical criteria for Thought Reform Consolltants, and
Speaker 3: they wrote ethical standards and talked about insights into the
Speaker 3: principles and practical applications of thought reform through open dialogue,
Speaker 3: educational resources, and personal testimonies that adheres to legal and
Speaker 3: ethical standards, ensuring a respectful and informative experience. So their
Speaker 3: ethical standards were patterned off of ethical codes for like
Speaker 3: the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, National Association
Speaker 3: of Social Workers, Standards for a Private Practice of Clinical
Speaker 3: social Workers, American Psychiatric Association. And they also took a
Speaker 3: very radical stance, and that was the purpose of exit
Speaker 3: counseling or thought reform consultation was actually not to get
Speaker 3: someone out of a cult. That may be the desired
Speaker 3: outcome for families, but the purpose was to give the
Speaker 3: group member the inform nation that enables them to make
Speaker 3: a fully informed choice.
Speaker 2: What does that look like? What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Can you actually intervene with someone who is in a
Speaker 2: coercive group?
Speaker 3: So, in Layman's terms, what that looks like? Now, Pat
Speaker 3: Ryan and Joseph Kelly's approach since like the nineties, into
Speaker 3: programmings ended in the early nineteen nineties. So again just
Speaker 3: to summarize, the label went from to programming to exit
Speaker 3: counseling to thought reform consultation. And our sort of modern
Speaker 3: approach is cult intervention specialists. The thing is is when
Speaker 3: you think of Google and SEO, people don't google thought
Speaker 3: reform consults because they know what that means. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: let's just be cult intervention specialists ided here to this
Speaker 3: code of ethics. So that's what we do. And our
Speaker 3: approach when we work with families is to do no
Speaker 3: harm so the individual, and what we mean by that
Speaker 3: is we only recommend moving forward to interventions if there's
Speaker 3: truly opportunities. And if it makes sense when we say
Speaker 3: we do no harm is we work very slowly. We
Speaker 3: see if we can affect change within the current family system.
Speaker 3: The family members already have established rapport, even if it's
Speaker 3: not great with the person who's in the cultic group
Speaker 3: or relationship, they already have a connection, and if they don't,
Speaker 3: we work first to rebuild the connection or to find
Speaker 3: ways to rebuild the relationship. Sometimes families inadvertently contribute more
Speaker 3: harm just because they don't know how to talk to
Speaker 3: someone who's in a cult, and that's why we get
Speaker 3: called into help. And so we see how much work
Speaker 3: we can do, either via coaching or what messages we
Speaker 3: can send through the family to their loved one to
Speaker 3: see what will be effective. It's a much more low
Speaker 3: risk approach than doing an intervention. And when I say intervention,
Speaker 3: people think we talk about drug and alcohol interventions. Addiction
Speaker 3: is not the same. That's being indoctrinated into a high
Speaker 3: control group, and so it's actually a very different thing.
Speaker 3: I have done interventions with Pat and Joe, and with interventions,
Speaker 3: what makes it different is the person who's involved in
Speaker 3: the group wants to actually talk to us we don't
Speaker 3: force ourselves to talk with them. They have to want
Speaker 3: to participate and get to know us and talk to
Speaker 3: us in order for that to happen. Now setting the
Speaker 3: stage for a good opening, that's a totally different sort
Speaker 3: of set of preparation. But I've done interventions with Pat
Speaker 3: and Joe before where we talked to someone who was
Speaker 3: away from let's just say, an abusive relationship for a
Speaker 3: period of time. We had a history of going back
Speaker 3: to the relationship, and so we had a good window
Speaker 3: where they wanted to meet us and talk with us,
Speaker 3: and we were able to share pretty openly about our
Speaker 3: own experiences within groups because it was so different from
Speaker 3: their actual circumstance and being in an abusive one on
Speaker 3: one relationship that they were really curious about our experiences,
Speaker 3: and so using our own stories is again that third
Speaker 3: party processing, like we talked about earlier, as a tool
Speaker 3: to teach them certain concepts that were applicable to their situation.
Speaker 3: It was actually quite effective, and a lot of the
Speaker 3: intervention process is the rapport building. Like we when we
Speaker 3: come in to do an intervention, we're not doing it
Speaker 3: against the person who's involved. We're actually coming in and
Speaker 3: telling the cult involved love one. Hey, we've been in groups. Two,
Speaker 3: We've had lots of good experiences in groups too. How
Speaker 3: can we help your family understand you better? So that's
Speaker 3: the approach that we take, and it yields a way
Speaker 3: less defensive. It then gets the whole family involved because
Speaker 3: they then see us as allies and we can explore
Speaker 3: quite openly their concerns, the loved one's concerns, and a
Speaker 3: much less defensive atmosphere. And what we do do is
Speaker 3: we prep families for this process. We tell them, you know,
Speaker 3: this is kind of how the intervention looks and works,
Speaker 3: and here are some questions you can ask us that
Speaker 3: we think would be really good for your loved one
Speaker 3: to like hear. So some of it is kind of
Speaker 3: scripted out, but it's also like very intentional in like
Speaker 3: the questions that we're like we're trying to Basically, when
Speaker 3: it comes to interventions, you need the loved one to
Speaker 3: put the pieces together themselves. You can't spoon feed someone
Speaker 3: in a cult that kind of information. And so how
Speaker 3: do we select effective messages to sort of talk about
Speaker 3: in an open format? Pat Ryan talks a lot about
Speaker 3: he had on the show he left his cult. Shortly after,
Speaker 3: back in like the eighties, his dad called him and
Speaker 3: he said, your sister's involved in this crazy Christian group.
Speaker 3: It was back then, I think it was the Way International,
Speaker 3: and he's I guess the dad called in a de
Speaker 3: programmer because that was just common what they did. And
Speaker 3: I don't think she was abducted though in this instance
Speaker 3: or anything horrible like that. But the person came in
Speaker 3: the sort of programmer and he asked Pat to be
Speaker 3: involved in his sister's to programming. That is still a
Speaker 3: part of a Hindu group at this point, and it
Speaker 3: was through watching his sister's sort of deprogramming that helped
Speaker 3: him decide to leave his own group because it wasn't
Speaker 3: at all directed towards him have to be on the defensive, right,
Speaker 3: It was, you know, directed towards another person. And he's
Speaker 3: sitting there listening to what the person's talking about. He's like,
Speaker 3: oh shit, like I think I'm in my own.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's amazing how that happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we we only do interventions if it makes sense,
Speaker 3: if there's an opening. Most of the work we do
Speaker 3: we work within the family system because knowing that most
Speaker 3: people leave cults on their own, How can we make
Speaker 3: the family system a safe and supportive place again for
Speaker 3: that person to exit too, How do we make the
Speaker 3: family system a place where they can be received without
Speaker 3: feeling guilt or shame for being involved in a group.
Speaker 3: So that's I would say, the majority of the work
Speaker 3: that we do.
Speaker 2: So it's more about reducing conflict between the family members
Speaker 2: about it, and as they rebuild that relationship together, that
Speaker 2: can create a safer space to exit if they if
Speaker 2: and when they're ready.
Speaker 3: It's a harm reduction model.
Speaker 4: And if there's an accidental deconstruction, then.
Speaker 3: Oop, that's exactly right, it's a harm reduction model. I
Speaker 3: think the trickier part is families hire us thinking that
Speaker 3: we can just get their loved one out of a group,
Speaker 3: and part of the work we do is educating them
Speaker 3: about why that's not We don't have the magic words
Speaker 3: to just tell someone to leave a cult, and how
Speaker 3: we can respect their autonomy through the process, and so
Speaker 3: it takes a lot of education. And also the families
Speaker 3: have to be willing to change what they're currently doing,
Speaker 3: which can be hard because what they're doing has not
Speaker 3: been working, or else they wouldn't have contacted us. And
Speaker 3: so families have to be open to us bringing in
Speaker 3: a therapist to work with them, to receiving feedback and criticism,
Speaker 3: to being challenged by us on certain things. I think
Speaker 3: that's the hardest buy in I think for families is
Speaker 3: they think they have an idea as to how cults work.
Speaker 3: They just want their loved one out, But there may
Speaker 3: have been some very valid reasons as to why they're
Speaker 3: loved one enjoying that group in the first place. So
Speaker 3: we have to kind of like it's just a very
Speaker 3: it's a much more investive process and requires change, and
Speaker 3: like also the families accepting more personal responsibility, if that
Speaker 3: makes sense, And so it's not an easy fix.
Speaker 4: It's work for everyone.
Speaker 2: One of the dangers of the sort of cult intervention
Speaker 2: space is that there are people and families who are
Speaker 2: in such a vulnerable place and so desperate and willing
Speaker 2: to spend all their money and try whatever it takes.
Speaker 2: And it's so crucial that there be accountability within the
Speaker 2: community of the intervention folks. Can you talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about what that can look like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it doesn't become another cult.
Speaker 3: Exactly, Yeah, especially because there's not a career path towards
Speaker 3: becoming a cult intervention specialist. As a cult intervention specialist
Speaker 3: as defined by the code of ethics that I adhere to.
Speaker 3: In that patent Joe adhere to, there are requirements in
Speaker 3: that we have a responsibility as consultants towards professionalism, so
Speaker 3: we're required to give a portion of our time to
Speaker 3: related work for which there is little or no financial return.
Speaker 2: Love.
Speaker 3: I volunteer and run a meetup out here in Portland,
Speaker 3: and I even volunteer to run a conference out here
Speaker 3: in Portland this past year to get education and resources
Speaker 3: out to survivors and helping professionals. So that's one criteria.
Speaker 3: Another criteria is we have an obligation to continued professional growth.
Speaker 3: We have to be an active participation with other fellow
Speaker 3: consultants as well as participation in research and public education programs.
Speaker 3: And I do that. I actively work when we have
Speaker 3: families who come to us. I never take a case
Speaker 3: by myself. Pat and Joe also don't either unless it's
Speaker 3: a situation where there's like very specific hourly work, like
Speaker 3: could you provide research or information on this right, But
Speaker 3: when it comes to giving any type of advice or strategy,
Speaker 3: I work alongside a specialized team. It doesn't have to
Speaker 3: always involve Pat and Joe. Sometimes I just pull in
Speaker 3: Joe on a case. And we also like to bring
Speaker 3: in a therapist, even if it's just for a few
Speaker 3: hours during the assessment, to work with families. Joe and
Speaker 3: I are more of the strategic consultants who come in
Speaker 3: and we're doing cult recovery and education, and we're doing
Speaker 3: the strategy as to how to move forward. Someone like
Speaker 3: a mental health professional can come in and check in
Speaker 3: on the family, how are they doing with all this information,
Speaker 3: and also work a little bit with like family systems therapy,
Speaker 3: if you know what I mean, like working within the
Speaker 3: family dynamics. So I see that as an opportunity for
Speaker 3: accountability and collaboration. So I never take cases by myself.
Speaker 3: And it also reflects our code of ethics that we
Speaker 3: adhere to. And you know, we have to go through
Speaker 3: continuous efforts also to improve our practices, teaching services and research.
Speaker 3: Me getting my masters in the psychology of course of control.
Speaker 3: I have research that's pending publication. My experience working directly
Speaker 3: with survivors going on seven years now, I think is
Speaker 3: really important. And so yeah, it's tricky in that like
Speaker 3: we're basically consultants at the end of the day, but
Speaker 3: we don't work.
Speaker 2: Alone either well. And one of the things we talk
Speaker 2: about a lot here is this idea of like easy
Speaker 2: answers and certainty. Part of the reason that cults can
Speaker 2: be so powerful is because they often will provide you
Speaker 2: some of those answers and some of that certainty. But
Speaker 2: real life doesn't necessarily work like that, And the same
Speaker 2: thing is true in the cult intervention space when there
Speaker 2: are promises being made, there's certainty that this will work
Speaker 2: and you will get them out. Like that is irresponsible
Speaker 2: language because that is also not how actual reality. Necessarily
Speaker 2: we cannot control outcomes of other people.
Speaker 3: It only just contributes to more harm. Right, If someone
Speaker 3: tells you that they can get your loved one out
Speaker 3: of a cult in six months run, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: not realistic in that these situations are so psychodynamic. Someone's
Speaker 3: cult involvement can change from day to day to week
Speaker 3: to week to month to month, Like we don't know
Speaker 3: when they're going to leave or the circumstances surrounding that,
Speaker 3: and also you're not going to be the sort of
Speaker 3: it contributes to like saviorism. I feel like the sort
Speaker 3: of viroism complex where you can be the person who
Speaker 3: solves this complex problem. And the way I want to
Speaker 3: look at it is we're just sort of one cog
Speaker 3: in the machine for people and their experiences. People are
Speaker 3: having their own little experiences in cults. They love it,
Speaker 3: they hate it, they're exhausted, they're doing great. You know,
Speaker 3: it's all over the place, and so they're on their
Speaker 3: own track. And messages that we can send through the family,
Speaker 3: you know, certainly can help, you know, with their own
Speaker 3: progression through the group. But promising that you can get
Speaker 3: someone out of a cult, or that if you're hired
Speaker 3: on a case that you just you can't. It's unethical
Speaker 3: to make those promises. And I'm very clear with families
Speaker 3: from the beginning are where we stand on this ethical
Speaker 3: stuff and what we can and can't do. And also
Speaker 3: we work a part of a team, like we are
Speaker 3: in this as a team with the family, we like,
Speaker 3: we're all invested on this. Yeah. I see a big
Speaker 3: part of my work as just helping families not feel
Speaker 3: alone in the process.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, you can really repeat some of these cult
Speaker 2: dynamics when someone is presenting themselves as the ultimate authority
Speaker 2: on what will or will not happen, how it will
Speaker 2: or will not work. We just we just don't know.
Speaker 2: We can we can do our best to facilitate information
Speaker 2: and you know, support, but we don't have the answers.
Speaker 2: And if an interventionist to saying that they do have
Speaker 2: the answers, that that is just another example of a
Speaker 2: cult dynamic happening.
Speaker 3: We don't even give specific advice until after an eight
Speaker 3: hour assessment families. We need to know as much information
Speaker 3: as possible. We do interviews with individuals, we get detailed
Speaker 3: intake forms, We spend hours working with the family to
Speaker 3: understand the situation before we give any kind of specific
Speaker 3: advice as to how to move forward. I can give
Speaker 3: people general advice like don't criticize the group, take the
Speaker 3: word cult out of your language, and things like that,
Speaker 3: but we move very slowly and that's part of our
Speaker 3: do no harm approach. People who move very quickly towards
Speaker 3: just gathering the whole family and doing an intervention I
Speaker 3: think is one of the most high risk approaches you
Speaker 3: can take, because if that fails, that can do a
Speaker 3: lot more harm and that can make the family system
Speaker 3: enemies through that individual. So if you move towards an
Speaker 3: in person confrontation as like the first step or the
Speaker 3: second step. That is something that worries me as well. Right,
Speaker 3: it's just so high risk.
Speaker 2: Hearing you say is another thing that comes up frequently
Speaker 2: with many of our guests, which is just that, like
Speaker 2: the direct attack on the belief system or on the
Speaker 2: leader or group often has the opposite effect that we want.
Speaker 2: And because it's so you know, it's so much a
Speaker 2: part of the person's identity, and if you are attacking
Speaker 2: their identity, their community, the people that they love, that
Speaker 2: can often just make them, you know, push them further away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, individuals and groups have been trained to counter your
Speaker 3: arguments from the group itself.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, So can you share some strategies that
Speaker 2: have been effective in helping people rebuild their identities after
Speaker 2: leaving a group? Who am I now? What am I now?
Speaker 2: Do I believe?
Speaker 3: Oh? After leaving a group? Margaret Singer talks a lot
Speaker 3: about how cult recovery is sort of this like too
Speaker 3: pronged approach. Therapeutic sources are extremely important for people. Having
Speaker 3: really good therapy is important. But I also add the
Speaker 3: caveat that there are some people who have been involved
Speaker 3: in therapy cults or who have had an abusive relationship
Speaker 3: with a therapist and therapy may not be right for them,
Speaker 3: and that's okay. Therapy is not the only right way,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of talk about finding also a
Speaker 3: cult informed therapist. The reality is they can be very
Speaker 3: expensive because this is highly specialized. Many of them don't
Speaker 3: take insurance, and that's not a criticism of them. I
Speaker 3: certainly understand the problems with insurance right now and all
Speaker 3: of that, but I always encourage people that being in groups,
Speaker 3: being in a cultic environment, experiencing indoctrination. There's actually a
Speaker 3: DSM category for people who've been in cults, and it's
Speaker 3: identified other under under other disassociative disorders due to the
Speaker 3: identity disturbance that cults can leave, and it's like prolonged
Speaker 3: identity disturbance.
Speaker 2: And for people who don't know what the DSM is,
Speaker 2: that's the sort of it's.
Speaker 3: Kind of like the Mental health Bible exactly, like it's
Speaker 3: what therapists are trained a reference for mental health categorizations
Speaker 3: and things like.
Speaker 2: That, and it's evolving still. Obviously we are this is
Speaker 2: not a complete science, but it's the general go to
Speaker 2: Diagnostic Manual exactly.
Speaker 3: And because of this DSM categorization under other unspecified disassociative
Speaker 3: disorders due to prolonged identity disturbance. Most people who've been
Speaker 3: in cults have complex trauma and c PTSD is not
Speaker 3: an official sort of diagnosis like an and other parts
Speaker 3: of the world. PTSD is right, So most of us
Speaker 3: who've been in cults have PTSD to some extent. And
Speaker 3: so what I encourage survivors is to find a therapist
Speaker 3: who knows and works really well with people who have
Speaker 3: complex trauma. So if you can't afford like a cult
Speaker 3: specific therapist, or if there's not in your state, there
Speaker 3: are a lot of therapists who do really good work
Speaker 3: with complex trauma, and you know, we can help either
Speaker 3: educate them or provide them with some resources if they
Speaker 3: want to learn more about cults. But complex trauma is
Speaker 3: something that I always encourage. If you're looking for therapy
Speaker 3: you can't afford or you can't find cult specific therapists,
Speaker 3: look for someone good in complex trauma.
Speaker 4: That is such solid advice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because most of us have that PTSD
Speaker 3: label due Tom and we can also present our therapists
Speaker 3: with that DSM diagnostic criterion and say I was involved
Speaker 3: in this, this is what I deal with and a
Speaker 3: lot of survivors deal with dissociation in some way. And secondly,
Speaker 3: going back to Margaret Singer and cult recovery, psycho education
Speaker 3: is huge in recovery, and that's the work that I
Speaker 3: do and I focus on is providing It's basically what
Speaker 3: we're doing right now. We're doing education. We're talking about
Speaker 3: how it applies to the cultic experience, how influence works,
Speaker 3: you know. How I feel like through the process of
Speaker 3: psycho education, we can start to give ourselves a lot
Speaker 3: more compassion through what we've been through because we did
Speaker 3: what we had to do in order to survive whatever
Speaker 3: dynamic we were in, and sometimes it wasn't even by
Speaker 3: choice for those who were born or raised right. And
Speaker 3: I think it gives survivors more of a strength based
Speaker 3: approach to sort of view their experience through. And we
Speaker 3: can look at our experiences and learn from psycho education,
Speaker 3: like the value of learning about this stuff and feeling
Speaker 3: safer as we continue into the future, feeling more equipped
Speaker 3: through having this knowledge, and like finding community with others
Speaker 3: who also have been through it too and who get it.
Speaker 3: So I think psycho education, therapeutic support, and community can
Speaker 3: really really make a difference for survivors navigating life after
Speaker 3: a cult. And that's the work that I try to
Speaker 3: do through people leave cults, is provide different resources across
Speaker 3: all of those spectrums.
Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you really demystify a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my goal is to demystify this stuff because I
Speaker 3: think cult recovery can be kind of scary, understandably, so
Speaker 3: to engage with and know where to start. We get overwhelmed.
Speaker 3: And then sometimes we only have extreme experiences that are
Speaker 3: in the media and like we're like, well, how do
Speaker 3: we fit into this? And right, And I think there's
Speaker 3: a lot of de mystification that can happen through education
Speaker 3: and I love then, and I think like it just
Speaker 3: gives our brain different frameworks to view our experience through
Speaker 3: and that helps with healing, Like the brain wants to heal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that that brain wants to heal.
Speaker 3: The brain wants to heal. It's true, It's true.
Speaker 2: My brain certainly does so badly. I was gonna say, yeah,
Speaker 2: when you don't have a name for I mean, they say,
Speaker 2: if you name it, you contame it. When you don't
Speaker 2: have a name or a framework of understanding for what
Speaker 2: has happened to you or what's currently going on in
Speaker 2: your brain, it makes it feel so much bigger and
Speaker 2: scarier and like you're alone. You know, it's just this
Speaker 2: overwhelm that can happen. But once you can start of
Speaker 2: start to sort of fit it into terms and like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a thing, this is a common dynamic. I
Speaker 2: had that happen in a relationship I was in that
Speaker 2: was emotionally abusive, and I wasn't familiar with emotional abuse.
Speaker 2: I thought abuse had to only be physical. And my
Speaker 2: therapist at the time gave me a book on called
Speaker 2: The Berbly Abusive Relationship, and reading it changed everything for
Speaker 2: me because I was like, oh no, wonder, I felt
Speaker 2: crazy all the time, Oh no, wonder. I kept hoping
Speaker 2: that if I could just say it in the right way,
Speaker 2: he would understand. And because in the relationship, I didn't
Speaker 2: have any of that language, and I just was confused
Speaker 2: all the time and felt off kilter, like something was
Speaker 2: just off in my reality all the time, and I
Speaker 2: didn't know why. So once I had that language, it
Speaker 2: was like a light bulb going on and helped me
Speaker 2: and integrate that experience into my story and you know,
Speaker 2: it's not this like a morphous, weird, confusing thing that
Speaker 2: happened that feels like it's my.
Speaker 4: Fault, rung of the ladder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, and that's true obviously
Speaker 2: with mental health stuff as well, when we have a
Speaker 2: disorder or are struggling with mental illness in some way,
Speaker 2: and having psycho education about that also can make a
Speaker 2: huge difference. So completely agree, is all My point.
Speaker 1: Is, Yeah, it's really important work, and you're doing a
Speaker 1: fantastic job.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm excited. I have been invited to go
Speaker 3: back to speak to a high school in my area.
Speaker 3: I love talking to young kids about how this stuff
Speaker 3: works and what it is, and they ask such good questions,
Speaker 3: and man, this is the stuff that we need criteria
Speaker 3: on in school, is like influence, indoctrination, like what to
Speaker 3: look out for abuse, Like this is the stuff that
Speaker 3: young people need to know, and they're just not getting
Speaker 3: through social media and other formats right now.
Speaker 2: If anything, it's the opposite and social media yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And so where can people find more about you and
Speaker 2: your work?
Speaker 3: Sure, people leave cults dot com. I offer cult intervention
Speaker 3: for families and cult recovery consults for survivors, and I
Speaker 3: am also on Instagram and Facebook. I don't post as
Speaker 3: much as I should just because I'm so busy with
Speaker 3: consults sometimes, but I try to post when I can.
Speaker 3: And if you're in Portland organ and you want to
Speaker 3: attend our free meetups that I help volunteer, you can
Speaker 3: go to safe Portland dot org and find out our
Speaker 3: meeting schedule there. So that's where you can find me.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks to Ashland for joining us and Megan, I
Speaker 2: have a thought on this one, and I want what
Speaker 2: let me know your thoughts on my thought, okay, which
Speaker 2: it just to me this idea that intervention really has
Speaker 2: to be more about harm reduction and allowing people to
Speaker 2: come to their own conclusions. It all comes back to
Speaker 2: this idea that you just really cannot control other people,
Speaker 2: right right, you like, And the only way to remove
Speaker 2: someone from a high control group is to is to
Speaker 2: totally relinquish control and not have any say in it whatsoever, basically, right,
Speaker 2: which is so maddening because you're like, but this is
Speaker 2: for your own good, but it's like, but no, they
Speaker 2: people have to reach their own conclusions.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's as simple as like just letting your
Speaker 1: I don't know, like letting your friend's.
Speaker 4: Kids date bad people, you know what I mean, where
Speaker 4: you're like, no, this is bad.
Speaker 1: I've already dated this kind of kid when I was
Speaker 1: your age, and like, it's.
Speaker 4: Has to happen. It just has to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: That doesn't really make sense, does it?
Speaker 2: I think it does?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: My only frame of reference for this in my head
Speaker 2: right now is Gilmore Girls. Neither of us are parents, obviously,
Speaker 2: but I would like to be one day and watching
Speaker 2: Gilmour Girls.
Speaker 4: Laura taught me a lot about it.
Speaker 2: Laura, I has to accept that Rory wants to date
Speaker 2: Deane and she's going to do whatever she wants, and
Speaker 2: she has to learn her lessons on her own. I'm
Speaker 2: actually dealing with a little bit of this dynamic in
Speaker 2: my personal life right now, which I won't get into
Speaker 2: great detail about. But I have to accept that I
Speaker 2: do not have control over another person's actions, even when
Speaker 2: everybody knows what would be best for that situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course what the stakes just get higher
Speaker 1: and hire when it comes to high control groups and
Speaker 1: if somebody is like, you know, giving away all of
Speaker 1: their money, and on.
Speaker 4: Death Store it's so much harder.
Speaker 2: It's just yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 1: I really loved the Eating Disorder episode we did a
Speaker 1: week ago or something about like connecting people to their
Speaker 1: own inner resources.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then you know, to Devil's Advocate myself alway
Speaker 2: is I think about Derek Black, who is now Adrian Black.
Speaker 2: But for those who did not hear the episode with her,
Speaker 2: our Derek Black was the title of the recent episode,
Speaker 2: and she was a former basically white supremacist poster child,
Speaker 2: and what we talked about on the episode was sort
Speaker 2: of the two pronged approach that worked for her. And
Speaker 2: there have been a few guests where somebody did say
Speaker 2: to them, this is fucking crazy, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And with Adrian, it was like she had the people
Speaker 2: who are kind to her and that was really what
Speaker 2: she needed. But there also were people who were making
Speaker 2: her feel stupid for being a white supremacist, and she
Speaker 2: was saying that kind It was kind of that combination
Speaker 2: of both. So really, yeah, I guess like harm reduction
Speaker 2: does seem to be the most effective. Every professional, every
Speaker 2: ethical professional in the field basically says this, and there
Speaker 2: are countless examples of it at the same time, Depending
Speaker 2: on who the person is in their lives and in
Speaker 2: the person's life, sometimes being like what the fuck are
Speaker 2: you doing? Can work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's there's no cookie cutter approach.
Speaker 2: I guess, but I guess. You can say what the
Speaker 2: fuck and then they still have to come to their
Speaker 2: own conclusions. You can't say what the fuck now you
Speaker 2: have to listen to me. You could be like, what
Speaker 2: the fuck? Okay, I guess I'll still be in your life,
Speaker 2: But Dann, the shit's crazy, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know. We don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know, but we're we're interested in finding out exactly.
Speaker 2: That is the theme of this intro and out tro today.
Speaker 2: We don't know anything mm hmm, but we do know
Speaker 2: that we hope you guys have a happy new year,
Speaker 2: had a happy new year.
Speaker 1: And hopefully we're gonna have a strong year ahead.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for being a listener, and.
Speaker 1: As always, remember to follow your gut, watch out for
Speaker 1: ad flax.
Speaker 2: And never ever trust me.
Speaker 4: Bye bye.
Speaker 2: Trust me. As produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Speaker 2: Steve Delemator.
Speaker 4: With special thanks to Stacy pear and our.
Speaker 2: Theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Speaker 1: Twitter at trust Me Cultpod, or on TikTok at trust
Speaker 1: Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1: And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Bebraham
Speaker 1: Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Remember to rate and review and spread the word.