behavioral reform

There are more parallels between how cults indoctrinate and control their members and how highly dysfunctional families perpetuate their abuse than most are led to believe. 

While there is no universal list of cult basics, one of the two most commonly used resources is that of clinical psychologist and cult expert Dr. Margaret Singer. 

Below are the criteria adapted from her “Conditions for Thought Reform,” 1995. 

1. Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how she or he is being changed a step at a time. Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioral-change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group. The goal may be to make them deployable agents for the leadership, to get them to buy more courses, or get them to make a deeper commitment, depending on the leader's aim and desires.

Most abusive, highly dysfunctional families rely on their ability to keep young children within them isolated from the healthier norms of other families and society at large.

Adult children of these families often recount how they first realized their families were different from most others, assuming their family was normal until the adults in their family were no longer able to keep them unaware of the contrast between the norms of their family and other families. 

2. Control the person's social and/or physical environment; especially control the person's time.  Through various methods, newer members are kept busy and led to think about the group and its content during as much of their waking time as possible.

Often children in abusive and highly dysfunctional families are prohibited from having friends over to their house, or from spending time at their friend’s homes.

In extremes, they are home schooled and/or moved to an isolated and unpopulated area. Children of these families are guilted and shamed for not making the family the center of social life and schedule.

3. Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person. This is accomplished by getting members away from the normal social support group for a period of time and into an environment where the majority of people are already group members.  The members serve as models of the attitudes and behaviors of the group and speak an in-group language.

Families can create environments where members are afraid to branch out from or leave the family. Explicit and implicit messages are used over the years to focus on their lack of worth or inherent defectiveness. 

“If people knew the real you they wouldn’t stick around like us,” “You’d never survive without our help,” etc.

4. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person's former social identity. Manipulation of experiences can be accomplished through various methods of trance induction, including leaders using such techniques as paced speaking patterns, guided imagery, chanting, long prayer sessions or lectures, and lengthy meditation sessions.

When children/adult children in these families begin to learn and practice healthier behaviors, the family often responds in a way designed to inhibit them from doing so. 

They are guilted, shamed, or made fun of for trying to set boundaries or engage in more balanced forms of communication.

5. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group's ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviors. Good behavior, demonstrating an understanding and acceptance of the group's beliefs, and compliance are rewarded while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with disapproval, redress and possible rejection. If one expresses a question, he or she is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to be questioning.

Similarly, members of the family who maintain the system of abuse and dysfunction are often rewarded, or at least supported, for doing so. 

6. Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order. The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.

Many of these types of families maintain an authoritarian structure in which certain members are not allowed to be questioned or critiqued. Only these members are permitted to enact any sort of change in the family norms.

If you or anyone else is struggling with dysfunction within your relationships and would like expert help, please get in touch with a reliable certified professional. 

Our 2023 holidays are the ideal time to be on the alert for comparisons between these two types of abusive systems. Do not shy from recognizing what they are and how they interfere in your health and wellbeing.