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Free Minds UK: New cult recovery and education support group

2013-04-05T08:47:19Z

Free Minds UK is a new education and support group for people who are, or were, involved in cults or high demand groups. The impact of cult membership, or the loss of a family member to such a group, can be traumatic and isolating. However it can be hard to find information, support and a safe place to share these difficult experiences. If you have ever been affected or know anyone who has, this unique group has been set up in response to the urgent need for information and support.

This group is based in London and is led by two highly experienced professionals. Alexandra Stein, Ph.D. has over 20 years experience studying cults and ideological extremism. She is also a former member of a cult, and has documented that experience in her book Inside Out. She will be assisted by Mary Russell, BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor who is also a former member.

Free Minds UK seeks to provide this information and support. We invite former members and concerned family and friends to participate.

The first series of meetings will be on Wednesday evenings from 7.00 to 9.00 in North/Central London, starting on April 10^th. There are a limited amount of places available for this session. Please email freemindsuk@gmail.com for further information.

Are Cults a Hidden Epidemic? Video debate

2013-04-05T08:42:32Z

Are Cults a Hidden Epidemic?: ITN webcast. Alexandra Stein, Lois Kendall and Steve Hassan discuss cults.

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Terror and Love: A study of brainwashing

2012-10-12T17:06:43Z

My article published in Anthropology Now, Sept. 2012. vol 4. no. 2

Terror and Love Anthropology Now.pdf

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Radio interview on trauma bonding and cults

2012-08-24T16:58:41Z

This is a radio interview podcast I did with Kenneth Anderson. In it I describe the five characteristics of totalist systems and give some details on my research on brainwashing and political cults.

A Primer on Cults and Ideologically Extremist Groups

2012-08-23T16:56:53Z

Comprehending the Incomprehensible: A primer on how cults and extremist groups work.

I wrote this article in 2009 as a simple overview and summary of how disorganized attachment and dissociation work as control mechanisms within cultic and totalist groups.

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Occupy, and the common good

2012-08-15T15:57:38Z

An article I wrote about Occupy published in openDemocracy

Free University

2012-04-09T11:37:10Z

For the past 6 weeks I've been teaching a Free University course: The Social Psychology of Democracy and Totalitarianism. My blog for this course is: www.freeunialex.tumblr.com

Spreading Resistance

2012-04-08T13:45:41Z

What follows is a response I wrote to Malcolm Grant, vice-chancellor of UCL, printed in Times Higher Education a while back. It is unfortunately still timely and relevant:

Spreading Resistance

As Malcolm Grant puts it, the recent discussion about the prevention of violent extremism in universities centred on the issue that "intellectual freedom on campus cannot be compromised" ("Freedom of thought is all we foment", www.timeshighereducation.co.uk, 31 December). What has not entered the debate is the social psychology of group influence and conversion processes.

Universities have an obligation to teach. By teaching the classics in these and related fields, they can make a critical contribution without getting mired in debates about ideology or intellectual freedom. Yet in all the discussions about how a privileged student from a wealthy family became an attempted suicide bomber, not a word has been spoken about these well-researched yet often forgotten causes. It is not, as Grant states, "a mystery".

Over the past 60 years, academics have researched influence and conversion. This scholarship had its roots in trying to understand why "good Germans" performed the most horrific acts under Hitler's leadership.

There is a great body of work relevant to helping students resist recruitment attempts that is seldom taught except in occasional social psychology classes.

What universities can do is to use their educational brief to teach students about these processes to which we are all vulnerable. We warn students about unsafe sex, substance abuse, even unlicensed minicabs: isn't it time we took seriously our duty as educators to warn them about our vulnerability to group processes?

Using existing literature, we can teach students to recognise recruitment attempts, be aware of the potential dangers and costs to themselves, and understand how they can resist.

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Under the Influence: Teaching young people how to recognize and resist recruitment to extremist groups

2011-08-16T12:04:03Z

This is an article I wrote for the 2011 summer issue of Teaching Citizenship: undertheinfluence.pdf

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Paper presented at IJCV Radicalization and Deradicalization conference

2011-07-07T12:22:23Z

I presented this paper, From Social Structure to the Mind, in Bielefeld Germany March 2011. The abstract is posted below. You can download it here: SocialStructuretotheMindIJCV.pdf

From Social Structure to the Mind: Disorganized Attachment as a Means of Control in Extremist Organizations

Alexandra Stein, Ph.D.

Abstract

Radicalization often results from coercive processes employed within closed, totalistic groups. This exploratory social psychological study investigates the mechanisms through which people become tightly bonded to such groups and differentiates these mechanisms from those operating within democratic, open groups. Using a multiple methods, comparative case study methodology within an attachment theory framework, the study investigates two US-based groups: the extremist and totalistic Newman Tendency is compared with the democratic, non-totalistic Green Party of the US.

An innovative analytical approach is employed combining attachment theory and methods, network theory and methods, field observation and discourse analysis to produce thick descriptions of each group along with analyses of attachment relationships, ego-centric networks and patterns of discourse. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 former members of the Newman Tendency and 12 former members of the Green Party. Features of totalism--found in the Newman Tendency, but not in the Green Party--include: a charismatic authoritarian leader; a hierarchical, closed network structure; a total ideology; coercive persuasion, and resulting radicalization and exploitation of followers.

The study demonstrates the process whereby the Newman Tendency positions itself as a safe haven for followers while simultaneously arousing fear in increasingly isolated followers, resulting in a situation of "fright without solution". This induces disorganized attachment of the follower to the group, as measured by the new Group Attachment Interview. Disorganized attachment (similar to a trauma bond) is associated with cognitive lapses, disorientation, dissociation and confusion and creates cognitive and emotional difficulties for followers. These cognitive and emotional effects allow for further insinuation of the group's total ideology and thus create a key pathway for radicalization. In contrast, Green Party followers demonstrated only an affiliative - not an attachment - relationship to their group. They showed almost no signs of dissociation or disorientation in their thinking about their group involvement. These findings clarify the social psychological mechanisms leading to radicalization, hyper-obedience and deployability of followers in extremist groups.

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Scientology: FBI investigates human trafficking charges

2011-02-08T20:54:17Z

There have been many books and reports from former members of Scientology about the terrible conditions of life for those in the inner circles of the group. Most recently this article in the New Yorker covers the recent departure of Hollywood writer Paul Haggis and several former high-ranking Scientologists. The article states that the FBI has been investigating Scientology on human trafficking charges for over a year. And this website exscientologykids.com is a poignant and brave response of young people who were born or grew up in the group. Some of the stories document child labour, overwork, separation from parents, substandard education, and periods of confinement and physical punishment. Once again we see patterns of family separations, and general interference in close attachment relationships, thus preventing group members from being able to consider their group experiences in a safe environment without the sole interpretation coming from the group itself.

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Debate on Prevent program

2010-12-15T14:28:33Z

Last week I attended a debate on preventing radicalization at the RSA. The key element that became clear was that prevention is going to be very difficult when there is no agreed upon analysis of how radicalization occurs. I've run across this consistently in my work to encourage the development and implementation of prevention education programs - without a shared analysis of the processes of radicalization, it is hard to get decision makers to see the importance of prevention education. It is my view that we can make a big contribution to prevention by teaching young people (and their teachers and families) about social influence, recruitment and conversion processes. This is a missing plank in the current thinking about prevention of radicalization. In addition to law enforcement and community cohesion efforts, it is critical to teach the methods and mechanisms whereby people become the deployable agents of organized terrorist groups.

Interestingly, work to teach all young people about these social influence processes has been done for many years in Germany, for rather obvious reasons based in their totalitarian history. Several students I've taught from Germany had a sound understanding of these processes, having learned about them throughout their high school careers.

Prevention education certainly won't help on its own, but it is an important element of developing public awareness campaigns. In this I agree with Quilliam founder Maajid Nawaz who, like me, sees the need to address this issue on a broad scale: in this debate he used the analogy of public awareness campaigns around obesity. Similarly I think we can learn from the immensely useful work done on HIV/AIDS prevention done around the world - but this brings me back to the lack of a shared analysis of the problem: until we can come to some agreement on how the processes of radicalization unfold it will be difficult to design such public awareness and education programs. HIV/AIDS prevention programs could not take place until scientists understood the methods of transmission.

Again I tend to agree with Nawaz here - recruitment doesn't happen randomly to "bunches of guys" as popularised by former CIA agent and terrorism researcher Marc Sageman. It happens as a result of concerted recruitment and conversion efforts on the part of organizations. These organizations employ processes of coercive persuasion which rely on the cognitive and emotional engulfing of individuals at the same time as increasingly isolating them from their prior relationships. Along with addressing the general social conditions that may create a favorable climate for recruiters, we must also look at, understand, and teach people about this systematic recruitment and conversion process. Becoming a suicide attacker (other than those few who really do have pre-existing suicidal and violent mental states) is on one level the most extreme exploitation of the attacker by the recruiting organization.

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Mothers in cults and totalist groups

2010-12-08T19:37:51Z

This is an old article I wrote: Mothers in Cults. It is still highly relevant. Unfortunately not a lot else has yet been written on this topic. (Please contact me if you know of anything that I may have missed).

Contact Alexandra Stein here

Preventing recruitment to cults and extremist groups

2010-11-14T21:43:09Z

Here's an article I wrote a while ago for the New Statesman on prevention of violent extremism.

For information on prevention seminars and other information, contact me here

My research

2010-11-14T18:02:55Z

Here's a link to my major piece of research, my doctoral dissertation (Careful! it takes a while to download - see abstract below for the summary): Attachment, Networks and Discourse in Extremist Political Organizations: A Comparative Case Study.

In this study I looked at Fred Newman's New York-based political cult, and compared it with the non-cultic Green Party.

Part One gives some background about totalitarianism and cults, and introduces my research methodology.

Part Two gives some fairly detailed information on Fred Newman's group. Here are just a few of its projects or incarnations:

International Workers Party
Social Therapy
Castillo Theater
All Stars Project
Some elements of the New York Independence Party

I also discuss the Green Party, but this is not the center of the study - they are there strictly for comparative purposes, to highlight the anti-democratic, totalitarian nature of Newman's group.

Part Three sets out my theoretical analysis, which draws on attachment theory. My main inspirations are John Bowlby, Robert Jay Lifton, and Hannah Arendt.

]]> Here's the abstract:

Attachment, Networks and Discourse in Extremist Political Organizations:

A Comparative Case Study

Alexandra Stein, Ph.D.

2007

Abstract

This study explores the structural, emotional and cognitive mechanisms through which people become tightly bonded to extremist political organizations. The study compares a totalist, closed group, the Newman Tendency, with a democratic, open group, the Green Party of the US. Features of totalism--found in the Newman Tendency, but not in the Green Party--include: a charismatic authoritarian leader; a hierarchical, closed network structure; a total ideology; and the creation of a disorganized attachment bond which is associated with cognitive lapses, disorientation, dissociation and confusion.

Placing attachment theory at the center of the analysis, the research shows how the Newman Tendency sets itself up as a safe haven for followers while at the same time structurally, affectively, ideologically and linguistically isolating them from alternate attachment relationships and interpretations of their experience. The Newman Tendency creates conditions of fear arousal resulting in a situation of "fright without solution" for the isolated follower, thus inducing disorganized attachment to the group, as measured by the new Group Attachment Interview. No Greens demonstrated such attachment to the Green Party.

Disorganized attachment creates cognitive difficulties for followers in thinking about their relationship to the group, allowing for further insinuation of the group's total ideology and constricting language. A key element allowing former members of the totalist group to leave was the presence of a mitigating attachment relationship, thus breaking the situation of fright without solution. These findings advance understanding of the organization, operation and social-psychological mechanisms of ideologically extremist groups and can help to clarify the mechanisms leading to hyper obedience and resulting deployability of followers. This can contribute to the development of education and prevention efforts.