Some After-Effects of Cult Involvement

Ryker sent me this information on symptoms that people who have left a cult-type setting might exhibit:

A common phenomenon among cult members, which is usually witnessed by their families and friends but not widely recognized among clinicians, is what "West and Martin" called pseudo-identity or altered persona. It appears to be a dissociative coping response to extraordinary circumstances such as profound changes in an individual’s life, prolonged environmental stress, or both. The pseudo-identity, which is induced, strengthened, and maintained by the cult environment, becomes superimposed upon the original personality, which is suppressed while the individual remains in the new stressful environment. Although a person who is removed from the cult environment may abandon or snap out of the pseudo-identity and revert to his or her original personality, this process does not usually happen without severe psychological problems. The symptoms associated with the pseudo-identity syndrome, which are usually triggered by environmental cues, are dissociative, trance-like states, depersonalization, derealization, emotional numbness, and floating, which is a "switching back and forth between behaviors characteristic of the two separate personalities". The restoration of the original identity "usually requires treatment for the residual post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which is the legacy of the stress that produced the pseudo-identity syndrome".

Some additional commonly experienced aftereffects of cult involvement are:

• depression;
• loneliness and a sense of alienation;
• low self-esteem and low self-confidence;
• difficulty explaining how they could have joined such a group;
• phobic-like constriction of social contacts;
• fear of joining groups or making a commitment;
• apprehension about their own idealism and altruism (which the cult had manipulated);
• distrust of professional services and distrust of self in making good choices;
• problems in reactivating a value system by which to live;
• guilt, shame, and self-blaming attitudes;
• excessive doubts, fears, and paranoia; and
• panic attacks