Deprogramming
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Deprogramming refers to a process that reverses alleged brainwashing. It is controversial in that the process is usually started without the voluntary cooperation of the person being deprogrammed. (Initially, the term referred to both voluntary and involuntary intervention. Over time, however, the term came to refer primarily to involuntary intervention).
The vast majority of anti-cult and counter-cult professionals have never engaged in involuntary deprogramming - instead preferring voluntary Exit-Counseling. This fact is largely ignored by cult apologists who - devoid of any real arguments - prefer to dessiminate misinformation about the counter-cult movement, mind-control, apostates, etc.
A small percentage of cult members leave their group or relationship by means of an exit counseling, an intervention similar to that done with someone who has a drug or alcohol abuse problem. These are planned meetings of the members, the family or friends, and a team of professionals who use an educational model to enable the member to reach an informed decision about here or his allegiance to the group.
In the 1970s increasing numbers of families became concerned with the role of cults in their children’s new and disturbing behavior: dropping out of school, cutting ties to families and friends, and sometimes disappearing completely. In this context, efforst at ”deprogramming” emerged, which were early attempts to deal with what appeared to be a type of brainwashing used by the groups on their members. The term deprogramming was used to identify a process originally seen as the polar opposite of the cults’ ”programming” of members.
Over time, as cults increasingly prevented outsiders, including families, from having access to members, deprogramming began to involve the actual abduction and forcible detention of the cult member in a locked room at home or in a motel or in whatever localed the deprogramming was taking place. Although initially not a coercive process, deprogramming is currently associated with ‘’snatching” and confinement of cult members by their families.
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• This page was first posted: Dec. 29, 2005
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