Yasmin, I think the information provided here does not preclude you going to anyone for counseling or "therapy." The points made were that an ethical counselor would/should use informed consent, provide full disclosure according to the law, practice skills based on current, generally accepted best practices, maintain healthy boundaries, not foster undue dependence, and other important requirements.

If rapport is all that is needed, then why have a trained counselor at all? Why not just use your best friend or the nice person at the grocery store if rapport was all that was required. While I agree that a counselor should be pleasant and supportive, good counselors help you with difficult issues by discussing real attitudinal and behavioral options.

I agree with Monica, though, that counseling is very overrated and is not a panacea to every problem. I disagree that Rogerian or any other old paradigms of counseling are the "best." Psychology and the related mental health disciplines have learned a lot through research in the past 40 or 50 years, and the theories you may identify have been partially or completely debunked.

Dr Mann; thanks for your reply.
I suspect that a strong social support system can indeed in some cases preclude the need for counseling or therapy; but who, leaving a group can find that kind of support? Not many, since family are either members of the group that someone left, or often have been alienated by in group behaviors. ( As noted by a friend who recently made this point in a discussion on this topic.)
The advantage of a trained professional is that hopefully they are good at their job; they have studied the issues, are good at developing a therapeutic relationship, and they are held to an ethical standard. They hopefully practice a modality that is effective with a particular issue or condition.
I have no problem with you feeling that a rogerian approach is not the "best"as the rogerian theory of unconditional positive regard would be extremely hard to support scientifically. as is true of most psych theories.And of course Carl Rogers developed his theory a very long time ago.

What is interesting though, is how many of the great therapists were very effective with these "outmoded" therapeutic practices.
Unless another factor is also important, how do we explain their effectiveness, or even the fact that not all the people graduating from the same course and with the same therapeutic underpinning,have the same level of competence?

Interestingly, even the family systems approach, that you have mentioned previously, has its detractors;
peer reviewed journal article "Family systems Approach to Wife Battering; a Feminist Critique"( you can find it on google schoalr; I'm lazy about citing things properly.)
Another article though does suggest that family systems approach worked better than eclectic therapy or a client centered approach in preventing recividism in delinquents.
Of course to really get scientific information on whether an particular way of providing therapy is better than another way; one needs to compare many therapists to get a general overview of the therapeutic appraoch as seperate from the skill of the individual therapist.

As an expert witness when you testify regarding cults what ( if any) therapeutic approach do you recommend as best?

All theses post make me wonder ?
How many of the posters are lifting a finger to help people inprison in cults ?
The reality is that thousands of cults are enslaving millions of peoples in there sinisters beleifs .......and very very few brave people like RICK ROSS and Mr Hassan are trying to help people get out of the grips ...of cults .
Mr Hassan was a kid brainwash by the sinister MR MOON ... NOW he as help a lot of other people get away from similar sinister characters....
So Bravo for all his efforts the world need a thousand more individual that will raise their voice againts brainwashing by cults .
Steve is not perfect but for a kid that is an ex MONIE ...all I can say is good for you Steve ...if you can make a few dollars with it even better .

I think the initial critical review of the approach by Mr Hassan is totally reasonable and fair, and very helpful.
Its standard practice in these fields to get tough critiques by professionals of your book!
The person who's methods have been critiqued, needs to then carefully respond, with evidence and proof, to the points being made.

Its somewhat of a "cultic" mindset to want to hide from objective criticism from professionals, or to exaggerate and blow a professional criticism out of proportion.
The real objective research on what works to help get people out of cults, needs to start.

Hi Anticult; I definitely agree about the need for science in this area.
I don't think it is "cultic" however to question someone who writes a negative review; just as books can be critiqued, so can reviews, and for much the same reasons.
And you get a lot more information if you do further research.
My position at the moment; I'd agree with some parts of the review,and some of the criticisms of Mr Hassan, not so much with other parts of the review.

And I came to this position by asking questions of various people, listening to their replies, and looking at what research is available ( not much).
To be honest, at this point in my life, I have no interest in accepting anyones comments at face value without seeing what they base their comments on.
As a general rule, my approach is that statements of fact need to have some empirical evidence to back them up, no matter who is making the statement.

It would be great if Mr Hassan could post here; there are many quesitons it would be useful to ask him.

I think questions about what empirical evidence he is basing his statement that his approach is better than exit counseling , for example, would definitely be appropriate.

Questions and research are good ways of getting additional information.
As a result of the questions on this thread for example, we now know that Dr Mann worked with Mr Hassan, that she felt his approach in interventions was "overbearing" and that she felt he was using his website to recruit clients. All of which adds more information to the critique.

I have never been much of a fan of the idea that someone who disagrees with the status quo, must automatically be practicing "cultic' thinking.
To be honest as a general rule, its mo that those who are willing to question authority (and even reviews) are more likely to be independent thinkers.

Speaking of gathering information, I would be very interested in reading your review of Mr hassans book from an NLP perspective.

Yasmin, there is no "therapeutic" approach in regards to testifying in court. You have confused the two roles. In legal work, we use forensic methods whic have nothing to do with counseling or "therapy". There are no diagnoses or counseling used with legal work.

In fact it is unethical to combine forensic work with counseling. I do not go to court when I am a counseling a client, and I do not counsel my clients during legal or forensic work. This is a boundary violation. In legal work and forensic psychology, you have to be objective. You don't have to be objective in counseling, where you, in fact, enter the client's reality whether it's true or not.

I do not believe that there is any real research which supports the efficacy of any counseling apporach except for cognitive behavioral. That said, I do not necessarily agree that cognitive behavioral is the best way to go. But, my point is again that Hassan cannot claim the superiority of his work because he has no studies or any data or evidence to back this up. He also does not do outcome studies nor provides a measure as to how he determines that his approach even works. He just says it does, and expects us to accept that without questioning or submit any criticism, just like cult leaders do. He's not going to accept any challenge because he thinks he doesn't have to, and he gets some people to worship him and accept him without question. This has nothing to do with a science v. practitioner gap. It has to do with someone providing support for methods he says are superior. This has been pointed out numerous time on this forum, but somehow it always get shifted to saying Hassan doesn't have to use scientific methods to support his claims and other "therapists" don't have to either.

I also disagree that the "great" therapists (whoever they are) were as effective as you say they were. Carl Rogers held encounter groups that were deadly to individulas needing to maintain healthy boundaries. He may gave appeared successful because he was popular for a time and looked good from the outside in. I recommend you read two very important books, Therapy Gone Mad by Marybeth Ayella and Jerome Franks' Persuasion and Healing to better understand the consequences of this approach and those of the other theorists that modern, scientific psychology has left behind.

Also, people are forgetting that Hassan's books contain ideas from others that he has selectively chosen and claimed them as his own. Again, he claims as his own the ideas of other people. This is just wrong. We learn in 4rd grade not to do assignments by copying from the dictionary or the encylopedia and then stating these are our own ideas. It's a very basic principle. It is very disrespectful to steal the ideas of others without attribution because other's ideas have been earned and obtained through their own methods and research.

I see you trying to simplify complicated issues without doing the work necessary to understand. A few articles obtained on the internet will not explain these issues to you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2012 08:18PM by Cathleen Mann, PhD.

To whom it may concern:

Steve Hassan is certainly welcome to post here within the stated rules as this is a public message board.

But to date only a person employed by Hassan has posted at this message board. That person is Brian Birmingham who goes by the user name "zeuszor". Birmingham is employed as a "researcher" by Hassan.

Steve Hassan has historically fought against destructive cults, most notably the Unification Church, which is the group that recruited and retained him as a member for a couple of years in the 1970s. But simply because he has done some good work doesn't somehow preclude criticism of his questionable ethics and/or bad behavior.

Plagierism is simply wrong and when someone uses someone else's work without attribution it is plagierism.

Exploiting the families of cult members by charging outlandish fees is also ethically wrong.

Hassan making false and/or exagerrated claims concerning his particular approach to cult intervention work is also wrong.

Simply because Hassan has historically helped people affected by destructive cults doesn't obviate his ethical lapses and/or excuse unprofessional conduct.

Thank you, Cathleen, for your clarifications about Hassan and concerns about his background and his approach. Your factual approach to this has more than convinced me of your position. rrmoderator's comments about your background, etc. has been helpful as well. I had recommended his book to at least one person and will let that person know about these concerns. I will not recommend his book further. I was particularly skeptical once I caught on to his use of NLP, either overt or not, due to this discussion. There are the many other issues that you stated as well. These are things that an ex-member would not be aware of and that are important to know in evaluating whether to seek help from Hassan. I hope that this thread and your review will help people make a choice that is good for them. I'm more than convinced Hassan would not be a good choice, neither his book nor his services.

One thing that would be helpful in understanding would be to separate the issue of therapy for ex-members, i.e., to have a separate thread for that discussion, not this one. This one most usefully should be about Hassan and his book.

The question about psychotherapy for ex-members is still an open question for me, one with far more subtlty depending on the unique situation of each ex-member. But since there are questionable practitioners as well as psychotherapy cults in the picture, it would be of benefit to have some clarification on some good options for ex-members to avoid the dangers of questionable practitioners and psychotherapy cults. I do think an evaluation of therapy for ex-members goes beyond the issue of empirically validated treatments. There has been legitimate controversy in the field about this topic, with opinions published in respected journals on both sides, for instance Levant's article found here. [www.apadivisions.org] I'm not posting this to start debate on this thread, but to suggest that this topic might have it's own thread and perhaps use articles like this one as sources. I believe it would be valuable to have an objective, non-attacking debate on questions like this.

Another thread might be to point to avenues of recovery from cults. What resources have others found beneficial? (Obv. Rick Ross is one) My point here is that it's important to know what to avoid and some evidence about why. But it's also important to know what would be helpful for those seeking help.

Maple:

I don't do recovery work.

My work is only cult interventions, i.e. regarding cult affected individuals.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This is the Recovery page at this Web site.

See [www.culteducation.com]

There is a directory at the Recovery page, which lists licensed professional counseling resources for ex-members of cults. These professionals have experience helping former cult members.

You could start another thread about recovery issues, i.e. counseling, therapy for ex-members.

See [forum.culteducation.com]

This is the subsection within the message board regarding recovery issues.

Oops, sorry, I meant the Rick Ross website, not you personally. I have been using Rick Ross to mean that in these posts. I have caught on that rrmoderator is Rick Ross. But in any case an important clarification, to delineate the difference between interventions and counseling/psychotherapy. Is there a link that describes what interventions look like currently?

I will consider starting a thread, though right now my internet access is sporadic, so I need to think about how.

Quote
rrmoderator
Maple:

I don't do recovery work.

My work is only cult interventions, i.e. regarding cult affected individuals.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This is the Recovery page at this Web site.

See [www.culteducation.com]

There is a directory at the Recovery page, which lists licensed professional counseling resources for ex-members of cults. These professionals have experience helping former cult members.

You could start another thread about recovery issues, i.e. counseling, therapy for ex-members.

See [forum.culteducation.com]

This is the subsection within the message board regarding recovery issues.