The Psychology of Escaping Cults and Healing
Fantastic Post-Cult Psychology Podcast
Here at CNI, we are blessed to have subscribers from the far left to the far right, from the deeply religious to atheists, and many other variations of belief. Thankfully, we are all united in knowing there are far too many malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths in the world, and in the need to build up and fortify firm barriers to stop them from further damaging society, starting with increasing our own awareness.
The point is when we feature someone on CNI that has a different belief system, know that they are here because they are sincere in providing the world with one form or another of Counter-Narcissist Intelligence, which we can all get behind.
I only mention this because in this podcast, you need to put aside any negative thoughts you may have about holistic medicine and the spiritual healing arts, so you can learn from and enjoy this excellent psychological discussion on cults.
I know most places in the world are not as open about such things as many are in California, so I just wanted to prepare any subscriber who might dismiss the high-level psychological talk because they do not agree with any spiritual aspects of the discussion at the end. I do not make any judgement either way, but I always try to maintain an open mind, and in my book, any method that helps someone psychologically escape and heal that doesn’t hurt anyone is fine by me.
i.e. The last half hour or so is more about holistic medicine, meditation, spiritual arts, healing and energy concepts but these supports do work for many people, so whether you are open to ideas of Eastern medicine or spiritual philosophy, I think we can all agree that if any self-care ritual helps a loved one or good person escape a cult, a narcissist or addiction, that is all that matters in the end, because these roads to recovery and healing are long on pain and hard on the soul.
OK, now that the ground has been prepared, I would like to introduce a really great psychological podcast about cults with Abigail of Post-Cult Life. She is a survivor who turned into a healer and has made it her career to help others recover. She was also the first person I met via Substack due to commonalities between escaping cults and Counter-Narcissism.
I know America’s go-to cult expert Steven Hassan from some news shows and a little personally from Twitter, as we are mutuals, and he was kind enough to help me a few times in understanding his experiences with a cult for narcissism articles, but felt a nice connection with Abigail due to her kind nature, intelligence, beautiful writing, healing focus, being more of a contemporary, and she is in California too.
We had discussed doing a podcast episode but this one she did with great interviewer Rachel is of such high quality that they covered most of the questions I would have asked as well. Abigail speaks extremely eloquently, honestly and wisely about how she escaped, and shares the healing techniques she finds useful for herself and her clients.
Most impressively, all their uses of psychology and psychological terms seem flawless, which is quite a rarity. What a pleasure it was to hear such an entertaining and high-level conversation on cult psychology. I hope you find the same enjoyment and educational information in it that I did.
One fantastic psychological term she learned in her recovery that I will hold onto is “instinct injury.” Certainly anyone who gets tricked into trusting a narcissist or was in a cult will have “instinct injury” that needs time and trust to heal.
We delve into my time in a “cult within a cult”, narcissistic abuse, breaking free from the spell of mind control, CULTure, how spirituality plays a role in my post-cult life, and the founding of my company Sacred Healing Art here in Los Angeles.
Rachel is an incredibly articulate, knowledgeable and experienced Shaman, Herbalist, Writer and all around badass. I’m extremely proud of our conversation and independent thoughts. Hope you enjoy it! - Abigail Kochunas
What helped Steven Hassan break his mind-control spell and escape was realizing the cult leader was a liar who told contradictory stories to different people. In the below podcast, Abigail tells a similar story.
Once again, I hope you enjoy this high-level and entertaining discussion on the psychology of cult and post-cult life. The episode is 85 minutes so perhaps downloading and listening at your leisure is best for most.
Thank you so much for sharing Sam! Hoping this can serve to help educate, inform and inspire anyone healing from this type of abuse. I love Hassan’s work as well and also reference it in my Substack :). For me, the uniting of holistic, spiritual work with traditional talk and EMDR therapies has radically helped my recovery. Thank you for your open-mind, curiosity, support and devotion to CNI and free thought!
✨I acquired a thorough knowledge on cults, their victims and the malignant narcissists who run them. After having close family members in a cult for more than 10 Years, I read a lot, learned and created a blog attacking the sect and its leaders. I succeeded in havig some of my family members as well as some of the cult's "bishops" get out of it.✨
✨Very interesting read, my Friend ! ✨