Understanding Cult Dynamics: Insights from a Survivor and Expert

Sam: 00:00:18

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

I recognise the deep connection that first nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hey there and welcome to this special bonus episode of beyond the Surface.

In these episodes we take a break from the personal stories and I get to chat with experts on all things related to religious trauma, cults and deconstruction. These conversations are foundational and educational.

They provide deeper insights and understanding in into the complexities of the experiences we hear in the stories.

Whether you're just beginning your journey, this is the first episode you're listening to, or maybe you're looking to expand your knowledge in general. These episodes are packed with valuable information that will help you navigate wherever you are. I'm your host, Sam, and this is beyond the Surface.

Welcome Gillie. Thanks for joining me.

Gillie: 00:01:46

Thank you for having me.

Sam: 00:01:48

I am so excited for this episode. I am excited to have you here.

I think anybody who knows me knows my little special interest in cults and obviously it's nice and adjacent to religious trauma a lot of the time and you see a lot of crossovers. So I'm really excited about this episode. But before we kick straight in, I want to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself.

Who are you and where in the world are you?

Gillie: 00:02:16

Well, hello, I am Gillie Jenkinson.

I live in the middle of the UK in the Hope Valley in Derbyshire and I'm currently watching the trees outside my window being blown around because Storm A Win is on its way and apparently it's a hurricane force storm in further north than us, but it's going to be pretty fierce here, so. Yeah. And I live in a very beautiful area, so. And I have a little doggy, so that. That's. And I saw you have a dog.

Sam: 00:02:54

I do. I've kicked her out. I don't usually have her in for the podcast. She tends to sit at my window and just survey the street and bark.

So it's not conducive for podcasting.

Gillie: 00:03:05

Well, he's asleep on my desk, so I think he'll be just fine for the duration.

Sam: 00:03:11

I've always found it really ironic because obviously, you know, you work in cult recovery and you live in Hope Valley. And I think that that's just the most beautiful connotation and irony. I think that's great. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Gillie: 00:03:28

Psychotherapist. That's my. My basic training. I actually did a diploma in pastoral counseling.

So that was my part of my trajectory out of my own experience of cult and religious trauma and. And spiritual abuse. And then I did a master's in gishtalt psychotherapy, which was. Became my kind of core model training.

Although it's an integrative model because we did object relations and looked at other kinds of theories. And then I did a PhD because I wanted to ask former cult members, what do you think helps former members recover?

So I didn't want it based on my story. I knew that would inform it, but I wanted it to hear what others had to say.

And then nearly 30 years of clinical work, so it all kind of gathers up together in what I do.

Sam: 00:04:27

Yeah, I. If people have not picked up, we have a wonderful bonus episode on cults and cult recovery coming up. So that's what today is about.

So before we get into some of the nitty gritty questions that I want to ask, I. I think so many people have.

There's a lot of definitions that float around about what is a cult and what defines a cult and all of that sort of thing. And so I just want to start by asking, how do you define what a cult is?

Gillie: 00:04:58

Yeah, so I mean, I. It in my book, which will maybe we can come to at some point, I.

I actually use the definition from the International Cultic Studies association, or ICSA as I'll call them. And, and Robert J. Lifton, who devised the theory of brainwashing or thought reform. So I've kind of combine them because I think they're very potent.

And I think the thing about a cult is it's exhibiting a great or excessive devotion to a person, an idea or a thing. So, you know, cult has this very narrow focus. Sometimes it's on the leader, the guru.

Often, you know, within a religious trauma type of cult, it's going to be on God. In other types of groups, it may be on a political ideology or a wellness kind of ideology.

And then I think it uses a brainwashing or thought reform program to persuade, control and socialize members. So thought reform is. There are eight components to thought reform.

And it's like if you imagine a bicycle wheel and you're at the center, the eight components of thought reform. And those dynamics are what kind of hold somebody in, in, in captivity. Psychological and often physical captivity.

And, and I think that that's what kind of people kind of get swept into and then are controlled by. I think there's always psychological dependency.

It's like, oh, you know, you have a leader who says they're the got the hotline to God as they say, sorry if it's triggering to people. But that's what people say. Yeah. You know, which is bollocks. And personally believe that's bollocks.

And I think we all have to come to our own decisions. But, but that does really create a psychological dependency. And then there's an us and them mentality. You know, we're in, you're out.

We're the only church that counts. Any other church doesn't count. We're the only political organization that's, you know, has the truth for the future.

They always have the truth, the big T truth. And there's psychological harm to members, families, the community and children. And children are very key in all of this.

Sam: 00:07:38

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:07:39

And I think children, the issue of being born into these systems is a very big one. And there's a whole big conversation about second and multi generation and, and then first generation, which I am actually, I'm first generation.

I don't know if that makes sense.

Sam: 00:07:58

Absolutely. And I mean I think that was, that's probably a good segue into my next question, which was what led you to work in this space?

And now I obviously know that it's because you have your own cult experience and you've already alluded to that. But I wonder whether you can, for the listeners who maybe don't know that what led you to this space?

Gillie: 00:08:21

Yeah, well, I, I grew up in Africa, in Uganda, where we were somewhat exposed to missionaries and sort of Bible what sort of kiddie Bible classes. And we would go to church sort of Christmas and Easter, you know, we, we were nominal Christians. I'd never have been anything other than Christian.

I always exposed to that kind of background. But when I was 18, I became a born again Christian through some coercion, I have to say.

I mean there was real pressure on me and this person really kind of kept pushing and I capitulated, unfortunately for myself. And what's unfortunate is that I met some lovely people and that wasn't unfortunate.

But it ended up with me through various steps joining a group in the Midlands of England where that became a cult. So it wasn't a cult when I joined. It was, it was a fellowship so there were local people who were part of that fellowship. And I came from outside.

I was born in Africa, I lived down south of England. I'd never been north in England. Like it was alien to me because I, I used to travel back and forth. I went to school in the south of England.

And so I came as quite an outsider really within that group and with a very different experience to most of them. And very quickly it became, they decided to set up in community.

And this was in the 70s where there was a very strong international move certainly within the church and within other areas of society into community.

And we, I joined, long story short, very long story short, became a member of what was a fellowship and then they decided to change it and the leadership changed and it became more and more controlling. So the, the sort of the Bible based beliefs were you weaponized? The Bible was weaponized. The, the idea of community was weaponized.

That became part of the, the thing of exhibits great or excessive devotion to a person, idea or thing. There was a devotion to Christian, their form of Christianity that there was also a devotion to community. And that was like the thing.

And you had to give a, the right impression on behalf of the community. And there was a lot of that going on. There was a lot of that going on in the churches worldwide. Really was. And it became exceptionally abusive.

Because we lived in community and because we had no, there was no one overseeing us. The leadership ended up with physical beatings and because of sin and just really took it to the extreme.

Yeah, but actually I think so that's something you can quantify as, as a terrible thing that happened. But actually what was almost worse because you can say, well this is what they did to me.

Yeah, but actually the psychological manipulation and control and the negative view of women and you know, sin and being sinful and I'm sorry if this is triggering to people, but I think actually this is what we, we need to address, you know, is that there's so much negativity in all of this. And then, and we, then what I call introject, we swallow whole these ideas. I'm a terrible person. So when I left I believed I was toxic.

I was actually toxic that actually people would be harmed by me because I'd interjected so much this idea, the ideas that they had, well, I didn't have a choice other than to believe them. I, you know, and I couldn't leave because I would go to hell. So I was trapped. I was truly psychologically trapped.

ly after about eight years in: 1981

And it was a bit, it was very dramatic, the whole thing. It was traumatic and dramatic the way it all kind of fell apart. But I left then, but I didn't leave.

So I left the cult, but the cult didn't leave me at that point. I didn't deal with it. I ended up going to another church who said they understood about cults.

So I thought I would have called it a cult, but I hadn't the first idea what a cult was. And actually I don't think many people did back in the 70s.

Sam: 00:14:01

I think some people still don't.

Gillie: 00:14:03

Oh yeah, lots of people don't.

But I mean the theories that ICSA and others have developed, Janya Lalitsch, Dan Shaw, people, Alex Stein, people like that, who are really important writers and speakers in this field, they haven't. That wasn't fully formed back then. So for another 14 years I continued going to church and you know, some were better than others, some were fine.

I had lovely friends, I made one, you know, wonderful people. I honestly met some fantastic people. And they weren't cults, those, those places. But the cult was still in me.

So I still lived in fear, terror actually, all the time living in fear of getting it wrong, doing the wrong thing, of being this terrible person.

And am I going to harm people by just being myself and you know, not being myself, being a kind of lacking in confidence and having, having a desire to do things, to create things, but not having the, the confidence to do it. And it took me actually in the end leaving church altogether, getting some exit counseling.

So talking to someone who understood about cults to help me start to make sense of it, deciding people would always come and start talking to me and telling me their life story like on an airplane or something. You probably get this, yes, you know, there's something here. People talk to me maybe.

And, and I did do some counseling in the church and it seemed to go fairly well. I was very untrained. So I decided to train, but I was still too much in church to do a secular training. I, I couldn't do it.

But my diploma in pastoral counseling was with some very good people who were Christians who really questioned things that I was saying because we Learned you do 3 hours counseling sessions in the church and you pray for people likes and, and they nearly fell off their chair when I said, oh well, you have to you know, because I was quite. What we call legalistic. Sorry, guys, that's going to be triggering as well, you know, kind of.

Well, we have to do it for three hours, you know, because that's what I've been told. And they were like, no, you do not do it for three hours.

Sam: 00:16:46

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:16:46

And no, you do not pray for people in counseling you. If they want to pray, they pray for themselves. You don't pray for them.

And, and all of that was really good learning as I was ex, you know, still a very high control, you know, mentality. And. Yeah, and then I carried on and did my. I finally did a gestalt training, which is a secular training.

And I'm glad I did because I've used a lot of the ideas in my, you know, what I've gone on to develop. So. Yeah, I hope all that makes sense.

Sam: 00:17:21

No, it absolutely makes sense. I. My initial counseling training was also with a Christian organization.

And I remember having a lot of what I would probably describe as very heated conversations.

They probably saw them as very combative, but they actually were just, you know, passionate conversations where I was very much, fiercely opposed to the teaching that we had to pray with our clients, that we had to use scripture with our clients. And I was like, I hate all of this. I hate all of it. It's not. Okay, it's not ethical. And so.

But it sounds like that pastoral qualification was almost like a bridge between, like the bridge that you needed.

Gillie: 00:18:06

That's exactly, exactly. You put your finger right on it. It was the bridge I needed. And, you know, when I did my. I had to do, you know, a dissertation at the end.

It wasn't research. It was apparently, it was masters. It was four years. It was master's level, but they hadn't. It was a diploma.

They hadn't got it kind of registered as a masters. So it wasn't a research paper, but it was. I actually called it Bridge Over Troubled Water.

What do pastoral counselors and probably clergy or whatever need to know about cults and ex cult members to be an effective helper? It's a very long title, Very long title. Very, very long title. But it was always my. My inquiry was always, what's going to help? Always.

And then I did that same inquiry actually for my gestalt. I did. I. I interviewed eight people for that and 29 people for the PhD. But, yeah, it was a bridge out.

It was, I think, to some of their, you know, because I don't think they were wishing I would leave the church, but actually I had to. I'd had too much abuse. It was just too much. I just couldn't take it anym. I just.

I remember one day saying to myself, you, you, you can't afford for this to ever happen again.

Sam: 00:19:33

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:19:33

You've got to look after yourself and you've got to do what's right for you.

Sam: 00:19:39

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:19:39

And it's been fine. I didn't, I haven't been to hell yet. No hell. And if I go to hell, I made the decision as well. And I'm not kidding.

I actually said if I go to hell, I'm sorry, but that's the decision I'm making because that's how it has to be. Because I can't carry on in this setting. I'm going to go mad. I literally was going to go mad.

Sam: 00:20:03

I am.

I often, and most of my listeners will know this because I've probably said it many times before, which is that I often joke that if hell does exist, then all of the queer people are going to be there and it's going to be really fun at least. So, like, that's all right. It'll be stylish, it'll be fun, it'll be great. So, um, we've got to have.

Gillie: 00:20:25

Yeah, I'm. I'm up for that one.

Sam: 00:20:26

Yeah, exactly. Um, I'm curious, over all of the years that you've worked in this space, what do you find that people misunderstand the most about a cult?

What do they always get wrong?

Gillie: 00:20:40

Well, I think lots of things. Such a list of things I remember reflecting on this at the end of my PhD, is that there's this sort of myth about people who've been.

Who are in cults with black eyeline around them and hoods and, you know that actually it's so much more understandable and so much more down to earth. And there are a lot of myths about the, about cults. I think it's also a myth that people join cults because you wouldn't join a cult.

Like if you, you know that that group is going to abuse you, you are not going to join it. You know, you, you, you're gonna, you're joining, you're not joining a cult, you're joining something else. You're seeing something else there.

Sam: 00:21:39

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's actually a really good lead in because my next question, which was going to be around that, because you're right, you know, people don't join cults. People are often in search of something and more often than not, I found that people are just in search of a place of belonging.

And so they're joining spaces where they're, where they belong and they are seen. But other than belonging, what do you find that people who do land in cults are searching for?

Gillie: 00:22:08

There's people who are searching for spiritual connection. They're Christians who are looking for a good church. Yeah, you and me who are looking for a good therapist. Therapy has cults in it.

Sam: 00:22:23

Yes, it does.

Gillie: 00:22:24

Or we're looking for a good yoga group and not group, I mean, you know, a yoga classes or whatever. And unfortunately the one that they land in happens to have another agenda.

They're looking to be active politically and they get, you know, it's, it's a, it's an animal. A cult is a thing, it's not a religion. It's not a this or that or the other.

It's actually, if you think about the cult as a thing and then it could be a this or this or this or this or that. It's certain psychological dynamics which occur in society. I think some people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I remember this extraordinary story about somebody years ago, this was back in the 70s, I think, who was traveling around America. It was an American thing. They were traveling and gap year, whatever, they were just going around, they landed in some city and that.

As they got off the bus they were like, right now I'm. And it was before the Internet now we'd have googled, you know, got a room and etc.

But then they had to land in that city, go and see where am I going to stay for tonight? Tonight. And these lovely smiley people, you know, yikes. Always worry if they're lovely smiley people offering you something.

Yes, they offer a free meal. Yeah, there's no free meals. And a bed for the night and oh, in our lovely ski chalet up in the mountains. Oh, that sounds nice, thanks.

I'll come with you. Two weeks later, they were full blown, deployable agent, member of a cult. And where they were taken to was not a ski chalet in the mountains.

It was a kind of chalet in the mountains where there were no buses, nothing. They couldn't get away the people. They said the next day, can, can I go back to the city?

Oh no, sorry, we don't have any cars going back to the city for another week or two. Playing the leaders talks all day every day and, and then saying, well, you're here, we're offering you this, you need to do some work here.

And they actually said that within two weeks they would have shot their parents if the cult, if this group had told them to. And they became very phobic about Satan. Anyone going past was satanic and sorry, another trigger word for people.

But, you know, and that that was a very sophisticated cult and very well known back in the 70s for being exceptionally good at recruiting. But, you know, you see very quickly there how somebody was tricked, scammed and captured and it took them a long time to get away.

Sam: 00:25:23

Yeah, I think it's a really good point for people to remember that.

I think there is this automatic assumption when we hear the word cult that it's relig, but actually it's like, it's just not like, you know, a family can be a cult, like a wellness retreat can turn into a cult.

And I think that's probably one of the biggest misconceptions when I talk to people about cults is that they just assume that it's always religious or it's political, like it's the extremist terrorist type cult. And so. But I think it's bringing it back and going actually it can be far more insidious and far more almost subtle than the. Yeah, yeah, I think.

And also, I mean, I, like I said, I love a good cult documentary like the next person, but I think sometimes that doesn't help the narrative that, you know, they don't all end up that extreme. They don't all end up as, you know, the Netflix documentary. And so I think, yeah, I think it's important for people to, I mean.

Gillie: 00:26:27

That they say, you know, there's probably a cult almost next door to you, you know, and that just like domestic abuse happens, you can't. And you can't find the statistics on domestic abuse because people don't talk about it.

They're not going to say, yes, my husband's beating me up and I'm in the coercive control relationship. And it's the same thing in a cult. You know, you've got this other whole view.

You're looking through a whole different lens at what's going on for you. So for me, back in the 80s, there was this. Or 70s, must be in the 70s, there was this doctrine that God wanted to break you.

And you know, and that's been used then for years. And so even though I was being abused, I had a whole rationale for why I didn't ever, would never ever have called it abuse.

It was me that was wrong and I deserved it. Yeah, and it's such a twist around that thought reform or brainwashing theory kind of creates this twist.

And it twists the scriptures, it twists the Bible. It weaponizes the Bible in a way. It was. No book should ever be weaponized in that way.

Sam: 00:27:47

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:27:48

And so, you know, all of those things are rationales for why these things are happening and they're not seen to be what they are.

Sam: 00:27:56

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:27:56

You know, and it's a big shock to face that. It's a real shock. It's a shock.

I remember I worked for a rape Crisis center for 11 years, and I remember a woman there saying facing that this was abuse was like, you know, those big American trucks, like a truck hitting, turning around and coming back and hitting me again. And literally the physical reverberation of seeing that what you thought was one thing is suddenly actually something completely different.

Sam: 00:28:33

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:28:34

Is. Is a very big deal. Yeah.

Sam: 00:28:37

And I mean, obviously, you know, core tenants of what makes cults so destructive is the emotional and the psychological manipulation and control that happens. And so I'm wondering if you can explain for people who don't necessarily understand how that.

Because, I mean, just like we talk about with domestic abuse, it doesn't start out like that. So I'm wondering if you can talk about, I guess, how that tends to build over time and it doesn't start that way.

Gillie: 00:29:10

Yeah. Well, I mean, given that you going into something that is not occult in your head, you don't know.

Sam: 00:29:19

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:29:19

You're not going, great, they're going to abuse me. You're going, oh, you know, this is. Feels hopeful and something refreshing possibly.

So I think, first of all, what's going on in the background is masked. So it's there, but it's masked. And. And they talk about love bombing. You know, love bombing, Getting people into the group. Oh, we love you.

I mean, if people start going on about loving you in 10 minutes and meeting you.

Sam: 00:29:48

Brothers and sisters.

Gillie: 00:29:50

Yes. Yeah, Brothers and sisters. Those are trigger words as well, aren't they? Yeah, language, you know, it makes me feel sick now.

I think you're not my brother and you're not my sister unless you actually are.

Sam: 00:30:06

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:30:07

I think, you know, that the manipulation and control is masked by religiosity, spirituality, we're going to change the world, etc. And. And then as I explained in my story, it gives the. The belief system, gives the rationale for why they can manipulate you.

Well, you're a bad person. You're sinful. So we. You need to learn from us or you're impure. And we need you to become pure in the way we think you should be pure.

And then we, we interject and swallow those beliefs. And so it becomes an interactive process in the end because we're tying in or buying in and they're, they're doing what they do.

But some of my trainings, I sort of use the analogy of a steamroller, you know, that the cult's a machine. It's often a sophisticated machine. However much they may or may not admit it. They're good at recruiting if it's a recruiting cult.

Some cults don't recruit. Some cults just breed, unfortunately. But you know, so it, it's, it's a kind of process.

And I, I've used the analogy of the frog in boiling water, which is a horrible analogy. But you know, if, if you heat a frog up from cold, it doesn't know it's being he, it's being cooked alive, basically.

But if you throw the frog into hot water, this is an analogy. Apparently it's not exactly true, but you get the picture that if you threw it in, it would leave back out.

You'd be like, well, you know, this is burning me. But if you just heat something up, it doesn't really know that's actually happening. Yeah, and that's, that's what happened to me.

And I was young, I was 18, I was immature. I think 18 year olds these days maybe are much more street wise, you know, exposed to a lot more stuff with the Internet and stuff.

Whereas, you know, I grew up in Africa and I came back and forth, which sort of dislocated me a bit from British culture. I was, I'm a third culture kid. I was kind of in, in that mix of cultures in terms of, I.

Sam: 00:32:26

Guess, you know, we've mentioned a little bit that, you know, there are cults that are not necessarily the ones that we see on the documentaries. They're not the ones that are making headlines or that we know about.

There are family cults, there are like work based therapy cults, all of those sort of ones that people don't think about. And so what are some, I guess, red flags? I don't really love the term red flags, but people tend to know what we're talking about.

Gillie: 00:32:56

I think it's quite an expressive term, isn't it?

Sam: 00:33:00

Yeah, I guess I'm wondering whether you can speak to some things that I guess people can look out for.

What, like what are those red flags in terms of the smaller cults that are maybe not, you know, Scientology and you know, Nexium and the ones that we see in all of the docos, the ones that are in your small rural community.

Gillie: 00:33:26

It's worth learning about thought reform and looking out for, for, you know, what, what can you see is happening? You know, are people free to come and go? Are they able to, you know, socialize outside of the group?

I'm just thinking of Gloria Vale now in New Zealand and thinking, you know, has, has that. I know that's a big cult that we all know about now, but we didn't at one point and people kind of isolated from other people.

But you know, if it's in a more mainstream setting or even if it's the subtleties of something going downhill or towards cultic behavior, I think you're going to have excessive control and critic. You know, there'll be excessive control of people.

You know, you're allowed to do this, you're not allowed to do that criticism that breaks people's confidence in themselves. You know, so you've got to then become dependent on the leadership.

I think always they're going to be creating some atmosphere of fear or even terror.

You know, there could be that existential terror that seems like you knew as well the hell or Armageddon or whatever or the consequences of non compliance, you know, will throw you out of the family or you'll lose your job, you know, serious health issues. I know some cults, some of the wellness cults is they. Some of the things they teach. I mean there's one group that's active probably worldwide.

I think it's pretty active in Australia. But they, you know, you're. You're not allowed to stir your drink clockwise. Oh, have to stir it anti clockwise.

Otherwise you're releasing negative energy into the atmosphere. And probably it's what's causing storm eowing because you stir the cut the wrong way and it's, it's creating phobias that are just ridiculous.

Sam: 00:35:37

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:35:38

The same group says that there's these entities. It's. I remember hearing a talk by the leader saying these entities are on the. They're like things out of Star wars kind of entities. They're not like.

I won't use the word, but like the church talks about certain things, but it's not quite like that.

It's more almost like an alien smithing people on YouTube in London, you know, and just creating these serious phobias that people are then terrified. Absolutely terrified because it's created this world in their imagination that, you know, is just doesn't exist.

Sam: 00:36:23

Yeah. You know, but feels like viscerally real.

Gillie: 00:36:26

Which is.

Sam: 00:36:27

That's just like the insane part. Yeah, yeah.

Gillie: 00:36:30

But it's created within meetings where there's altered states of consciousness where people are no longer critically thinking and they're interjecting or swallowing whole these ideas and they cause havoc in people's lives.

Sam: 00:36:47

What are some of the things that people can look out for in terms of. I'm gonna throw a question at you that I didn't pre. Warn you about, so apologies, but I'm just thinking about.

And I want to get to the cult recovery aspect in a sec, but I just want to ask, in terms of practitioners who are not necessarily working in the space of cult recovery or anything like that, but who are therapists, psychologists, social workers in that. What is your number one suggestion for those people? If they have someone sitting in their room and the alarm bells are going off of holy.

I think this person might be involved in a cult.

Gillie: 00:37:27

Well, I mean, step back from that. People need to learn about cults.

Sam: 00:37:33

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:37:33

And proper learning. Not. Not just the kind of like learning about how to help people, but we'll come to that.

I think they need to be very grounded, they need to stay grounded. They need to hold on to this idea. They need to be very careful how they approach it. They need to not become voyeuristic or overly curious and.

Ooh, interesting. And they're going to have to go very carefully because a lot of cultic groups say that.

I mean, they're probably lucky to even have that person in the room because they've often been told that counsellors, police, social workers are part of this evil world system. Systemites, one group calls them.

And they need to tread very carefully and they need to know what resources there are and potentially hopefully meet with them again, keep this on the back burner and ask very careful questions and. And questions that. That elicit critical thinking within that person. Oh, do you. Is that, Is that.

Do you think that's normal behavior for someone to be beaten or, you know, if, if it was. I don't know. They. They just have to be very careful, but also keep it in mind. And you don't want that person running.

You want to be able to help them, but you want to hold in mind. But you need to do your homework. And there's so much. Anyway, I'll come to that.

But there's so much lack of knowledge about what people need when they come out that unfortunately people are aborting therapy. They. They're just not staying because they're saying the therapist just doesn't know what they're doing.

Sam: 00:39:30

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:39:31

The whole time I'm hearing About it all the time.

Sam: 00:39:34

Yeah. Okay. Now you have a wonderful book on cult recovery. It's incredible. I think it's probably, you know, it's in a league of its own, to be honest.

I haven't found anything else quite like it.

And I'm sure that there are a million and one different directions we could go in terms of what occult recovery looks like in, you know, the next 15 minutes of this episode.

But one of the biggest things that I find, and I remember thinking it when you were sharing parts of your story, which was, you know, talking about self and, and things like that. And I find that that's just one of the most fundamental parts of any sort of cult or high control or high demand recovery is who the. Am I right?

Like, it's like finding that sense of self and the ability to trust yourself when all of the trust that you've given externally is now in tatters. And so what, I guess have you found helps survivors of cults regain that sense of self and ability to trust themselves as well?

Gillie: 00:40:50

Yeah, well, I think the first thing and this came through my PhD, is you need to understand the dynamics of the cold.

Sam: 00:40:59

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:41:01

And that's because. And this is then about who the am I? And the whole thing. Identity is.

I think some people disagree with me and that's fine, you know, but I think when we're in that setting, we, we introject those ideas.

So say the thing about, Sorry, I'm going to use another, the trigger word again, say I'm sinful, I'm a terrible, toxic, awful person because I did all these things and you know, all the religious sort of kind of ideas around that.

So I take that in, I swallow it whole and it starts to build a sense of my identity and the identity I had previously because I joined or if you were born into it, any sense of what I love or what I don't love or whatever starts to get swallowed up in this, this idea that I'm this just that one part that's only one piece of a jigsaw of I'm this terrible, sinful person. And so I call that the cultic pseudo identity. Because it's not us, it's not part of us. It's actually what. It's foreign to us. It's an alien.

It's alien to us. It's not actually a fundamental part of who I am because I'm not like that. I don't see myself like that now. And I didn't before.

I probably had some low self esteem, but I wasn't Anything like this.

Sam: 00:42:34

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:42:35

So fundamentally, we need to understand what belongs to the cult and the pseudo identity and what belongs to me and my authenticity, authentic identity. And in order to get to that, we need to understand the dynamics of the cult, what happened. And there's.

And that's what Walking Free, my book is about. It's about the key areas that I've come across. There'll be others. That's fine. There's a world of stuff out there. But I tried to sort of.

I've used this model with clients for 25 years.

Sam: 00:43:09

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:43:10

So it's been pulled together through the research, through whatever trial and error. What. What do I think? What don't I think? Is this helpful? Isn't it helpful? And these are the things that went in.

There would have been more, but the book got so big that Routley said, they didn't make me take anything out, but they said, you can't put anything else in. It's already a big brick at the top book, isn't it?

Sam: 00:43:36

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:43:37

So. So honestly, it's quite simple in some ways.

You need to understand what happened to you so that you can then start to separate what belonged to the cult identity to what they told you you had to be and what belongs to you. And one of my participants said, we, you know, we look for the PhD. She said, we look for those kernels, those seeds of what are you.

I love art, or I love drawing, or I'm kind or I'm grumpy or, you know, I. This is what I'm like, and these are the things I like, things I like to do, things I'm good at, things I love to do and I'm not good at.

I mean, we don't have to be good at everything. I love doing art, but I never have the time.

And, you know, I think I could have been good at it if I put my, you know, like, you have to work very hard to do it, you know, so there's potentials for us to do things and other things.

Sam: 00:44:40

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:44:40

So. So I think, you know, really, really. That's the fundamental.

And part of that then will be unmasking the cult leaders, seeing whoever the leadership was as a human being, understanding thought reform, being able to set boundaries, but understanding the dynamics of the group so that, you know. And I think the quicker somebody gets that help, the quicker they'll recover.

Sam: 00:45:10

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:45:11

It's not the whole story. Life goes on, happens, triggers happen. But it builds a foundation for being able to go forward.

And I learned that through my PhD it's not something I made up and I see it a lot. And somebody just got in touch with me. I think she said she left the cult 40 years ago and is seeking help now.

20 years ago, 10 years ago, people in agony for years and years.

Whereas if they'd had access to something, you know, and there's a lot more available now than they used to be, then they could have started, at least started on that road way back.

Sam: 00:45:54

Yeah, I think I really, I mean, it's not a great word, but I really love the word that you used there, which is like the agony that they've been in. Because I think that that's exactly what it's. What it is.

I think a lot of people think that once you leave a space that you should just be able to, you know, you're out of the toxic environment, you're all right now, like you're safe. But actually it's agony.

Gillie: 00:46:18

Yeah, it's agony and it's way far away from that.

Sam: 00:46:22

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:46:23

Because I, we do swallow it.

We swallow the stuff they've told us and it sits like undigested food in our stomach and it causes us pain and we need to be able to chew it over, look at it. And you know, some people have been scared, so scared to go into that process.

Sam: 00:46:47

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:46:47

But actually that word, the agony is actually much greater. Not doing. It's like lancing the boil. Do you leave the boil, let it get infected, let it then spread and.

Or do you say, okay, I'm going to actually lance it.

And I have found that the, you know, Walking Free is based on a previous workbook that we've, I've used and the therapists I've trained, have used for, you know, for some years now. They've used them as well, very successfully and, and, and walking free, so they say.

But it's not nearly as agonizing as people think it's going to be because working with the psycho education, working with learning and using the frontal lobe, like using the, the.

Well, what, the, the left brain, whatever you want to call it, actually understanding it, studying it and then making the emotional connections instead of. So the mistake that therapists make is.

And that that person who's ended up in that social workers room, you said, and they're going, oh, what am I going to do with this person?

They've been in a culture is to understand actually what you're going to be meeting is the cultic identity, the person they've been told that they are. And you have to be able to work with that.

But you have to then be able to help that person to reach and find their authentic identity, the person that they are.

But that takes some work because their phobias, you know, well, my leaders, you know what the guru, some of the gurus are seen as God, you know, it's not a Christian God, they're seen as a God. So that takes quite some courage to say, actually. This is a load of bollocks.

Sam: 00:48:50

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:48:50

You know, some abusive old fat bastard who's sitting on a throne, you know. Yeah. Milking for all he can, you know.

Sam: 00:49:00

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I have found both with the clients that I work with and in my own experience of therapy was that I, I needed that psycho education.

I needed to put language to the experience. I needed to understand it.

And the, to use the bridge analogy again, the psychoeducation was the bridge that made it okay to start looking at the rest of the stuff. Stuff. So, yeah, I, I think that, I think logically that should make a lot of sense to people, I would hope.

Gillie: 00:49:37

Well, it's great. That's, that's what helped you. Because, yeah, you know, we've not met before, we've not had a conversation before, but that was what helped you.

So that's, well, encouraging to me, you know, that, that you came to that same conclusion.

Sam: 00:49:57

Yeah, absolutely. I usually would ask. Actually, I'm going to go back a section. I was going to ask my final question, but I want to ask.

I'm going to throw another question at you that I didn't prepare you for.

Gillie: 00:50:10

I don't mind this.

Sam: 00:50:14

This is the.

I love asking people who work in this space this type of question, which is what has it been like for you personally to help probably countless individuals recover from being a part of a cult? Like, not the, the details of, like what. The actual recovery process, but the impact on you to be able to be a part of that with those individuals.

Gillie: 00:50:41

Amazing.

Sam: 00:50:42

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:50:43

I mean, I'm 72 and I'm not giving up soon. I love it. I love doing the work. I love. I have a lot of patience and just take time and going through that, that.

So with walking Free, okay, that psychological kind of journey, package, road, whatever you want to call it, going slowly but surely, not expecting anything or any particular outcome, letting that person find their way out, make their connections. And what I find is by the time we've finished that workbook, that they come to a very different place.

And the affiliate therapists who I've trained, who, who I, you know, we collaborate together now because I want to give this away. This isn't about me. It's about seeing it, what can be useful to some people. And it's, it's fantastic.

And also using the psycho education for me as a therapist is very grounding because if somebody comes into the room and they just start telling you all these horror stories, they're going to leave that session feeling way worse than when they came in. It's not going to help them. Not. Not really.

Sam: 00:52:13

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:52:14

I mean, it might help to tell somebody, but they'll be on the moon with hyper arousal.

To actually be able to steadily tell your story, but through different glasses, through different viewing viewpoints, that you start to tell the story and make sense of it at the same time is grounding. And that's grounding for me because it can be overwhelming hearing some of this stuff. I feel so angry when I hear and I let people know as well.

They laugh at me now. You know, they're like, okay, that makes.

Sam: 00:52:50

Me happy because I'm just like, I'm so angry on your behalf.

Gillie: 00:52:54

Like, yeah, I always start swearing when that happens.

You know, I can find myself saying a lot, you know, when we start talking about the leader, because I let people know or just, you know, oh God, how ridiculous is that? You know, how ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Some of the bollocks they talk about.

Sam: 00:53:17

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:53:17

And it's necessary to disarm that. And who's gonna do it? Like, they're with us in therapy, we do it, you know.

Sam: 00:53:25

Yeah. I think it also just like, I mean, we know that the relationship is, you know, the core factor of any sort of therapy model and approach.

And I think if you were, if someone was to sit there, stone cold face, no reaction in hearing some of these things, that would be so disorienting and traumatizing for the other person.

Gillie: 00:53:49

So, yeah, I guess I have to say absolutely yes.

Sam: 00:53:54

I'd be mortified if that was me.

Gillie: 00:53:56

Oh my God, I would get me out of. Also, it's dangerous for the therapist.

Sam: 00:54:02

Yeah.

Gillie: 00:54:03

Because they're inviting transference. So people who aren't therapists may not understand the language, but actually that's what it's about.

And if you invite transference of a rage towards a highly abusive cult leader or figure, then you're in trouble. I think in the therapy we need to be very person centered, very unconditional positive regard, non judgmental.

We need to be very present and very interactive.

Sam: 00:54:32

Yeah, I usually finish.

Most of my listeners will know that I usually finish my storytelling episodes with asking the person for some encouragement and so I twist it for my bonus episode. So I want to ask you for a word, a message, a piece of advice or encouragement for someone who is in the early stages of their own cult recovery.

Gillie: 00:54:57

Recovery is possible. It really. Look, when I left the group I was nothing like I am now. And okay, it's a very, very long time ago and I've spent a lot of time recovering.

But. But it's worth putting in the effort and it is possible and just have. Have that in mind and get help from people who know what to do.

Sam: 00:55:27

Yeah, yeah.

Gillie: 00:55:29

And there aren't that many around, but there are some and the people I've trained. I'm going to do another certificate training for therapists. There's a lot of interest, so I'm still grappling with how to do that.

Sam: 00:55:47

But.

Gillie: 00:55:48

But you know, it's about finding the right way and I hope my book, Walking Free, it is a workbook so I hope you know that can be a beginning for people.

Sam: 00:55:57

Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes it is coming back to the basics and people just need to hear from somebody who has done it themselves but also works in the space.

Like you have both of those perspectives to just give that reminder that yes, it's going to be bloody hard, but it's possible and I think people just need sometimes to hear the basics of healing and recovery is possible. So I love that.

Gillie: 00:56:26

Maybe it's not going to be as awful as you think. Yeah, you.

But you know, it's one more thing because if you have a good therapeutic relationship and then you psycho educational information, then it's a good base to start to really move forward in your life.

Sam: 00:56:45

Yeah, absolutely. I will pop all of the details for people to be able to access the resources and your book and all of that in the show notes.

But I want to thank you so much both for joining me, but also for the work that you do in this space. I'm very appreciative as a survivor and as a practitioner for. For the work that you do. So thank you and thank you for joining me.

I've loved this conversation.

Gillie: 00:57:16

Me too.

Sam: 00:57:21

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did.

If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you.

Remember, no matter where you are on your journey, you're not alone until Next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.