THE
HARSH CONSCIENCE OF THOSE WHO EXPERIENCED THE AUTHORITARIAN GRIND
Lorna Goldberg, L.C.S.W.
Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies
INTRODUCTION:
How
does the experience of spending years in an authoritarian system affect those
who are trapped inside? In this paper, I will focus on how the authoritarian
system can create what Erich Fromm has described as the “authoritarian conscience”
(Fromm, E., 1947). and I will look at how that type of
conscience contributes to the difficulties experienced by those who leave. However, before I discuss the developing
conscience per se, I will explore the concept of trauma. I believe that those
growing up in authoritarian systems are more at risk for trauma, because of this
type of system’s effect on parenting.
FACTORS
THAT CONTRIBUTE TO CULT-RELATED TRAUMA:
After
World War II, Anna Freud studied how English children fared during the Blitz of
London. Her studies revealed that those children
who were sent to the countryside away from mothers, who were wishing to protect
them, had more emotional difficulties than those who remained with their
mothers and retreated to the Underground with them while London was bombed. Children need a safe place, but they more
importantly need a consistent tie with a nurturing mother or caretaker (Freud,
A., 1948).
In
the authoritarian cultic group, the leader’s authority and influence is paramount. Even in larger groups that allow parents to
live with and have some degree of influence with their children, the cult
ideology still can be used to influence and shape many of the child- rearing
beliefs, often including the acceptance of physical or sexual abuse or parental
separation or neglect. Dr. Bruce Perry
described how the children of
However,
the amount of deprivation or abuse experienced by each child is influenced not
only by the cultic environment itself, but also by the child’s individual
temperament and how this affects each child’s particular response, including
the tendency to move away from or towards potentially helpful adults in
childhood. Those children who were able to connect to adults outside the group
were at a great advantage. In contrast to more insulated children, these
children often had a better ability to gain emotional distance from the cult,
because they were treated in a more positive way; and, as a result, were better
able to critically assess the abuse or neglect in their environment. Along with
this, they developed a self-protective “bullshit detector” which many SGAs, [whose needs were never seen as important,] lack
(Gina Catena, Personal Communication). That is, SGAs
often are used to primarily satisfying the adult’s needs and ignore their own. However,
some of these children might defend against the leader’s abuse or neglect by
using the defense of identification with the aggressor and show contempt for
any display of weakness or for the usurped parent (who, after all, are not seen
as the primary authority figures). In fact, in many groups, children are
encouraged to serve as spies of their parents or other adults and loyalty only
is directed to the leader.
In
assessing the experience of each child, it is important to consider the
personality of each caretaker and the impact of the emotional demands and
stress of living in an authoritarian environment on the ability of each parent
to empathize with the child. We can wonder
if parents can be sensitive to their child’s emotional life when they defend against
their own feelings through endless thought-stopping techniques; i.e., meditation,
chanting, decreeing or use of the group’s clichés as a dictate for parental
behavior. We become concerned about the
degree of time the child is burdened by the need to perform cult rituals or
service through proselytizing or labor instead of involvement in the normal play
activities of childhood. We wonder about the neglect of the child when the
parents are called elsewhere. We wonder about the effect of being in a constant
state of alarm --- feeling a threat from the outside world. We are concerned for children who grow up in
a split world of good and evil, where even negative thought is seen as the
devil’s work and evil is displaced from the threatening and exploitive cult
leader and externalized onto the outside world. We wonder about the effect of growing
up in an environment with few choices, where most decisions are made for the
child.
It
seems clear that if parents are usurped and the emotional tie between parent
and child is not developed and if parents are unable to nurture their own children,
each child is at increased risk of abuse and neglect from environmental forces.
Trauma has been described as
“the experience of being made into an object, a thing:
the victim of someone else’s rage or nature’s indifference,
of one’s own physical or psychological limitations. Along
with the pain and fear….comes an overwhelming and
marginally bearable sense of helplessness, a realization
that
leaves a view of the self that is damaged or contaminated
by the humiliation, pain and fear that the event imposed
or a fragmented sense of self.” [Spiegel, D., Hunt, T., and Dondershine, H., p. 249.]
In
healthy enough development, the arousal of strong emotions experienced by the
child is managed initially through the soothing, repairing response of the
caretaker. With this as a model, the
developing child is able to acknowledge the pain and gradually develops
self-soothing mechanisms for dealing with strong emotions and painful
experiences that arise and, thereby, also helps children modulate their
physiologic arousal. In traumatic development, the upsurge of emotion is too
intense or the soothing and repairing functions of the caretaker are not
adequate, so that the ability to self-soothe might not develop and optimal
brain development is at risk (Whitsett, 2006). We can consider that a child who is helpless
to escape an overwhelming situation might use a whole variety of responses and defenses,
including dissociation or retreating into a fantasy world in order to escape
psychologically from the overwhelming pain.
This frightening situation can impact on brain development, restricting
cognitive abilities; i.e., problem-solving, planning, memory, and independent
thought; as well as restrict one’s affective capacities. That is, the
developing child begins to find it difficult to feel and identify a whole range
of emotions and often develops a tendency to act impulsively (reactively with
strong emotion rather than with discrimination or self-reflection) or with automatic
super-vigilance. Aftereffects include
anxiety, depression, somatic difficulties, sleep and eating disturbances, and difficulty
with developmental achievements and, possibly, the need to retreat into a
fantasy world. In dissociation, the individual experiences a painful event as
happening to a different self, the participating self seems estranged from the
observing self. Typically, the experiencing self becomes distant and estranged
at the same time that the observing self becomes acutely aware (Tillman, J.,
Nash, M., and Lerner, P., p. 401).
If
the developing child dissociates, these painful cues are further not available
to consciousness and this, too, impairs the capacity for self-defense and for self-management. We can consider the difficulty the child
might have in experiencing anger in situations in which he or she are highly
dependent on the abusing caregiver. The
difficulty in feeling pain and anger and the resulting incapacity for self-defense
leave the child even more helpless.
The
need to defend against or dissociate the pain and anger as part of the sense of
helplessness that comes with trauma, is what can sometimes make abused children
appear passive. However, while abused children
might have difficulty with self-defense, they can be very hard workers who are
not at all passive in gratifying the needs of others and they quickly might come
to the aid of other victimized individuals.
Therefore, it is not conscious will per se that is unavailable to the
individual, but that part of will or agency which is unconsciously linked to
the earlier traumatic experiences. This often has to do with being overwhelmed,
helpless and terrified in the context of a dependent attachment and feeling unable
to learn how to handle these feelings (Howell, E., p. 432). Furthermore, as Whitsett
points out, “Biological explanations can shed much light on the symptoms of
re-experiencing and avoidance…….portions remain unintegrated
in implicit memory circuits…..dissociated material (sights, sounds, spells,
etc.) acts as ‘triggers’ later on, flooding the survivor with emotions similar
to those accompanying the original event.
Conversely, triggers can induce dissociated states… [Whitsett, 2006, p.
365].”
In an abusive relationship, defensive reactions,
particularly dissociation and identification with the aggressor, often lead to
viewing oneself only through the abuser’s eyes.
Howell writes:
“The shame
of being so devalued, undervalued, and mistreated by a
valued and needed significant other may be so great that the
particulars
of the overwhelmingly painful experience(s) are
split-off, leaving
intact the procedural relationship forms and modes, for
instance,
submissiveness or eagerness to please. The person is left with ‘feeling bad’
(and the behaviors that go
with it), but not having the opportunity to
examine the particular split-off aspects of experience,
doesn’t know why.
Feeling bad (being injured and humiliated) is
easily distorted into the
perception of being “bad.”
In this way, the child feels bad instead of
injured. Recognition
of having been injured requires, among other
things the ability to feel angry on one’s behalf” [Howell,
E.F., p. 432].
In
adolescence, with the potential for increased cognitive abilities, the biological
responses of puberty, and the emergence of the supremacy of the peer group, some
children begin to be flooded with angry and sexual feelings that were not
experienced directly in latency and they begin to defy these powerful figures.
However, because of their experiences with untrustworthy individuals in the
past, rebellion might be their only way to prove their independence and it
continues to be difficult for them to operate in their best interest. It might
be necessary to rely on alcohol or drugs, food, sexual activity, obsessive
compulsive behavior, or somatic symptoms to quell painful affects and post
traumatic symptoms that arise.
THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE AUTHORITARIAN CONSCIENCE:
Just
as neglectful and abusive relationships can produce the dissociative response or
other ways of defending against powerful emotions as a reaction to trauma, so
can good relationships have a positive effect.
Change can occur through a relationship with an honest, kind (not pitying,
but respectful), and empathic person who does not deny, minimize, or react with
anger towards the individual’s painful emotions. The most powerful asset in overcoming
psychological trauma seems to be the continued availability of a helpful and trustworthy
relationship. However, making such a
situation possible sometimes requires an individual to be willing to feel that
he or she deserves to continue this kind of relationship.
Internalizing external abuse, severe losses,
emotional deprivation and other traumatic experiences can result in a
self-destructive internal force, causing feelings of guilt and worthlessness. I believe that working towards softening
these harsh attitudes is one of the essential requirements of therapy with
second generation former cult members. These
harsh attitudes of the conscience can include the following: punitive judgments
against oneself and others, tormenting and unrelenting thoughts, hating and
sadistic behavior that can be turned against oneself and others, suffering, and
self-destructive behavior. Some might enter into a kind of reverie where they
retreat from painful experiences or even potentially pleasurable experiences with
others into a world of these thoughts.
However, these hurtful thoughts might be triggered by the smallest of
slights, as well as harsh criticism. They can be triggered by an expectation of
finding these slights in each new situation. They can be triggered by failure
to meet one’s own impossibly high standards. After leaving the authoritarian
world of the cult, there usually needs to be the development of a more realistic
and accepting view of oneself and others – one that recognizes and values one’s
accomplishments; and, at the same time, acknowledges the need to still develop
in some areas.
As you know, Freud labeled the conscience as the
superego. Freud’s paper, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
(1921), addressed how the leader or the central person of a group functions
as the superego of the group. In cultic
groups, the charismatic leader typically is seen as extraordinary, all-powerful,
and as an ideal being. In a group that
is cultic, the leader usually tends to be authoritarian and punishing and the
group members take in his or her harsh, punishing attitudes. However, because he or she claims to be such
an extraordinary being, the cult leader does not have to live by the same standards
and restrictions that govern members’ behavior.
In the world outside the cult, parents usually are
in the role of authority to the developing child. Early in life, the “good enough parent” (Winnicott, D., p. 8) responds to the baby’s cries with
milk, soothing, and/or engages with the baby in play. A client of mine reported that her cult
leader told her that if she responded to her babies cries, she would spoil her
child. After leaving the cult, she was
flooded with guilt about her neglect.
After the needs of the baby are responded to by the
parents, in the second year of life and beyond there normally is a clash
between the child’s wishes and the parents’ prohibitions and demands. This frustration usually leads to anger shown
by the child towards those individuals. However, often in cults, where
children’s needs might be frustrated, but they might learn that a display of aggression
is forbidden (except by the leaders), outward expression of anger is continually
inhibited. When anger is inhibited,
where does it go? It can be turned back
against oneself further reinforcing the harsh conscience that develops in the
cult. Turning anger onto oneself also
can set the stage for a tendency for self- destructive behavior shown later in
life, including substance abuse or other forms of addictive and suicidal
behaviors. Van der
Kolk reports that “trauma can be repeated on
behavioral, emotional, physiologic, and neuroendocrinologic
levels. Repetition on these different levels causes a large variety of
individual and social suffering. Anger directed against the self or others is
always a central problem….and this is itself a repetitive re-enactment of real
events from the past. (van der
Kolk, 1989, p. 404)
Normally, two and three year olds begin to reveal
their conflicts about being controlled by parents through negativity and the
power struggles of the toileting experience. How is this difficult stage of
development handled in the cult? Can the cult leader tolerate a defiant
child? Can cult parents feel comfortable
accepting this normal behavior or do parents need to show that they can control
their child?
Later, those children who are separated from
parents sometimes reveal their anxieties through many symptoms, including sleep
disturbances and bed wetting. A child
who, at five, was sent away to a cult-run school would be woken up to launder
her sheets if she wet her bed at night. Bed-wetting can be seen as a regression
that might indicate a desire for parental attention and care, but this child
was punished for such yearning.
A nurturing parent accepts the harsh judgment – “Mommy,
I hate you! You’re the meanest mommy in the world!” knowing that this simply is
an expression of the child’s frustration.
However, if this expression of anger is not accepted or severely
punished, the child might turn her or his anger inward onto the self. For example, several years ago I worked with
a four year old child who would bite her hand when she felt angry with me. I told her that she probably felt like biting
my hand instead of hers and she laughed with delight, indicating that I was
giving expression to her misdirected anger.
She enjoyed my expression of what she was feeling. Over time, in sessions, this child became
freer to test out her anger with me.
When a child needs to turn angry feelings inward,
feelings of guilt and shame might be intensified. The self is diminished by
anger directed towards it and away from the target of the anger. Shame can be
experienced, because of the discrepancy between the actual self-image and the
standard of perfection that is held in the cult. For example, in the cult, a child often is
induced to believe that angry feelings experienced are proof of an evil
nature. Where there is shame there is
usually a shaming person who uses obvious or subtle forms of shaming. The whole experience becomes internalized so
that, after a while, there is no need for there to be an actual shamer to be present for the child or adult to feel
internal shame. Those who were shamed
learn to defend, cover up, and hide the shame (Schecter,
D., 371). Furthermore, as mentioned previously, in the cult, if the child is
experiencing the trauma of early abuse or deprivation, there is a need to
defend against the anger and pain of the experience in order to continue to feel
attached to the caretaker. Therefore, this response has consequences for many
developmental capacities; e.g.., time management (as the individual moves into
a dissociation, a reverie state or fantasy world), self-image, and a sense of agency.
That is, how much can the child be an actor to change his or her life
circumstances if unable to identify and assert his or her needs?
The child is left with feelings of badness that
have to be hidden from others at all costs in order to survive. Where do these bad feeling go? For some,
badness resides in self-abuse. The developing child in the authoritarian
environment of the cult often copes with this bleak reality by taking in the
cult leader’s prohibitions and severe attitudes. As a response to the leader’s absolute authority,
the child often develops an internal experience of being insignificant or
bad. For example, in focusing on
children growing up in ISKON, Nori Muster writes,
“Teachers and gurus told children that abuse was their karma because they must
have hurt children in a past life and…..that to oppose the abuse would only
bring more bad karma (Muster, Nori, Authoritarian
Culture and Child Abuse in ISKON, CSR,
3:l, p. 11). By blaming the child, the irrational
authority gives a negative connotation to the child’s anger, thus creating
feelings of guilt. This is another way
that anger can then be turned against the self in form of symptoms and
self-destructive behavior.
I work with several individuals who were placed in
a substance abuse rehabilitation cult during adolescence. Some of them were simply siblings of those
who had been identified as substance abusers.
Particularly for those who come from groups in which they were constantly
attacked and placed on some form of the “Hot Seat,” I see how this treatment
can result in a repetition of this traumatic experience through intense anxiety
that drives performance to unrealistic standards that cannot be met or can initially,
for some, only be quelled by the self-medication of alcohol or drugs. Individuals leave these groups with
unrelenting self-punishing thoughts that, initially, only can be softened
through insight and, sometimes initially, antidepressants.
For some, I have seen a duality of personality,
looking good on the outside and doing “bad” things in secret. These individuals often feel self-hatred and
shame about the desire to do some of the activities that they had been restricted
from doing while in the cult and this has the effect of creating more shame. Upon
leaving the cult, there often is a desire to engage in sexual activities, or
drug or alcohol use. Although there is a
need to experience the wider world, these activities not only fulfill an
expectation that they are going to some form of Hell, but also can serve as an
attempt to continue to protect them from intense anger and pain that was
defended against while in the traumatic environment of the cult. The need to experience vivid emotions and
excitement and even dangerously defiant rebellious behavior, also may derive
from the compulsion to re-experience the hyper-aroused state of earlier traumas
(van der Kolk, 2006).
THE THERAPEUTIC RESPONSE:
If a therapist or a friend is simply curious and
open to examining all of the meanings of this behavior, rather than being
judgmental, the former cultist is able to begin to heal this split and become a
more authentic person. The former cult member becomes better able to put words
and emotions to his or her story if the therapist begins by questioning, “Why
do you think you had sex? What are the
feelings that you are trying to cope with?”
If the therapist helps the former cult member to take in and reflect on
the meaning of behavior with a nonjudgmental rather than punishing stance, the
he or she can begin to develop this attitude for him or herself. The therapist
is a potential person with whom to examine one’s thoughts and rework one’s old
difficulties.
In his work, Man
for Himself (1947), Erich Fromm contrasted the authoritarian and humanistic
conscience. According to Fromm, the authoritarian
conscience is the voice of an external authority that becomes internalized by
the developing child (p. 143). A good
conscience is seen as one that would please the authority and a guilty
conscience is a conscience that would displease (p.150). The authoritarian conscience, typically
developed in a cult, focuses on admiration of the authority and is fearful of
punishment and rejection on the authority’s part. The primary offenses in the authoritarian
society are rebellion against the authority, criticism and disobedience. Children who grow up in authoritarian
environments sometimes believe that the only way to be independent is to be
rebellious. However, I believe that being
compelled to be against is no freer than to be for. The need to always be against can be hurtful
in one’s life after the cult. Freedom
comes from the ability to critically assess each new situation and the freedom
to make choices on how to respond. In
contrast to rebellion, as mentioned previously, the anger that is felt by the
child, because of the pressure to submit often is turned back against the self. For some children, anxiety about losing the
group’s approval and affection can create a lack of basic sense of security and
induce the child to feel more dependent on the group to compensate for that
loss.
Furthermore, those raised in cultic groups,
particularly those raised communally, rarely have experienced a place of their
own – on the outside and on the inside. Even
more problematic than sharing living space (which relates to no privacy on the
outside), is the fact that self-reflection or empathy with others was not
encouraged in the group, (which relates to space to reflect on the inside). For many, days might have been filled with
cult rituals and chores and there might have been little encouragement towards self-direction. For numerous children who were raised
separately from their parents or with abusing parents, night time fears, nightmares,
and “accidents,” were common and often experienced with shame. As mentioned
previously, children typically were punished for behavior that often might have
been a natural reaction to the sense of abandonment or the abuse that they were
experiencing. It was not unusual for
children to feel that they were to blame when these understandable reactions
occurred. All of this might have left
them with difficulty in getting in touch with and asking to have their genuine
needs met.
I worked with a child who was rescued at eight by
her father from a cult school that she entered at five. While in the cult, when she was disobedient,
she was locked in a small closet. She
learned to survive and gain some degree of better treatment through her ability
to perform – she danced and sang at cult rituals. When she left the cult, she believed
that she would only be loved by her ability to perform and please others.
In contrast to the cult environment that creates
the harsh conscience, I feel that it is essential to help former cult members
see that there can be alternative ways of looking at experiences. When an individual leaves an authoritarian
group, he or she might not expect others in the new environment to be compassionate,
encouraging or protecting. Fromm’s
humanistic conscience is a conscience that is comforting and understanding, and
has the capacity to forgive and make reparations. It seems that with the development of the
humanistic conscience, the individual also can believe in the right to a good
life and expect that he or she has the right to be treated well and by others
in relationships.
In therapy, there may be attempts on my client’s
part to keep me as an all knowing authority figure or to devalue me and rebel
against me. Those were the two options in the cult and they often are replayed
with me and others after cult departure. Those who were treated sadistically
might attempt to pull me into a relationship where I will criticize them or
will be put down by them. When I sense
this is occurring, I point it out to my clients. It is important for individuals to have a place
to examine and modify sadomasochistic patterns of relating to others --- where
they discover how they feel, by examining their relationship with me and with
others in their present life as well as by linking these relationships to the
past. In this way, the former cult member gains better conscious control over
patterns that tend to be played out unconsciously. There inevitably might be a
need to experience me as a sadistically coercive, abandoning, and/ or
narcissistic individual. There sometimes is the fear that I wish them to become
dependent on me and that will mean that I will exploit them. If I do not give them all of the answers,
they may feel that I am deliberately holding out on them. They also might have conflict over a desire
to be assertive, aggressive, or even sadistic to me. In my counter transference
reactions to all this, I have to watch out for my feelings of being hurt or
angry at being misunderstood, guilty about not giving more, angry at feeling
rejected or diminished, or smug or too “knowing” when I am being idealized.
Humor, the play of therapy, is crucial and I always try not to take myself too
seriously.
I have
learned that former cultists often have an ideal of perfection that is
impossible to achieve. The cult also made them feel that they are special,
extraordinary individuals, who must live their lives in extraordinary
ways. Feeling special and extraordinary
can be a burden and a trap. As mentioned previously the affect of shame arises
when an individual perceives himself (or believes himself to have been
perceived by others) as having failed to live up to ideal standards that he or
she accepts. When falling short of the
ideal self, an individual can feel weak, inferior, humiliated, and expect to be
condemned and/or ridiculed. There is
always a comparison between the actual self and the ideal self. It is difficult
for many former cultists to feel good about small, everyday pleasures of life
and small accomplishments. They feel the pressure to accomplish great things.
A form of guilt that I’ve seen operating in some former
cultists is survivor guilt (Modell, 1971). This is based on the idea that one’s freedom
is somehow damaging to others. How can
the former cult member have a happy life while others are suffering? It is important to begin to question, “Is
your suffering alleviating the suffering of others? Or is doing well in life the best revenge for
years in an authoritarian system?” Some cannot live their lives without
experiencing dread and doom. Emotions
that come from the past don’t have to predict the future.
In therapy I also find it to be important to focus
on and uncover the conscious and/or unconscious feelings of evilness that
developed in the cult environment. For
example, I have found it useful to explore harsh attitudes towards oneself and
ask the former cult member whether he or she would have had such a harsh attitude
towards the child that he or she once was.
If the former cult member can begin to soften his or her way of
evaluating him or herself, life can become much more satisfying. Therefore, I
believe that for change to occur in therapy with a former cult member, it is
necessary for the client to develop a more compassionate way of looking at
oneself and others. This results in more positive relationships, because the
individual can have a good-enough relationship even in the presence of
ambivalent feelings. There can be the
ability to accept and forgive limitations and the mistakes that are made.
In an attempt to look more “normal” to the outside
world, the former cultist might be painfully aware of feeling so different and
this might create distance from others in present life. Hopefully, the growing acceptance that
develops over time allows the former cultist not to shamefully split off a part
of herself or himself by remaining unaware, secretive, or by cutting off his or
her history. Sometimes, recovery workshops, support groups, and informational
conferences can aid in allowing the former cult member to feel less alone with
these shameful feelings. Despite these
formidable challenges, I have been amazed at the resiliency and growth shown by
former cult members who work so hard to begin to face, understand, and accept themselves
and their pasts; and, thereby, give themselves an opportunity for a better life
and more positive relationships in the present and the future.
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Part 2.
An
earlier version of this paper originally was presented at the panel, “The
Authoritarian Grind,” at the International Cultic Studies Association
Conference in