Are Cults Mentally Ill? | ASK A DOCTOR [Real Medical Cases]
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ค. 2024
- #cults #mentalhealth #askadoctor #psychiatrydoctor #drelliott
Some cults have done some horrible things. As a psychiatry doctor, it's important for me to know what crimes are from mental illness vs. those that are simply from choice. Folie a deux refers to mass shared delusions. Do these violent and bizarre beliefs that come from these cult leaders count as delusions? If group members are therefore psychotic, can they be held responsible for their actions? It's actually a really difficult question to answer but I'll try my best to give it a go on this video.
I was born with ADHD & ASD (diagnosed at 30yr). I was born into an extreme fundamentalist cult. I literally ran away at 19yr, and by run away I had fled the geogrical and communal location and was excommunicated. You don't just leave a cult, it's programed into your bones. Now 33yr I am finally in therapy as my PSTD and Depression will not be ignored and the programming needs overwriting. I have just finished reading The Body Keeps the Score and this is what helped me to understand that I can't get better with professional help. Its extremely hard work
I'm in the same boat, just older. I'm going to be 40 next month, and only recently realized just how fxxked up my experiences in the cult were.
Deprogramming yourself, with professional help, is extremely hard.
I left a cult that I was raised in and have since made cult tactics my life’s study. You were spot on and I even learned some new things. Thanks for helping educate people.
I just grow up and is on the process of left home,my mom's a cult leader
I was warning people ever since I'm 12years old , recently i was diagnosed with schizophrenia as well
So gaslighting and i have cptsd
Can you react to “the perks of being a wallflower “
I grew up in a christian cult, and the BITE model, developed by Steven Hassan, is the best I've seen for evaluating whether or not an organization is a cult. It stands for Behavioral, Idealogical, Thought, and Emotional control, and provides a really balanced way of evaluating cults since there is such a wide variety of them.
I grew up in a very conservative christian community with a fairly intense focus on all the things you can go to hell for. From 5 years old, I was already extremely private, combatting all the things about myself that I thought would earn me eternal damnation. Several classmates of mine went on to do some pretty horrific things because natural expressions of sexuality were so taboo in the community that they could never explore in a healthy way.
My difficulties were never explored with mental health professionals, only pastors and teachers, and only now that I've been out over a decade have I finally begun getting help.
I think the line between cult and religion is so blurry it hurts.
I grew up in a similar "church" I find a lot of discussions like this leave out how cults affect children, we didn't choose to attend, we were too young for this to be a choice, and I think the brainwashing goes deeper because it happens when our brains are forming and we have nothing to compare it to, or the critical ability to evaluate what we are told. I chose to leave when I was 18, but it was because I had made friends outside in secret in my mid teens that let me see that the world was less scary than the church, they pointed out that some if the things I told them weren't normal and were actually very wrong, which I kind of suspected, it may have been normal to me but still felt wrong, like when I was told I was chosen to be in a relationship with a man in his late 20s when I was 16, and that I should be happy because he was destined to be in ministry. It made me feel dirty especially the way he looked at me after the pastor spoke to me about it (this is is one of many not ok things that happened and far from the worst). It took intense counselling from someone who specialised in both child abuse and spiritual/cult abuse to help me really work through everything and it wasn't easy! Followed by years of asking myself why I thought things that didn't match my personality or reacted so negatively to comments or ideas, to help me sort out what was me and what was the conditioning from my childhood - sometimes I still have to do this and I have been out for over 20 years. It made me intensly protective of my thoughts because they were the only thing that couldn't be controlled or taken away, it made me incredibly self reliant, but also very good at hiding what I think, feel, and when I am not ok, I learnt to be silent and invisible to survive, but even though I'm bright and bubbly now and no one would know now how different my childhood is from most people or how much trauma I experienced, it can still be hard to truely trust people except a few very close friends, my sister and my children. I had panic attacks for years - still do now occasionally and I don't go to church anymore except for very special occasions like weddings and funerals to protect my mental health. I think sometime professional guidelines on where religion ends and cults begin are difficult because they can and do get used to discriminate unfairly, but it leaves predatory people a lot of space to use religion and fear as a way of controlling and hurting people. It can be incredibly difficult to adjust to a world we were not raised to be part of, and I have seen people I grew up with fall to addiction and/or suicide. We were told we would be punished for leaving and we would go to hell, that turning our backs on "the truth" whether by choice or from excommunication ment there was no forgiveness and we would fall into drugs and alcohol and sexual promiscuity etc. But a lot of that is self medication and not learning how to make good choices because we never got to make any choices before. Not to mention how hard it is to not belong or fit in especially if your family don't leave and they cut you out, we don't have the tools to adapt without help, and help is not always there. I was lucky, not everyone is.
But my children have a better life, I raised them very differently and they are amazing young adults who fill me with so much pride and joy. We do not have to be crippled by our pasts and we can break cycles of abuse.
I do not have to define myself by what I experienced, or even that I survived it. I am myself, I created a life for myself, a successful life, filled with incredible experiences, I studied and travelled, I worked in film for about 20 years, and then taught my vocation for annother 5, now I work in the executive of the school and train the trainers on how to teach more effectively (among other duties) - all things I never would have been allowed to do if I stayed. Life is infinitely fascinating and I love learning and being able to ask questions and find answers to them and even find answers to questions I hadn't even thought to ask, to be able to be curious about anything that comes my way with no fear is a gift I will never stop appreciating
@@ireneo4614 Thank you for sharing. I can scarcely imagine being a female in one of these cults. There was a lot of toxic programming I had, and not until I grew up and left did I really begin to hear and understand some of the aspects of how women were treated and what was expected of them. We didn't have the extremes of arranged marriages, but it was not much better. I'm glad you were able to break the cycle and raise your kids outside of that. I relate, and I'm doing my best to do the same.
Much love!
@@ryannohr210 if there is one thing I have learnt it is that trauma is trauma, pain is pain, you can't weigh it up and say mine is worse than yours or vice versa, someone always has it worse but the effects are still far reaching and what breaks one person won't break another. All we can do is be kind to eachother and encourage eachother to heal, to grow and remind eachother we are still here, still living and learning.
I genuinely have a wonderful life, I love my job, I have great friends and my sister is my biggest cheerleader, I have beautiful, kind and successful children and a partner who loves and supports me and makes me slow down because I go a million miles an hour, he likes that I'm independent and opinionated rather than trying to make me small.
I have achieved things I never even dreamed of.
I can think of many things I don't think I needed to experience to still be me... but I like me.
There a bruises and scars inside and out. Some of them may never go away, but maybe telling my story will help someone else and let them know they can make it to the other side, give them hope when it feels like they have none. I hope so, because we only get one life and it was supposed to be lived
To me Creed Bratton from "The Office" came to mind:
"I've been involved in a number of cults. Both as a leader and a follower. You have more fun as a follower, but, you make more money as a leader."
Please react to movies dealing with psych concepts such as Split, Black Swan, and Psycho that portrays Dissociative Identity Disorder.
There's an amazing episode on cults in Vox' web series Explained (it's on Netflix), and if I remember correctly one of the experts interviewed in that episode said "religion = cult + time". Or I saw it somewhere else. I'm not sure. But it's a great series nonetheless!
I want to thank you for your videos by the way. I discovered you through Cinema Therapy (as so many people will have, and should!) and I'm now binging through all your videos :P You're making great videos in which you include amazingly important nuances. For me you hit the sweet spot between telling it as it is and at the same time staying sensitive, compassionate, and understanding. Validation where validation is needed, and breaking harmful stereotypes where breaking harmful stereotypes is needed. Keep up the great work! And from my heart, thank you for what you're doing for so many communities!
I have an interesting question though: if you're trying to acquit someone who has committed a murder with an insanity plea... the way you phrased it made me think. That, had they not had that mental illness, they would not have committed that murder. Can't "being able to end someone else's life" be regarded as a mental issue in itself? Since without that, they wouldn't have committed the murder?
And what would constitute a 'choice'? Because, if you think about it, whatever choice you make is the product of your mental make-up, your knowledge, your experiences, your circumstances, your surrounding etc. Maybe if one of your peers hadn't egged you on you wouldn't have done it. Maybe if it hadn't rained that day and you were slightly less irritated because you wouldn't have come home soaked you wouldn't have done it. Maybe little things just tipped the balance. Is there truly such a thing as 'choice'? What's the difference between not being able to have chosen differently because of a mental illness, and not being able to have chosen differently because all the checks and balances added up to your neurons and neurotransmitters firing in such a way that you committed the murder? I think it's fascinating to ponder about.
Cult? The first things I think of is: Narcissistic Abuse, Scientology, "The Path" or "50 Shades of Grey".
Don't really have anything to say, just commenting to help your channel get seen by the algorithm. Super interesting stuff keep it up! Cheers!
I compaired my religious upbringing to the bite model (behavior, information, thought, emotional control) for cults. It was disturbing how extreamly cult like my upbringing was. I wouldn't say it was a cult, but definately cult-like. Oh and I joined a few actual cults. I unfortunately was born into it, but I luckily was able to break free. It was traumatic finding out everything I once knew to be true was actually false and realizing that I had two choices: Pretend that it wasn't cult-like and go along or leave. I chose the later. There is still a lot to unpack, but now that I have health insurance I hope to find a good secular therapist.
I'm comparing what he is saying versus Mormanism and Jehovahs witnesses and they do just sound more like cults.
This made me think of 3 things: Keith Raniere (the leader of NXIVM), the Westboro Baptist Church, and the MAGA/Qanon movement.
All 3 are cults. Someone read the Q omens and deciphered that JFK Jr would appear at the place his father was killed in Dallas and a few hundred gathered to watch it. Others claim that DJT is the son of General Patton and Patton is the son of George Washington (go figure)
Genuinely my favourite video of yours
So interesting. Please could you look at QAnon from this perspective? I've had friends go from being successful professionals to losing their jobs and being very unwell in less than a year.
Interesting, thoughtful and intelligent videos like this are the exact reason the Internet was invented. Just gained a subscriber.
I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I wonder what first comes to mind?
Living near BYU I, I totally relate
super interesting topic
Good stuff.
This video would have been so helpful for my research paper on cults. Only a month to late.
What would be interesting to determine the usefulness of the DSM classification in terms of the court setting would be to examine the original research that justified the classification being included, then removed, then restored to the DSM: the court could look at that research to determine how much and in what way it could be applied if at all to the definition provided. I assume prima facie that the court had already exhausted this avenue of enquiry in an attempt to arrive at the appropriate ruling. What do you say?
I would say that would probably be an entire PhD's worth of work but I agree that it might help. I imagine the result would be that there is a negligible evidence base at all
@@DoctorElliottCarthy Agreed.
I remember that soda episode from "Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers".
Oh! And the two parter episode of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" that introduces Starlight Glimmer!
There's a book called Moonstruck about a guy's experiences with the Moonies, and how it became so so difficult to leave. It's not very long and is well worth a read.
The TH-cam channel Telltale is by a guy who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. He's got some very interesting and insightful points.
I like watching Aaron Smith Levin who left the one who has the base in Clearwater.
I already mentioned house to you and you like my comment so I have another recommendation, most all of community (it’s on irish/English Netflix) a mixture of a codependent group of friends and also the episode where Jeff gets kicked out of the biology 101 class (can’t remember the exact episode think it’s the first or second ep of the series’s) just watch most of it or all of it (it’s really good) and there’s a lot of potentially interesting psychological situations, I don’t want to spoil anything so i won’t say much more
My edgy take. ALL religions are cults. (So are most martial arts dojos)
Not "edgy", just a fact.
@@B_27 Ehh not really because *most* people who follow *most* religions don't have 100% unshakable belief, they just have faith, that even if they don't know for sure that god exists they believe in their existence, there is no evidence to prove that god doesn't exist, it's just extremely unlikely, like statistically impossible levels of unlikely, but if we somehow proved that god didn't exist in such a way that couldn't be negated by any of the classic religious arguments(of course impossible in reality) it is likely that most people would turn away from their religions. Not to say there's not plenty of other things wrong with most religions though, they're just not exactly cults, though with how ingrained the beliefs are in society they might be scarier than cults since classical religions can sway far more strong willed people than cults can.
@@giorgitsiklauri840 Maybe look up the definition of a cult. Actually, I will save you some time:
"A cult is a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object".
Therefore, all religions are technically cults. There's already so much scientific evidence that flies in the face of religion and yet people still follow them so your argument is fundamentally flawed.
@@B_27 That is just the dictionary definition, there are in fact many factors which must be taken into account when deciding whether a group is a cult. My argument isn't flawed as they have counterarguments which have a kernel of logic in them no matter how unlikely the argument may be, the most common being that all this evidence is simply their god testing them. Like I said with the problems religions have they may be worse than cults but I don't think most people who professionally study cults would define most religions as cults.
I follow a religion however which even by your provided definition isn't a cult, the Satanic Temple, as it is really less a religion and more of a political ideology which has branded itself as a religion in order to get certain rights and privileges only afforded to religion for the agenda of furthering the separation of church and state.
@@giorgitsiklauri840 The fact that religious groups are exempt from paying taxes is problematic in and of itself. The lack of regulation amongst religious groups is exactly how these cults are allowed to develop.The Satanic Temple decided to market itself as a religious group to take advantage of these privileges despite being "anti religion". Talk about hypocritical.
"Speed, kills, Del."
If you haven't already you should react to the Boy Meets World episode Cult Fiction
What would you say about QAnon, which certainly has some of the characteristics you mention (in particular, the adamant unshakable belief in its dogma), but doesn't seem to have any central recruitment agency? I guess you could argue Trump (or the mythical "Q") is the group's leader, but they don't actively try to recruit and break down disciples. Instead, the disciples themselves have mostly sought it out and fit themselves into the mold.
I grew up in a pretty controlling religion that ended up causing some kinda big problems in my family and it's crazy how much the religion matched this cult description
Qanon seems cult like but decentralised without a real leader outside of Trump. What do you think of the movements psychology?
A lot of overlaps. Just as there are with people who have been radicalised. A lot of groups still have some sort of central figure to rally around but maybe a brand or an ideology in and of itself can act as this central figure for some groups? Thinking out loud here 😋
Well, arguably 'Q' (QAnon's namesake) is the true cult leader. They started the whole thing by drip-feeding lies to people, and became almost a deific figure in the minds of their followers.
Though it definitely isn't a traditional cult structure, and it seems like these days 'Q' is much less of a primary central force in the "movement"/cult.
Do you feel it's possible for people to exhibit these similar behaviors you find in cults within mainstream religion? Regardless of my personal views on mainstream religion, I feel like there may be people who are just simply overzealous and go too hard.
love the halo
Drawing the line between a cult and a religion is difficult because I don't think there is one. They propagate in identical ways, they transform thinking in identical ways, and they can both be exploitative and violent in the right circumstances. The difference is a religion is one that has grown enough significance to transform the local society or culture into accepting its norms.
I know that's a pretty radical stance, and not one I say too often because it tends to rub people the wrong way, but I do believe it's true. For the most part though, 99% of religious people are well intentioned and frankly the agenda of "abolish religion" probably won't ever happen. I support any system that compels people to act in compassionate ways, and so long as cults _or_ religions hold to that, I'm happy enough to live with them.
00:30 Not sure if you meant that as a joke or not.
💖
The People’s Temple used no-name Kool-Aid.
Scientology??
Jehovah witnesses
Well honestly all religions are cults or have cult behaviors, but that's just my thinking.
Can a culture not be delusional such as traditional human sacrifice? Seriously asking for opinion please.
MlM businesses/ponzy schemes.
Whenever the word cult is said, my mind goes straight to Christianity. Then to religion. Then to republicans and conservatives.
Trumpublicans.
Lol, no. Not agreeing with you does not = cult
Please stop clueing in people on cults. I'm trying to run a business over here. By the way, not all leaders are delusional. Some are just very, *very* clever, and possibly a tad psychopathic.