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Concept
Deprogramming
Summary
Deprogramming is a tactic that attempts to help someone who has "strongly held convictions", coming from cults, government backed terrorist groups, or any strongly held 'faith groups'. Deprogramming without a group association is referred to as therapy and should ideally be performed with professional medical assistance using similar standards of care. Deprogramming aims to assist a person who holds a self destructive or restrictive belief system in changing those beliefs and severing connections to the associated group (religious, political, economic, or social) which created and controls that individual through their proprietary belief system.
Owing to the ill-defined nature of 'controversial' belief and the group dynamic of exploitative belief groups, some methods and practices of people who have deprogrammed (deprogrammers) have involved kidnapping, false imprisonment, and coercion, which have sometimes resulted in criminal convictions. Some deprogramming regimens are specifically designed for individuals taken against their will, which has led to controversies over freedom of religion, kidnapping, and civil rights, as well as the use of violence, which is sometimes involved. Patty Hearst is an infamous example of a controversial deprogramming as it is unclear whether she was 'deprogrammed' twice, or even which stage of her political life represents the deprogrammed state.
The deprogramming that has been practiced over the last half century has typically been commissioned by a person's relatives (often parents of adult children) who objected to the subject's membership in an organization or group. It has been compared to exorcisms in both methodology and manifestation, and the process sometimes has been performed with tacit support of law enforcement and judicial officials. In response to a burgeoning number of new religious movements in the 1970s in the United States, the "father of deprogramming", Ted Patrick, introduced many of these techniques to a wider audience as a means to combat cults.
Official source
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