Deprogramming

Deprogramming refers to measures that claim to assist a person who holds a controversial belief system in changing those beliefs and abandon allegiance to the religious, political, economic, or social group associated with the belief system. The dictionary definition of deprogramming is "to free" or "to retrain" someone from specific beliefs, some controversial methods and practices of self-identified "deprogrammers" have involved kidnapping, false imprisonment, and coercion, which have sometimes resulted in criminal convictions of the deprogrammers. Some deprogramming regimens are designed for individuals taken against their will, which has led to controversies over freedom of religion, kidnapping, and civil rights, as well as the violence which is sometimes involved.

As a technique, the deprogramming that has been practiced over the last half century has been typically commissioned by relatives, often parents of adult offspring, 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. Since then, deprogrammings have been carried out "by the thousands". For example, various atrocity stories served as justification for deprogramming of Unification Church members in the USA.

As a technique for encouraging people to disassociate with groups with whom they have as consenting adults chosen to associate, deprogramming is a controversial practice. Even some cult critics have denounced it on legal and ethical grounds. Similar actions, when done without force, have been referred to as "exit counseling". Sometimes the word deprogramming is used in a wider (and/or ironic or humorous sense), to mean the freeing of someone (often oneself) from any previously uncritically assimilated idea. According to Carol Giambalvo, "exit cousellors are usually former cult members themselves".

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