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==Criticism==
==Criticism==
Some mainstream social scientists believe that Hassan's work lacks academic [[Rigour|rigor]] and is used to fuel [[hysteria]].<ref name =":0"/> American sociologists [[Anson D. Shupe]] and [[David G. Bromley]] are skeptical of the use of the concepts of brainwashing and mind control in relation to New Religious Movements.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shupe |first1=Anson D. |last2=Bromley |first2=David G. |title=The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-cultists, and the New Religions |date=1980 |publisher=Sage Publications |pages=70, 194}}</ref> Sociologists [[Benjamin Zablocki]] and [[Thomas Robbins (sociologist)|Thomas Robbins]] state that Hassan's brainwashing theories have long been proven false. The evidence, Zablocki and Robbins state, "refutes the effectiveness of all efforts to brainwash anyone—especially through inducing altered states of consciousness."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Zablocki |first1=Benjamin |title=Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field |last2=Robbins |first2=Thomas |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8020-8188-9 |location=Canada |pages=384 |quote=}}</ref>
Some mainstream social scientists, such as [[Anson D. Shupe]] and [[David G. Bromley]], think that Hassan's work lacks academic [[rigour|rigor]] and is used to fuel [[hysteria]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shupe |first1=Anson D. |last2=Bromley |first2=David G. |title=The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-cultists, and the New Religions |date=1980 |publisher=Sage Publications}}</ref> They argue that the word 'cult' itself has become loaded and derogatory, capable of being applied to any New Religious Movement in a prejudicial way. They criticize [[Anti-cult movement|anti-cultists]] for promoting a [[moral panic]], from which they benefit financially. Shupe and Bromley are skeptical of the use of hazy concepts like brainwashing and mind control, and of the notion of [[Intervention (counseling)|intervention]] as a form of therapy. According to Shupe:<ref name =":0"/><blockquote>You get people who are caught up in trying to change themselves, become a new person or build a new world and they lose touch with who they are. It isn't to say some groups don’t take advantage of that process. But I dont think it's necessarily the case that they need someone like Hassan to come in with predetermined answers to their life problems.</blockquote> Sociologists [[Benjamin Zablocki]] and [[Thomas Robbins (sociologist)|Thomas Robbins]] state that Hassan's brainwashing theories have long been proven false. The evidence, Zablocki and Robbins state, "refutes the effectiveness of all efforts to brainwash anyone—especially through inducing altered states of consciousness."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Zablocki |first1=Benjamin |title=Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field |last2=Robbins |first2=Thomas |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8020-8188-9 |location=Canada |pages=384 |quote=}}</ref>


In 1995, [[Michael Langone]] questioned Hassan's "[[Humanism|humanistic]] counseling approach", suggesting that Hassan's intervention method still "runs the risk of imposing clarity, however subtly" and "thereby manipulating the client."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Langone |first1=Michael D. |title=Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse |date=1995 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-31321-5 }}{{pn|date=September 2023}}</ref>
In 1995, [[Michael Langone]] questioned Hassan's "[[Humanism|humanistic]] counseling approach", suggesting that Hassan's intervention method still "runs the risk of imposing clarity, however subtly" and "thereby manipulating the client."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Langone |first1=Michael D. |title=Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse |date=1995 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-393-31321-5 }}{{pn|date=September 2023}}</ref>

Revision as of 06:56, 1 October 2023

Steven Hassan
Hassan in 2023
Hassan in 2023
Born1954 (age 69–70)
Flushing, Queens, New York, USA
OccupationMental health counselor, author, lecturer
NationalityAmerican
EducationPhD M.A., M.Ed., LMHC[1][2]
Alma materQueens College, City University of New York
Cambridge College
Fielding Graduate University
GenreNon-fiction
SubjectPsychology, mind control, cults
SpouseMisia Landau
Website
freedomofmind.com

Steven Alan Hassan (pronounced /hɑːsɪn/; born 1954) is an American author and mental health counselor who specializes in the area of "cults" or "New Religious Movements" (sometimes called "exit counseling"). He is sometimes described in the media as an expert on mind control and cults,[3] but some sociologists are critical of what they regard as the "cult-busting" approach of Hassan and others, arguing that it promotes hysteria and intolerance.[4]

Hassan is a former member of the Unification Church, and founded Ex-Moon Inc. in 1979.[5] In 1999 he founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center. He has written on the subject of mind control and how to help people who have been harmed by the experience.

Involvement with the Unification Church

Hassan was born in Queens, New York and raised as a Jew.[6]

At age 19, while pursuing a poetry degree at Queens College, Hassan was recruited into the Unification Church,[7] and spent 27 months as a member.[8][9] He was involved in recruiting, fundraising, and political campaigning for the Church. By his own account, he rose to the rank of assistant director, and personally met with Sun Myung Moon during numerous leadership sessions.[8][10] Hassan reported living in communal housing and sleeping less than four hours a night.[11] In an interview, he said that he believed Richard Nixon was an archangel and that, during the Watergate scandal, he and other members of the Church engaged in prayer and fasting to "prove their loyalty to the president".[7] He also reported surrendering his bank account to the Unification Church, and quitting college and his job to work for the church.[7] Hassan said that "he was ready to kill or die for" Sun Myung Moon.[11]

In 1976, after working for two full days without sleep, Hassan fell asleep while driving, resulting in a serious automobile accident that required medical care. Hassan's parents hired "deprogrammers" who seized him from his sister's home and took him to an apartment. After five days of isolation and intensive deprogramming, Hassan became convinced that he had been "brainwashed" by the church. Feeling shame at his gullibility and guilt for his recruitment of others, he decided to "dedicate his life to studying cults and developing strategies to help their members escape."[11]

Hassan returned to his Jewish faith after leaving the Unification Church.[6]

Background

Institutions

In 1979, Hassan founded a non-profit organization called "Ex-Moon Inc." The organization consisted of over four hundred former members of the Unification Church. The organization is now defunct.[10] In 1999, he founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center.[12] The center is registered as a domestic profit corporation in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Hassan is president and treasurer.[13] The Center has investigated and published research on various groups including Hare Krishnas, Al Qaeda, and Opus Dei.[11]

Deprogramming and exit counseling

Hassan took part in a number of coercive deprogrammings in the late 1970s, but has been critical of them since 1980 and has instead advocated "exit counseling".[14] In Combatting Cult Mind Control, he stated that although "the non-coercive approach will not work in every case, it has proved to be the option most families prefer. Forcible intervention can be kept as a last resort if all other attempts fail."[15]

Education and writing

In 1985, Hassan completed a Master’s degree in counseling psychology at Cambridge College.[16] Hassan studied hypnosis and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis[17] and the International Society of Hypnosis.[9] Hassan is a member of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law, a Harvard think tank of forensic experts.[18] In Combatting Cult Mind Control he described his own recruitment as the result of the unethical use of powerful psychological influence techniques by members of the Church.[19]

Hassan studied the "thought reform" theories of Robert Jay Lifton, and concluded that the Moon organization used all eight characteristics of thought reform described by Lifton. He also studied the work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder (founders of neuro-linguistic programming), Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, and Gregory Bateson, and wrote that their work was the basis for his own theories on mind control, counseling, and intervention.[20][21]

Hassan spent several years developing and promoting a model to evaluate what he calls "cult" and "cult-like" groups. In his third book, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs (2012), Hassan presents Lifton's and Margaret Singer's models of evaluation alongside his own model represented by the acronym "BITE": control of Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotion.[22]

Hassan received his doctorate from Fielding Graduate University[2] and published a dissertation in January 2021. His dissertation focused on the BITE Model and was titled, "The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking and the Law". In it, Hassan explains that he developed the model in an effort to measure degrees of exploitative control or undue influence. The model is an attempt to evaluate behavior, information, thought and emotional controls.[23] Describing the model, Hassan told reporters that "I talk about cults being on the continuum, from OK cults that are benign and where you have informed consent, to the unhealthy, destructive, authoritarian types."[24]

In the media

Hassan is often described in the media as a "cult" and "mind control" expert.[3][24][7] After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, he was interviewed by some reporters to explain his view of the bombers' state of mind and how he believed mind control was involved.[25][26][27] In August 2018, Hassan delivered a TEDx talk on technology and mind control at TEDxBeaconStreet Salon.[18] In October 2020, Hassan delivered a TEDx MidAtlantic talk on Dismantling QAnon with David Troy, Jim Stewartson, and Desiree Kane.[28] Hassan was also a speaker at additional Ted Talks such as “How to tell if you're brainwashed?"[29]

Criticism

Some mainstream social scientists, such as Anson D. Shupe and David G. Bromley, think that Hassan's work lacks academic rigor and is used to fuel hysteria.[30] They argue that the word 'cult' itself has become loaded and derogatory, capable of being applied to any New Religious Movement in a prejudicial way. They criticize anti-cultists for promoting a moral panic, from which they benefit financially. Shupe and Bromley are skeptical of the use of hazy concepts like brainwashing and mind control, and of the notion of intervention as a form of therapy. According to Shupe:[4]

You get people who are caught up in trying to change themselves, become a new person or build a new world and they lose touch with who they are. It isn't to say some groups don’t take advantage of that process. But I dont think it's necessarily the case that they need someone like Hassan to come in with predetermined answers to their life problems.

Sociologists Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins state that Hassan's brainwashing theories have long been proven false. The evidence, Zablocki and Robbins state, "refutes the effectiveness of all efforts to brainwash anyone—especially through inducing altered states of consciousness."[31]

In 1995, Michael Langone questioned Hassan's "humanistic counseling approach", suggesting that Hassan's intervention method still "runs the risk of imposing clarity, however subtly" and "thereby manipulating the client."[32]

In October 2019, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, was published, which represents a broadening of Hassan's focus from new religious movements into application of his approach into political culture.[33] Hassan stated that he hoped the book would lessen political division.[24] Hassan has been criticized and accused of sensationalism and self-promotion for applying his cult diagnosis framework to politics.[7]

Books

  • Combatting Cult Mind Control, 1988. ISBN 0-89281-243-5 — reissued 1990 (ISBN 978-0-89281-311-7) and 2015 (Combating…, ISBN 978-0967068824).
  • Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, 2000. ISBN 0-9670688-0-0.
  • Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9670688-1-7.
  • The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, October 2019. ISBN 9781982127336.

See also

References

  1. ^ Montell, Amanda (June 11, 2021). "Is The Royal Family A Cult? This Expert Thinks So". Bustle. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Steven A Hassan PhD: About". Psychology Today. Retrieved January 6, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Devenga, Chauncey (March 25, 2021). "QAnon and the Trump cult: Expert Steven Hassan on whether they can be saved". Salon.
  4. ^ a b Elton, Catherine (September 1, 2007). "The Other Side of Enlightenment". Boston Magazine. Archived from the original on August 23, 2021. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  5. ^ "Former Moonie Steven Hassan: My Fight Against Mind Control And Brainwashing". International Business Times UK. September 3, 2012. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
  6. ^ a b "The Truth About Steven Hassan". Freedom Of Mind.
  7. ^ a b c d e Allen, Rachel (June 1, 2021). "The Man Who Wants to Free Trump Supporters From "Mind Control"". Slate. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  8. ^ a b "Steven Hassan, M.Ed., LMHC, NCC, Cult Expert". Apologetics Index. March 8, 2019. Retrieved August 12, 2021.
  9. ^ a b "The International Society of Hypnosis". World News. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  10. ^ a b "Steven Hassan, PhD". Freedom of Mind Resource Center. Retrieved August 1, 2022.
  11. ^ a b c d Elton, Catherine (September 1, 2007). "The Other Side of Enlightenment". Boston Magazine. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  12. ^ Lamoureux, Mack (August 11, 2017). "How Cults Use YouTube for Recruitment".
  13. ^ "Business Entity Summary for Freedom of Mind Resource Center, Inc". corp.sec.state.ma.us. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  14. ^ Hassan, Steven Alan. "Refuting the Disinformation Attacks Put Forth by Destructive Cults and their Agents". Freedom of Mind Center. Archived from the original on December 12, 2006. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  15. ^ Hassan, Steven (1988). Combatting Cult Mind Control. p. 114. ISBN 0-89281-243-5.
  16. ^ "Steven Hassan". Retrieved August 12, 2021.
  17. ^ "Member Referral Search". asch.net. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  18. ^ a b "Is Technology Controlling Your Mind?". TEDxBeaconStreet.
  19. ^ Hassan, Steven (1998). Combatting Cult Mind Control. p. Ch. 1. ISBN 0-89281-243-5.[non-primary source needed]
  20. ^ Steven Hassan (1998). Combatting Cult Mind Control. p. Ch. 2. ISBN 0-89281-243-5.
  21. ^ Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, Ch. 2, Steven Hassan, FOM Press, 2000
  22. ^ Hassan, S. A.; Shah, M. J. (January 1, 2019). "The anatomy of undue influence used by terrorist cults and traffickers to induce helplessness and trauma, so creating false identities". Ethics, Medicine and Public Health. 8: 97–107. doi:10.1016/j.jemep.2019.03.002.
  23. ^ Hassan, Steven Alan (2020). The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking and the Law (Thesis). ProQuest 2476570146.[non-primary source needed]
  24. ^ a b c Pennington, Juliet (December 17, 2020). "Author and cult expert talks Fiji, diving, and future grand plans". The Boston Globe. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
  25. ^ Was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Brainwashed? Wall Street Journal Live Interview
  26. ^ Radicalism and mind control NECN Interview
  27. ^ Officials: Suspect claims they were self-radicalized on Internet CNN Erin Burnett OutFront Interview
  28. ^ "TEDxMidAtlantic — Dismantling QAnon" – via www.youtube.com.
  29. ^ "How to tell if you're brainwashed?". April 11, 2022.
  30. ^ Shupe, Anson D.; Bromley, David G. (1980). The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-cultists, and the New Religions. Sage Publications.
  31. ^ Zablocki, Benjamin; Robbins, Thomas (2001). Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. Canada: University of Toronto Press. p. 384. ISBN 978-0-8020-8188-9.
  32. ^ Langone, Michael D. (1995). Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31321-5.[page needed]
  33. ^ Fisher, Marc. "Review | The Republican Party is in thrall to Trump. Does that make him a cult leader?". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
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