ICSA CONFERENCE 2026

Registration

07:30 – 18:00 All day

Kickstarting the conference together: Coffee and connections

08:00 – 09:00 (60 min) • Plenary

Carol Merchasin and Debby Schriver

Opening remarks and conference welcome

09:00 – 09:40 (40 min) • Plenary

Carol Merchasin

Ethical dilemmas between autonomy and well-being for flourishing

09:40 – 10:20 (40 min) • Plenary

Constantine Psimopoulos

From home to campus: How childhood trauma shapes cult susceptibility and cultic leadership in college students

10:40 – 11:20 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Dylesia Barner

Cradle to grave – from the origins of life to our grave situation: A big history context for understanding the coercive control epidemic

10:40 – 11:20 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Jeremy Sherman

Raising awareness & changing laws to stop mandated shunning: Building the evidence base

10:40 – 12:10 (90 min) • Room 2 (314)

Patrick Haeck, Windy Grendele, Savin Bapir-Tardy, Richard Kelly, Monica Velin Rodriguez

Traumatic Narcissism: Thirty years of research and practical information for survivor recovery

10:40 – 12:10 (90 min) • Room 5 (307)

Daniel Shaw

College students’ attitudes and stigma toward current and former members of high-control groups: The impact of terminology

11:30 – 12:10 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Youngjin Choi

Coercive control and cultic dynamics: An ‘anti-wisdom’ lens

11:30 – 12:10 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Eric Kessler

Lunch Break

12:30 – 14:00 (90 min)

A loveless nation: The intersection of personality disorders and systems of belief

14:00 – 14:40 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Joyana Santini

The Perfect Storm: Vertical and horizontal contributions to the cult experience

14:00 – 15:30 (90 min) • Room 1 (313)

Patrick L. Ryan, Rachel Bernstein, Joseph F. Kelly, Erin Falconer, Doni Whitsett

When shame becomes internalized control: An expressive arts approach

14:00 – 14:40 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Natalee Bigger Stockdale, Felicia Rosario

The vicarious dimension of abuse in coercive contexts: Understanding coercive control from a broader perspective

14:00 – 15:30 (90 min) • Room 3 (303)

Raquel Cuesta-Reigada, Carmen Almendros

Story as Sanctuary: A workshop for anyone who’s been silenced by spiritual abuse

14:00 – 14:40 (40 min) • Room 2 (314)

Nicole Hardy

The psychological harms and manipulations of Law of Attraction and manifestation-based groups

14:50 – 15:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Andrew Jasko

Theological confrontation in a digital urban context: The rise of the online Christian counter-movement to the Conscious Community and Hebrew Israelism

14:50 – 15:30 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

John-Mark Rieser

Coercive control in religious groups and adverse religious childhood experiences: A large-sample quantitative study of Japanese second-generation adults

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Martina Bottazzo, Kimiaki Nishida

Overview of research: Coercion and abuse in cults, trafficking and families

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Roderick Dubrow-Marshall

Coercive control in digital environments: Creating a buffer through cognitive security, mental health, and resilience

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Vincent Starnino, Michael Ross

Not just about sex: Forced labor and the economics of cultic control

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 2 (314)

Carol Merchasin

Sanctified control: Coercive dynamics in mainstream high-control religions

16:40 – 17:20 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Elise Heerde

When they stay and you leave: Lived-experience strategies for supporting a loved one in a high-control group

16:40 – 17:20 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Molly Koshatka

From performance to presence: Transitioning from scripted belonging to social ambiguity

16:40 – 17:20 (40 min) • Room 2 (314)

Ryan Lee

Discussion about "Trust Me: The False Prophet"

16:40 – 17:20 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Christine Marie

My cravings have words: A personal essay on shame in alcohol recovery for survivors of religious trauma and coercive control

16:40 – 17:20 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Zoe Lambert

A preliminary roadmap for establishing the freedom of mind in human rights law and psychology

17:30 – 18:10 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Matt Bywater

From “just sitting” to “just caring”: How care can dismantle coercive control in Buddhist communities

17:30 – 18:10 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Maxine Christopher

Religious trauma & coercion in Evangelical Christianity: A kingship theory of narcissistic control

17:30 – 18:10 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Andrew Jasko

Out of line: A model for peer-led queer, trans, and Two-Spirit cult survivor support groups

17:30 – 18:10 (40 min) • Room 2 (314)

Mitchyll Mora, Micah Damsky

Registration

08:00 – 18:00 All day

Soft coercion in transformational communities: Ecological and psychological patterns of control

09:00 – 09:40 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Rebecca Wildbear

Scaling clinical competence: Lessons from the Collaborative Certification Training Model of the Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion

09:00 – 10:30 (90 min) • Room 2 (314)

Janja Lalich, Natalie Fabert, Melanie Friedman, Kristina Berger, Nichole Nelson

The controlled body: Food, fear, and fidelity in coercive systems

09:00 – 09:40 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Jonna Fries

Financial trauma after coercive control: Rewriting money scripts for long-term recovery

09:00 – 09:40 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Heidi Clemons

Online solicitation: The new frontier of coercive control

09:50 – 10:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Robin Boyle-Laisure

America's cult of wellness: Wellness, wealth and the war on modern medicine

09:50 – 10:30 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Kim Peirano

The effect of coercive control within purity culture

09:50 – 10:30 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Elizabeth Sallows, Dresden Andrea

The Red String Project: Identity, belief, myth & meaning

09:50 – 10:30 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Liz Gale

Interpreting power: Sacred texts and coercive control: Evidence from Jewish sectarian contexts

10:50 – 11:30 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Lea Lavy

EMDR Therapy: Applications for survivors of coercive control

10:50 – 12:20 (90 min) • Room 2 (314)

Jonna Fries, Erin Hwasta, Briana Messerschmidt

When coercive control becomes a crime: Forensic, clinical, and survivor-centered insights from Finland

10:50 – 11:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Pia Puolakka

Moral injury after religious exit: A qualitative study of former members of high-control faith communities

10:50 – 11:30 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Windy Grendele

Planned obsolescence in personal growth: Coercion, capitalism and cult dynamics in large group awareness trainings (LGATs)

11:40 – 12:20 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Dave Booda

Why media voices matter: The impact of Decult

11:40 – 12:20 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Anke Richter

Lunch Break

12:30 – 14:00 (90 min)

Posttraumatic growth in survivors of abusive groups: Which factors facilitate recovery?

14:00 – 14:40 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Andrea Escudero

Cults and confidence: An examination of cult recruitment rhetoric targeting women and its presence in mainstream confidence culture discourse

14:00 – 14:40 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Jeannette Mulherin

A reckoning in the Troubled Teen Industry: Survivor voices, legal accountability, and institutional harm

14:00 – 15:30 (90 min) • Room 2 (314)

Jennifer French Tomasic, Felicia Rosario, Kelly Guagenty

Coercive control is not just about fringe groups anymore: Using neuroscience to inform recovery from unethical influence across different social contexts

14:00 – 14:40 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Ronald Burks

How to provide legal support to victims of coercive control who suffer harm in their interpersonal relationships and with institutions

14:00 – 14:40 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Maleine Picotin-Gueye

Sanctified submission: When male headship becomes coercive control in evangelical marriage

14:50 – 15:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Bethany Jantzi

Why trauma disrupts sleep: Understanding insomnia and recovery

14:50 – 15:30 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Nicole Moshfegh

How leaderless cults demonstrate coercive control: The pseudo-law sovereign citizen movement

14:50 – 15:30 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Lynne Feldman

Fawning as survival instinct: Integrating human biology into therapeutic pathways for healing and restoring agency, post-high control religious group experience

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Heidi Hewett

Discussion about "Trust Me: The False Prophet"

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Christine Marie

Expanding coercive control research through community-based participatory methods

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 2 (314)

Brooke Harmon, Marla Sutherland, Annjanette Alejano-Steele

Shunning and suicide: Much more than silent treatment

15:50 – 17:20 (90 min) • Room 3 (315)

Raquel Cuesta

Integrity as antidote: Addressing destructive leadership and coercive control in the modern workplace

15:50 – 16:30 (40 min) • Room 3 (303)

Kim Peirano

Reclaiming spirituality after cult indoctrination

15:50 – 17:20 (90 min) • Room 5 (307)

Nicola Ranson, Ronald Auerbacher

When culture becomes the perpetrator: An analysis of how spiritual coercion may be systematized and reproduced across organizational contexts

16:40 – 17:20 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Fabienne Harford, Rod Dubrow-Marshall

Justice delayed or justice served? The High Court appeal of the Unification Church dissolution order and the challenges of the dissolution process

16:40 – 17:20 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Takashi Yamaguchi

ICSA open discussion

16:40 – 18:10 (90 min) • Room 2 (314)

Carol Merchasin, Debby Schriver, Jackie Johnson

Identity (trans)formation following disengagement from High Demand Groups (HDG): Understandings and treatment implications using systems theory

09:00 – 09:40 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Catherine de Boer

Beyond intimate partner violence: Developing and validating a coercive control measure for high-control religious groups

09:00 – 09:40 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Savin Bapir-Tardy

The U.S. legal perspective on coercive persuasion

09:50 – 10:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Linda Demaine

Exit costs: The aftermath of cult conditioning and coercive control — Re-traumatization, identity collapse, and the silent pathways back into exploitation

09:50 – 10:30 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Kelsey Decker

When silence speaks in color: Expanding coercive control awareness through art therapy

09:50 – 10:30 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Natalee Bigger Stockdale

Born into captivity: Children raised in cultic systems and the hidden architecture of coercion — An insider perspective from a cult leader’s daughter

10:50 – 11:30 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Sonta Bella

Olive Leaf Network: A trans-cultic model of coercive control from survivor-led advocacy in Australasia

10:50 – 12:20 (90 min) • Room 2 (314)

Maria Esguerra, Miriam Francis, Lindy Jacomb

Epileptic cult leaders?

10:50 – 11:30 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Yuval Laor

Black families in religiously abusive organizations: Considerations for mental health providers

10:50 – 11:30 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Alisha Powell

Hypnosis and coercion: What people believe vs. What we know

11:40 – 12:20 (40 min) • Room 1 (313)

Steve Eichel

From dogma to data: Artificial intelligence as a mechanism of coercive control within The Watchtower Society

11:40 – 12:20 (40 min) • Room 4 (305)

Michael O. Miller

After the world of the cult: My 50-plus-year journey with ICSA and beyond

11:40 – 12:20 (40 min) • Room 5 (307)

Paul Engel

Lunch Break

12:30 – 14:00 (90 min)

Cross-disciplinary collaboration: Working together to identify and address the field's most pressing needs

14:00 – 15:30 (60 min) • Plenary

Anke Richter, Mike Kropveld, Pat Ryan, Joe Kelly, Janja Lalich, Kelly Guagenty, Doni Whitsett, Windy Grendele, Savin Bapir-Tardy

Conference closing ceremony

15:45 – 15:30 (90 mins) • Plenary