ICSA Today
ICSA Today is our online magazine offering thoughtful, long-form content on coercive influence, recovery, and related fields.
FEATURED ARTICLE
ICSA Team
The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) is pleased to announce that its 2026 International Conference will take place from 01–04 July 2026 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in San Diego, California.
FEATURED PIECES
ICSA Team
This article explores how the PsychoSocial Quicksand Model™ helps professionals recognize coercive control through a pattern-based lens, validating survivors’ experiences while addressing systemic bias, institutional failure, and the hidden dynamics that allow abuse and manipulation
ICSA Team
Mother’s Day can be especially difficult for those with lived cultic experience. Rather than a day of celebration, it may bring complex feelings of grief, longing, regret, or ambivalence. This Mother’s Day, we want to
ICSA INSIGHTS
ICSA Team
Mother’s Day can be especially difficult for those with lived cultic experience. Rather than a day of celebration, it may bring complex feelings of grief, longing, regret, or ambivalence. This Mother’s Day, we want to
Doni Whitsett
Explore the neurobiology of sexual abuse in cults. Learn how coercive, high-control environments affect the nervous system, and discover body-based approaches for rebuilding agency, safety, and intimacy after abuse.
ICSA Team
I am pleased to share that this March, Carol Merchasin, JD, will assume the role of President of ICSA. At that time, I will step aside as Board President and transition into the role of
Jackie Johnson
With gratitude, we share a brief recap of ICSA’s key accomplishments in 2025, highlighting progress in infrastructure, research access, knowledge dissemination, community convening, and organizational governance.
Survivor Stories
Daniel Shaw
Psychotherapist, author and survivor, Daniel Shaw, explains how cults fracture the self and why compassionate self-reflection and regulation are central to healing postcult trauma.
ICSA Team
A lawyer shares how personal experience, courtroom strategy, and cult education collided in landmark cases that helped expose systemic abuse—without using the word “cult.”
J. Paul Lennon
Each member or former member of a cultic group has their own particular and unique story and process of recovery. I hope my story will help you with yours.
William Yenner
The author describes his life in the spiritual community EnlightenNext, tracing his path from an idealistic seeker to a leader in the group.
Research & Publication Highlights
ICSA Team
This article explores how the PsychoSocial Quicksand Model™ helps professionals recognize coercive control through a pattern-based lens, validating survivors’ experiences while addressing systemic bias, institutional failure, and the hidden dynamics that allow abuse and manipulation
ICSA Team
This summary of an article by Alexandra Stein examines how cults control maternal bonds, impose psychological double binds, and shows how the mother–child relationship can become a critical catalyst for escape and long-term recovery.
ICSA Team
Discover how modern prosecutors use evidence of drug addiction to prove legal coercion in human trafficking and cult cases, overcoming the hurdles of traditional "brainwashing" defenses for justice
ICSA Team
In this academic article, the authors argue that addressing poverty and personal achievement gaps through career counseling can inoculate vulnerable youth against trafficking and predatory actors.
ICSA Team
This article examines how high-control religious groups use religious freedom claims to bypass State child-protection laws, often leaving children vulnerable to systemic physical abuse.
ICSA Team
Whitsett and Rosow examine how high-demand groups control women’s bodies, reproduction, and motherhood, revealing the global impact of gendered violence within isolated cult environments.
ICSA Insights
ICSA Team
ICSA welcomes four new Board Members whose diverse expertise and lived experience strengthen our mission to advance research, education, and survivor-informed support on cultic influence and coercive control.
Adam Arnold
What happens when therapy shifts from support to control? This piece explores how the desire to ‘fix’ someone can potentially become coercive.
ICSA Team
This handbook helps families understand and manage a loved one's cult entanglement, providing practical tools and strategies for a complex situation.
ICSA’s online library offers free access to academic articles, survivor narratives, conference talks, webinars, and curated resources for anyone seeking to understand high-control groups and coercive dynamics.
Arts
Rachel Baldwin
The writer untangles the legalistic, black-and-white thinking that shaped her early worldview in this poem.
Jen Kiaba
My work is about the loss of feminine agency that occurred in my youth growing up in the infamous Unification Church, a religious group referred to by popular media as “the Moonies” and as a
Lydia Joy Launderville
A poem by writer Lydia Joy Launderville on those who walk away.
ICSA Classics
Jose Fernández
Dysfunctional families can mirror cult dynamics, undermining trust, autonomy, and identity through distorted boundaries, rules, and roles that weaken members in lasting ways.
Janja Lalich
This essay, written by Janja Lalich, honors Dr. Philip Zimbardo who was best known for his theory that situational and systemic factors can lead ordinary people to commit harmful or immoral acts.
Leona Furnari
This article explores the unique developmental challenges faced by individuals born or raised in closed high-demand groups (CHDGs). Drawing on clinical experience, research, and survivor testimony, it examines how these environments disrupt emotional growth, identity
ICSA Team
This list of social-structural, social-psychological, and interpersonal behavioral patterns commonly found in cultic environments may be helpful in assessing a particular group or relationship.
Videos
ICSA Team
In this video from the 2023 ICSA Conference, Peter Blachly presents his session on The Many Facets of Identity Recovery When Escaping a cult.
ICSA Team
Rachel Bernstein explores what causes us to say "yes" to people offering us community and protection when there is a part of us inside doubting that this is the answer.
ICSA Team
Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer, answers the big questions: What are cults? How do how they operate?
ONLINE LIBRARY
Decades of research, insight, and lived experience
ICSA’s online library offers free access to academic articles, survivor narratives, conference talks, webinars, and curated resources for anyone seeking to understand high-control groups and coercive dynamics.