Do you have any feedback/experience regarding the "Wellspring Retreat Center"?
From what I understand they provide an excellent retreat program for victims of religious cults.
David.
Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center
Psychological, emotional or spiritual abuse and cult survivors
Here at Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center we treat people who have been victims of psychological, emotional or spiritual abuse from religious cults, toxic relationships or other manipulative groups. Survivors come to us for help after having removed themselves from some of the following situations:
Mind control
Domestic violence
Religious cults
Therapist abuse
Psychological abuse
Brainwashing cults
Abusive groups
Clergy abuse
Mental abuse
Spiritual abuse
Emotional abuse
Cult abuse
Do we do mind-control and cult deprogramming?
No. We do not get involved in cult deprogramming, nor in reprogramming. We do help people re-integrate into mainstream society and come to terms with who they are and what happened to them. Some of our clients have undergone deprogramming by professional exit counselors, others have made the decision to leave a situation of mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse on their own.
Because we do not do exit counseling, we also do not intervene in situations of domestic violence or alleged psychological abuse. There are other resources for this and we urge you to contact law enforcement and professional exit counselors when necessary to address these problems. Our role is to help those who have left abusive relationship come to grips with the mental or emotional abuse they have suffered and rebuild their self-esteem and self-confidence.
It is key to note that this is a strictly voluntary program. Only after a person has chosen to leave the psychological or spiritual abuse and seek treatment can they come to Wellspring Retreat & Resource Center for help.
Our treatment is not limited just to cult brainwashing and domestic violence. We have treated survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and therapists and victims of manipulation by multi-level marketing scams. Some of our clients have come from abusive 12 ?Step programs and drug and alcohol treatment centers. We have also worked with former gang members and victims of torture. Whenever someone feels he or she been deceived, manipulated, exploited, or subjected to brainwashing or emotional or mental abuse, we can offer hope and help.
What is spiritual abuse? What is mental abuse? What is brainwashing?
There is no clear-cut definition of what is spiritual abuse and what is not, what is mental abuse and what is not, what is brainwashing and what is not. These questions have been debated for centuries!
Our approach is not to work within rigid definitions, but within the framework of addressing what has caused trauma in a person?s life. Because different recruitment and membership styles of religious and other groups will be more harmful to some than others, it is more important to focus on helping the individual who has experienced the suffering than to make lists of "cults" and point fingers at organizations and churches!
However, having said that, much of our work is centered around the ground-breaking work of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton who identified eight criteria for a thought reform system. When we find these criteria active within a relationship or a group, we can usually say without hesitation that the relationship or group is abusive.
Why specialize in cults and psychological abuse?
We offer a safe haven specifically for cult and abuse survivors to explore their own feelings and their own choices. What makes psychological abuse unique is that victims are made to feel they do not have choices; we restore survivors' ability to choose without being judged.
Another symptom of abuse, is that survivors often become victims again, hopping from one form of abuse to another. Deprogramming often does not end the abuse. It is one of our chief goals to free each of our clients, so that they do not fall into mind control or abusive situations again.
We welcome anyone who has been suffering from mind control, cults, mental or psychological abuse or coercion of any type to contact us and find out whether our treatment can help them readjust to normal life and ? most importantly ? avoid repeating the cycle of abuse.
Brainwashing mind-control :: psychological, spiritual, mental, emotional abuse :: religious cults and cult dep
http://wellspringretreat.org/
