Background

In 1979 I received a PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where I was a Regents Fellow for three years and completed a theoretical dissertation on depression. A 1964 graduate of Revere (MA) High School, I attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for three semesters before transferring to Boston University (BU) to follow a liberal arts program. Though still maintaining my interests in science, I felt that MIT was too specialized to permit me to explore my then exploding interests in literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, and other subjects. In 1969 I graduated Magna Cum Laude from BU in Romance Languages and Literature.

I often feel that my educational background and wide-ranging intellectual interests have made me open to the transcendent but grounded in the empiricist tradition of science. Not surprisingly, the counseling approaches to which I gravitated in graduate school could be categorized under the "scientist-practitioner" label. To the degree circumstances permit, I treat my beliefs about "what is really going on" with regard to human behavior as hypotheses to be tested, not as "revelations" to be treated as "facts." In part, my interest in cults stems from the moral revulsion I feel when I encounter people damaged  by individuals whose  fervent beliefs or personal revelations avoid critical scrutiny at all costs. In my view, reality demands intellectual humility and a consequent respect for the freedom and perspectives of others. Intellectual arrogance fuels delusion and a need to bend people's wills and behavior so as to sustain that delusion.

Prior to graduate school I worked at the Erich Lindemann Mental Health Center in Boston, serving first on a paraprofessional training program and then as the administrator of the Chelsea-Revere Mental Health Clinic. At the Lindemann Center I came to appreciate the moral imperative to help those who are psychologically troubled. I also had an opportunity to work closely with John G. Clark, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and unit chief of the clinic. When I finished all graduate requirements except the dissertation, I returned to Boston in 1978, where I reestablished contact with Dr. Clark.

At that time, Dr. Clark was beginning to speak out about what he called "rapid and radical personality changes," which he and others had observed in people joining cults, particularly the Unification Church, which was then recruiting aggressively on college campuses and elsewhere. My three abiding interests in psychology, philosophy, and religion converged in Dr. Clark's work. We obtained a small grant that enabled me to begin studying the cult field as I finished my dissertation on depression and began my supervised clinical work with Dr. Clark.

In 1981 we joined the American Family Foundation (name changed to International Cultic Studies Association in 2004), a nonprofit started by Mr. Kay H. Barney, a Raytheon executive whose daughter had joined the Unification Church. As an engineer, Mr. Barney appreciated the professional approach that Dr. Clark's team took. In 1981 we also received our first infusion of large grants.  And thus was born my career in the cult field.

From 1981 to my retirement in 2023, I was initially the Director of Research and later the Executive Director of International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). I have worked in various capacities with over a thousand former cult members and/or their families. I was the founder editor of Cultic Studies Journal (CSJ), the editor of CSJ’s successor, Cultic Studies Review, and editor of Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse (an alternate of the Behavioral Science Book Service). In addition, I co-authored Cults: What Parents Should Know  and Satanism and Occult-Related Violence: What You Should Know. Until my retirement, I was Editor-in-Chief of ICSA Today. 

In addition to the prosaic but essential tasks of raising money and keeping the administrative machinery well-oiled, I was the chief planner and coordinator of ICSA’s international conferences, which have taken place in Montreal, Louisville, Manchester, UK, Philadelphia, Dallas, Stockholm, Washington, DC, Barcelona, New York, Rome, Philadelphia, Geneva, Denver, Brussels, Atlanta, and Madrid. 

In 1995, I was honored as the Albert V. Danielsen visiting Scholar at Boston University. I have authored numerous articles in professional journals and books, including Psychiatric Annals, Business and Society Review, Sette e Religioni (an Italian periodical), Grupos Totalitarios y Sectarismo: Ponencias del II Congreso Internacional (the proceedings of an international congress on cults in Barcelona, Spain), Innovations in Clinical Practice: A Sourcebook, Handbook of Psychiatric Consultation with Children and Youth, Psychiatric News, and all of ICSA’s periodicals. (Links to many of my publications are on this site.) I have spoken widely to dozens of lay and professional groups, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Pacific Division, American Group Psychotherapy Association, American Psychological Association, the Carrier Foundation, various university audiences, and numerous radio and television stations, including the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and ABC 20/20.