Events

Conferences

ICSA Annual Conference - Washington, DC, July 3-5, 2014

Workshops

Surviving and Moving On After a High-Demand Group Experience:  A Workshop for Second-Generation Former Members - Chester, CT, April 4-6, 2014 

Recovery Workshop for Former Group Members - Colorado Springs, CO, Aug. 1-3, 2014

Special Events


    Local Meetings


    What's New?

    Benefits of Dialogue - An article by the ICSA Board of Directors

    Workshop for People Born or Raised in Cultic Groups. Please let others know about this important workshop (April 4-6, 2014 in Chester, CT), if you won’t attend yourself.

    Preconference Workshops (July 2, 2014). New registration form for those who want to attend one or more preconference workshops of the ICSA 2014 Annual Conference in Washington, DC (July 3-5; preconference events on July 2). After you register for the conference, complete this very brief form in order to sign up for preconference events. Register for the Annual Conference.

    Call for Art, Literary, and Musical Work. If you know former members who express aspects of their cultic group experience artistically, please tell them that they can share their work with the ICSA community through the Phoenix Project at the annual conference, as well as on this website and in ICSA Today. Send them to the Call for Art, Literary, and Musical Work.

    Betrayal of the Spirit. The University of Illinois Press recently released an electronic version of Nori Muster’s Betrayal of the Spirit – about her years in Hare Krishna. Available through Amazon.

    Human Rights Report. The Washington Post (December 31, 2013) published a story on countries that restrict religious freedom. The story was based on a report by Human Rights Without Frontiers, which is headed by Willy Fautre, who will speak at ICSA’s 2014 annual conference.

    Pseudoscience Fact Sheets. In the late 1980s scientists associated with the Austin Society to Oppose Pseudoscience (ASTOP) created a collection of fact sheets on various pseudoscience topics. The ICSA website now has these fact sheets on astrology, ESP, ghosts, and other subjects.

    Don't forget to check our Press News page.

    Meet ICSA Members
    From time to time, this column will feature a short profile on an ICSA member. We think it fitting to present ICSA’s president, Steve K. D. Eichel, PhD, as the first ICSA member for you to meet. Steve will, of course, be present at the annual conference in July.

    Steve K. D. Eichel, PhD, ABPP    , ICSA President, is Past-President of the American Academy of Counseling Psychology and the Greater Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He is a licensed and Board-certified counseling psychologist whose involvement in cultic studies began with a participant-observation study of Unification Church training in their eastern seminary (in Barrytown, NY) in the spring of 1975. His doctoral dissertation to date remains the only intensive, quantified observation of a deprogramming. . . More.
    ICSA provides information on cults, cultic groups, psychological manipulation, psychological abuse, spiritual abuse, brainwashing, mind control, thought reform, abusive churches, high-demand groups, extremism, totalistic groups, new religious movements, alternative and mainstream religions, group dynamics, exit counseling, recovery, and practical suggestions for those affected by or interested in these subjects.