M. Irons / Material from Dr. Ron Burks at Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center. This article is in process of completion. It's being prematurely published because of it's relevance to the deteriorating conversation on the Assembly Bulletin Board in September, 2005. Stay tuned for further revisions and installments, including diagrams from Dr. Ron Burks. For additional information on this subject, see the online condensation by Bill Jackson of the book Toxic Faith by Steve Arterburn and Jack Felton. --M. Irons 9/7/05)
Wellspring
Steve and I went to Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center for a week in the spring of 1998. Dr. Ron Burks met with us for two hours every morning and tutored us in the dynamics of cult relationships. Even though we had been out of the Assembly for eight years, had joined a good church, had read a lot of good books on spiritual abuse, and Steve had written several articles on the problems with George Geftakys, those sessions with Dr. Burks opened our eyes in a completely new way to what we had experienced in the Assembly and how it was still effecting us. Dr. Burks himself had been in leadership in a cultic Christian shepherding ministry for seventeen years, and had recovered. He knew what he was talking about.
A Typical Assembly Interaction
Leading Brother: “So, has the Lord shown you, brother, the need to be active for Him in the outreach tomorrow?"
Ordinary Saint: "Well, tomorrow I'm talking with my kid's teacher. I just don't think it should wait.”
Leading Brother: “I am trying to be reasonable, brother, and you are just demonstrating that you're not entreatable. I think you should repent of your bad attitude and listen to what the Lord is clearly trying to show you.”
Ordinary Saint doesn't know what to say, and the Leading Brother starts talking to someone else.
This fictional exchange is from the article, "Mind Control." It shows the typical Assembly dynamics of domination and black-and-white thinking on the part of the Leading Brother, and victimized passivity on the part of the Ordinary Saint. It was the accepted thing, the expected thing.
People in the real world behave like this Leading Brother, too, but they're likely to be ignored or put in their place. It doesn't generally go down well at the water cooler or over the back fence.
Lots of folks who were in the Assembly, especially in the formative years of their twenties, have come away with this kind of ingrained pattern ingrained. Steve and I did, and being out of the Assembly for eight years hadn't changed it much. Dr. Burks' presentation was complex, and took several hours to explain, but the outcome of understanding how to change our patterns of relating to people--and each other--was worth it.
I hope you can bear with the attempt here to pass this information along, even though it's kind of long. Look at it this way. If you think of our Assembly experience in terms of a serious illness, you want to have all the information and options available to you to figure out how you might be able to recover from it.
Overview of the Model Used at Wellspring
(A caveat is probably needed here: the material you are about to read is psychology (shudder)--that makes it automatically suspect. But Wellspring, a Christian cult recovery center, has found it to be the most effective tool for understanding and recovering from abusive churches, so we present it here without apology. How this model correlates with Scripture might be the topic of another article.)
There are four main aspects to the model Dr. Burks used to help us understand Assembly dynamics. The first aspect covers the components of personality, in terms of the different "modes" or frame of mind in which people operate in various situations.
The second aspect is a description of the four basic life-positions that can be taken, depending on which component of personality is running things at the moment.
The third aspect is a look at the kinds of damaging interpersonal communications that result when people are operating from negative life-positions.
The fourth aspect is how this is all correlated with brain biology. This is key to understanding what happened to you in an abusive authoritarian environment, and how to get over it. Believer it or not, such an experience actually changes the way your brain functions. And it's not for the better!
The Three Components of Personality
Basically, as human beings we operate in the world
with a combination of three components:
--The input we received growing up, called, in this model, the Parent.
--Our natural
makeup and how we responded to that input, called the Child.
--How well we
make sense of it all and guide ourselves by informed objectivity, called
the Adult.
The Parent is made up of the basic rules of life that have
been internalized from one's parents. Parents nurture, and they also
correct, so there are both positive and negative messages in the
parent part of one's personality.
The Child is the the natural person as we were born--spontaneous, fun-loving, intuitive, inquisitive, sensuous, mischievous, self-centered, joyful, compliant. The free Child is not limited by a concept of right and wrong--the basic creed of the Child is, “If it feels good, do it.” In the Child part of the personality are the ways the child coped with parental training, whether it was good or bad. Unresolved negative input caused the child to feel victimized and guilty. The Child part of us has become contaminated by this negative adaptation, which may also be extremely powerful--in some cases, the child felt that survival depended on it.
The Adult is the objective critical-thinking component that examines data and makes decisions based on logic. For example, the Adult will determine that when criticism or correction is needed, the Parent component will be more effective in nurturing mode. The Adult will ensure that appropriate correction is modulated with gentleness and empathy. In another situation, the Adult may give rein to the enthusiastic, creative Child but will set limits to keep the fun from degenerating into thoughtlessness and injury.
Ideally, we operate primarily out of the adult, the nurturing parent and the free child—with the Adult always in charge. The adult is objective and sets appropriate limits. The nurturing parent is OK, warm, caring, respectful. The fun-loving free child is OK and safe because the adult is defining appropriateness for both the child and the parent. The person is OK with himself and with others--caring, fun to be around, respectful, and appropriate. This translates to kind, respectful interactions and conversations.
Our "typical Assembly interaction" shows the Leading Brother in Critical Parent mode--disapproving, controlling, self-assured that his dominance and black-and-white thinking is okay. Ordinary Saint is in Victim mode, feeling guilty and powerless, but unconvinced.
The Four Basic Life Positions
At any given moment, we are in one of the four basic life positions, and we move back and forth between them:
1. I’m OK and you’re
OK.
2. I’m not OK, but you’re OK.
3. I’m OK, but you’re
not OK.
4. I’m not OK and
you’re not OK either.
The first position is that of the growing
person. “I am an OK person, and so are you.” There is self
acceptance and acceptance of others. There is self respect and respect
for others. There is emotional honesty and appropriate boundaries. (This
has nothing to do with denying the existence of sin, by the way, as GG
told us in his scathing remarks on the book, I'm OK, You're OK,
by Dr. Thomas Harris.) This
position is not naïve, idealistic or perfectionistic. The person takes
responsibility for his own life. He cares about other people, but he
doesn’t take care of them. A maxim to keep in mind is, “My needs
are as important as the other persons--not more important, but of equal
importance.”
The second position is the victim. “I am
not an OK person, but you are. I need you to tell me what to do and take
care of me." This is a dependent, helpless position--the victim
feels he is not a worthwhile person, so bad things happen to him. The brain chemistry of
victim mode shuts down
cognitive ability, so the person acts out of emotion instead of reason.
The third position is the persecutor.
“I’m OK, but you are not. You need what I’ve got, because you’re
not OK.” In the Assembly, this position is held by leaders,
who believe, “Because you’re not OK, it doesn’t matter what I do
to you, and because I am OK, it’s all for your good.” Assembly
members begin to take on this position, also, as they identify with the group
and attempt to influence others by recruiting, shepherding, etc. Empathy
and conscience are repressed in persecutor mode.
The fourth position is rescuer. “I’m not OK, and you’re not OK either. Because you’re not OK, I have to take care of you, and because I’m not OK, it doesn’t matter what happens to me while I'm rescuing you.” Rescuing confirms to rescuees that they are not OK and that they are incapable of taking care of themselves. The brain chemistry of the rescuer shuts down feelings, so there isn’t awareness of personal needs or emotional cues. A person may shift from Victim to Rescuer because the emotional numbing is a relief.
More to follow...
...from Dr. Burks, on how the last three positions result in a Drama Triangle, how this effects the brain, and how to recover, with diagrams.
But to sum it up so far, Dr. Burks convinced Steve and me that one of the of the goals of cult recovery is to get to the "I’m OK, you’re OK" position and start growing again:
** to stop thinking that we have something everyone else needs (Rescuer)** to stop communicating that others need to listen to us for their own good (Persecutor)
** to stop reacting to Rescuers and Persecutors alike with silent or whining passivity (Victim)
** to work on communications that are kind and respectful, but also thoughtful and principled (Adult).
"Soap Box" re. the Assembly Bulletin Board
So that brings me to my soap box...Here's how I think all this relates to the Assembly Bulletin Board. The interactions should take place in an atmosphere of respect, kindness and psychological safety. Persecutor, Victim or Rescuer posts should be confronted. If they are allowed to go unchecked, communication breaks down, and eventually those in the Rescuer or Persecutor position dominate the Board. End of soap box.
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