ABSTRACT
The accounts of psychological torture and coercion as well as the resultant psychological/psychiatric disturbances of torture are similarly of recent concern. The emergence of cults and the study of those victims have increased the knowledge base in this area. The study of cult victims has led to the development of evidence that people who seemingly voluntarily enter into these controlled situations, suffer psychological, as well as physical, financial, and other harms as a consequence of their having been manipulated, influenced, and controlled (West and Langone 1985). Psychological methods of captors as well as the subsequent psychological disturbances associated with torture will be further examined in the ensuing sections.
