ABSTRACT
Opening with the story of Marina Ortiz, a former member of a political cult, this chapter goes on to define the key terms used in the book: totalist, cult, and brainwashing. I briefly address current controversies regarding the use of the words cult and brainwashing. I introduce my five-point model of a totalist organization using the example of the Newman Tendency – a political and therapy cult – to illustrate features of leadership, structure, ideology, process and outcomes. The chapter introduces evolutionary-based attachment theory, and specifically, disorganized attachment (a relationship embedded in trauma), as an explanatory factor in how this social structure works.
