Psychotherapeutic procedure with religious cult devotees

The literature dealing with the cult devotee has been primarily descriptive, offering phenomenological reports of psychological characteristics and symptomatology but few reports of specific assessment and psychotherapeutic procedures for management of this unique patient population. The present paper offers a brief review of previous literature and describes specific assessment and interventive procedures which have been successfully applied to an outpatient clinic population of 65 cult devotees. Diagnostic impressions based on psychological testing are reported. Discussion focuses on the contribution of diagnostic and clinical findings to the conceptualization of cultic religiosity as a regressive phenomenon.