Mental Health and Ex-JWs - My interview with ICSA

by dubstepped 5 Replies latest jw experiences

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  dubstepped

  I was interviewed by the International Cultic Studies Association and the video from the live stream a few weeks ago has been released. If you're an ex-JW I'd encourage you to watch and share. The objective of this video is to help those that leave Jehovah's Witnesses to identify patterns and psychological problems that may be present in their lives and to help professional therapists and coaches to do the same. These insights are gleaned from my own experience personally, my observations in years of interactions in ex-JW communities including my own, my interviews for the Shunned Podcast, and from professionally coaching individuals that have reached out to work through their past and to work on building a better future.
  
  

  This can be used to help your therapist to understand where you're coming from. This can also be used to help you understand and identify roles that you're playing out in your own life and some of the reasons behind it.
  
  

  My current projects:
  

  https://thisjwlife.com/ - this is my story
  https://shunnedpodcast.com/ - listen to the stories of others
  https://shunnedpodcast.com/shunned-recovery-project/ - online meetups for those who are shunned
  
  https://youtu.be/2wfJB7O319Q
  
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  Still Totally ADD

  Thank you dubstepped for this information. I hope this helps to bump this up for you. Still Totally ADD
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  dubstepped

  I'm hoping that it helps others. So many struggle to find a therapist or someone that understands. They don't want to have to basically indoctrinate their therapist to help them understand so that then they can help them untangle it all. If we can educate the therapists at scale we can help the helpers, so to speak. And if we can help those suffering to have the verbiage to use when they go in, to know what patterns might be playing out in their lives, it gives them a running start instead of having to go backward in order to go forward.
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  Vidiot

  Awesome, I love Quiet Ri...

  ...oh, wait, I thought the thread title was "Metal Health...

  ...sorry.

  
  
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  GizmoSnicket

  Thank you for sharing this!
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  Xanthippe

  Thanks Michael, I found many things to identify with. Shame, lack of ability to share emotional intimacy so as to make friends. Along with lack of trust in others after our experience in a religion where the guillotine was always ready to fall if we did or said the 'wrong' thing.

  I like your definition of shame that guilt is feeling that we did something wrong but shame is being made to feel we are wrong, the wrong sort of person, wrong through and through. As we were made to feel in the JWs.

  Being vulnerable, we have needs and we are not either psychologically useless or at the other end of the scale, arrogant for admitting we have needs, things that we want from life for our own happiness.

  Looking for a therapist that is willing to do some research into the JWs so we don't have to explain the past we want to get way from before they can understand us enough to help us get away from it!

  Finally that we've lost a lot of time already and life is short so let's get help to enjoy the rest of our lives.

  Thanks that was very helpful.