Cult Affiliation and Disaffiliation: Implications for Counseling

Between 2 and 5 million young adults are involved in cult groups in the United States. Psychohistorical influences, family dynamics, and religious values affect an individual's susceptibility to joining a cult. Cult affiliation affects the cult member and his or her family members. Although cults have high conversion rates, they also have high rates of disaffiliation. Counselors working with those who join and leave cults need to develop an awareness of clinical symptoms associated with doing so and use appropriate interventions.     

Community and Christianity in the Black Church

The authors explore the experience of Christian religion for many African Americans. In response to racial discrimination and prejudice within churches, African Americans developed a Christian tradition with distinct meanings, beliefs and practices. This tradition provides a foundation for social activism within the church, community and American society, as well as community among church members. The recent Black church burnings are discussed with respect to the more traditional Christian African American view of religion. Implications for incorporating the religious traditions of Christian African Americans into counseling practice are explored. (The authors use the term Black church or African American church as a surrogate for Christian African American church throughout the article. The terms Black and African American will also be used interchangeably).     

Family Therapy of Schizophrenics with High Risk of Relapse

Three families that demonstrated factors associated with relapse of florid symptoms in a schizophrenic family member underwent a course of 25 sessions of behavioral therapy in a multi-family group. Details of the treatment and assessment procedures are presented along with evidence of significant beneficial change in two families. The problem of providing continuing care for schizophrenic patients and their families is discussed.     

Developing Support for Alcohol and Drug Education: A Case Study of a Counselor's Role

A small group of individuals successfully helped a rural community deal with its adolescent drug problems and illustrated important roles for counselors and community leaders.     

Moral Cosmology, Religion, and Adult Values for Children

We hypothesize that the religiously orthodox, who are theologically communitarian/authoritarian in seeing individuals as subsumed by a larger community of believers and as subject to timeless divine law, are more likely to value obedience in children over autonomy than are theological modernists, who are theologically individualistic in seeing individuals, not a deity, as the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong. We hypothesize further that differences in moral cosmology (orthodoxy vs. modernism) within faith traditions are more important for the values adults seek to instile in children than are differences between traditions. Through analyses of national data from the 1998 General Social Survey, we find strong confirmation of both hypotheses. Moral cosmology is the single-most important factor in valuations of obedience and autonomy in children. While evangelical Protestants differ from Catholics, mainline Protestants, and those with no religion in their values for children, moral cosmology is associated with differences in values for children within each of the faith traditions, including evangelical Protestants. We conclude that intra-faith differences in moral cosmology are key in explaining values for children, but have not completely supplanted interfaith differences .     

'Willing Is Not Choosing': Some Anthropological Implications of Dyothelite Christology

Abstract:  The dyothelite Christology of Maximus the Confessor provides a basis for countering modern worry that an Augustinian doctrine of the bondage of the will undermines human integrity. Modern discomfort with Augustine presupposes an anthropology that equates genuine agency with freedom of choice. In defending the principle that Christ has a fully human will, Maximus challenges this presupposition by denying that a human agent's willing is to be identified with choosing. Thus, while Maximus does not share Augustine's doctrine of original sin, he offers a framework within which to explore possible convergence between Eastern and Western understandings of the will.