Coercive Control, Cults, Traumatic Narcissism, and Healing

A 14-Week Professional Training for Therapists, Physicians, Coaches, Psychedelic Practitioners, Attorneys, and Helping Professionals

Why do intelligent, capable people become trapped in abusive relationships, coercive families, cults, high-control organizations, or exploitative therapeutic and spiritual communities?

Why do some individuals become charismatic leaders who demand loyalty, obedience, and the surrender of others' reality?

And perhaps most importantly: how do people recover?

This course explores coercive control through the lenses of psychoanalysis, attachment theory, trauma theory, cult studies, personality disorders, and psychedelic ethics. Drawing heavily on the work of psychoanalyst Daniel Shaw, participants will learn to recognize the dynamics of traumatic narcissism and the ways in which one person's subjectivity can become subordinated to another's need for control, admiration, innocence, or power.

We will examine coercive systems across many contexts—including intimate relationships, families, cults, spiritual communities, therapeutic relationships, workplaces, and psychedelic groups—and explore what makes some individuals more vulnerable to becoming trapped within them.

Along the way, we will investigate:

  • Coercive control and psychological domination

  • Traumatic narcissism and relational systems of subjugation

  • Cults, thought reform, and charismatic leadership

  • Betrayal trauma and betrayal blindness

  • Winnicott's concepts of the true self and false self

  • Shame, fear, and the loss of subjectivity

  • Malignant narcissism, sociopathy, and psychopathy

  • Family systems that function like cults

  • Exit counseling and recovery from coercive relationships

  • Psychedelic communities: risks, abuses, and healing potential

A central theme throughout the course is the recovery of one's own mind.

Many survivors of coercive systems describe feeling as though they lost trust in their own perceptions, intuition, and reality. We will explore how these systems create shame, dependency, and confusion—and how healing often involves reclaiming agency, subjectivity, and the capacity to know one's own experience.

The course integrates the work of Donald Winnicott, Jennifer Freyd, Leonard Shengold, Otto Kernberg, J. Reid Meloy, Robert Jay Lifton, Janja Lalich, Steven Hassan, Judith Herman, and others, while maintaining Daniel Shaw's model of traumatic narcissism as the primary organizing framework.

Guest Faculty

  • Daniel Shaw, LCSW

    Expertise Here

  • Sarah Edmondson

    NXIVM whistleblower and author of Scarred

  • Jennifer Freyd, PhD

    Expertise Here

  • J. Reid Meloy, PhD

    Expertise Here

  • Patrick Ryan

    Cult Intervention Specialist

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Identify coercive control dynamics across relationships, families, organizations, and cults.

  • Understand traumatic narcissism as a relational system of subjugation.

  • Differentiate narcissistic, malignant narcissistic, sociopathic, and psychopathic personality structures.

  • Recognize betrayal trauma and betrayal blindness in clinical work.

  • Understand developmental vulnerabilities that may increase susceptibility to coercive systems.

  • Apply Winnicottian concepts of true self, false self, and holding to survivors of coercive control.

  • Understand the role of shame and fear in maintaining abusive systems.

  • Work more effectively with survivors of narcissistic abuse, cult involvement, and coercive relationships.

  • Recognize and manage countertransference reactions when working with highly narcissistic or psychopathic individuals.

  • Support clients in rebuilding autonomy, reality testing, self-compassion, and agency.

  • Understand both the risks and therapeutic possibilities of psychedelic experiences in relation to coercive control and recovery.

Format

14 live online sessions
Assigned readings, videos, and podcasts
Case discussions and clinical applications
Guest lectures from leading experts in the field
Certificate of completion available

Who Should Attend?

This course is designed for:

  • Psychologists

  • Psychiatrists

  • Therapists

  • Social workers

  • Physicians

  • Coaches

  • Psychedelic facilitators and integration practitioners

  • Attorneys working with survivors of abuse

  • Clergy and spiritual care providers

  • Researchers and students

  • Survivors seeking a deeper understanding of coercive systems

Whether you work with survivors professionally or are seeking a deeper understanding of coercive relationships in your own life, this course provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how coercive systems form, how they endure, and how recovery becomes possible.