2. A good therapist:
There are excellent therapists who specialize in working with ritual abuse. While qualifications among therapists will vary, a survivor can try locating one by contacting reputable people in the field for referrals, by contacting the ISSD (link is on the welcome page for my articles), or by referral from people the survivor trusts. Not all therapists who advertise that they work with DID are safe, but if the survivor checks out references and asks careful questions, their chances of finding a good therapist will be higher. I have personally had therapists who worked with DID who ranged from : a pastor in San Diego who told me he could "integrate me" in 3 months if I had enough faith (this did NOT happen and was completely unrealistic); a therapist who was the referral for a national christian counseling group for DID who told me that her brother had tortured her as a child, and that I was not DID because she, the therapist, often "lost time" and went through personality changes and SHE wasn't DID (I stopped seeing her after two visits); a therapist associated with a ritual abuse and trauma program who was very knowledgeable, compassionate, and helpful. The last one, needless to say, was the only helpful one in my healing process! A good therapist will be knowledgeable about DID and ritual abuse; will BELIEVE the survivor and not discount memories shared; will help the survivor with achieving inter-system communication; and will have good boundaries. A therapist like this is well worth the time and effort it will take to locate, and can help the survivor immensely in the process of breaking free of cult control.
3. Stopping telephone access:
The telephone is one of the first avenues used to access someone trying to leave the cult. Hang up calls; calls with tones played, or with a tape or hidden message, will be used. Also, survivors often have recontact programming to phone their trainer or family members. One way to deal with this: take the telephone and lock it in the trunk of the car. This way, if a part of the survivor tries to get up in the middle of the night and make a phone call, they will have to find the car keys; unlock the trunk, plug the phone in,and make the call. Hopefully, the survivor will have time to "switch out" another part who will stop the call, especially as they work in therapy to block cult access.
