Understanding Cult Leaving: A Gendered, Generational, and Therapeutic Lens

In this session, Sam Sellers talks to Charlotte Cummings about the complex, gendered, and often misunderstood process of leaving cults and high-control groups. Drawing from both research and therapeutic experience, Charlotte shares insights into how gender shapes the challenges of leaving, especially for multi-generational leavers who have never known life outside a closed system. They explore the psychological and emotional barriers that make leaving so difficult, and the grief that often accompanies what outsiders assume is only liberation.

Charlotte also speaks to the blind spots therapists often have when working with cult leavers, the urgent need for better training around spirituality in therapy, and how identity and autonomy can slowly be rebuilt. It’s a rich, grounded conversation that bridges research and lived experience, and calls for a more nuanced, trauma-informed, and compassionate approach to supporting survivors.

Please Note - In this session with Charlotte, you may notice the use of binary gendered language. This is not a reflection of Charlotte’s personal stance on gender but rather a choice to accurately describe the specific community being discussed. Charlotte’s work and understanding of gender move beyond binaries and are deeply inclusive of transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming identities.

We acknowledge the Indigenous people of the lands we have recorded on. Our speakers and hosts are located on Aboriginal Country all across the lands now called Australia and Maori lands across Aoteoroa. We pay our respect to Indigenous elders who are custodians of these lands and extend that respect to any Indigenous people attending our event.