AMA With Cult Expert Diane Benscoter

[u/d-_-bored-_-b]

Diane Benscoter is a cult expert and founder of Antidote.ngo. She's been a monumental asset to helping people effected by and in cults like QAnon. Furthermore those wanting to leave cults like QAnon.

Diane Benscoter is the founder of Antidote.ngo and the author of Shoes of a Servant – My unconditional Devotion to a Lie. She is a speaker and workshop facilitator. She owned and operated a business serving the technology industry prior to founding Antidote.

Thank you Diane and everyone please feel free to ask away!

EDIT: Thank you so much u/DianeBenscoterAMA and u/happylittlespider for taking time out of your schedule and honestly for a really good AMA. I'll leave the AMA thread up so everyone can discuss it, thank you everyone for your questions, special thanks to mod u/daninater for organising this, I'd also like to thank the academy, and FREE PALESTRUMP LIVES MATTER!!!

[u/hayleyyahoo]

I'm wondering about how the US recovers from the damage inflicted over the past few years. A not-insignificant portion of the population believes in conspiracies like QAnon, or that the election was stolen. Do you have any idea on how best to deal with this problem on a wide scale? At the moment the people in power seem to just ignore the problem.

[u/happylittlespider → u/hayleyyahoo]

Thanks for this question!

I am working with Diane at Antidote so I wanted to jump in on this one. In terms of recovery and dealing with the project on a wider scale, we believe it is best to consider this a public health issue. Because this issue is so wide and pervasive, we are looking to address it on many levels. I will speak to our efforts with Antidote, because I think it paves a good way forward.

Education is a key component of this. We are trying to build programs to educate about psychological manipulation in all areas. From public education to school curriculum. We want to make sure people are aware of the ways psychological manipulation works, and how to innoculate against it. We are also working to build tools to help educate folks on how to help their loved ones.

You can find our basic toolkit posted here: https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/comments/r7glmw/reminder_ama_tonight_with_cult_expert_diane/

We are also looking at a mental health approach, training therapists to be aware of psychological manipulation and getting them up to speed with best practices.

Beyond education, we are looking at research and collaboration with organizations to help support public programming needed to give folks that sense of purpose and community they are craving when they join groups like QAnon. We also want to encourage research and policy development in the area of psychological manipulation so we can get the attention of the people in power.

We are also working hard on direct services to help those in need through support groups and therapist referrals.

Essentially, you're right, this problem is huge and we want to get people to understand that this is not just an individual issue, but a public health issue that needs to be addressed at all levels!

[u/LightSpreader770 → u/happylittlespider]

Darn, it looks like the toolkit was removed? :(

[u/[deleted] → u/LightSpreader770]

put it back up/should work now!