Upcoming Successful, Small, Personalized, and Secure

 HIPAA-Compliant Online Workshops/Support Sessions

Alternate Saturdays, 12:00 Noon to 2:00 PM PDT (Please note the time zone)

Facilitators:  Colleen Russell, LMFT, CGP, and Janja Lalich, PhD, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Co-Author of Take Back Your Life, Recovering From Cults and Abusive Relationships (2006) and Escaping Utopia, Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over (2018)

Sharing Wisdom, Challenges, Successes, Supporting One Another in Small Personalized Sessions

10 to 20 Participants Each Session

These are educational workshops, not therapy groups. 

Educational, supportive, interactive, offering participants opportunities to address issues you want to explore and which are relevant to your life.  We gain support and learn from each other.  Janja and Colleen include brief presentations with a few slides on specific topics such as the following:

• Healthy and coercive relationships
• Boundaries, communication, personal rights, and other tools for living
• Communication with parents or other family members still involved
• Intimacy and Trust
• Trauma and PTSD symptoms including dissociation, and how to navigate through them
• Coping Tools for Covid-19 ; "normal" responses
• The "Bounded Choice" model of coercive control and influence
• Freedom from coercive control in groups and relationships
• What former members have found helpful to their recovery
• Evaluating charismatic authorities in your life; red flags and how to protect oneself
• Rules and dynamics of dysfunctional systems in families, relationships, workplaces and other groups
• Ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief
• Disconfirming Inaccurate beliefs from ideologies, family of origin, other relationships
• Physical and psychological process of leaving

Upcoming Workshop Schedule 

Saturday, August 8th, 12:00 Noon to 2:00 PM PT

Open Discussion/Exploration of Relationships -- Intimate (Dating, Partnership, Marriage); Work/Organizations; Family of Origin or Current Family  (In or Out of Cult); Friendships

• Traumatic Bonding -- What It Is, How To Get Out of It 
• Trust, Boundaries, Autonomy & Connection, Enmeshment, "Red Flags" 
•  Communication & Relationships with Family of Origin; Significant Others
• Self-Esteem and Self-Care
• Triggers and What To Do About Them
• What's "Normal?" 

Saturday, August 22nd, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM PDT

• Integrating the Past:  Challenges and Successes --  Where Am I Now? 
• Can I Dare to Be Myself?
• Relationships 
• Personal Goals
• Recovery Issues -- Successes and Challenges

Saturday, September 5th, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM PDT

• To Be Determined Based on Participant Requests

 Based on participant's requests and needs, each workshop will focus on specific topics participants address for in-depth exploration. Janja and I provide resources for the upcoming workshop/support session to assist in the discussion and learning opportunity. These resources are sent prior to our workshop session to allow for in-depth discussion.  You say as much or as little as is comfortable.

Here are the steps if you are interested:

1)If you are someone I know or have worked with, send me (Colleen) an email: [email protected]  If you haven't worked with Janja or me,  send an email stating your interest to Janja at: [email protected]

2) After communicating with Janja or me, the next step is that I will add you to the participant list for the specific workshop or series.  We will accept up to about 20 participants in each workshop so everyone has an opportunity to contribute.  We may break out into smaller groups for discussion.

3) Payment of $50 per workshop or $150 for the next series of workshops will save you a place.  You can attend once or be a "regular" as a core group of people attending are helping each other.  You can pay via my website on the "Make a payment" menu item. Please note what they payment is for, and your name.

4)Up to twenty-four hours prior to the scheduled workshop, I will email you a secure link that will take you into the Zoom workshop/support session. Arrive 5-10 minutes early to be ready for the start.

Attending the series of three is recommended but not required as this allows participants to get to know and deepen their trust and work with each other. Some participants continue more often.

Education of one's experience is primary to recovery, as is gaining validation, acknowledgement, and mutual support from others who understand. Participants are those Janja or I have worked or know. 

Workshop Participants Comments:

"I've had individual therapy, but after attending my first workshop I realize that what I need now is learning from the group of former members."

"You and Janja are balancing the complexity of needs in the workshop pristinely!" 

"These workshops are really helpful to me in understanding and processing my experiences in a cult."  

"I don't feel like such an alien, and can openly talk to others who understand." 

"I'm learning how others have survived 'outside' -- and how I can survive."

"I wasn't aware until listening to others in the workshop and reading the educational material you provide, how many  relationships I've been involved in that have been coercive."  

"These workshops have given me invaluable insights."

"Thanks again for last week's meeting.  It was really powerful."

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I (Colleen) use secure Zoom with added security.  If you decide to participate, you will need a video camera and speakers for your laptop or desktop and a one-time download of the Zoom app .   Some participants use their IPhones but this is a smaller view.  I will send resources regarding the workshop prior to it for your review and reflection.  Downloading Zoom is easy and free, a one-time process, as are the steps for participation.