I recently read this article,
http://www.garloff.de/kurt/sekten/mind1.html, which is older, but one of the more clear and to the point explanations I've read of the different ways scn uses mind control techniques on members.
I
somewhat like
Monica Pignotti's article (which is what the link goes to) because she bothers to detail her points in ordinary language, eventually or in part, rather than just yak on about a potentially pseudo-scientific area of studies that constantly tosses around loaded language pejoratives like "mind control".
If you will study the breadth of sociological and psychological research that has been done modernly,
all enduring social groups seek to preserve the group or achieve its more important purposes by making use of certain tactics to some extent. Whether those tactics are called pejorative names and character assassination against the members of the group using those tactics is invited, or on the other hand more descriptive and neutral language and restraint from cheap character assassination is the rule, tends to revolve around a lot of subjective biases and somewhat arbitrary standards for when something becomes so abusive (in someone's subjective opinion) that we are all
allowed to drop our critical reasoning and join in a 5-Minutes-Hate ritual about a "cult".
One of the things I so disliked about digging myself out of a Scientology dominated upbringing is that there is such a proliferation of the "cult of the anti-cult" in the materials of the rival side. They so often use uncalled for and underhanded tactics of persuasion that it often serves as invitation to merely jump to something just as mind poisoning as what one left or is trying to leave. If you get away from
specifically cultic-studies oriented material then you can get genuine science or at least rigorously thought through ideas that help you make sense of the world without a prior belief system that was unsatisfactory for this. If you find your way to such materials that are
free of cultic-studies biases, their loaded language, and other dirty tricks of persuasion, then you don't need to struggle for long after that to get your life functioning well. On the other hand, if you fall into the cult of the anti-cult agenda and its warped view of how there's us and then there's some special evil people to be rescued and allowed to be like us again, you will probably struggle for years to free yourself from that mental sloth and rot.
One of the worst pieces of "help" in adopting a better world view than my previous Scientology upbringing was a recommendation to me by a college professor. He recommended I read the then just released book titled
Snapping by people named Conway and Siegelman. Those two gathered some materials that could have made for a very useful sociological survey of members of controversial religious groups, but instead they decided that ham handed and slothful defamation of those unpopular groups was to be their contribution to the welfare of humanity. They also did something that I couldn't help but notice, because in digging myself out of Scientology I found much discussion of traits of pseudo-science to be useful. Because of that immersion in that topic, I had no trouble recognizing Conway and Siegelman as enthusiastic pseudo-science advocates in a tricky area of study:
personality theory. They also pulled an amazing dirty persuasion tactic of trumpeting themselves as people competent to distinguish a genuine and valid religious conversion versus what they sought to style as a pathological and evil religious conversion. We can all stop pondering the question that has been with humanity for millenia, of when a religious conversion is proper to pursue, and just ask they two know-it-alls for the answer, it seems. I read that book multiple times through looking for even a single clear description of how you tell when a religious conversation is genuine and valid, as they claimed to be able to recognize, but merely found instance after instance of ham handed defamation of people who they thought obviously had invalid and pathological religious conversions. Of course labeling these latter types of conversions properly as Conway and Siegelman would have us do means we need not consider pesky questions of human rights and religious freedom - not for
invalid conversions. It amazed me that a college professor would recommend this book to me given the appallingly low rigor of thought in the work and the broad brush defamation it sought to enable, especially when I considered that his area of expertise was basically the psychology of persuasion. I thought he would know genuine scholarly work from pseudo-science peddled to the masses via the popular press when he saw it, but he didn't. Ultimately the pseudo-science in
Snapping was not well received by a broader community of scholars, which is good news.
This is relevant to this thread because you are trying to discuss an area of thought that has a great many contentions and unresolved rival theories associated with it:
personality theory.
Everybody seems to think they qualify as an expert on "personality" as they have one and go about forming opinions of personality of others, so everyone is free to consider themselves an expert, and their pronouncements are thus basically self-proving by the fact that they stated them. It is very easy to talk about personality and think you've got it right if you don't bother with the fact that it is a very complex topic with many rival views on it. Because of the great conviction people might speak with on a nebulous and slippery topic,
personality theory, it is also the breeding ground of hateful thinking about others that need not be whipped up when plain and ordinary language that avoids complex issues is sufficient to your ends.
Pignotti did a fair job in traveling down the road of getting away from the pejorative loaded language so in vogue to use about the people she was discussing and had once been an example of, but didn't make it all the way to where she needed to in my estimate. Her materials still have at least a vague stench of the cultic-studies mindset to them and to that degree share in the sloth and underhandedness of cultic-studies in its attempts at persuasion that "we have done quit enough study now to dispense with pesky concerns over religious freedom and human rights and we should all just
do the right thing by joining in a 5-Minutes-Hate ritual about cults." It would have been nice to see her make it
all the way to
freedom for her own mind, overcoming the sloth and rot that infests most cultic-studies work, instead of still having one toe still stuck in the mire of cultic-studies and its mind deadening indoctrination that her work seems to endorse by utilizing its language and world view.
Groups like Scientology go way beyond certain boundaries most people consider mandatory to stop at in the process of persuading others, but it is a matter of degree or excess involved rather than difference in the basic tactic or mechanisms involved. You face two choices in combating this:
1. Think that following in the footsteps of scientific frauds like Jolly West and Margaret Singer is necessary, so that you essentially use tactics you claim to disdain by indoctrinating people into your cult of the anti-cult, its loaded language, its excessive reverence to the authority of the saviors West and Singer and their fans, its adherence to its anti-cult
doctrine over concerns of
personal dignity of people that doctrine targets as pathological and in need of stripping of human rights, etc etc.
2. Realize that almost all humans understand and are capable of passionately responding to violation of certain norms concerning lying, menacing/bullying, threatening or actually using restraint or violence, dividing family members against each other in the service of someone's lust for power, etc etc. In all of this you need never use loaded language and special jargon as the "mind control" theorists do. You need never appeal to some overawing authority (who may be a pseudo-science advocate) instead of experience and values common to almost all humans. You need never advocate that people's human rights are dispensable because of some great doctrine you are advocating, etc etc.
If you choose route 2, you will have a
far more potent persuasion of far more people than if you choose route 1, or similar routes which depend on persuading people of how right you are on a very contentious area of thought.
Forget talking about ambiguous theories and "mind control cults" and talk about the words used when someone promised you something he or she knew, as later events showed, were flat lies that would not be fulfilled as promised. Not only is this more powerful, it guards against polluting your own mind with powerful sounding conclusions concerning a slippery topic:
personality theory.
Sorry this is so long, but I think people really are damaging their own mind when they try to talk about a complex topic and use simplistic and poorly thought through jargon and world views to do it. That's what taking Pignotti's article as the premises of discussion amounts to. Instead, free your mind completely and finish the journey Pignotti very nearly completed.
and we'd like to attend them all. But then s/he's that way about almost any activity someone suggests. S/he plays really nicely with others and pretty much game for just about anything. ..... mmmm ..... except for the time I suggested we should go talk to the Anon folks and see first hand what their gripe was. That.... didn't fly.
....and the rest has been fine, I think. The usual ups and downs any long time couple has with stress and kids and time but certainly not an aversion. That would have been a deal killer for me. 
