Praise For Releasing The Bonds: Empowering
People to Think for Themselves

Click here to read a review of Releasing the Bonds on the Apologetics Index!

"Steven Hassan's approach is one that I value more than that of any other researcher or clinical practitioner. Hassan is a model of clear exposition, his original ideas are brilliantly presented in a captivating style. I am confident that readers of his new book will share my enthusiasm for what this author tells us about how to deal with the growing menace of cults."

Philip G. Zimbardo, Ph.D.
President of the American Psychological Association (2002)
Professor of Psychology, Stanford University,
Author of Influencing Attitudes and Changing Behavior, Discovering Psychology, and Shyness

"Hassan's new book lays out with clarity, precision, vast personal illustrations, and no hysteria, the best analysis of the mind control used by every destructive religious group. He follows with a clear prescription for families and professionals showing how they can get help and deal with these human tragedies. An absolutely necessary tool for student personnel workers, clergy, and others who have faced destructive cults."

Robert Watts Thornburg
Dean, Marsh Chapel, Boston University

"The essence of Steve Hassan's work is the liberation of the human potential in all of us. Can anyone of us be really free when others are enslaved? Steve's emphatic "no" to this agonizing question makes Releasing the Bonds a vibrant tool for so many of us in the helping professions. As a rabbi and teacher, I am always inspired by Steve Hassan's integrity and determination. Let it continue for many years."

Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, Ph.d.
Author of The Big Book of Jewish Humour

"With Releasing the Bonds, Steve Hassan has provided a reasoned, principled, and highly readable approach to attacking aserious social problem. We need this book!"

Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D.
Arizona State University
Author of Influence

"When Steve Hassan was still a high ranking member in the Unification Church, I participated in an unsuccessful voluntary deprogramming of my daughter, Barbara. For two days the team leader pounded at the cult member and her group. Deliberately, he insulted them using bathroom language on the theory that the cult member would "snap". We failed. As she returned to her group the cultist remarked, "Where was the love?" If the team leader and the cult member had had the opportunity to read Hassan's "Releasing the Bonds," the results might have been quite different. Hassan has skillfully condensed his 25 years of experience in liberating members of destructive groups into a valuable workbook for counselors, cult members and their families, and mental health professionals. His formula, the Strategic Interaction Approach, stresses love, respect, freedom of choice, customized planned action fitted to the individual with the family as key participants, psychotherapy, and applied social psychology."

Arthur A. Dole, Ph.D, ABPP
Editorial Advisory Board for the Cultic Studies Journal
American Family Foundation

"For sixteen hours a day and a paycheck averaging $40 a week I gave more than a decade of my youth to a cult. Although it is eighteen years since I have left the cult, Steve Hassan's book Releasing the Bonds has provided me with new insights and additional healing. His book offers fresh perspectives and tools that can lead to letting go of the shame, recognizing one's personal goodness, and appreciating one's strength and integrity. I urge every former cult member to read Releasing the Bonds, Hassan's book will also be a reassuring message for families and friends who have suffered the loss of a loved one to a cult as well as offering a basic introduction to cult issues."

Ginger Ross Breggin
Executive Director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology

"Releasing the Bonds is a compassionate and intelligent guide for anyone who has ever been caught up in a cult or cult-like organization. Hassan offers perceptive and non-coercive guidance to family and friends of those whose idealism or vulnerability has led them to become cult members. Further, the book provides valuable insights into the control and manipulation that can occur in abusive personal relationships such as those experienced by battered women. It is a vital tool for professionals and laypersons alike."

Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
Author of Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs

"Steve Hassan is one of the very few people to understand the mechanics of manipulation. He sheds a rare light on the mysterious processes used to overwhelm independent thought and behaviour in totalist groups. Steve is a truly insightful commentator whose work always stimulates. His experience is vast and his prose is lucid. Steve's work is a must read for anyone who wants to comprehend indoctrination and understand how to undo it."

Jon Atack
Author of A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed

"At the time I left the headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses in New York, after having worked for $14 a month for 6 years, I was able through much inner soul-searching to extricate myself on my own. Had I possessed the information in Releasing the Bonds more than likely it would have greatly shortened the amount of time spent still searching for answers. When you are the one being manipulated by controlling leadership, you are least likely to understand the motives behind that leadership, as it is carefully cloaked behind doctrine, fear and guilt. Now one can shortcut the process significantly and recover without fear of returning to the group, or of being caught up in another high-control group."

Randall Watters
Author of Thus Saith the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses

"Congratulations, Steve! You have a unique handbook/guidebook here which, if followed carefully, should result in freeing many cult members from the bondage of mind control. It will give hope and motivation to their many relatives and friends who feel helpless and hopeless and are desperate to discover some means of reaching their loved ones. I remember the dark depressive cloud of despair which settled on me when I first heard of my son Peter's involvement in Scientology. What a tremendous relief it was when his wife Mary Jo reassured us that he had responded positively to your counseling and had reentered the real world.

It is good that you affirm consistently the importance of an individual's faith -- you make it clear that no Christian should fear that your methods or techniques would impact the cult member's religious faith negatively. You are unselfishly sharing what you know with others, and encouraging them to try it. The Moonies would have undoubtedly left you alone, had they any idea what your indoctrination would eventually lead to! God works in mysterious ways."

Joyce Farrell

"Steven Hassan has called upon his twenty-three years of expertise in the cult field to write this excellent, highly readable and extremely practical manual. Reading this book and implementing Hassan's advice will hopefully help everyone affected by a mind control situation to understand and reevaluate an unhealthy involvement."

Marcia R. Rudin
Founding Director,
International Cult Education Program of the American Family Foundation

"Releasing the Bonds; Empowering People to Think for Themselves is highly recommended to anyone who supports freedom and celebrates creative intelligence."

Stephen Lankton, MSW, DAHB
Author of Practical Magic, The Answer Within, Tales of Enchantment, Enchantment and Intervention in Family Therapy