Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center
Company type | nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation in the United States. |
---|---|
Industry | residential counseling center |
Genre | Psychology |
Founded | 1986 |
Founder | Paul R. Martin, Ph.D. |
Headquarters | Albany, Ohio, United States |
Key people | Paul R. Martin, CEO |
Services | treatment of individuals exposed to abusive religious groups, organizations, and cults |
Website | Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center |
Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center is a Christian countercult movement-affiliated residential counseling center claiming to specialize in the treatment of individuals who they evaluate as "having been abused in relationships, cults, situations of trauma, and by destructive therapeutic alliances resulting in emotional betrayal and/or physical harm".[1] Founded in 1986 by Dr. Paul R. Martin and his wife Barbara, it is located in Albany, Ohio.
All of the staff are Christian and "former members of cults".[2]
Services
Wellspring claims that it has treated more than 500 former cult members from the United States and nine foreign countries since the retreat opened in 1986.[2]
It also offers educational, consulting, and family support services. Several of its staff members are published authors, and Wellspring is also an informational resource to national and international media to raise awareness about coercive persuasion and its treatment.[1][3][4]
Wellspring has been praised by Christian countercultist Dr. Ronald Enroth, in his best-selling book Churches That Abuse, as well as in the follow-up book, Recovering From Churches That Abuse.[5] In the latter he wrote, in part:
Wellspring exists because recovering emotionally, restoring a loving relationship with God, and re-entering society are not easily accomplished on one's own. The accounts in this book reveal how tortuous the path to recovery can be without professional, caring help. The tragedy is that for the victims of spiritual abuse, the options are disappointingly few. Not many programs are especially equipped, as Wellspring is, to treat victims of spiritual abuse.[5]
Criticism
Jeffrey Hadden said former Wellspring clients have told him the retreat uses some of the very thought reform techniques it attributes to cults.[2]
References
- ^ a b "Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center". Retrieved 2007-03-17.
- ^ a b c "Cult Exit". The Dayton Daily News. May 7, 2000. Retrieved 14 June 2014.
- ^ "Raised in a Cult". The Montel Williams Show. Season 10. February 28, 2002. CBS Paramount. Raised in a Cult.
- ^ Jim Phillips (November 24, 2004). "Counselor fights for freedom of cult victims 'one mind at a time'". The Athens News. Retrieved 2007-03-17.
- ^ a b Enroth, Ronald (1994). Recovering From Churches That Abuse. Zondervan Publishing House. p. 33. ISBN 0-310-39870-3.
- v
- t
- e
- APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control
- Center for Religious Studies in the name of Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons
- Cult Awareness Network
- Cult Information Centre
- Cultists Anonymous
- International Cultic Studies Association
- The Family Survival Trust
- Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network
- National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales
- People's Organised Workshop on Ersatz Religion
- Jean-Marie Abgrall
- John Gordon Clark
- Steve Eichel
- Martin Faiers
- Leon Festinger
- Carol Giambalvo
- Steven Hassan
- Ian Haworth
- Galen Kelly
- Stephen A. Kent
- Masaki Kito
- Janja Lalich
- Michael Langone
- Saul V. Levine
- Casey McCann
- Jesse S. Miller
- Sayuri Ogawa
- Ted Patrick
- Tsutsumi Sakamoto
- Rick Ross
- Chris Shelton
- Jim Siegelman
- Margaret Singer
- Eito Suzuki
- Alain Vivien
- Cyril Vosper
- Louis Jolyon West
- Lawrence Wollersheim
- Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
- Christian Research Institute
- Deo Gloria Trust
- Dialog Center International
- Dialogue Ireland
- Evangelical Ministries to New Religions
- Institute for Religious Research
- Personal Freedom Outreach
- Midwest Christian Outreach
- New England Institute of Religious Research
- Reachout Trust
- Spiritual Counterfeits Project
- Watchman Fellowship
- Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center
- Nicolas About
- Serge Blisko
- Georges Fenech
- Ford Greene
- Stephen Mutch
- Catherine Picard
- Kenneth Robinson
- Paul Rose
- Tom Sackville
- Nick Xenophon
- About-Picard law
- Anti-Mormonism
- Assassination of Shinzo Abe
- Governmental lists of cults and sects
- Mass suicide of Heaven's Gate
- Jason Scott case
- Persecution of Baháʼís
- Persecution of Falun Gong
- Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses
- The Prohibited and Unlawful Societies and Associations Act
- Tokyo subway sarin attack
- Waco siege
- All Gods Children (book)
- Another Gospel
- Bounded Choice
- Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
- Captive Hearts, Captive Minds
- The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions
- Churches That Abuse
- Combatting Cult Mind Control
- Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion
- Cults in Our Midst
- Cults of Unreason
- Deadly Cults
- The Incendiaries
- The Kingdom of the Cults
- The Making of a Moonie
- Misunderstanding Cults
- The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-Cultists, and the New Religions
- On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left
- Recovery from Cults
- Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change
- Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare
- Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
- Twisted Scriptures
- When Prophecy Fails
- The Wrong Way Home
- Zealot: A Book About Cults