Families reaching out to a loved one in a high-control group often start with the same instinct: explain, clearly and forcefully, why the group is harmful. Research on reconciliation after estrangement — including cases unrelated to cults — points toward a different, slower approach.
Drop the need to be right about the past
Cornell gerontologist Karl Pillemer’s decade-long Family Estrangement and Reconciliation Project, drawing on a national survey and in-depth interviews with people who successfully repaired family rifts, found that almost everyone who reconciled gave up trying to get the other person to accept their version of events or to apologize for it first. Instead, they focused on the present and future of the relationship rather than re-litigating the past (Pillemer, 2020). For families reaching out to a loved one in a group, this often means resisting the urge to open with an argument about the group’s harms and starting instead with the relationship itself.
Stay in relationship, not in conflict
ICSA’s clinical guidance for families of current and former group members consistently emphasizes flexibility over a fixed script — there is no single approach that works for every family or every group (Goldberg, Goldberg, Henry, & Langone, 2017). What does tend to help across cases is keeping a channel of ordinary, warm contact open — birthday messages, family updates, shared memories — that doesn’t require the member to defend the group or the family to concede anything. A relationship that survives disagreement gives a person somewhere to return to; an ultimatum forces an immediate choice, and inside a high-control environment, that choice is rarely going to favor the family.
Distinguish coercion from a member’s own boundary
Not every family distance is imposed by a group, and it’s important for this guidance not to blur that line. Some estrangement is a person’s own considered, healthy decision to step back from a genuinely harmful family relationship (Agllias, 2016). The strategies here are aimed specifically at situations where outside contact has been discouraged or prohibited by a coercive group as a control tactic — not a substitute for respecting an adult’s independent choice about their own relationships.
Get support for yourselves too
Family members of someone in a high-control group are often navigating grief, fear, and self-blame with very little outside understanding. Connecting with other families who’ve been through it — through ICSA or similar organizations — can make the difference between reactive decisions made in isolation and a sustainable, patient approach. See Get Help for a directory of these resources.
References
Agllias, K. (2016). Family estrangement: A matter of perspective. Routledge.
Goldberg, L., Goldberg, W., Henry, R., & Langone, M. D. (Eds.). (2017). Cult recovery: A clinician’s guide to working with former members and families. International Cultic Studies Association.
Pillemer, K. (2020). Fault lines: Fractured families and how to mend them. Avery.
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