Janja Lalich, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Sociology, is an international
authority on cults and coercion. Researcher, author and educator, she
specializes in analyses of recruitment, indoctrination, and coercive methods of
influence and control. Dr. Lalich is the author and/or coauthor of six books,
including the now classic, Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and
Abusive Relationships (3 rd ed.). Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic
Cults elucidates her groundbreaking framework and theory on why cult members
do things that those on the outside cannot understand. Her research on children
born/raised in a high-control group is the basis Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a
Cult, Getting Out and Starting Over. Her work has been translated into Spanish,
French, German, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Serbo-
Croatian, Farsi, and Sinhala. In addition to working with survivors and families,
she presents at domestic and international conferences and leads workshops for
government agencies, international intelligence agencies, private companies,
educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, as well as facilitating
psychoeducational courses, workshops, and discussion groups for trauma
survivors, families, and mental-health professionals. She has also served as an
expert witness in civil and criminal legal cases. She has been featured in
countless interviews (print, online, podcasts) and has appeared in numerous
documentaries on cults and related subjects. Dr. Lalich is the Founder and CEO
of the nonprofit, Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion ( www.lalichcenter.org ) and
may be reached at
[email protected].