Steven Hassan

Steven Alan Hassan (pronounced ; born 1954) is an American writer and mental health counselor who specializes in the area of cults and new religious movements.

He worked as a deprogrammer in the late 1970s, but since then has advocated a non-coercive form of exit counseling.

Hassan has written several books on the subject of mind control and is sometimes described in the media as an expert on mind control and cults.

Some researchers in the sociology of religion, however, are critical of his application of mind-control theory to new religious movements.

Hassan took part in a number of "deprogrammings" in the late 1970s, but has been critical of them since 1980 and has instead advocated exit counseling.

Deprogramming was a controversial form of coercive intervention in which a number of self-styled "deprogrammers" were hired (usually by families or parents) to separate someone from a religious or other movement; after being abducted and/or confined, the individual was subjected to a sustained verbal attack, which might continue for days or weeks, on the group to which they were connected.

Hassan claims that he never abducted, restrained, threatened or disrespected anyone in any deprogrammings in which he participated, although this is contradicted by affidavits from victims, and also by Hassan's own written description of a deprogramming he conducted.

However, according to Shupe and Darnell, Hassan represents "a maturation of the anti-cult movement toward professionalisation and away from coercive vigilantism".

Hassan's preferred approach, exit counseling, is also a form of family-initiated intervention, but distinguishes itself by allowing the subject to leave at any time and by adopting a non-violent, persuasive approach.

In 1976, after working for two full days without sleep, Hassan fell asleep while driving, resulting in a serious automobile accident that required medical care.

Hassan's parents hired "deprogrammers" who seized him from his sister's home and took him to an apartment.

After five days of isolation and intensive deprogramming, Hassan became convinced that he had been "brainwashed" by the church.

Feeling shame at his gullibility and guilt for his recruitment of others, he decided to "dedicate his life to studying cults and developing strategies to help their members escape."

Hassan returned to his Jewish faith after leaving the Unification Church.

Hassan is a former member of the Unification Church, and founded Ex-Moon Inc. in 1979.

In 1979, Hassan founded a non-profit organization called Ex-Moon Inc. The organization consisted of over four hundred former members of the Unification Church.

The organization is now defunct.

In 1985, Hassan completed a Master’s degree in counseling psychology at Cambridge College.

Hassan studied hypnosis and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and the International Society of Hypnosis.

In Combatting Cult Mind Control he described his own recruitment as the result of the unethical use of powerful psychological influence techniques by members of the Church.

Hassan studied the "thought reform" theories of Robert Jay Lifton, and concluded that the Moon organization used all eight characteristics of thought reform described by Lifton.

He also studied the work of Richard Bandler and John Grinder (founders of neuro-linguistic programming), Milton H. Erickson, Virginia Satir, and Gregory Bateson, and wrote that their work was the basis for his own theories on mind control, counseling, and intervention.

Hassan spent several years developing and promoting a model to evaluate what he calls "cult" and "cult-like" groups.

In Combatting Cult Mind Control (1988), Hassan stated that although "the non-coercive approach will not work in every case, it has proved to be the option most families prefer. Forcible intervention can be kept as a last resort if all other attempts fail."

In 1999 he founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center.

Hassan was raised in a Jewish family in Queens, New York.

At age 19, while pursuing a poetry degree at Queens College, Hassan was recruited into the Unification Church, and spent 27 months as a member.

He was involved in recruiting, fundraising, and political campaigning for the Church.

According to Rudin, Hassan was "a former Unification-Church high official who was a national leader of CARP".

Hassan reported living in communal housing and sleeping less than four hours a night.

In an interview, he said that he believed Richard Nixon was an archangel and that, during the Watergate scandal, he and other members of the Church engaged in prayer and fasting to "prove their loyalty to the president".

He also reported surrendering his bank account to the Unification Church, and quitting college and his job to work for the church.

Hassan Said that "he was ready to kill or die for" Sun Myung Moon.

In 1999, he founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center.

The center is registered as a domestic profit corporation in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Hassan is president and treasurer.

Hassan posts dossiers on the site about organizations he has investigated or received complaints about.

In his third book, Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs (2012), Hassan presents Lifton's and Margaret Singer's models of evaluation alongside his own model represented by the acronym "BITE": control of Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotion.

In 2019, Hassan published The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control.

The book represents a broadening of his focus from new religious movements into political culture.

The author compares Trump's behaviour to that of Jim Jones, L. Ron Hubbard, and Sun Myung Moon, and expresses the hope that the book will lessen political division.