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The American Journal of Psychiatry, VOL. 130, No. 8

Articles | August 01, 1973

Crisis, Conversion, and Cult Formation: An Examination of a Common Psychosocial Sequence

HERBERT M. ADLER; VAN BUREN O. HAMMETT

Am J Psychiatry 1973;130:861-864.

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Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Mental Health Sciences, Hahnemann Medical College, 230 North Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107

Professor and Chairman, Department of Mental Health Sciences, Hahnemann Medical College, 230 North Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107

1973, The American Psychiatric Association

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Abstract

An overview of prescientific medicine, therapeutic communities, and psychoanalysis is given in an attempt to discover the generic factors operating in all interpersonal therapies. The authors hypothesize that the placebo effect rests on the universal need of humans for a group and, by symbolic extension, a system. Further, they hypothesize that a common therapeutic process follows the sequence of crisis, conversion, and cult formation.

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