“While [the] novel’s deep dive into the psychologically coercive and hypocritical nature of the organization will obviously appeal to ex-JWs, the story will have much broader appeal to anyone interested in cult mentality, even if they have little to no knowledge of the JW community.” - Alyssa Matesic, Developmental Editor

At first they seem normal - like anyone else. Until you look a little closer, and you intuitively know they are not like you - not remotely. Working in twos, they stand smiling and friendly on the street or knocking on your door. Men in suits, dress shirts, and ties. Women in skirts that cover their knees. They offer religious literature they hope will convert you to their way of thinking. You know who they are.

This novel drops you inside a fictional congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Its characters and suspenseful plot make you privy to their worship meetings, training sessions, restricted social gatherings, the expectations placed on them, the rules by which they govern their lives, their carefully-measured conversations, and some members' private thoughts and feelings about it all.

These people are psychologically captive to an extremist belief system. Called servants by their leaders, they seem to willingly devote their time and energy on this organization's behalf. One need only envision a less dramatic version of the trapped, red-robed, bonneted women in Margaret Atwood's book, The Handmaid’s Tale.

This tale of religious and patriarchal domination will introduce you to:
Joe Sinclair, an elder worried about his teenagers’ lack of engagement with the group, and who courts newly-emerging misgivings of his own.
Lauren Barlow, an elder’s wife tormented about the constraints of her life, and longs to escape a dead marriage.
David Goddard, a longtime skeptic, full of self-reproach about not getting his sons away from an organization that discourages post-secondary education.
Gigi Sinclair, a high-spirited twenty-year-old, registering for college despite admonitions it will expose her to unholy ideologies and associations.

As each character grapples with the inner conflict of staying in the group or breaking free, a tragedy strikes the fictional town, implicating the congregation itself. As well, rumors circulate that a pedophile may be hiding among them. Amidst all this, these conflicted members agonize over the consequences of any action to claim personal sovereignty, knowing they will be renounced and ostracized by everyone they have ever loved—including immediate family—if they act on their impulse.

This suspense-filled novel offers a rare, albeit fictional, window into this mysterious organization of JW.ORG. Such an in-depth portrayal is possible because the author was raised a JW—every member of her family a longtime devotee. Bonnie Zieman struggled with the same longings and fears as the characters in this novel and, when she defected suffered the group’s mandated repudiation and shunning. Don't miss this riveting read.

Numerous books have been written by ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses exposing the false claims and practices of the cult or describing their personal challenges while leaving it. But when it comes to providing help to individuals in the process of exiting and recovering from the effects of membership in the cult, few compare with EXiting the JW Cult: A Healing Handbook.

Author Bonnie Zieman was born and raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, leaving after thirty years to gain the higher education that she was denied and build a professional life as a psychotherapist. She knows firsthand what it’s like to deal with the inhumane punishments inflicted on anyone who leaves the Watchtower organization—foremost among them, the complete shunning by family and friends.

Drawing from both her personal and professional experiences, Zieman provides aid, advice, encouragement, and insight into the many challenges faced by current and former Jehovah’s Witnesses who are struggling to extricate their lives from this all-controlling cult.

This empowering healing handbook is designed to be used as a reference that individuals can take down off the shelf and use to help themselves during difficult moments along their path to healing emotional wounds and coping in an unfamiliar world.

People who have been subjected to exploitation, isolation and thought control in a cult and who work up the courage to leave, do so with many psychological and emotional wounds. Many of them seek out therapy to help recover from the damaging after-effects. Unfortunately, cult victims often report that therapists just do not seem to 'get' all that they endured in the cult, and all the challenges they face once out of the cult. In fact, many cult victims abandon therapy, feeling that their therapist just did not understand the the degree to which they had been controlled, repressed, exploited and abused. Many recount that they felt their experience seemed to be discounted as something they just needed to put behind them.

Due to the advent of the Internet and the easy access to information it provides, more and more cult members are discovering just how much they have been deceived, coerced and abused. As they make their exit from high-control groups, extremist religions and cults, a whole new psychotherapy client population is looking for help to recover their emotional well-being, intellectual independence and ability to function in the world outside of the cult. Since most psychologists and psychotherapists do not receive much, if any, instruction about cult dynamics and the destructive effects of such intrusive dynamics on cult members, therapists may be ill-equipped to truly understand and help this unique and growing client population.

With this book, Bonnie Zieman, a former cult member, a recently retired psychotherapist, and the author of four other books on recovery from high-control abuse, provides a useful reference tool for therapists who need to inform themselves about cult abuse and its aftermath. This one-of-a-kind book offers a summary outline of typical cult controls and the probable resulting effects on those subjected to them. Therapists can use this book as a primer to bring themselves up to speed on the topic - until such time as they decide if they want to take more formal training in order to help former cult members reclaim their authentic self and rebuild a self-directed life.

Please Note: This book is an expanded, revised and updated version of Bonnie Zieman's book, EXiting the JW Cult: A Healing Handbook. It contains 4 new chapters and 67 additional pages, plus an index.

In an age and culture that places high value on personal freedom, it is shocking to discover how many intelligent, competent people find themselves caught in the suffocating, sticky webs of oppressive, high-control groups. Coercive, manipulative organizations can include groups such as: extremist fundamentalist sects, radical political movements, polygamist communes, human trafficking rings, doomsday cults, multi-marketing schemes, criminal gangs, and so many more. When brave souls dare to leave such high-control groups, they exit needing to reclaim their life, mind, identity, autonomy, emotional equilibrium and to heal the wounds that result from being manipulated, coerced, abused and exploited. The Challenge to Heal is designed to help anyone recover from the inevitable consequences of losing control over one’s life – consequences such as issues with self-esteem, anger, learned helplessness, depression, fear, guilt, self-recrimination, psychosomatic ailments, to name but a few. Chapters in this unique recovery guide cover topics such as: understanding and managing the predictable challenges of breaking with a once valued belief system, Utopian goals, and fellow group members; learning to cope with the difficult emotions that will arise; dealing with guilt; coping with thoughts of suicide; learning how to understand and deal with ostracism or shunning; developing self-acceptance; shaking off the old group identity, and reclaiming one’s authentic, autonomous self.

The Challenge to Heal is designed as a recovery guide to accompany survivors of undue influence of any kind through the healing work required to recover and rebuild a new life. With an author who spent thirty years in a repressive, high-demand cult and then, after exiting, went on to become a licensed psychotherapist, you don’t need to walk this challenging road to recovery alone! Will you take up the challenge to heal? (Look out for the companion volume to this book, entitled, "The Challenge to Heal Workbook & Journal" which can further enhance your work to recover from high-control group and cult abuses.)

This book is a journal/workbook companion for "REBOOT After Recovery From Trauma". In it you will find prompts, exercises and forms needed to complete the reboot process as suggested in the book.

As well, all 350+ therapist-designed questions from the REBOOT book are included in the back of this journal. Use this journal to record the story of how you were controlled, exploited and/or abused in a group (cult) or relationship. By answering the questions and recording the answers in this journal you will reveal and challenge old, unconscious beliefs, assumptions, expectations and patterns that are keeping you from creating the free, fulfilling life you envisioned when you left.

Having been subjected to the trauma of abuse, exploitation, or undue control in a family or group requires a significant period of recovery. Wounds run deep. Self-esteem is damaged. Opportunities are lost. Fears are awakened. The ability to trust and feel safe in the world is impaired. There is much to grieve. There is much to retrieve - much to recover - deep hurts to heal. It is challenging to function and create a new life while recovering from such trauma. Expectations, hopes, dreams and goals may have been put on hold during the recovery process. However, once recovered, life free from abuse and exploitation may not seem as meaningful, productive, or gratifying as anticipated. It is easy to still feel stuck in old patterns developed as necessary defenses during the abuse, and even the recovery period. Habitual patterns of thought and behavior need to be re-considered in order to fully step into a new, free life.

This book, on how to effect a psychological reboot, will help you review adversity-driven ways of perceiving the world and operating in it. Challenging long-held assumptions with the help of hacks in this book will help re-calibrate persistent, often unconscious, ways of being. REBOOT will not only help you embrace new ways of perceiving and thinking, it will also prompt you to reconsider old values and assumptions that still drive your choices, decisions and actions, and find ways to release and replace the ones that no longer serve your best interests. This reboot guide will help you discover ways to re-imagine the options now open to you. You will be challenged to assume responsibility for telling yourself the truth, to re-calibrate your relationship with residues of pain and guilt, and to manage the anxiety that invariably arises when one entertains new possibilities. Practical tools and exercises are provided to help map your way forward (in whatever unique way that might be for you) and to get unstuck. The importance of gifting yourself with new experiences, which rewire the brain away from the exhausting and sometimes paralyzing effects of trauma, are highlighted throughout.

Especially valuable are therapist-designed questions, distributed throughout the book, which will prompt you to reflect more deeply about old beliefs, unreasonable expectations, and counterproductive patterns of action/inaction that hold you back from designing and living your best life. You will also learn about personas or ego-states you may be using to help you cope that no longer serve you, and how to free yourself from their grip. Ways to quiet your inner critic will be shared, as will ways to resurrect the authentic self you had to bury to survive the abusive milieu.

If, after recovery from the trauma of abuse, undue controls, and/or exploitation you are feeling stuck, stalled or unsatisfied, this unique book provides compelling ways to refresh and reboot your life. There is a workbook companion to REBOOT - After Recovery from Trauma, entitled, "My Reboot Journal".