Therapist Outlines Seven-Year Exit From the “Cult of People” and the Path Toward Individual Freedom

An American therapist is drawing attention to what she calls the “cult of people,” a lifelong pattern of suppressing personal needs in order to satisfy social expectations. After spending 43 years adapting her behavior to please others, Allison Briggs says she has spent the last seven years dismantling that reflex and redefining freedom on her own terms.

Briggs, who specializes in treating codependency, childhood trauma and emotional neglect, shared her experience in a recent personal account. The narrative traces the moment she identified the problem, the circumstances that triggered change and the ongoing challenges of stepping outside what she describes as a pervasive, unspoken loyalty contract with family, friends and acquaintances.

The Incident That Sparked Self-Examination

The turning point came during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between virtual therapy sessions, Briggs turned on a documentary series about a group of Utah influencers featured in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. A televised argument between a young woman and her mother over church obligations resonated strongly with the therapist. While the program focused on religious tension, Briggs recognized a broader conflict: the perpetual trade-off between authenticity and social acceptance. The scene prompted her to question the extent to which she had muted parts of herself to remain acceptable to her own “tribe.”

Defining the “Cult of People”

According to Briggs, the “cult” is not an organized movement, religion or political group. Instead, it represents the cumulative pressure of other people’s expectations. She characterizes membership as:

• Shaping opinions and actions to secure approval or avoid confrontation.
• Maintaining connections through self-censorship and conflict avoidance.
• Equating acceptance with personal worth, leading to continuous emotional labor.

Because these behaviors often begin in childhood, she contends that most individuals do not realize they are following unwritten rules until discomfort, crisis or therapy brings the pattern to light.

Conditions That Accelerated Change

Several overlapping developments forced Briggs to reconsider her long-standing habits:

• Pandemic isolation: Lockdowns reduced face-to-face interaction, removing the usual cues she used to calibrate her behavior.
• Single parenting: She was raising a child with special needs largely on her own, which limited time and energy for external validation.
• Therapeutic work: Ongoing counseling highlighted the psychological costs of constant approval seeking.

As a result, she began declining social invitations, speaking less in some circles and allowing certain friendships to fade. Those choices, she notes, initially looked like personal failure rather than progress.

Seven Years of “Deprogramming”

Briggs describes the process of unlearning as similar to formal cult deprogramming, where physical and emotional distance is required before change is possible. Over seven years she experienced:

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• Intense loneliness: Emotional isolation emerged as relationships adjusted to her new boundaries.
• Anxiety episodes: Panic attacks occurred during ordinary activities, underscoring how ingrained her approval habit had been.
• Social contraction: Her circle of close contacts became considerably smaller, sometimes leading her to question whether she had caused unnecessary harm.
• Gradual clarity: Despite short-term pain, the separation allowed her to identify which behaviors were authentic and which were performative.

She emphasizes that the journey does not feel liberating at first. Instead, it often resembles grief. Yet the sustained practice of listening to her own preferences, without immediate concern for external reaction, eventually built what she calls an “internal compass.”

Psychological Context

Research on belonging suggests that humans are biologically inclined to seek group approval, a point underscored by the American Psychological Association. Briggs’ case illustrates the tension between this innate tendency and the equally human drive for individuality. Her account provides a real-world example of how disrupting ingrained social contracts can trigger both acute discomfort and long-term personal development.

Ongoing Challenges and Perspective

Briggs does not consider herself fully “deprogrammed” and questions whether complete detachment is even possible or desirable. She reports that moments of doubt still occur, especially when loneliness resurfaces or when she is tempted to re-enter environments that once demanded self-suppression. However, she now views sadness as a manageable emotion rather than a crisis, a shift she credits to her willingness to “sit with” discomfort instead of avoiding it.

Looking forward, Briggs plans to incorporate these insights into both her clinical practice and her forthcoming memoir, On Being Real: Healing the Codependent Heart of a Woman. She argues that the awareness gained from distancing herself from externally driven expectations has expanded her understanding of what genuine freedom entails. The absence of guaranteed social approval, she concludes, coincides with the newly discovered ability to set personal goals without waiting for group endorsement.

For readers navigating similar conflicts between conformity and autonomy, Briggs’ experience offers a structured example of how incremental boundary setting can lead to significant psychological shifts, albeit with substantial short-term emotional cost. While her story underscores the complexity of human connection, it also demonstrates that redefining belonging on one’s own terms is possible through sustained reflection and conscious behavioral change.