The book is used as part of the curriculum for the course "Cults and New Religious Movements" at St. Francis Xavier University.[2] It is a cited reference in the Encyclopedia of Psychology, and is quoted in the article on cults, where the article asserts that: "Certain types of political groups and terrorist organizations are still other examples of 'cults' that defy the common definition of the term."[3]
Deikman revised and republished the book in 2003 under the title Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat (Bay Tree Publications of Berkeley), with an introduction by Doris Lessing.[4]
Patrick wrote: "Although we live in a democracy, cult behavior manifests itself in our unwillingness to question the judgment of our leaders, our tendency to devalue outsiders and to avoid dissent. We can overcome cult behavior, he says, by recognizing that we have dependency needs that are inappropriate for mature people, by increasing anti-authoritarian education, and by encouraging personal autonomy and the free exchange of ideas."[7]
Genevieve Stuttaford wrote in Publishers Weekly: "Although Deikman sometimes stretches the analogy of cult behavior too far, his provocative book uncovers a psychopathology of everyday life in a discerning analysis."[8]
^"Cults and New Religious Movements", Dr. Annette J. Ahern, St. Francis Xavier University, RELS 225/SOCI 226, Section 11.
^Cults, Encyclopedia of Psychology. Dr. Arthur Deikman, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, is one of many psychologists who has observed cultic behavior in many areas of society other than in extremist religious groups. In the introduction to his 1990 book, The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society, Deikman asserted that "behavior similar to that which takes place in extreme cults takes place in all of us," and suggested that "the longing for parents persists into adulthood and results in cult behavior that pervades normal society."
