61 Michelle Haslam and her Psychological Report on the Controversial New Kadampa Tradition

This is our fourth foray into the land of Buddhism, Cults and Cult-like behaviours across mainstream Buddhist groups. Let’s be honest, this topic is always perversely interesting. If you missed out on our past episodes covering these topics, there are links and short intros below to those past episodes, which were a lot of fun. For our latest journey, we interview Dr Michelle Haslam, PhD, a clinical psychologist who ran afoul of the machinations of the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT) and has since written a psychological report on their tactics and set up a resource site filled with testimonies from ex-followers along with articles to warn the general public about their often dysfunctional behaviour. She shares some of the horrendous tactics employed against her after leaving the group and discusses some of her psychological analysis of the NKT, their practices and group dynamics. She is also currently working in an undisclosed location despite mentioning that she has worked in safeguarding in the interview previously. Michelle has had a dreadful website put together by a mysterious psychologist, who doesn't actually appear to exist in the real world, immediately after publishing her report. It's defamatory and quite sad and makes awful claims about her. Be your own judge of it should you stumble on it. The introduction involves an added presentation on cults that ties together the multiple themes from our last episodes and that concludes our forays into cult-land. If you have heard it all before, you can skip it by jumping to the interview proper at 37.10. Note: Those who critique the New Kadampa Tradition often end up being trolled, attacked, and threatened by folks, who hide their identities and usually claim to not be any part of the NKT. It is obviously difficult to prove that they are so I am putting this here as a potential warning so that you dear listener can make up our own mind about who is to blame if this podcast should come under attack.

Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha).

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