Like hundreds before her, Katherine Daniel was sent by her parents to a school for troubled teens. The Academy at Ivy Ridge claimed to use therapy and recreational activities to help its students. Instead, teens suffered mental and physical abuse in a program that operated like a cult. Years later, Katherine and her former classmates rummaged through the fil ... Show More
Aug 2022
The Cult of The Troubled Teen Industry
We’re in for a shocking one this week: The Troubled Teen Industry has for decades promised parents to reform their “problem-causing” kids through 8-12 week “wilderness therapy” and other military-style schools. But kidnappings, isolation, punishment, secrecy, and abuse are all a ... Show More
59m 31s
Sep 2023
School’s Out…Forever: The Murder of Colleen Ritzer
In this month’s series, I detail crimes that happened on school campuses. In this episode, A 14-year-old high school student commits a horrific act of rape and murder in a school bathroom. Was Philip Chism mentally ill, as his defense would later claim, or was he faking it to g ... Show More
32m 7s
Dec 2022
I Grew Up in a Cult
CW: This episode contains descriptions of CSA, child abuse, suicide, alcoholism, and death.
On this episode of We’re All Insane, Charlie shares her harrowing story of spiritual and physical abuse at the hands of her parents, particularly her father. She also discusses the devasta ... Show More
1h 36m
Mar 2023
#424: Stolen Youth - Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence | Part 1
In 2010, on the small woodsy campus of Sarah Lawrence College located in Yonkers, New York, 50 year old Lawrence Ray came to “crash” with his daughter Talia in her on-campus dorm town-house that she shared with several other students, ostensibly until he found a place to live aft ... Show More
47m 33s
Jan 2024
Therapy Sesh: A Remix with Daniel Shaw, LCSW, Dr. Ramani, & Dr. Natalie Feinblatt
Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We made you a mixtape of some of our fave segments from our full episodes with Daniel Shaw, LCSW, Dr. Ramani, and Dr. Natalie Feinblatt. Think of this as our Chicken Soup for the Culty Soul power-medley. We’ve got Dan Shaw dropping kn ... Show More
59m 24s
Jun 2023
What is a Cult? With Dr. Janja Lalich
Dr. Janja Lalich, the world’s foremost expert on cults, reveals the four principles all cults share, how she survived ten years in a brutal cultic system and how these groups continue to abuse while evading authorities. Dr. Janja also shares an important warning on how to identif ... Show More
1h 39m
Oct 2023
#303: Parents Paid For Their Teens To Be Kidnapped From Bed & Taken To Elite Torture Academy
They were all taken from their beds in the middle of the night. Four men standing over them, ready to hogtie them, and throw them into vans. The teenagers were being kidnapped, and their parents had paid the kidnappers. They were going to be taken to an elite academy where all th ... Show More
1h 5m
Aug 2023
29: [Jan Broberg - Abducted in Plain Sight] Coming Out of the Fog // Part 2
Content warning: child abuse, coercive control, stalking, kidnapping, sexual abuse, sexual assault, rape, pedophilia, fraud, and suicide.
In this second part of Jan’s story, she continues to share about the grooming and sexual abuse she and her parents experienced at the hands of ... Show More
33m 20s