• “Our company brought in coaches who expected us to share deeply personal experiences in front of colleagues. I left feeling exposed, but everyone else seemed to think it was fine. Was it?”
  
  
• “They asked us to do what they called systemic constellations, confrontation exercises and other therapy-like techniques at work. I didn’t feel comfortable at all, but when I spoke up they accused me of not wanting to leave my comfort zone.”

   

• “Whenever anyone questioned the trainer, he told them they were ‘resisting change’ or ‘not committed enough’. In the end, we all just went along with it as we knew he was a close friend of our HR head.”

   

• “Everyone around me at the workshop seemed inspired and enthusiastic but I felt confused, embarrassed and emotionally drained. Is that what personal growth is supposed to feel like?”

   

• “My manager says we’re ‘like a family’. Why does saying ‘no’ suddenly feel like a betrayal – and why am I expected to give more importance to the company’s interests than to my own family?”

   

• “The programme promised empowerment. So why do I feel less able to trust my own judgement than when I started?”

If you’ve experienced anything like this, I’d be happy to discuss your particular situation. Sadly, these sorts of situations are becoming increasingly common. Sometimes the problem is poor management or badly designed training. Sometimes it’s unethical practice or coercive influence. The first step is to understand what actually happened, ask the right questions and identify the most appropriate action to take. If you’re looking for an informed, independent opinion, I’d be happy to help.

Work with me

Consultancy

Knowledge management for organisations, journalists, educators and professionals working with questions of influence, organisational culture, ethics and critical thinking.

Training

Workshops, seminars and keynote talks on topics including:

• Cult dynamics in organisations
• Critical thinking and creativity
• Coercive control and undue influence
• Pseudoscience and wellness culture
• Ethical leadership
• Psychological safety and healthy learning cultures

Mentoring

One-to-one and group mentoring for professionals, leaders and individuals looking to develop clearer thinking, navigate complex workplaces or explore these ideas in greater depth.

Speaking

Available for conferences, podcasts, media interviews and public events.

Why Recognizing Cult Dynamics Matters

When most people hear the word cult, they think of robes, chanting, or strange rituals in candlelit basements. They picture Scientology, NXIVM, the Manson Family, or those earnest young missionaries from the Church of Latter-Day Saints. They might think of the Jehovah’s Witnesses with their copies of The Watchtower, or the glossy herbal supplement schemes that promise health and wealth. But cults rarely start out looking like cults.

A cult is any group or organisation that uses psychological manipulation and control to demand absolute loyalty. A high-demand or high-control group may not call itself a religion or a movement at all. It might be a coaching school, a yoga collective, a wellness start-up, or a political community. These groups often promise transformation, belonging, or purpose, but behind the promise lies a system of undue influence: techniques designed to limit doubt, reward obedience, and create dependency.

Many of today’s most popular coaching and corporate programmes can trace their DNA to 1970s “large group awareness trainings” or LGATs, like Werner Erhard’s est and its offshoot, Landmark. One of the most successful coaching companies in the world comes from this lineage and is now fully integrated in HR departments and business schools, along with the radically neoliberal ideology embedded in its teachings. These were built on the same scaffolding as Scientology: euphoric highs, confession-style “breakthroughs,” and hierarchies where each level promises deeper truth. Whether they appear as self-help seminars, influencer academies, or culture-change consultancies, the structure is the same: pay, participate, submit, repeat.

As Mark Vicente, ex-member of NXIVM, puts it: ‘Nobody joins a cult. They join a good thing.’”

And that’s exactly why recognising the signs matters.

I’m Jenni Walford, founder of Provokarte. Originally from Cumbria in the UK, I’ve lived in Spain since 2002 and have spent more than two decades working in education, coaching, communication and professional training.

Over the years, I’ve worked across a wide range of educational, coaching and therapeutic settings. Again and again, I found myself encountering the same patterns of coercive influence, whether in corporate training, leadership programmes or the wellness industry. Different language, different goals, but often remarkably similar psychological techniques, guru-like characters and unquestionable belief systems.

My current work grew out of that observation. It explores how coercive influence operates in modern workplaces, business training and wellness culture, how pseudoscience and pseudo-therapeutic practices have become normalised, and how individuals and organisations can recognise these dynamics before they cause harm.

Today, I combine research into coercive influence, critical thinking and the arts through writing, consultancy, training, mentoring and speaking, and I work with individuals, organisations and trade unions to promote ethical, evidence-based approaches to learning, leadership and professional development.

I believe we need better alternatives, not just better criticism. That’s why Provokarte brings together critical thinking, literature, creative practice as well as open dialogue to help people think independently, recognise manipulation and build healthier ways of learning, working and creating.

Why do programmes that promise empowerment so often end up demanding conformity? Why do leadership courses, coaching schools, wellness retreats and even workplace training keep relying on the same psychological techniques: emotional vulnerability, social pressure, group confession, love-bombing, charismatic authority, thought-stopping clichés and the demand to “trust the process”?

Where do we draw the line between ethical influence and coercive control? Between effective teaching and manipulation? Between genuine personal growth and psychological dependency?

THINK • CREATE • RESIST is the framework that underpins all of my work. It brings together research into coercive influence, critical thinking and the arts to help people recognise manipulative systems, understand how they work, and develop healthier, more ethical ways of learning, leading, creating and working.