The Margret Singer Foundation

Mission Statement

The Margaret Thaler Singer Foundation champions psychological freedoms. Our weapons are the free flow of information and open discussion. We educate the public to recognize exploitative influence techniques. We publish research on psychological and social manipulation practiced by individuals, groups, corporations, and governments. We aid survivors of such deception in their triumph over coercion and passage toward independent life. Most importantly, we preserve their hard-won wisdom so that future generations may learn not to repeat the tragedies of the past.

ABOUT DR. MARGARET SINGER

The Foundation celebrates Dr. Singer's five-decade fight for psychological freedoms. A fight that includes working with brainwashed Korean War soldiers. Counseling Patty Hearst after the SLA. Co-authoring a major theory on family communications breakdown and its role in schizophrenia. Comforting Jonestown massacre survivors. Aiding 3,000 cult members and their families. Standing witness against sexual abuse -- whether by clergy, employers, or members of her own profession.

A clinician, researcher, and educator, Dr. Singer was the first woman and first clinical psychologist elected president of the American Psychosomatic Society. She has been honored by the American Psychiatric Association, American College of Psychiatrists, Mental Health Association, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, National Institute of Mental Health, American Family Therapy Association, and many others. She is a professor emeritus in psychology of the University of California, Berkeley.

The author of 100 journal articles, Dr. Singer actively speaks to the media, consults, and offers expert testimony on coercive persuasion. She has served on national boards, including President Ford's Biomedical Research Panel, American Psychological Association, American Board of Forensic Examiners, and National Academy of Sciences (psychological effects, chemical and biological warfare). Most recently, Family Process Journal honored her outstanding contributions to family therapy, and she received the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis Aware for best clinical paper of 1994.

Dr. Singer has co-authored two popular books on psychological freedom, Cults in Our Midst and Crazy Therapies. She is the mother of two and the grandmother of two.