Origins
ICSA began in 1979 as the American Family Foundation (AFF). It was founded by Kay Barney, the retired Raytheon International Affairs Director, whose daughter had become involved with the Unification Church. Barney wished to address the field professionally and scientifically and so founded AFF as a non-profit tax-exempt organisation for research and education. It was directed by a Board of directors of which Barney was part.
Initially, nearly everybody who contacted AFF for help did so because he/she had a child involved in a group the parent was concerned about. AFF's role was to bring these parents into contact with helping professionals, increasing numbers of whom became interested in and/or involved with AFF as time passed.
The AFF received funding from the Bodman and Achelis Foundations and the Scaife Family Foundation of Richard Mellon Scaife. The Scaife Family Foundation has given over a half million dollars to the AFF.
In 1980/81 AFF joined forces with John Gordon Clark, a Harvard psychiatrist who had undertaken research in the field of New Religious Movements, and his team, to which Michael Langone belonged.
In 2004, the organization took the name International Cultic Studies Association, "to better reflect the organization's focus and increasingly international and scholarly dimensions".
Read more about this topic: International Cultic Studies Association
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