I imagine it feels pretty much the way they describe it feeling.

Some of the people who go through the campaigners' mill probably end up better off than they otherwise would. Not that many people deal well with that sort of thing without some kind of social support framework, especially not in the extreme cases. If they had no true alternatives, and they didn't get picked up by the advocates, maybe they'd still be badly traumatized for life, but without the support group.

But that's a big crapshoot. Other people are going to end up with their problems amplified, and turn something that they'd get over, or mostly get over, into something that's a huge part of the rest of their lives.

In fact I suspect you usually end up worse off after you've been through the advocacy groups than you'd be if you'd done something else... even working it out purely on your own. Especially after the attention moves from your case to some other and you're down to just being a member of the rank and file with a standard "brave survivor" badge.

What would probably be best, for many and probably most people, would be to find some kind of support system that concentrated more on healing them and less, if I may be a bit uncharitable, on making them effective cult assets. It would be better for them, and also better for the next person to come along.

I do understand that not everybody has those options. More importantly, they may not see their options. Choices aren't obvious like that when shit is happening in real life. If you both had the options and understood them clearly, it would probably mean you didn't have nearly so big a problem to begin with.

Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure there are better choices out there for most people. Get a more mainstream counselor. Find a non-political [on edit: less political] group. Lean on your your wise friends and family if you have them (can be a problem for some of the worse affected...). And in some cases just plain deal with it in your own... yes, it can be perfectly healthy to just decide it's not that big a deal for you.

It can't hurt if the culture at large recognizes that there are other options, and that the campaigners don't need to be a default choice when somebody is in need and knocked for a loop.