File photo. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi / Police

A psychotherapist says she believes there are potentially cult-like characteristics to the life Tom Phillips created on the run with his children.

Phillips died in a shootout with police in the early morning of 8 September, and one of his children was with him at the time.

His other children were found at a bush camp after almost four years living off the grid with their father.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said he expects there will be an inquiry into the handling of the case by government agencies.

Meanwhile the Phillips children are in the care of Oranga Tamariki, and the agency said they were all together and doing well.

Beth St Claire, a psychotherapist with a special interest in fundamentalist or ‘cult-like’ groups, told Checkpoint there was potential that the environment the Phillips children were living in had some features of a cult.

“There is a term that’s bandied around called a family cult… it can be quite a good way of representing a small group of people where one parent is a very strong, influential voice within the family and where there are deliberate moves to control that family unit, particularly in the way of intensity and isolation.”

She said the dynamics within the Phillips situation could fall into this category.

“The sense of them being so isolated and cut off from other family contact and other social contact, it definitely could develop some culty kind of features.”

While it was good the children had contact with one another, St Claire said that the lack of socialisation in a wider context would create a big adjustment.

“So they’re probably going to find that’s quite an adjustment to get used to those kinds of social engagements with kids who come from a different world view. They will have had their worldview very much shaped by Tom [Phillip’s] own view.”

“We don’t know what that looks like and whether that was quite a narrow kind of view of the world, or whether you know he was quite, you know, quite helpful in helping understand what the world outside was like. It’s hard to know, but certainly that that social adjustment will be a big one.”

She said it was hard to know how long it would take the children to reintegrate into society.

“It could be that they’ve carried their memories of what their social connections were in them and maybe they just haven’t been able to do that but have been anticipating that one day they’ll get back to their friends and family and school and things.”

“It may be that they’re just delighted to be back in that world and it’s fine or it could be very complicated… depends very much kind of what they’ve been told leading up to this and also how much support and guidance they get.”

St Claire said if the children get skilled guidance and support, there was no reason to believe they will be traumatised by the events.

“The child who obviously witnessed the gun incident that’s going to be a pretty distressing image to process, and of course you know they’re gonna be going through an adjustment and the grieving process around their father, but sometimes it’s surprising how people will bounce back.”

While the seemingly small things, like readjusting to home comforts may be something similar to a culture shock, St Claire said the children’s memories prior to the events with their father would be important in helping them settle back into their lives.

“If people have had a life before they joined the cult or before they joined this coercive or intense kind of context, then you can remind them of who they were before, it’s much easier for them to transition back because if they can pull up those memories of who they were and what they thought and what they enjoyed that were probably being used as a good anchor for them.

“It’s much harder for kids who maybe have come from an even younger age where they don’t really have a memory of themselves before the group or if they’re born into a very extreme group, that’s tough because they’ve got to kind of create a new identity from scratch.”

St Claire said while some cult survivors chose to take on a new identity, it would be up to the children to make this choice.

“I think that they need to really feel that they’ve got choices and that this is something that they is discussed with them, not just assumed that that is what they want.”

“They’ve been led into a situation that wasn’t something they chose, and I would hope that the public were kind and understanding about that. But there’s a lot of public interest in it, and it can be very intrusive.”