the church of scientology requires regular sessions of "audit counselling" Which requires payments on a sliding scale gradually getting more expensive as people have invested money and are anxious to move up to the next level in scientology’s hierarchical system. Many scientologists go bankrupt and sell expensive possessions (such as cars or houses) to keep up with the churches program which yields no tangible results.

Scientology has a noted hatred of psychiatry and psychological methods of solving mental problems, and regularly incites hatred towards psychology within its members (this goes as far as opening a "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" museum). This radical opposition to psychiatry has been a main factor in a large amount of mental breakdowns and insanity within scientology and in the most extreme case a young man stabbing his mother 77 times, cited as a failure of the process of audit counselling as a way of achieving mental wellbeing.

There have been many documented cases of those critical of scientology being physically attacked as well as being investigated by scientology’s independent detective department (known as the guardians office) with the aim of causing public embarrassment, sacking from their jobs and in some cases criminal prosecution. this is known in scientology as fair game policy, and was most famously shown when the FBI obtained documented evidence of a scientology operation known as "operation freakout" which attempted to plant evidence in government offices in order to levy a conviction against oppositions to the church, this lead to the arrest of 7 higher members of scientology including Mary Hubbard, (L Ron Hubbard’s wife)