Scientology’s disconnection policy, written into Hubbard’s own policy letters, has members cut off family and friends labelled “Suppressive”, and it has broken up families.

Scientology uses fixed terms for people who threaten a member’s progress. A “Suppressive Person” is someone judged to be actively harming Scientology or a Scientologist; a member who stays connected to such a person is a “Potential Trouble Source” and is told to handle the situation or else disconnect, meaning cut off contact, even with parents, children or a spouse. The terms and the instruction come from Hubbard’s own policy letters of the 1960s, documented by scholars on both sides of the debate about the movement. The church today frames disconnection as a member’s own free choice about whom to associate with, and that framing is stated below in a sympathetic source’s words. Former members and their relatives, including people raised in the church and members of Hubbard’s own family, describe it as pressure that has cut children off from parents and split marriages. The difference from church discipline is the direction of the pressure: biblical discipline concerns conduct within the community and aims at restoration, while the Suppressive Person category is defined by opposition to the organization and is applied to outsiders. A practical consequence for conversation: a critic who comes in hostile can be filed under the label and dismissed, which is why tone matters so much.