Psychiatrist
Robert Lifton described in his 1961 book
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China eight coercive methods which, he says, are able to change the minds of individuals without their knowledge and were used with this purpose on prisoners of war in Korea and China.
[1] These include
- milieu control (controlled relations with the outer world)
- mystic manipulation (the group has a higher purpose than the rest)
- confession (confess past and present sins)
- self-sanctification through purity (pushing the individual towards a not-attainable perfection)
- aura of sacred science (beliefs of the group are sacrosanct and perfect)
- loaded language (new meanings to words, encouraging black-white thinking)
- doctrine over person (the group is more important than the individual)
- dispensed existence (insiders are saved, outsiders are doomed)
In his 1999 book
Destroying the world to save it: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence and the New Global Terrorism, he concluded, though, that thought reform was possible without violence or physical coercion.
Edgar Schein, who investigated similar programs in China concluded in his book
Coercive Persuasion that physical coercion was an important feature of brainwashing.
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Margaret Singer's conditions for mind control
Psychologist
Margaret Singer, using the work of Lifton, described in her book "Cults in our Midst" six conditions, which would, she says, create an atmosphere where thought reform is possible.
[2]. Singer sees no need for physical coercion or violence.
- controlling a person's time and environment, leaving no time for thought
- creating a sense of powerlessness, fear and dependency
- manipulating rewards and punishments to suppress former social behaviour
- manipulating rewards and punishments to elicit the desired behaviour
- creating a closed system of logic which makes dissenters feel as if something was wrong with them
- keeping recruits unaware about any agenda to control or change them
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BITE model of Steven Hassan
Psychologist and cult counselor
Steven Hassan, using the research of Singer and Lifton and the
cognitive dissonance theory of
Leon Festinger, describes in his 2000 book
Releasing the Bonds the BITE (Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotion) model, which explains mind control as a combination of control over behavior, information, thought and emotions. According to Hassan, the BITE model dispenses with any required environment control, and its effects can be achieved when the control mechanisms create overall dependency and obedience to some leader or cause.
[3]
Hassan's critics argue that Steve Hassan uses the term "mind control" (for what they see as essentially a strong form of influence) only to justify the forcible extraction of believers from religious groups. They argue that Hassan does not merely say that fraudulent salesmanship persuaded the believers; he claims that these groups literally take away a victim's freedom of mind. For this reason an involuntary procedure must operate in order to "rescue" a "victim" from a "destructive cult", for "victims" may not realize their victimhood status and may resist rescuing.
Hassan, after taking part in a number of
deprogrammings in the late
1970s, distances himself from this practice and the criminal activities associated with that occupation and refers to his method as the "strategic interaction approach" or SIA. He claims that this approach is a goal-oriented, therapeutic course of action that can be initiated and implemented by motivated relatives or friends, in which they learn how to work together to help "awaken" the cult member to the pervasiveness of the group's alleged control over a former member's life, after which the person can leave the cult, regaining a sense of personal power, integrity, and direction.
