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Date: 16 Jun 2006 10:49:29
From: Twittering One
Subject: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
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You must have read the court transcripts.
[the FIRST court;
there were 2 more]
Moth Weaver wrote ...
Here's the latest info I have on Virginia (Twittering One):
She is still hospitalized, and still resisting treatment, contending,
as
she has for so long, that ADHD is her only problem, and all she needs
to
be OK is Dexadrine.
Another impediment to her agreeing to treatment is her belief that all
the dors are conspiring against her.
Apparently, she's bad enough that the hospital was able to get a court
order allowing them to force medicate her, but they haven't done so
yet,
as they'd rather try to secure her cooperation.
In the meantime, her RL friend who has posted here as CommonSense1 is
trying to get her possessions out of storage, where they were placed
after she was evicted for non-payment of rent.
Nancy
Unique, like everyone else
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.attn-deficit/browse_frm/thread/f153cd64288115ec?scoring=d&q=%22anne+bernays%22&
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Date: 16 Jun 2006 15:45:19
From: Sue me for posting facts
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
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Twittering One wrote:
> CS
> Recruited by AB to stalk me by proxy.
It's not always real obvious who recruited whom...
CS may have told you lies to make you believe that AB recruited
him---when it was CS who undermined and recruited AB ---to set you an
AB up in a game of Let's you and she fight"---to hold AB up as the
perfect Icon for lynch mob behavior.
You never know.
In any case---it's irrelevant.
CS is here to push your emotional buttons, including your emotions
regarding AB---to induce an ABREACTION so you will post stuff you
wouldn't otherwise post, including stuff about AB, to manufacture the
false perception you are every bit as unstable and unhinged as CS
*says* you are.
Ignore CS---do not read or reply to any of his emotionally button
pushing posts.
Ignore Mythweaver---do not read or reply to any of her emotionally
button pushing posts.
Anyone who gives a rat's behind about you wouldn't be MISUSING your
support group as a venue to induce an abreaction within you regarding
your abuse and trauma when inducing abreactions is so dangerous that
psychologists view them as dangerous when induced by psychologists in
privacy of their office.
ABREACTION
http://mentalhealth.about.com/health/mentalhealth/library/weekly/aa03159
9.htm
Abreaction: The Baby or the Bathwater - Part I
The treatment of PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is undergoing
change. PTSD was "discovered" after veterans returned from Viet Nam
with
a myriad of symptoms. Earlier wars had resulted in cases of "shell
shock" and "combat fatigue" - disorders virtually identical at times to
modern day PTSD. Prisoners-of-war, survivors of earthquakes, and
persons
surviving other severe traumas had also been known to have adjustment
problems.
Psychologists working with these populations often noticed that they
would have periods where they appeared to be re-living the trauma. This
re-living was given the term "abreaction" by Sigmund Freud in 1892.
Work
with World War II veterans found that assisting combat veterans to
abreact the trauma in a controlled environment allowed the symptoms to
decrease. Hypnosis was sometimes used as a way to facilitate the
abreaction and to manage it. In recent years abreaction has also
become
an important part of the treatment of dissociative disorders.
The wounds left by trauma have been described as similar to an infected
boil. Abreaction is sometimes seen as analogous to lancing the boil to
allow the wound to heal. This theory led to the inclusion of abreaction
as a part of the dominant treatment paradigm for trauma disorders.
There are several variations of this model, but all emphasize
abreaction
as a critical healing element. Bennett Braun's BASK model for the
treatment of dissociative disorders is an example of an
abreaction-focused model. Braun believed that it was important for a
traumatic event to be abreacted to the extent that the person relived
the Behavior, Affect, Sensation, and Knowledge of the traumatic event.
This model has been widely used in the treatment of dissociative
disorders, but it has recently been questioned by some.
Recently the idea that abreaction is an important part of the treatment
of trauma disorders has been challenged. The "recovered memory debate"
has resulted in a re-evaluation of the role of abreaction.
On to Part 2 - Challenges to the abreactive model...
*Title is adapted from Richard A Chefetz, M.D. "Abreaction: Baby or
Bathwater" Dissociation Vol.X, No.4, 12/97 which will be reviewed in
Part II of this article.
Abreaction: The Baby or the Bathwater* - Part II
The treatment of PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is undergoing
change. PTSD was "discovered" after veterans returned from Viet Nam
with
a myriad of symptoms. Earlier wars had resulted in cases of "shell
shock" and "combat fatigue" - disorders virtually identical at times to
modern day PTSD. Prisoners-of-war, survivors of earthquakes, and
persons
surviving other severe traumas had also been known to have adjustment
problems.
In part 1 of this series we looked at the role of abreaction in the
treatment of trauma survivors. Several treatment models in the past
included abreaction as a central treatment modality. The analogy was
made to lancing a wound. Abreaction was seen as a way to allow the
infection to drain out in order to facilitate healing.
Abreaction is a difficult and painful process. The person is often
re-experiencing the trauma as if it is occurring in the present. Pain
is
sometimes felt in the same part of the body that was hurt during the
trauma, and they can experience sights, sounds, and smells that were
present in the original traumatic situation. Many clinicians found that
the pain that patients went through was severely disruptive to their
daily life. A balance seemed to be needed between working on traumatic
material from the past and helping the patient function in the present.
Some treatment programs emphasized abreaction to the exclusion of other
techniques, and patients were sometimes kept on inpatient units for
months and even years. Patients were sometimes tied-down in restraints
prior to an abreaction to prevent them from hurting themselves or a
staff member. Such "restraint therapy" was used primarily for abuse
survivors with severe dissociative disorders. In some cases the
therapy
seems to have had negative effects independent of the original abuse.
In a recent issue of Dissociation Richard Chefetz has written an
article
addressing the role of abreaction in therapy for trauma survivors. He
maintains a fairly traditional view that abreaction is an essential
part
of treatment, and he presents vignettes designed to illustrate his
points. Chefetz states:
The abreaction of intense affect is not a goal of psychotherapy; it is
an inevitable concomitant experience in the therapy of persons with
post-traumatic histories, physical and/or sexual abuse, neglect, and
related innate experiences. (Chefetz, 1997).
He then presents some excellent guidelines for therapists working with
trauma survivors:
*
Maintain a calm aura.
*
Be capable of uncertainty.
*
Track the affect in the patient and in the clinician.
*
Make note of pressures toward enactment.
*
Avoid re-victimization and enactment of the traumatic transference.
Chefetz comes from a psychoanalytic viewpoint which appears to be
informed by both cognitive psychology and affect theory. His
guidelines
and examples are helpful for therapists, but he clings to the idea that
abreaction is a central curative element in therapy. He appears to
conclude that abreaction is "baby" rather than "bathwater."
I'm not so sure. Abreaction does seem to be an inevitable part of
therapy with some patients, but I'm not sure that we fully understand
its role. In patients who spontaneously abreact, our role is clearly
to help them shut down these re-living experiences and return to calm.
Is Bennett Braun's BASK model obsolete? Do patient's need to work
through all levels of a trauma to heal from it? New techniques such as
EMDR suggest to me that this is probably not true. We may be able to
help people heal without the potential re-traumatization that
accompanies abreaction.
In working with a dissociative patients I've found that a focus on
integration works well, with abreaction occurring only when necessary -
as defined by the patient. When parts of a fragmented personality
integrate there is shared knowledge and information, and sometimes an
accompanying abreaction. I believe that this sharing is the essential
curative process, not the abreaction.
For now I believe that we should hold these two notions side-by-side.
Abreaction happens. It happens primarily in trauma survivors. It is a
powerful phenomenon which can re-traumatize and can also be a part of
healing. Let's recognize that there are unanswered questions here, and
let's keep an open mind to both possibilities. When we can use
techniques to facilitate healing without abreaction, let's try those.
If abreaction appears to be occurring spontaneously, then let's work to
avoid re-traumatizing while maximizing the healing potential that seems
to accompany abreaction.
*Title is adapted from Richard A Chefetz, M.D. "Abreaction: Baby or
Bathwater" Dissociation Vol.X, No.4, 12/97.
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Date: 16 Jun 2006 14:15:04
From: Twittering One
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
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CS
Recruited by AB to stalk me by proxy.
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Date: 16 Jun 2006 12:58:21
From: Sue me for posting facts
Subject: Re: Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change (Was: AXX BXXXXX Engineering of Public Opinion)
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Are you suggesting that CS is a prop, patsy, pawn, proxy whom AB
recruited to emotionallly hararss nee stalk you.
If so, it's irrelevant.
Regardless of whether CS followed you into ASAS as a consequence of his
own pathology, or owing to his having been recruited by AB to stalk
you by proxy....CS IS here to push your emotional buttons, incite you
to wig out and post stuff that you would not post if he hadn't pushed
your buttons to get you behave in a manner which will boost his effort
to manufacture the false perception that you are as psycho as CS
*says* you are...and, to divert, derail, interfere and preclude your
obtaining empathy, understanding, compassion, you need.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing8.html
Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change
Encyclopedia of Sociology Volume 1, Macmillan Publishing Company, New
York
By Richard J. Ofshe, Ph.D.
Coercive persuasion and thought reform are alternate names for programs
of social influence capable of producing substantial behavior and
attitude change through the use of coercive tactics, persuasion, and/or
interpersonal and group-based influence manipulations (Schein 1961;
Lifton 1961). Such programs have also been labeled "brainwashing"
(Hunter 1951), a term more often used in the media than in scientific
literature. However identified, these programs are distinguishable from
other elaborate attempts to influence behavior and attitudes, to
socialize, and to accomplish social control. Their distinguishing
features are their totalistic qualities (Lifton 1961), the types of
influence procedures they employ, and the organization of these
procedures into three distinctive subphases of the overall process
(Schein 1961; Ofshe and Singer 1986). The key factors that distinguish
coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:
The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to
destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance
The use of an organized peer group
Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity
The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to
stabilize behavior once modified
Thought-reform programs have been employed in attempts to control and
indrinate individuals, societal groups (e.g., intellectuals), and
even entire populations. Systems intended to accomplish these goals can
vary considerably in their construction. Even the first systems studied
under the label "thought reform" ranged from those in which confinement
and physical assault were employed (Schein 1956; Lifton 1954; Lifton
1961 pp. 19-85) to applications that were carried out under nonconfined
conditions, in which nonphysical coercion substituted for assault
(Lifton 1961, pp. 242-273; Schein 1961, pp. 290-298). The individuals
to whom these influence programs were applied were in some cases
unwilling subjects (prisoner populations) and in other cases volunteers
who sought to participate in what they believed might be a
career-beneficial, educational experience (Lifton 1981, p. 248).
Significant differences existed between the social environments and the
control mechanisms employed in the two types of programs initially
studied. Their similarities, however, are of more importance in
understanding their ability to influence behavior and beliefs than are
their differences. They shared the utilization of coercive persuasion's
key effective-influence mechanisms: a focused attack on the stability
of a person's sense of self; reliance on peer group interaction; the
development of interpersonal bonds between targets and their
controllers and peers; and an ability to control communication among
participants. Edgar Schein captured the essential similarity between
the types of programs in his definition of the coercive-persuasion
phenomenon. Schein noted that even for prisoners, what happened was a
subjection to "unusually intense and prolonged persuasion" that they
could not avoid; thus, "they were coerced into allowing themselves to
be persuaded" (Schein 1961, p. 18).
Programs of both types (confined/assaultive and
nonconfined/nonassaultive) cause a range of cognitive and behavioral
responses. The reported cognitive responses vary from apparently rare
instances, classifiable as internalized belief change (enduring
change), to a frequently observed transient alteration in beliefs that
appears to be situationally adaptive and, finally, to reactions of
nothing less than firm intellectual resistance and hostility (Lifton
1961, pp. 117-151, 399-415; Schein 1961, pp. 157-166).
The phrase situationally adaptive belief change refers to attitude
change that is not stable and is environment dependent. This type of
response to the influence pressures of coercive-persuasion programs is
perhaps the most surprising of the responses that have been observed.
The combination of psychological assault on the self, interpersonal
pressure, and the social organization of the environment creates a
situation that can only be coped with by adapting and acting so as to
present oneself to others in terms of the ideology supported in the
environment (see below for discussion). Eliciting the desired verbal
and interactive behavior sets up conditions likely to stimulate the
development of attitudes consistent with and that function to
rationalize new behavior in which the individual is engaging. Models of
attitude change, such as the theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger
1957) or Self-Perception Theory (Bern 1972), explain the tendency for
consistent attitudes to develop as a consequence of behavior.
The surprising aspect of the situationally adaptive response is that
the attitudes that develop are unstable. They tend to change
dramatically once the person is removed from an environment that has
totalistic properties and is organized to support the adaptive
attitudes. Once removed from such an environment, the person is able to
interact with others who permit and encourage the expression of
criticisms and doubts, which were previously stifled because of the
normative rules of the reform environment (Schein 1961, p. 163; Lifton
1961, pp. 87-116, 399-415; Ofshe and Singer 1986). This pattern of
change, first in one direction and then the other, dramatically
highlights the profound importance of social support in the explanation
of attitude change and stability. This relationship has for decades
been one of the principal interests in the field of social psychology.
Statements supportive of the proffered ideology that indicate adaptive
attitude change during the period of the target's involvement in the
reform environment and immediately following separation should not be
taken as mere playacting in reaction to necessity. Targets tend to
become genuinely involved in the interaction. The reform experience
focuses on genuine vulnerabilities as the method for undermining
self-concept: manipulating genuine feelings of guilt about past
conduct; inducing the target to make public denunciations of his or her
prior life as being unworthy; and carrying this forward through
interaction with peers for whom the target develops strong bonds.
Involvement developed in these ways prevents the target from
maintaining both psychological distance or emotional independence from
the experience.
The reaction pattern of persons who display adaptive attitude-change
responses is not one of an immediate and easy rejection of the
proffered ideology. This response would be expected if they had been
faking their reactions as a conscious strategy to defend against the
pressures to which they were exposed. Rather, they appear to be
conflicted about the sentiments they developed and their reevaluation
of these sentiments. This response has been observed in persons
reformed under both confined/assaultive and nonconfined/ nonassaultive
reform conditions (Schein 1962, pp. 163- 165; Lifton 1961, pp. 86-116,
400- 401).
Self-concept and belief-related attitude change in response to closely
controlled social environments have been observed in other
organizational settings that, like reform programs, can be classified
as total institutions (Goffman 1957). Thought-reform reactions also
appear to be related to, but are far more extreme than, responses to
the typically less-identity-assaultive and less- totalistic
socialization programs carried out by organizations with central
commitments to specifiable ideologies, and which undertake the training
of social roles (e.g., in military academies and
religious-indrination settings (Donbush 1955; Hulme 1956).
The relatively rare instances in which belief changes are internalized
and endure have been analyzed as attributable to the degree to which
the acquired belief system and imposed peer relations function fully to
resolve the identity crisis that is routinely precipitated during the
first phase of the reform process (Schein 1961, p. 164; Lifton 1961,
pp. 131-132, 400). Whatever the explanation for why some persons
internalize the proffered ideology in response to the reform
procedures, this extreme reaction should be recognized as both atypical
and probably attributable to an interaction between long-standing
personality traits and the mechanisms of influence utilized during the
reform process.
Much of the attention to reform programs was stimulated because it was
suspected that a predictable and highly effective method for profoundly
changing beliefs had been designed, implemented, and was in operation.
These suspicions are not supported by fact. Programs identified as
thought reforming are not very effective at actually changing people's
beliefs in any fashion that endures apart from an elaborate supporting
social context. Evaluated only on the criterion of their ability
genuinely to change beliefs, the programs have to be judged abject
failures and massive wastes of effort.
The programs are, however, impressive in their ability to prepare
targets for integration into and long-term participation in the
organizations that operate them. Rather than assuming that individual
belief change is the major goal of these programs, it is perhaps more
productive to view the programs as elaborate role-training regimes.
That is, as resocialization programs in which targets are being
prepared to conduct themselves in a fashion appropriate for the social
roles they are expected to occupy following conclusion of the training
process.
If identified as training programs, it is clear that the goals of such
programs are to reshape behavior and that they are organized around
issues of social control important to the organizations that operate
the programs. Their objectives then appear to be behavioral training of
the target, which result in an ability to present self, values,
aspirations, and past history in a style appropriate to the ideology of
the controlling organization; to train an ability to reason in terms of
the ideology; and to train a willingness to accept direction from those
in authority with minimum apparent resistance. Belief changes that
follow from successfully coercing or inducing the person to behave in
the prescribed manner can be thought of as by-products of the training
experience. As attitude- change models would predict, they arise
"naturally" as a result of efforts to reshape behavior (Festinger 1957;
Bem 1972).
The tactical dimension most clearly distinguishing reform processes
from other sorts of training programs is the reliance on psychological
coercion: procedures that generate pressure to comply as a means of
escaping a punishing experience (e.g., public humiliation, sleep
deprivation, guilt manipulation, etc.). Coercion differs from other
influencing factors also present in thought reform, such as
content-based persuasive attempts (e.g., presentation of new
information, reference to authorities, etc.) or reliance on influence
variables operative in all interaction (status relations, demeanor,
normal assertiveness differentials, etc.). Coercion is principally
utilized to gain behavioral compliance at key points and to ensure
participation in activities likely to have influencing effects; that
is, to engage the person in the role training activities and in
procedures likely to lead to strong emotional responses, to cognitive
confusion, or to attributions to self as the source of beliefs promoted
during the process.
Robert Lifton labeled the extraordinarily high degree of social control
characteristic of organizations that operate reform programs as their
totalistic quality (Lifton 1961). This concept refers to the
mobilization of the entirety of the person's social, and often
physical, environment in support of the manipulative effort. Lifton
identified eight themes or properties of reform environments that
contribute to their totalistic quality:
Control of communication
Emotional and behavioral manipulation
Demands for absolute conformity to behavior prescriptions derived from
the ideology
Obsessive demands for confession
Agreement that the ideology is faultless
Manipulation of language in which cliches substitute for analytic
thought
Reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of drine
Classification of those not sharing the ideology as inferior and not
worthy of respect
(Lifton 1961, pp. 419-437, 1987).
Schein's analysis of the behavioral sequence underlying coercive
persuasion separated the process into three subphases: unfreezing,
change, and refreezing (Schein 1961, pp. 111-139). Phases differ in
their principal goals and their admixtures of persuasive, influencing,
and coercive tactics. Although others have described the process
differently, their analyses are not inconsistent with Schein's
three-phase breakdown (Lifton 1961; Farber, Harlow, and West 1956;
Meerloo 1956; Sargent 1957; Ofshe and Singer 1986). Although Schein's
terminology is adopted here, the descriptions of phase activities have
been broadened to reflect later research.
Unfreezing is the first step in eliciting behavior and developing a
belief system that facilitates the long-term management of a person. It
consists of attempting to undercut a person's psychological basis for
resisting demands for behavioral compliance to the routines and rituals
of the reform program. The goals of unfreezing are to destabilize a
person's sense of identity (i.e., to precipitate an identity crisis),
to diminish confidence in prior social judgments, and to foster a sense
of powerlessness, if not hopelessness. Successful destabilization
induces a negative shift in global self evaluations and increases
uncertainty about one's values and position in society. It thereby
reduces resistance to the new demands for compliance while increasing
suggestibility.
Destabilization of identity is accomplished by bringing into play
varying sets of manipulative techniques. The first programs to be
studied utilized techniques such as repeatedly demonstrating the
person's inability to control his or her own fate, the use of
degradation ceremonies, attempts to induce reevaluation of the adequacy
and/or propriety of prior conduct, and techniques designed to encourage
the reemergence of latent feelings of guilt and emotional turmoil
(Hinkle and Wolfe 1956; Lifton 1954, 1961; Schein 1956, 1961; Schein,
Cooley, and Singer 1960). Contemporary programs have been observed to
utilize far more psychologically sophisticated procedures to accomplish
destabilization. These techniques are often adapted from the traditions
of psychiatry, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and the human-potential
movement, as well as from religious practice (Ofshe and Singer 1986;
Lifton 1987).
The change phase allows the individual an opportunity to escape
punishing destabilization procedures by demonstrating that he or she
has learned the proffered ideology, can demonstrate an ability to
interpret reality in its own terms, and is willing to participate in
competition with peers to demonstrate zeal, through displays of
commitment. In addition to study and/or formal instruction, the
techniques used to facilitate learning and the skill basis that can
lead to opinion change include scheduling events that have predictable
influencing consequences, rewarding certain conduct, and manipulating
emotions to create punishing experiences. Some of the practices
designed to promote influence might include requiring the target to
assume responsibility for the progress of less- advanced "students," to
become the responsibility of those further along in the program, to
assume the role of a teacher of the ideology, or to develop ever more
refined and detailed confession statements that recast the person's
former life in terms of the required ideological position. Group
structure is often manipulated by making rewards or punishments for an
entire peer group contingent on the performance of the weakest person,
requiring the group to utilize a vocabulary appropriate to the
ideology, making status and privilege changes commensurate with
behavioral compliance, subjecting the target to strong criticism and
humiliation from peers for lack of progress, and peer monitoring for
expressions of reservations or dissent. If progress is unsatisfactory,
the individual can again be subjected to the punishing destabilization
procedures used during unfreezing to undermine identity, to humiliate,
and to provoke feelings of shame and guilt.
Refreezing denotes an attempt to promote and reinforce behavior
acceptable to the controlling organization. Satisfactory performance is
rewarded with social approval, status gains, and small privileges. Part
of the social structure of the environment is the norm of interpreting
the target's display of the desired conduct as demonstrating the
person's progress in understanding the errors of his or her former
life. The combination of reinforcing approved behavior and interpreting
its symbolic meaning as demonstrating the emergence of a new individual
fosters the development of an environment-specific, supposedly reborn
social identity. The person is encouraged to claim this identity and is
rewarded for doing so.
Lengthy participation in an appropriately constructed and managed
environment fosters peer relations, an interaction history, and other
behavior consistent with a public identity that incorporates approved
values and opinions. Promoting the development of an interaction
history in which persons engage in cooperative activity with peers that
is not blatantly coerced and in which they are encouraged but not
forced to make verbal claims to "truly understanding the ideology and
having been transformed," will tend to lead them to conclude that they
hold beliefs consistent with their actions (i.e., to make attributions
to self as the source of their behaviors). These reinforcement
procedures can result in a significant degree of cognitive confusion
and an alteration in what the person takes to be his or her beliefs and
attitudes while involved in the controlled environment (Bem 1972; 0fshe
et al. 1974).
Continuous use of refreezing procedures can sustain the expression of
what appears to be significant attitude change for long periods of
time. Maintaining compliance with a requirement that the person display
behavior signifying unreserved acceptance of an imposed ideology and
gaining other forms of long-term behavioral control requires continuous
effort. The person must be carefully managed, monitored, and
manipulated through peer pressure, the threat or use of punishment
(material, social, and emotional) and through the normative rules of
the community (e.g., expectations prohibiting careers independent of
the organization, prohibiting formation of independent nuclear
families, prohibiting accumulation of significant personal economic
resources, etc.) (Whyte 1976; Ofshe 1980; Ofshe and Singer 1986).
The rate at which a once-attained level of attitude change deteriorates
depends on the type of social support the person receives over time
(Schein 1961 pp. 158-166; Lifton pp. 399-415). In keeping with the
refreezing metaphor, even when the reform process is to some degree
successful at shaping behavior and attitudes, the new shape tends to be
maintained only as long as temperature is appropriately controlled.
One of the essential components of the reform process in general and of
long-term refreezing in particular is monitoring and limiting the
content of communication among persons in the managed group (Lifton
1961; Schein 1960; Ofshe et al. ] 974). If successfully accomplished,
communication control eliminates a person's ability safely to express
criticisms or to share private doubts and reservations. The result is
to confer on the community the quality of being a spy system of the
whole, upon the whole.
The typically observed complex of communication-controlling rules
requires people to self- report critical thoughts to authorities or to
make doubts known only in approved and readily managed settings (e.g.,
small groups or private counseling sessions). Admitting "negativity"
leads to punishment or reindrination through procedures sometimes
euphemistically termed "education" or "therapy." Individual social
isolation is furthered by rules requiring peers to "help" colleagues to
progress, by reporting their expressions of doubt. If it is discovered,
failure to make a report is punishable, because it reflects on the low
level of commitment of the person who did not "help" a colleague to
make progress.
Controlling communication effectively blocks individuals from testing
the appropriateness of privately held critical perceptions against the
views of even their families and most-valued associates. Community
norms encourage doubters to interpret lingering reservations as signs
of a personal failure to comprehend the truth of the ideology; if
involved with religious organizations, to interpret doubt as evidence
of sinfulness or the result of demonic influences; if involved with an
organization delivering a supposed psychological or medical therapy, as
evidence of continuing illness and/or failure to progress in treatment.
The significance of communication control is illustrated by the
collapse of a large psychotherapy organization in immediate reaction to
the leadership's loss of effective control over interpersonal
communication. At a meeting of several hundred of the members of this
"therapeutic community" clients were allowed openly to voice privately
held reservations about their treatment and exploitation. They had been
subjected to abusive practices, which included assault, sexual and
economic exploitation, extremes of public humiliation, and others. When
members discovered the extent to which their sentiments about these
practices were shared by their peers they rebelled (Ayalla 1985).
Two widespread myths have developed from misreading the early studies
of thought reforming influence systems (Zablocki 1991 ). These studies
dealt in part with their use to elicit false confessions in the Soviet
Union after the 1917 revolution; from American and United Nations
forces held as POWs during the Korean War; and from their application
to Western missionaries held in China following Mao's revolution.
The first myth concerns the necessity and effectiveness of physical
abuse in the reform process. The myth is that physical abuse is not
only necessary but is the prime cause of apparent belief change.
Reports about the treatment of POWs and foreign prisoners in China
documented that physical abuse was present. Studies of the role of
assault in the promotion of attitude change and in eliciting false
confessions even from U.S. servicemen revealed, however, that it was
ineffective. Belief change and compliance was more likely when physical
abuse was minimal or absent (Biderman 1960). Both Schein (1961) and
Lifton (1961) reported that physical abuse was a minor element in the
theoretical understanding of even prison reform programs in China.
In the main, efforts at resocializing China's nationals were conducted
under nonconfined/ nonassaultive conditions. Millions of China's
citizens underwent reform in schools, special-training centers,
factories, and neighborhood groups in which physical assault was not
used as a coercive technique. One such setting for which many
participants actively sought admission, the "Revolutionary University,"
was classified by Lifton as the "hard core of the entire Chinese
thought reform movement" (Lifton 1961,p. 248).
Attribution theories would predict that if there were differences
between the power of reform programs to promote belief change in
settings that were relatively more or less blatantly coercive and
physically threatening, the effect would be greatest in less-coercive
programs. Consistent with this expectation, Lifton concluded that
reform efforts directed against Chinese citizens were "much more
successful" than efforts directed against Westerners (Lifton 1961, p.
400).
A second myth concerns the purported effects of brainwashing. Media
reports about thought reform's effects far exceed the findings of
scientific studies--which show coercive persuasion's upper limit of
impact to be that of inducing personal confusion and significant, but
typically transitory, attitude change. Brainwashing was promoted as
capable of stripping victims of their capacity to assert their wills,
thereby rendering them unable to resist the orders of their
controllers. People subjected to "brainwashing" were not merely
influenced to adopt new attitudes but, according to the myth, suffered
essentially an alteration in their psychiatric status from normal to
pathological, while losing their capacity to decide to comply with or
resist orders.
This lurid promotion of the power of thought reforming influence
techniques to change a person's capacity to resist direction is
entirely without basis in fact: No evidence, scientific or otherwise,
supports this proposition. No known mental disorder produces the loss
of will that is alleged to be the result of brainwashing. Whatever
behavior and attitude changes result from exposure to the process, they
are most reasonably classified as the responses of normal individuals
to a complex program of influence.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency seems to have taken seriously the
myth about brainwashing's power to destroy the will. Due, perhaps, to
concern that an enemy had perfected a method for dependably overcoming
will -- or perhaps in hope of being the first to develop such a method
--the Agency embarked on a research program, code-named MKULTRA. It
became a pathetic and tragic failure. On the one hand, it funded some
innocuous and uncontroversial research projects; on the other, it
funded or supervised the execution of several far-fetched, unethical,
and dangerous experiments that failed completely (Marks 1979; Thomas
1989).
Although no evidence suggests that thought reform is a process capable
of stripping a person of the will to resist, a relationship does exist
between thought reform and changes in psychiatric status. The stress
and pressure of the reform process cause some percentage of
psychological casualties. To reduce resistance and to motivate behavior
change, thought-reform procedures rely on psychological stressors,
induction of high degrees of emotional distress, and on other
intrinsically dangerous influence techniques (Heide and Borkovec 1983).
The process has a potential to cause psychiatric injury, which is
sometimes realized. The major early studies (Hinkle and Wolfe 1961;
Lifton 1961; Schein 1961) reported that during the unfreezing phase
individuals were intentionally stressed to a point at which some
persons displayed symptoms of being on the brink of psychosis. Managers
attempted to reduce psychological pressure when this happened, to avoid
serious psychological injury to those obviously near the breaking
point.
Contemporary programs speed up the reform process through the use of
more psychologically sophisticated and dangerous procedures to
accomplish destabilization. In contemporary programs the process is
sometimes carried forward on a large group basis, which reduces the
ability of managers to detect symptoms of impending psychiatric
emergencies. In addition, in some of the "therapeutic" ideologies
espoused by thought reforming organizations, extreme emotional distress
is valued positively, as a sign of progress. Studies of contemporary
programs have reported on a variety of psychological injuries related
to the reform process. Injuries include psychosis, major depressions,
manic episodes, and debilitating anxiety (Glass, Kirsch, and Parris
1977, Haaken and Adams 1983, Heide and Borkovec 1983; Higget and Murray
1983; Kirsch and Glass 1977; Yalom and Lieberman 1971; Lieberman 1987;
Singer and Ofshe 1990).
Contemporary thought-reform programs are generally far more
sophisticated in their selection of both destabilization and influence
techniques than were the programs studied during the 1950s (see Ofshe
and Singer 1986 for a review). For example, hypnosis was entirely
absent from the first programs studied but is often observed in modern
programs. In most modern examples in which hypnosis is present, it
functions as a remarkably powerful technique for manipulating
subjective experience and for intensifying emotional response. It
provides a method for influencing people to imagine impossible events
such as those that supposedly occurred in their "past lives," the
future, or during visits to other planets. If persons so manipulated
misidentify the hypnotically induced fantasies, and classify them as
previously unavailable memories, their confidence in the content of a
particular ideology can be increased (Bainbridge and Stark 1980).
Hypnosis can also be used to lead people to allow themselves to relive
actual traumatic life events (e.g., rape, childhood sexual abuse,
near-death experiences, etc.) or to fantasize the existence of such
events and, thereby, stimulate the experience of extreme emotional
distress. When imbedded in a reform program, repeatedly leading the
person to experience such events can function simply as punishment,
useful for coercing compliance.
Accounts of contemporary programs also describe the use of
sophisticated techniques intended to strip away psychological defenses,
to induce regression to primitive levels of coping, and to flood
targets with powerful emotion (Ayalla 1985; Haaken and Adams 1983;
Hockman 1984; Temerlin and Temerlin 1982). In some instances stress and
fatigue have been used to promote hallucinatory experiences that are
defined as therapeutic (Gerstel 1982). Drugs have been used to
facilitate disinhibition and heightened suggestibility (Watkins 1980).
Thought-reform subjects have been punished for disobedience by being
ordered to self-inflict severe pain, justified by the claim that the
result will be therapeutic (Bellack et al. v. Murietta Foundation et
al.).
Programs of coercive persuasion appear in various forms in contemporary
society. They depend on the voluntary initial participation of targets.
This is usually accomplished because the target assumes that there is a
common goal that unites him or her with the organization or that
involvement will confer some benefit (e.g., relief of symptoms,
personal growth, spiritual development, etc.). Apparently some programs
were developed based on the assumption that they could be used to
facilitate desirable changes (e.g., certain rehabilitation or
psychotherapy programs). Some religious organizations and social
movements utilize them for recruitment purposes. Some commercial
organizations utilize them as methods for promoting sales. Under
unusual circumstances, modern police-interrogation methods can exhibit
some of the properties of a thought-reform program. In some instances,
reform programs appear to have been operated for the sole purpose of
gaining a high degree of control over individuals to facilitate their
exploitation (Ofshe 1986; McGuire and Norton 1988; Watkins 1980).
Virtually any acknowledged expertise or authority can serve as a power
base to develop the social structure necessary to carry out thought
reform. In the course of developing a new form of rehabilitation,
psychotherapy, religious organization, utopian community, school, or
sales organization it is not difficult to justify the introduction of
thought-reform procedures.
Perhaps the most famous example of a thought-reforming program
developed for the ostensible purpose of rehabilitation was Synanon, a
drug treatment program (Sarbin and Adler 1970, Yabionsky 1965; Ofshe et
al. 1974). The Synanon environment possessed all of Lifton's eight
themes. It used as its principle coercive procedure a highly aggressive
encounter/therapy group interaction. In form it resembled "struggle
groups" observed in China (Whyte 1976), but it differed in content.
Individuals were vilified and humiliated not for past political
behavior but for current conduct as well as far more psychologically
intimate subjects, such as early childhood experiences, sexual
experiences, degrading experiences as adults, etc. The coercive power
of the group experience to affect behavior was substantial as was its
ability to induce psychological injury (Lieberman, Yalom, and Miles
1973; Ofshe et al. 1974).
Allegedly started as a drug-rehabilitation program, Synanon failed to
accomplish significant long-term rehabilitation. Eventually, Synanon's
leader, Charles Diederich, promoted the idea that any degree of drug
abuse was incurable and that persons so afflicted needed to spend their
lives in the Synanon community. Synanon's influence program was
successful in convincing many that this was so. Under Diederich's
direction, Synanon evolved from an organization that espoused
non-violence into one that was violent. Its soldiers were dispatched to
assault and attempt to murder persons identified by Diederich as
Synanon's enemies (Mitchell, Mitchell, and Ofshe 1981).
The manipulative techniques of self-styled messiahs, such as People's
Temple leader Jim Jones (Reiterman 1982), and influence programs
operated by religious organizations, such as the Unification Church
(Taylor 1978) arid Scientology (Wallis 1977; Bainbridge and Stark
1980), can be analyzed as thought-reform programs. The most
controversial recruitment system operated by a religious organization
in recent American history was that of the Northern California branch
of the Unification Church (Reverend Mr. Moon's organization). The
influence program was built directly from procedures of psychological
manipulation that were commonplace in the human-potential movement
(Bromley and Shupe 1981). The procedures involved various group-based
exercises as well as events designed to elicit from participant's
information about their emotional needs and vulnerabilities. Blended
into this program was content intended slowly to introduce the newcomer
to the group's ideology. Typically, the program's connection with the
Unification Church or any religious mission was denied during the early
stages of the reform process. The target was monitored around the clock
and prevented from communicating with peers who might reinforce doubt
and support a desire to leave. The physical setting was an isolated
rural facility far from public transportation.
Initial focus on personal failures, guilt-laden memories, and
unfulfilled aspirations shifted to the opportunity to realize infantile
desires and idealistic goals, by affiliating with the group and its
mission to save the world. The person was encouraged to develop strong
affective bonds with current members. They showed unfailing interest,
affection, and concern, sometimes to the point of spoon-feeding the
person's meals and accompanying the individual everywhere, including to
the toilet. If the unfreezing and change phases of the program
succeeded, the individual was told of the group's affiliation with the
Unification Church and assigned to another unit of the organization
within which re- freezing procedures could be carried forward.
Influence procedures now commonly used during modern police
interrogation can sometimes inadvertently manipulate innocent persons'
beliefs about their own innocence and, thereby, cause them falsely to
confess. Confessions resulting from accomplishing the unfreezing and
change phases of thought reform are classified as coerced-internalized
false confessions (Kassin and Wrightsman 1985; Gudjonsson and MacKeith
1988). Although they rarely come together simultaneously, the
ingredients necessary to elicit a temporarily believed false confession
are: erroneous police suspicion, the use of certain commonly employed
interrogation procedures, and some degree of psychological
vulnerability in the suspect. Philip Zimbardo (1971) has reviewed the
coercive factors generally present in modern interrogation settings.
Richard Ofshe (1989) has identified those influence procedures that if
present in a suspect's interrogation contributes to causing unfreezing
and change.
Techniques that contribute to unfreezing include falsely telling a
suspect that the police have evidence proving the person's guilt (e.g.,
fingerprints, eyewitness testimony, etc.). Suspects may be given a
polygraph examination and then falsely told (due either to error or
design) that they failed and the test reveals their unconscious
knowledge of guilt. Suspects may be told that their lack of memory of
the crime was caused by an alcohol or drug induced blackout, was
repressed, or is explained because the individual is a multiple
personality.
The techniques listed above regularly appear in modern American police
interrogations. They are used to lead persons who know that they have
committed the crime at issue to decide that the police have sufficient
evidence to convict them or to counter typical objections to admitting
guilt (e.g., "I can't remember having done that."). In conjunction with
the other disorienting and distressing elements of a modern accusatory
interrogation, these tactics can sometimes lead innocent suspects to
doubt themselves and question their lack of knowledge of the crime. If
innocent persons subjected to these sorts of influence techniques do
not reject the false evidence and realize that the interrogators are
lying to them, they have no choice but to doubt themselves.
Tactics used to change the suspect's position and elicit a confession
include maneuvers designed to intensify feelings of guilt and emotional
distress following from the suspect's assumption of guilt. Suspects may
be offered an escape from the emotional distress through confession. It
may also be suggested that confession will provide evidence of remorse
that will benefit the suspect in court.
Thought reform is not an easy process to study for several reasons. The
extraordinary totalistic qualities and hyperorganization of
thought-reforming environments, together with the exceptional nature of
the influence tactics that appear within them, put the researcher in a
position roughly analogous to that of an anthropologist entering into
or interviewing someone about a culture that is utterly foreign. The
researcher cannot assume that he or she understands or even knows the
norms of the new environment. This means that until the researcher is
familiar with the constructed environment within which the reform
process takes place, it is dangerous to make the routine assumptions
about context that underlie research within one's own culture. This
problem extends to vocabulary as well as to norms and social structure.
The history of research on the problem has been one in which most of
the basic descriptive work has been conducted through post-hoc
interviewing of persons exposed to the procedures. The second-most
frequently employed method has been that of participant observation.
Recently, in connection with work being done on police interrogation
methods, it has been possible to analyze contemporaneous recordings of
interrogation sessions in which targets' beliefs are actually made to
undergo radical change. All this work has contributed to the
development of an understanding of the thought-reform phenomenon in
several ways.
Studying the reform process demonstrates that it is no more or less
difficult to understand than any other complex social process and
produces no results to suggest that something new has been discovered.
The only aspect of the reform process that one might suggest is new, is
the order in which the influence procedures are assembled and the
degree to which the target's environment is manipulated in the service
of social control. This is at most an unusual arrangement of
commonplace bits and pieces.
Work to date has helped establish a dividing line between the lurid
fantasies about mysterious methods for stripping one's capacity to
resist control and the reality of the power of appropriately designed
social environments to influence the behavior and decisions of those
engaged by them. Beyond debunking myths, information gathered to date
has been used in two ways to further the affirmative understanding of
thought reform: It has been possible to develop descriptions of the
social structure of thought-reforming environments, of their
operations, and to identify the range of influence mechanisms they tend
to incorporate; the second use of these data has been to relate the
mechanisms of influence present in the reform environment to
respondents' accounts of their reactions to these experiences, to
increase understanding of both general response tendencies to types of
influence mechanisms and the reactions of particular persons to the
reform experience.
As it is with all complex, real-world social phenomena that cannot be
studied experimentally, understanding information about the
thought-reform process proceeds through the application of theories
that have been independently developed. Explaining data that describe
the type and organization of the influence procedures that constitute a
thought-reform process depends on applying established
social-psychological theories about the manipulation of behavior and
attitude change. Assessing reports about the impact on the experiences
of the personalities subjected to intense influence procedures depends
on the application of current theories of personality formation and
change. Understanding instances in which the reform experience appears
related to psychiatric injury requires proceeding as one would
ordinarily in evaluating any case history of a stress-related or other
type of psychological injury.
|
| |
Date: 16 Jun 2006 11:15:11
From: Twittering One
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
|
Twittering One wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_suicide_attempts
>
> Some trivia I picked up over at ...
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.suicide.methods
Being detained and abused can do that to a person,
Or animal ~ !
|
| |
Date: 16 Jun 2006 11:12:03
From: Twittering One
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_suicide_attempts
Some trivia I picked up over at ...
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.suicide.methods
|
| |
Date: 17 Jun 2006 07:34:52
From: Twittering One
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
|
I little poison may heal;
A lot kills.
> ABREACTION
|
| |
Date: 17 Jun 2006 14:07:11
From: CommonSense1
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
|
Virginia, I know I've been hitting you hard. But you've always been so
strong. And I trust you have to be able to see a delusion for what it
is. Please go work with Dr. B to try and regain what you've lost.
L, D
Twittering One wrote:
> Thanks for your understanding Sue.
>
> Sue me for posting facts wrote:
> > Twittering One wrote:
> > > I little poison may heal;
> > > A lot kills.
> >
> > Especially when the therapist induced the abreaction by victimizing
> > their patient owing to the therapists narcissism or negative
> > countertransference. :-(
> >
> > But, that's neither here nor there right now since you managed to
> > emerge and survive that particular wormhole. :-)
> >
> > What's important is that two years ago your being traumatized
> > catapulted you into a nightmarish wormhole, which you surived.
> >
> > You sought understanding, compassion, empathy, kindness and Time to
> > heal---and, everyone's been responding by alternating between *rescuer*
> > and *persecutor in chief*.
> >
> > Every time anyone confronts you about your assertions about your being
> > abused/traumatized, and/or your perception everyone's been closing
> > ranks against you ever since...they are able to make you relive both
> > the abuse/trauma, and your feelings about *everyone* closing ranks
> > against you... again, and again and again.
> >
> > As a result, you STILL need understanding, empathy, compassion and
> > TIME to heal.
> >
> > All your posts since you last incarceration in Bellevue were all about
> > the present until you began reading and replying to CS and MW's
> > poisoned penned posts aka flamebait intended to drag you back to the
> > past., relive your pain AGAIN...
> >
> > Forget that!
> >
> > Last thing you need to do right now is read or reply to their
> > historical revisionism and mythmaking posts ---tis POISON==>
> > abreactions and/or disruptive of your current attempt to
> > regain/maintain emotional equilibrium.
> >
> > *your* personal history--is your personal history; therefore, you get
> > to decide when, where, and with whom you want to discuss it, and
> > your real friends will respect that---not say or publicly post STUFF
> > to push your emotional buttons to incite or inflame you to react poorly
> > and disrupt your attempt to regain or maintain your emotional
> > equilibrium.
> >
> > IMHOFWIW ....
|
| |
Date: 17 Jun 2006 13:50:39
From: Twittering One
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
|
Thanks for your understanding Sue.
Sue me for posting facts wrote:
> Twittering One wrote:
> > I little poison may heal;
> > A lot kills.
>
> Especially when the therapist induced the abreaction by victimizing
> their patient owing to the therapists narcissism or negative
> countertransference. :-(
>
> But, that's neither here nor there right now since you managed to
> emerge and survive that particular wormhole. :-)
>
> What's important is that two years ago your being traumatized
> catapulted you into a nightmarish wormhole, which you surived.
>
> You sought understanding, compassion, empathy, kindness and Time to
> heal---and, everyone's been responding by alternating between *rescuer*
> and *persecutor in chief*.
>
> Every time anyone confronts you about your assertions about your being
> abused/traumatized, and/or your perception everyone's been closing
> ranks against you ever since...they are able to make you relive both
> the abuse/trauma, and your feelings about *everyone* closing ranks
> against you... again, and again and again.
>
> As a result, you STILL need understanding, empathy, compassion and
> TIME to heal.
>
> All your posts since you last incarceration in Bellevue were all about
> the present until you began reading and replying to CS and MW's
> poisoned penned posts aka flamebait intended to drag you back to the
> past., relive your pain AGAIN...
>
> Forget that!
>
> Last thing you need to do right now is read or reply to their
> historical revisionism and mythmaking posts ---tis POISON==>
> abreactions and/or disruptive of your current attempt to
> regain/maintain emotional equilibrium.
>
> *your* personal history--is your personal history; therefore, you get
> to decide when, where, and with whom you want to discuss it, and
> your real friends will respect that---not say or publicly post STUFF
> to push your emotional buttons to incite or inflame you to react poorly
> and disrupt your attempt to regain or maintain your emotional
> equilibrium.
>
> IMHOFWIW ....
|
| |
Date: 17 Jun 2006 12:22:11
From: Sue me for posting facts
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
|
Twittering One wrote:
> I little poison may heal;
> A lot kills.
Especially when the therapist induced the abreaction by victimizing
their patient owing to the therapists narcissism or negative
countertransference. :-(
But, that's neither here nor there right now since you managed to
emerge and survive that particular wormhole. :-)
What's important is that two years ago your being traumatized
catapulted you into a nightmarish wormhole, which you surived.
You sought understanding, compassion, empathy, kindness and Time to
heal---and, everyone's been responding by alternating between *rescuer*
and *persecutor in chief*.
Every time anyone confronts you about your assertions about your being
abused/traumatized, and/or your perception everyone's been closing
ranks against you ever since...they are able to make you relive both
the abuse/trauma, and your feelings about *everyone* closing ranks
against you... again, and again and again.
As a result, you STILL need understanding, empathy, compassion and
TIME to heal.
All your posts since you last incarceration in Bellevue were all about
the present until you began reading and replying to CS and MW's
poisoned penned posts aka flamebait intended to drag you back to the
past., relive your pain AGAIN...
Forget that!
Last thing you need to do right now is read or reply to their
historical revisionism and mythmaking posts ---tis POISON== >
abreactions and/or disruptive of your current attempt to
regain/maintain emotional equilibrium.
*your* personal history--is your personal history; therefore, you get
to decide when, where, and with whom you want to discuss it, and
your real friends will respect that---not say or publicly post STUFF
to push your emotional buttons to incite or inflame you to react poorly
and disrupt your attempt to regain or maintain your emotional
equilibrium.
IMHOFWIW ....
|
| |
Date: 18 Jun 2006 15:40:38
From: Caitriona Mac Fhiodhbhuidhe
Subject: Re: Abusers use of social or support group as an instrument of abuse
|
CommonSense1 wrote:
> What is your problem, lady? Why do you want Virginia suffering and
> homeless on the street? Do you get a kick out of trying to make
> troubled persons' lives more troubled? You have a belt you notch if you
> succeed in driving a deluded person deeper into his/her delusions?
If you want a bit of insight into Linda, google Linda G + kitten +
2002. That will pull up some of her interactions with me, from my
responses to her. She x-no-archived her own posts during that time
period, so there are very few of her posts, except in what was quoted
by those of us who responded to her.
Kitten
|
| |
Date: 18 Jun 2006 15:38:16
From: Caitriona Mac Fhiodhbhuidhe
Subject: Re: Abusers use of social or support group as an instrument of abuse
|
Sue me for posting facts wrote:
> Twittering One wrote:
> > Thanks for your understanding Sue.
>
> Am trying to understand.
>
> I don't know whether CS is your primary abuser or one of your primary
> abusers "eager and foolish proxy pawns".
Interesting form of "abuse." He's offered to purchase Virginia a
ticket to anywhere *she* chooses to go get herself stronger, so she can
successfully deal with the issues she's set before herself to tackle.
Kitten
|
| |
Date: 18 Jun 2006 12:57:46
From: CommonSense1
Subject: Re: Abusers use of social or support group as an instrument of abuse
|
What is your problem, lady? Why do you want Virginia suffering and
homeless on the street? Do you get a kick out of trying to make
troubled persons' lives more troubled? You have a belt you notch if you
succeed in driving a deluded person deeper into his/her delusions?
Sue me for posting facts wrote:
> Twittering One wrote:
> > Thanks for your understanding Sue.
>
> Am trying to understand.
>
> I don't know whether CS is your primary abuser or one of your primary
> abusers "eager and foolish proxy pawns".
>
> Just know CS's mission on ASAD appears to be something Sam Vaknin calls
> "stealthy and ambient abuse" .
>
> To wit CS's mission on ASAD appears to be as follows:
>
> A) Disorient you
>
> "The abuser subverts the target's focus by disagreeing with her way of
> perceiving the world, her judgment, the facts of her existence, by
> criticizing her incessantly - and by offering plausible but specious
> alternatives. By constantly lying, he blurs the line between reality
> and nightmare"
>
>
> B) Misuse your personal info to coerce, manipulate, charm, extort or
> convert you (and/or third parties to CS's cause.).
>
>
> "From the first moments of an encounter with another person, the abuser
> is on the prowl. He collects information. The more he knows about his
> potential victim - the better able he is to coerce, manipulate, charm,
> extort or convert it "to the cause". The abuser does not hesitate to
> misuse the information he gleans, regardless of its intimate nature or
> the circumstances in which he obtained it. This is a powerful tool in
> his armory."
>
> C) Control you by Proxy
>
>
> "If all else fails, the abuser recruits friends, colleagues, mates,
> family members, the authorities, institutions, neighbours, the media,
> teachers - in short, third parties - to do his bidding. He uses them to
> cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, offer, retreat, tempt, convince,
> harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate his target. He controls
> these unaware instruments exactly as he plans to control his ultimate
> prey. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he dumps his
> props unceremoniously when the job is done."
>
> D) Make your longtime support and social groups an instrument of ABUSE.
>
>
> "Another form of control by proxy is to engineer situations in which
> abuse is inflicted upon another person. Such carefully crafted
> scenarios of embarrassment and humiliation provoke social sanctions
> (condemnation, opprobrium, or even physical punishment) against the
> victim. Society, or a social group become the instruments of the
> abuser."
>
> Excerpts from What is ambient or stealth abuse? by Sam Vaknin
> http://www.faqfarm.com/Q/What_is_ambient_or_stealth_abuse
>
> IMO---It's best for Abused/Traumatized people to discuss the details of
> their abuse/trauma when, where, and with whom it's emotionally safe
> for them to do so.
>
> Have you ever heard of a schools of psychology such as transactional
> or personal psychology?
>
> They are both gaining favor over the authoritarian, coercive
> psychiatry you appear to have been victimized by.
>
> Perhaps, if you contacted the Network Against Coercive
> Psychiatry---they can provide you the name of humanistic therapists
> whose therapy is founded on tenets of transactional or personal
> psychology.
>
> NACP's headquarters is in New York City.
>
>
> Network Against Coercive Psychiatry
> 172 West 79th Street, #2E
> New York, NY 10024
> 212/560-7288
>
>
> Board of AdvisorsNetwork Against Coercive Psychiatry
>
>
> * Stanley Aronowitz, Ph. D. * Peter Breggin, M. D. * Judi Chamberlain *
>
> Phyllis Chesler, Ph. D. * Ramsey Clark * George Ebert * Leonard Frank *
>
> Kenneth Gergen, Ph. D. * Jay Haley * James Hillman, Ph. D. * Jill
> Johnston * Ken Kesey * Rev. David Kossey * Cloe Madanes * Jeffrey
> Masson, Ph. D. * James Mancuso, Ph. D. * Kate Millett, Ph. D. *
> Kirkpatrick Sale * Dorothy Tennov, Ph. D. * Eileen Walkenstein, M. D. *
>
> John Weakland * Monty Zimmer, Ph. D. * Lynn Zimmer, Ph. D. * Kyle
> Christensen * Sandra Everett * Seth Farber, Ph. D. * Ronald Leifer, M.
> D. * Susan Thornton-Smith *
|
| |
Date: 18 Jun 2006 12:23:51
From: Sue me for posting facts
Subject: Re: Abusers use of social or support group as an instrument of abuse
|
Twittering One wrote:
> Thanks for your understanding Sue.
Am trying to understand.
I don't know whether CS is your primary abuser or one of your primary
abusers "eager and foolish proxy pawns".
Just know CS's mission on ASAD appears to be something Sam Vaknin calls
"stealthy and ambient abuse" .
To wit CS's mission on ASAD appears to be as follows:
A) Disorient you
"The abuser subverts the target's focus by disagreeing with her way of
perceiving the world, her judgment, the facts of her existence, by
criticizing her incessantly - and by offering plausible but specious
alternatives. By constantly lying, he blurs the line between reality
and nightmare"
B) Misuse your personal info to coerce, manipulate, charm, extort or
convert you (and/or third parties to CS's cause.).
"From the first moments of an encounter with another person, the abuser
is on the prowl. He collects information. The more he knows about his
potential victim - the better able he is to coerce, manipulate, charm,
extort or convert it "to the cause". The abuser does not hesitate to
misuse the information he gleans, regardless of its intimate nature or
the circumstances in which he obtained it. This is a powerful tool in
his armory."
C) Control you by Proxy
"If all else fails, the abuser recruits friends, colleagues, mates,
family members, the authorities, institutions, neighbours, the media,
teachers - in short, third parties - to do his bidding. He uses them to
cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, offer, retreat, tempt, convince,
harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate his target. He controls
these unaware instruments exactly as he plans to control his ultimate
prey. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he dumps his
props unceremoniously when the job is done."
D) Make your longtime support and social groups an instrument of ABUSE.
"Another form of control by proxy is to engineer situations in which
abuse is inflicted upon another person. Such carefully crafted
scenarios of embarrassment and humiliation provoke social sanctions
(condemnation, opprobrium, or even physical punishment) against the
victim. Society, or a social group become the instruments of the
abuser."
Excerpts from What is ambient or stealth abuse? by Sam Vaknin
http://www.faqfarm.com/Q/What_is_ambient_or_stealth_abuse
IMO---It's best for Abused/Traumatized people to discuss the details of
their abuse/trauma when, where, and with whom it's emotionally safe
for them to do so.
Have you ever heard of a schools of psychology such as transactional
or personal psychology?
They are both gaining favor over the authoritarian, coercive
psychiatry you appear to have been victimized by.
Perhaps, if you contacted the Network Against Coercive
Psychiatry---they can provide you the name of humanistic therapists
whose therapy is founded on tenets of transactional or personal
psychology.
NACP's headquarters is in New York City.
Network Against Coercive Psychiatry
172 West 79th Street, #2E
New York, NY 10024
212/560-7288
Board of AdvisorsNetwork Against Coercive Psychiatry
* Stanley Aronowitz, Ph. D. * Peter Breggin, M. D. * Judi Chamberlain *
Phyllis Chesler, Ph. D. * Ramsey Clark * George Ebert * Leonard Frank *
Kenneth Gergen, Ph. D. * Jay Haley * James Hillman, Ph. D. * Jill
Johnston * Ken Kesey * Rev. David Kossey * Cloe Madanes * Jeffrey
Masson, Ph. D. * James Mancuso, Ph. D. * Kate Millett, Ph. D. *
Kirkpatrick Sale * Dorothy Tennov, Ph. D. * Eileen Walkenstein, M. D. *
John Weakland * Monty Zimmer, Ph. D. * Lynn Zimmer, Ph. D. * Kyle
Christensen * Sandra Everett * Seth Farber, Ph. D. * Ronald Leifer, M.
D. * Susan Thornton-Smith *
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Date: 19 Jun 2006 09:44:04
From: Twittering One
Subject: Re: Anne Bernays & Coercive Engineering of Public Opinion
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The courts are stacked, eg, NOT
An even Playing Ground.
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