Coercive "therapy"

[Anne Bonney]

Pretty simple thread title, huh?  What it is and why it's bad.  Post away, I'll start.

I know it's long, but it's worth the time.

http://www.culthelp.info/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=12

Thought Reform Programs and the Production of Psychiatric Casualties

by Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph. D., and Richard Ofshe, Ph. D.

Psychiatric Annals 20:4

April, 1990

The term Athought reform@ was introduced into the psychiatric literature by Lifton and the term Acoercive persuasion@' by Schein. Both described the organized Aideological remolding@ programs introduced by the Chinese Communists after their 1949 takeover. Thought reform programs were used in the Arevolutionary universities,@ other educational settings, and prison environments. Lifton, Schein, and other authors wrote about psychological effects in military and civilian prisoners. as well as in individuals exposed to thought reform programs in non-prison settings. These authors called attention to the manipulation processes that had been organized into effective psychological and social influence programs aimed at changing the political beliefs of individuals.

As early as 1929, Mao Tse-tung was waging a Athought struggle@ to achieve unity and discipline in the Chinese Communist Party. Following the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, hundreds or thousands were exposed to thought reform programs to achieve Aideological remolding.@ AGroup struggle sessions@ convinced individuals to denounce their past political views and to adopt the new state-approved political outlook.

Neither mysterious methods nor arcane new techniques were involved; the effectiveness of thought reform programs did not depend on prison settings, physical abuse, or death threats. Programs used the organization and application of intense guilt/shame/anxiety manipulation, combined with the production of strong emotional arousal in settings where people did not leave because of social and psychological pressures or because of enforced confinement. The pressures could be reduced only by participants' accepting the belief system or adopting behaviors promulgated by the purveyors of the thought reform programs.

http://www.culthelp.info/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=12

Coercive Persuasion and Attitude Change

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 andSinger 1986). The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are

    * (1) the reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self
    * to promote compliance,
    * (2) the use of an organized peer group,
    * (3)applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity, and
    * (4) 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 indoctrinate 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-indoctrination settings (Dornbush 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:

    * (1) control of communication,
    * (2) emotional and behavioral manipulation,
    * (3) demands for absolute conformity to behavior prescriptions derived from the ideology,
    * (4) obsessive demands for confession,
    * (5) agreement that the ideology is faultless,
    * (6) manipulation of language in which cliches substitute for analytic thought,
    * (7) reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of doctrine,and
    * ( 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,iff 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 reindoctrination 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 (Bider- man 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 resistence 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).

[Anne Bonney]

http://www1.nmha.org/children/justjuv/bootcamp.cfm


 Juvenile Boot Camps

What are juvenile boot camps?

Juvenile boot camps are correctional programs for delinquent youth in a military-style environment. These programs typically emphasize discipline and physical conditioning and were developed as a rigorous alternative to longer terms of confinement in juvenile correctional facilities. Many, but not all, of these programs are followed by a period of probation or some form of aftercare. Boot camps are generally restricted to non-violent or first-time offenders.

Are boot camps effective?

    * Boot camps do not reduce recidivism. Numerous studies of adult and juvenile boot camps have shown that graduates do no better in terms of recidivism than offenders who were incarcerated or, in some cases, than those sentenced to regular probation supervision. In fact, some researchers have found that boot camp graduates are more likely to be re-arrested or are re-arrested more quickly than other offenders.

    * Boot camps may not be cost effective. Although some boot camps enable jurisdictions to save money because youth serve shorter sentences, others have found that the extra costs of operating boot camps outweigh the benefits. For example, boot camps tend to be more labor intensive and more expensive to operate. If youth are sentenced to a boot camp when they could have been placed in probation or a community-based program, jurisdictions are actually losing money.

    * Experts agree that a confrontational approach is not appropriate. Most correctional and military experts agree that a confrontational model, employing tactics of intimidation and humiliation, is counterproductive for most youth in the juvenile justice system. The use of this kind of model has led to disturbing incidents of abuse. For youth of color (who represent the vast majority of the juveniles sentenced to boot camps)-as well as for youth with emotional, behavioral, or learning problems-degrading tactics may be particularly inappropriate and potentially damaging. The bullying style and aggressive interactions that characterize the boot camp environment fail to model the pro-social behavior and development of empathy that these youth really need to learn.

    * Positive changes demonstrated while in the program may not last when a youth returns to his community. Many adult and juvenile offenders sentenced to boot camps report that the program is helpful to them and they feel more positive about their futures. It is unclear, however, whether these attitudinal changes persist after youth leave the boot camp, or whether they are related to actual changes in behavior once a youth returns to his community. Without significant therapeutic intervention while in the program, as well as specialized aftercare following release, boot camp programs have been consistently unsuccessful in "rehabilitating" juvenile or adult offenders.

    * Boot camps are not a "quick fix." Most boot camps have high drop-out rates (as many as half fail to graduate in some programs), and staff in at least one juvenile program have expressed concern that too many youth lack the maturity and self-control to succeed in a military-style program. After leaving boot camp, youth are not prepared for productive lives in their communities. The Office of Justice Programs of the U.S. Department of Justice has suggested that, for boot camps to be effective, they must incorporate a full range of rehabilitative services and programs, including education, substance abuse treatment, individualized case management, and mental health care. Clearly, the idea of "shock incarceration" as a tough, low-cost alternative to more intensive juvenile justice programming has not been borne out by our 15 years of experience with boot camps across the country.

What is the alternative?

Youth who are involved with the juvenile justice system require an individualized approach that takes their strengths and needs into account. Programs and policies should be family-centered, including the family in all decision making about a child, as well as culturally and developmentally appropriate. Research has shown that small, community-based programs are more effective and less costly than correctional institutions, for the majority of children who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Rather than removing children from their families and communities, which only increases their difficulties and sense of marginalization, most youth can be managed in their communities while they receive a full range of rehabilitative services, including mental health and substance abuse treatment.

Borque, B., Han, M., & Hill, S. (1996). A National Survey of Aftercare Provisions for Boot Camp Graduates. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

Bottcher, J., & Isorena, T. (1995). First-year evaluation of the California Youth Authority Boot Camp. In D. MacKenzie & E. Herbert (Eds.), Correctional Boot Camps: A Tough Intermediate Sanction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

MacKenzie, D., & Souryal, C. (1994). Multi-site Evaluation of Shock Incarceration. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.

Peters, M., Thomas, D., & Zamberlan, C. (1997). Boot Camps for Juvenile Offenders Program Summary. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

[Deborah]

Psychotherapy Cults

From the Report of the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control
In the section on Psychotherapy Cults:

In these legal cases, defendants were charged with extreme departures from the standards of psychology, the standards of medicine, and the standards of psychotherapeutic care. The State alleged that the staff, while purporting to be providing psychotherapy:

*instituted and participated in a systematic social influence process and an enforced dependency situation which fits the recognized criteria of cult brainwashing or coercive persuasion. Respondent and his co-therapists initially created a sense of powerlessness in their purported patients by stripping them of social support (friendship, kinship, ordinary environment, central occupational roles, wealth) and psychological confidence (through ridicule and creating states of physical exhaustion) and then enforced massive new learning demands through a reward/punishment mechanism (including threatened loss of status, anxiety and guilt manipulations and physical punishment, as well as sexual harassment). Learning demands included financial manipulations to respondents' benefit in the context of the alleged victims being in a particularly weakened and susceptible state due to their perceived psychological problems.
Sound familiar?

*Respondent, in order to break down and control Center members, utilized racial, religious and ethnic slurs, physical and verbal humiliation, physical, especially sexual, abuse, threats of insanity and violence and enforced states of physical and mental exhaustion as more particularly alleged herein below.
~~

Look at the chart about 3/4 down the page. The definition of Controlling/Destructive Methods of Influence, perfectly describes programs, and is the most damaging (unethical) method:
- Isolation from social supports
- Selective reward/punishment
- Denigration of self and of critical thinking
- Dissociative states to suppress doubt and critical thinking
- Alternation of harshness/threats and leniency/love
- Control oriented guilt induction
- Active promotion of dependency
- Debilitation
- Physical restraint/punishment
- Pressured public confessions
Does that describe programs to a T, or what?
~~

Recommendation. Because of the sometimes grave consequences of unethical application of deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control, psychologists ought to direct more attention to educating the public about such techniques.

Discussion. This area offers a unique opportunity for those interested in prevention. All too often the harms from which we seek to protect young people (e.g., drugs, teenage pregnancy, delinquency) are actively pursued by the young persons we hope to help.

Young people, however, do not seek to be manipulated and deceived. They may long for an easy way to fulfill painful needs. But, except perhaps in certain pathological cases, they do not want to be the objects of "mind games." Therefore, preventive efforts aimed at teaching them how "mind games" work may have much potential.

Recommendation. Because the increasing quantity of litigation related to adverse consequences of deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control poses a potential threat to consumers and ethical psychologists, the American Psychological Association ought to consider advocating stricter regulations regarding nonprofessionally run programs that seek to change behavior through the systematic application of deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control.

Discussion. Psychology obviously cannot exercise a monopoly over the use of psychological techniques, no more than physicians can exercise a monopoly over the intake of food. Nevertheless, we are obligated to speak out about abuses. And we are obligated to at least study the possibility of advocating regulations when purportedly non-psychological programs systematically use specialized psychological techniques in ways that make ethical psychologists blanch.

~~
There's a section on LGATs at well.http://www.rickross.com/reference/apolo ... ist23.html

[Nihilanthic]

We need this stickied.

[Anne Bonney]

I think that's what most of this boils down to.  We can all go back and forth about what's considered abuse and what's not but it comes down to the basics of what they "do" and how they do it.


This is about an hour long, not necessarily teen industry related but a good example of how quickly someone can succumb to mind and thought control.

http://www.culthelp.info/index.php?opti ... emid=12url

[Anne Bonney]

http://www.ex-cult.org/General/singer-conditions


CONDITIONS FOR MIND CONTROL
DR. MARGARET SINGER

(Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D., Emeritus Prof. of Psychology, Univ. of CA,
Berkeley)

THOUGHT REFORM = LANGUAGE + SOCIAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCE

In a thought reform program:
     the self concept is destabilized
     the group/leaders attack one's evaluation of self

SELF:     2 Elements in one's self-concept

     Peripheral Sense:  adequacy of public &  judgmental aspects, social
       status, role performance, conformity to social norms

     Central Sense of Self:  adequacy of intimate life, confidence in
       perception of reality, relations w/family, goals, sexual
       experiences, traumatic life events, religious beliefs, basic
       consciousness and emotional control

     When you attack a person's self-concept, aversive emotional
     arousal is created

6 CONDITIONS THAT NEED TO BE PRESENT IN ORDER TO CONSTITUTE MIND
CONTROL:

1.   CONTROL OVER TIME
     Especially thinking time
     Use techniques to get a person to think about:
          . the group
          . beliefs of the group
     as much of their waking time as possible

2.   CREATE A SENSE OF POWERLESSNESS
     Get people away from normal support systems for a period of time
     Provide models of behavior (cult members)
     Use in-group language
     Use of songs, games, stories the person is unfamiliar with or they are
       modified so that they're unfamiliar
     New people tend to want to be like others (acceptance, feeling part
       of a group)

3.   MANIPULATE REWARDS, PUNISHMENTS, EXPERIENCES IN ORDER TO
     SUPPRESS OLD SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
     Manipulate:  social rewards
                  intellectual rewards
     REWARDS: support positive self-concept for conformity to new
              thought system
     PUNISHMENTS:   attack person's self-concept  for non-conformity

     Effects of behavioral modification (reward/punishment):
          DEPLOYABLE AGENT:
     1.   accept a particular world view
          2.   procedures for peer monitoring w/feedback to group
          3.   psychological, social & material sanctions to influence the
               target's behavior

          When there is control of external feedback, the group becomes the
          only source
     -- there are no reality checks

          BEHAVIORS REWARDED:  participation, conformity to ideas/behavior,
            zeal, personal changes

     BEHAVIORS PUNISHED:    criticalness, independent thinking,
       non-conformity to ideas/behavior

     PUNISHMENTS:   peer/group criticism, withdrawal of support/affection,
       isolation, negative feedback

          THE PERSON IS DEPENDENT UPON THE GROUP FOR EXTERNAL
          VALIDATION OF SOCIAL IDENTITY

          RESULTS:  confusion, disorientation, psychological disturbances

          Manipulate experience:
               altered states of consciousness (trance)
               hypnosis
          Hypnosis: (see Ericksonian hypnosis)
               speaking patterns
               guided imagery
               pacing of voice to breathing patterns
               parables, stories with imbedded messages
               repetition
               boredom
               stop paying attention to distractions, focus
                    inwardly to what's going on inside you
               the use of one's voice to get people's attention
                    focused
          Chanting, Meditation
          Teach thought-stopping techniques
          Work them up emotionally to a negative state:
               re-experience past painful events
               recall negative actions/sin in past life
          Then rescue them from negative emotion by giving them a new
               way to live

4.   MANIPULATE REWARDS, PUNISHMENTS, EXPERIENCES IN ORDER TO
     ELICIT NEW BEHAVIOR
     Models will demonstrate new behavior
     Conformity: dress, language, behavior
     Using group language will eventually still the thinking mind

5.   MUST BE A TIGHTLY CONTROLLED SYSTEM OF LOGIC
     No complaints from the floor
     Pyramid shaped operation with leader at the top
     Top leaders must maintain absolute control/authority
     Persons in charge must have verbal ways of never losing
     Anyone who questions is made to think there is something
          inherently wrong with them to even question
     Phobia induction:
          something bad will happen if you leave the group
          if you leave this group, you're leaving God
     Guilt manipulation

6.   PERSONS BEING THOUGHT REFORMED MUST BE UNAWARE THAT THEY
     ARE BEING MOVED THROUGH A PROGRAM TO MAKE THEM DEPLOYABLE
     AGENTS, TO BUY MORE COURSES, SIGN UP FOR THE DURATION, ETC.

     You can't be thought reformed with full capacity, informed
          consent
     You don't know the agenda of the group at the beginning or the
          full content of the ideology

THOUGHT REFORM SYSTEM:
     Coordinated programs of coercive influence and behavior
               control
     Use of pop psychology techniques found in sensitivity training
          and encounters groups

2nd Generation Thought Reform Systems  (attacks on central elements of
                                        self):
     1.   enlist recruit's cooperation, offer something they want (personal
          growth, salvation, etc.)
     2.   obtain psychological dominace by making the target's continuing
          relations contingent upon continuing membership
     3.   use seduction by developing bonds and encouraging targets to
          believe the group can provide something
     4.   develop dependency by direct social pressure to influence a
          decision that the group has special power or knowledge or
          can solve a problem; the people in the group are made to seem
          interested in what is best for the target -- then they "up
          the commitment level"
     5.   shift the target's social and emotional attachments to individuals
          who have already accepted high commitment and are conforming to
          the behavior

WHILE

          decreasing the target's outside relationships
     6.   increase the CHANGES in the target's:
          income
          employment
          personal friends/social life
          finances
          sexuality
          THIS INCREASES THE THREAT TO THE PERSON IF THEY WANT TO
          LEAVE
          THREATS:  ARE TO THE INDIVIDUAL'S
                    stability of identity
                    emotional well-being

     7.   the community standards become the ONLY standards available for
          self-evaluation

CULTS AND CULTIC RELATIONSHIPS

CULT -  the political and power STRUCTURE of a group
CULTIC RELATIONSHIP - those relationships in which a person intentionally
induces others to become totally or nearly  totally dependent on him/her for
almost all major life decisions and inculcates in these followers a belief
that he has some special talent, gift or knowledge

PRIMARY IN OUR DISCUSSION OF CULTS IS THE PRACTICE AND CONDUCT OF
THE GROUP, NOT ITS BELIEFS

Further references:
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.  Robert J. Lifton, M.D.,
University of N.C., Chapel Hill, 1989  Chapter 22

"Attacks on Peripheral versus Central Elements of Self and the Impact of
Thought Reforming Techniques" Richard Ofshe and Margaret T. Singer, The Cultic
Studies Journal, Vol. 3 #1, Spring/Summer 1986; American Family Foundation, P.O. Box
1232, Gracie Station, New York, NY 10028  (212) 533-0538

"The Utilization of Hypnotic Techniques in Religious Conversion" Jesse S.
Miller, The Cultic Studies Journal,Vol. 3 #2, Fall/Winter 1986

Recovery from Cults.  ed. Michael Langone, Ph.D., W.W. Norton, 1994

[Anne Bonney]

http://www.ex-cult.org/bite.html

IV. Emotional Control

1. Manipulate and narrow the range of a person?s feelings.

2. Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader?s or the group?s.

3. Excessive use of guilt

      a. Identity guilt

            1. Who you are (not living up to your potential)
            2. Your family
            3. Your past
            4. Your affiliations
            5. Your thoughts, feelings, actions

      b. Social guilt
      c. Historical guilt

4. Excessive use of fear

      a. Fear of thinking independently
      b. Fear of the "outside" world
      c. Fear of enemies
      d. Fear of losing one?s "salvation"
      e. Fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group
      f. Fear of disapproval

5. Extremes of emotional highs and lows.

6. Ritual and often public confession of "sins".

7. Phobia indoctrination : programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader?s authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.

      a. No happiness or fulfillment "outside"of the group
      b. Terrible consequences will take place if you leave: "hell"; "demon possession"; "incurable diseases"; "accidents"; "suicide"; "insanity"; "10,000 reincarnations"; etc.
      c. Shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family.
      d. Never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group?s perspective, people who leave are: "weak"; "undisciplined"; "unspiritual"; "worldly"; "brainwashed by family, counselors"; seduced by money, sex, rock and roll.

[Anne Bonney]

Anyone ever see the movie "Freeway" with Reese Witherspoon and Keifer Sutherland?  It's on now.  "Bob" (the I-95 killer) picks up "Vanessa" (the runaway) and begins to talk to her.  He says he's a "counselor".  He comforts her, consoles her.  He gets her to divulge that she's been molested, arrested, has a crackwhore mom...he's so sympathetic.  She finally feels like she's found someone who understands, someone who will listen, someone she can 'be herself with'.  Then the fun begins.  

Reminds me of the fucks that run these places

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116361/.

Little Red Riding Hood for the 1990's: After her mom and step-dad are arrested, 15-year-old Vanessa Lutz decides that instead of once again being put into a foster home, she'd rather go and search for the grandmother she's never met, and live with her. "On the way to grandma's house," (actually a trailer park) Vanessa's car breaks down, and she's picked up from the side of the road by Bob Wolverton, a counselor at a school for troubled boys. Bob slowly earns Vanessa's trust, and eventually convinces her to talk about her sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. When Vanessa realizes that Bob is enjoying what she's saying, she realizes that he's "The I-5 Killer," from the news. She tries to get out of his truck, but the inside door handle has been removed...

[Anonymous]

Them kids dont know whats good for them!1 Some kids need a wake up call before things get out of control!!! Suicide, drugs, sex, ecstacy, drunk driving , do you think life is safer than a program???
You all live in a fantasy world where kids want to get help and dont die on the street from drugs and alcohol.!!!

[Anonymous]

[troll8]

[Nihilanthic]

Them kids dont know whats good for them!1 Some kids need a wake up call before things get out of control!!! Suicide, drugs, sex, ecstacy, drunk driving , do you think life is safer than a program???
You all live in a fantasy world where kids want to get help and dont die on the street from drugs and alcohol.!!!

Months of "do as we say, disclose your feelings, or we will keep hurting and degrading you" is a wake up call, how, exactly?

It doesn't teach anything except a desire to not be caught.

Dumbass.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't teach anything except a desire to not be caught.

Dumbass.

And that's why the kids don't keep doing bad things no more!!! You got it finally I am proud of you!!!!!

Gaylord.  :roll:

[hanzomon4]

Great thread Anne, This is what is so difficult to get across to parents(and vets). It's hard to explain the mental abuse and maybe harder for those of use who didn't experience it to understand.

I think that's what most of this boils down to. We can all go back and forth about what's considered abuse and what's not but it comes down to the basics of what they "do" and how they do it.

You hit it right on the head......

[Nihilanthic]

It doesn't teach anything except a desire to not be caught.

Dumbass.

And that's why the kids don't keep doing bad things no more!!! You got it finally I am proud of you!!!!!

Gaylord.  :roll:

Not wanting to do something vs not wanting to be CAUGHT doing something is a pretty fucking big distinction.

[Charly]

It's not just as DESIRE not to get caught, but an appreciation of the CONSEQUENCES of getting caught.  I think it is an important lesson.
When you are in a regular boarding school, of course you might want to drink in the dorm.  You also might think you can do it without getting caught.  The important thing to learn is that the consequences of getting caught are not worth doing it, even though you want to.  It never mattered to me that my son WANTED to drink, drive the cars without a license or skip school, what mattered to me was that he couldn't appreciate the consequences of these actions.