Yeah. This is about par for the course.
The programs' specific attack on teen fundamental sense of self is on a child's fundamental "anchor" for seeing themselves as a Good Person: "My mommy loves me. My daddy loves me. I know I'm a good person because mommy and daddy love me."
By attacking the teen's sense of being loved by the parents before the teen has really grown up enough to replace their self-anchor with some more rational and solid base, they destabilize the teen's entire sense of self. The letter about what a great time the parents are having without the teen is a way of getting a statement that *feels like* "we don't love you when you don't measure up" to the teen without the parents necessarily understanding what function the letter serves in the mechanics of the program. Then the teen is willing to do anything to become a person mommy and daddy will love again---and the program presents the "program self" superimposed over the teen's authentic self as the person mommy and daddy will love---then delivers that "love" in carefully orchestrated visits--but only so long as the teen maintains the program self superimposed over the authentic self for the arbitrarily assigned period of time.
Okay, I get now exactly how they're doing it (the thought reform and superimposition of an implanted personality over the teen's real personality) in addition to the initial induction of Stockholm Syndrome.
Thank you very much for this article. It will help me a *lot* in the article I'm writing to help teens pro-actively program-proof themselves in case they happen to get sent off.
I'd already come up ways of dealing with most of the stuff the programs do, but this fundamental destabilization of the self---now that I see exactly how it's done, I see how to teach teens (and teach them just in a simple article) how to protect themselves in advance from the program's methodology, so that they can "fake good" without actually having their sense of self destabilized.
The "deliberate false confessions" technique mentioned by many Fornits participants is a good one.
Another good one is consciously replacing the "I'm a good person because mommy and daddy love me" or "I'm a good person because God loves me" with another purely internal anchor that the thought-reform techniques can't take away.
I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the kind of anchor is very similar to the sorts of anchors described in Victor Frankel's _Man's Search for Meaning_ (Frankel was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps and was a famous psychologist).
I'm not trying to be mysterious---it's going to take a little while for me to write up instructions for how to build a solid, meaningful anchor for the self that's flexible enough for the teen to be able to grow and change, but solid enough to be an effective bulwark against a thought-reform program.
I know how to do it, but I'm going to want to kick it around to try to find the best way to explain it.
The basic replacement anchor is:
"I'm a good person because I have a Code that I followed before and will follow again when I am no longer in a totally coercive situation. I will not change my code while I am in a coercive environment, because if the change the people in control of me wanted was a rational one, they wouldn't have to coerce me to try to make it. If their change were good and they were coercing me instead of explaining, that would make them stupid--which means their change is likely stupid even if they think it's good. If their change is bad, changing my code for theirs will not make me a better person. I may have to do things that are against my code here, or refrain from doing things my code requires. I held to my code, however imperfectly, before I got here, and I will hold to it after I leave. This is a situation of total coercion. Actions made in situations of total coercion by others are the moral fault of the controllers, not the controlled. I may change my code as a result of learning or reason or insights gained while I am free and not in a coercive situation. I will not make the horrible mistake of changing my code while I am in a situation of total coercion. I will not change my code at all until I am free again and have shaken off these coercions. My code may not be perfect, but I am a good person because I *have* a code, and when I am free I do and will follow my code. And when I am free, I may find ways to improve my code, but I will not change my code here. Changing my code in a coercive situation is like sailing on the high seas with no compass, no stars, and no rudder. I am a good person because I have a code."
What I need to do is take that and distill it down to a creed that an at-risk teen can memorize, but even if they don't memorize it perfectly, it should help.
Then I can list some codes different people have found good and appropriate.
It doesn't really matter *which* code a teen picks. It just matters that they pick one they can live with that makes moral sense to them, that it's a *simple* code that is unambiguous and that they can have memorized, that they never admit what it is to parents or to anyone in the program facility at all---NOBODY. Never write it in a diary where parents can see it. The code must be a complete secret until the teen's 18th birthday (or, if he doesn't get loose until after his 18th, until he is out the door and free).
It can be anything from the ten commandments to the four pillars to the golden rule to Galt's creed to *anything*---any of the basic, simple codes of honor or behavior that large numbers of humans have managed to live by honorably throughout human history. It can't be something as large and nebulous as the Koran or the Bible---it has to be small and simple but contain the seeds of the big ideas. And part of why it will work is because this anchor system admits that the code may be replaced by some other, better code---but that better code can only be chosen in an uncoerced place and time.
The true anchor is: "I am a good person because I have a Code."
Nobody can take that away from you if they don't know what your code is.
I can fit that in with other survival tips.
But I'm going to have to edit it down and cut out the excess verbiage.
Thank you. I think I can use what I learned from this article to help people.
Hopefully, anyway.
Timoclea
Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits.
--Dan Barker, author and former evangelist
