1974 U.S. Senate report on Behavior Modification (The Seed)

[Anne Bonney]

It's actually titled "Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification", which is why I'm posting it here instead of strictly in the Straight forum.  But I can't get the second part of the image to load, so go to the link to see the other side of the report.

http://thestraights.net/images/seed-Ervin-brainwash.htm

[none-ya]

And it all came from there. We were treated like prisoners. we were prisoners. Worse than jail. Just so those bastards could make money.

[Ursus]

And it all came from there. We were treated like prisoners. we were prisoners. Worse than jail. Just so those bastards could make money.

That you were.

The Seed used a hybrid of a few peer-based "group therapies" to enact its evil deeds, notably one called Guided Group Interaction. GGI was initially used as a means of behavior modification of adult male prisoners in New Jersey right after World War II. Shortly thereafter, in 1950, that usage was expanded to a facility for the treatment of juvenile delinquents.

GGI was originally based on TC-modalities used in military prisons during WW II.

[Anne Bonney]

And it all came from there. We were treated like prisoners. we were prisoners. Worse than jail. Just so those bastards could make money.

Yup.  And Newton is still trying.  

That report just blows my mind though.  It really does.  How in the fuck did anyone consider this to be any form of "treatment" for children???

[Ursus]

Here's where you can download the entire doc excerpted in the OP. Some more info about the doc from the PORTAL page:

Title: Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification; A Study Prepared by the Staff of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session.

Full-Text Availability Options: ERIC Full Text (23813K)

Authors: N/A

Descriptors: Behavior Modification; Behavioral Objectives; Behavioral Science Research; Civil Liberties; Government Publications; Government Role; Role Perception; Technological Advancement

Source: N/A

Peer-Reviewed: N/A

Publisher: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 (Stock No. 5270-02620, $5.35)

Publication Date: 1974-11-00

Pages: 655

Pub Types: Legal/Legislative/Regulatory Materials

Abstract: This report responds to a directive issued to the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights to conduct an investigation into behavior modification programs, with particular emphasis on the federal government's involvement in the technology of behavior control and the implications of this involvement for individual rights. Two basic considerations motivated the investigation: first, the concern that the rights of human subjects of behavioral research are sufficiently protected by adequate guidelines and review structures; and second, the question of whether the federal government has any business participating in programs that may alter the substance of individual freedom. Although the material included in this report is by no means comprehensive, some initial findings are apparent: (1) there is widespread and growing interest in the development of methods designed to predict, identify, control, and modify individual behavior; (2) few measures are being taken to resolve questions of freedom, privacy, and self-determination; (3) the Federal government is heavily involved in a variety of behavior modification programs ranging from simple reinforcement techniques to psychosurgery; and (4) a number of departments and agencies fund, participate in, or sanction research involving various aspects of behavior modification. (Author/PC)

Abstractor: N/A

Reference Count: 0[/list][/size]

[Anne Bonney]

I knew I could count on you, ya big ol' bear.

[Ursus]

Here's another LINK from scribd.com for on-line viewing. Be forewarned: it's 656 pages long. I wouldn't recommend trying to access this page via your cellphone, with an ancient browser, or from a dial-up internet connection.

[Awake]

Great info, thanks for posting, and giving me the urge to take all my chipped dishware outside and smash them with a bat.

If I can make a few connections from the study, sensitivity training (or human relations training) is the core influence behind the ‘encounter sessions’. And the quote from Schein describes the ‘Unfreezing’ phase of Kurt Lewins change process. Compare Scheins quote to lewin on Unfreezing.

Unfreezing. This was taken directly from Kurt Lewin’s change theory. It describes the process of disconfirming a person’s former belief system. ‘Motivation for change must be generated before change can occur. One must be helped to re-examine many cherished assumptions about oneself and one’s relations to others’ (op. cit.). Part of the process of the group, then, had to address this. Trainers sought to create an environment in which values and beliefs could be challenged.
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm

The first stage he called "unfreezing". It involved overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing "mind set". Defense mechanisms have to be bypassed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin

For ‘Unfreezing’ to occur Lewin describes “the ‘catharsis’ which seems to be necessary before prejudices can be removed. To break open the shell of complacency and self righteousness it is sometimes necessary to bring about deliberately an emotional stir-up.”  And “Sometimes the value system of this face to face group conflicts with the values of the larger cultural setting and it is necessary to separate the group from the larger setting….. The effectiveness of camps or workshops in changing ideology or conduct depends in part on the possibility of creating such “cultural islands” during change. The stronger the accepted subculture of the workshop and the more isolated it is the more it will minimize that type of resistance to change which is based on the relation between the individual and the standards of the larger group.”

And I am going to have to plug my thread Training Therapy or Thought Reform in the TTI for further comparison as it directly connects Schein’s coercive application of human relations training in management and re-applies for use in behavior modification facilities tied to the troubled teen industry. viewtopic.php?f=81&t=31447

All in all the evidence is pretty suggestive.

…added thanks to Ursus for the full text, which has the references.( BTW I would like to get my hands on the article from Scheins quote,- Man Against Man: Brainwashing,” Corrective Psychiatry and Journal of Social Thearapy, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1962,)- but I have searched and could not find a source. If anyone can provide a link, much appreciation.)

[heretik]

I had never read the report that Sam Ervin chaired. I have read the preface so far and that alone was a comprehensive undertaking they were asking of themselves. I wonder what everyone's opinion is, 36 years later.  
I do feel for you folks who endured this bullshit, what in gods name were they thinking. What is troubling to me is the level of distrust and judgment heaped onto individuals placed in these programs. It seems everyone entering
the Seed and Straight were first characterized as misfits with a skewed mind which needed transformation. WTF.
Where the hell was Sam Ervin in the late 70's and 80's??  Where are they now??
Makes you want to pick up arms and start some serious ??

Thanks to Anne and Ursus, great article.

[Awake]

Some may find this interesting related to this thread. As I was trying to find the article from Schein’s quote (Man agains Man: Brainwashing) I happened upon another article that it was quoted in that refers to the U.S. report in this original thread.  It is an article on behavior modification in Marion State Penitentiary called ‘Breaking Men's Minds: Behavior Control and Human Experimentation at the Federal Prison in Marion’.

(for this thread I am only posting the most relatable tidbit, but I found the full review to have very many incontrovertible similarities, well worth a look. viewtopic.php?f=81&t=31774  )

A HISTORY OF THIS BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION LABORATORY

At a Washington, DC conference in 1962 organized for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) by the National Institutes of Mental Health, Schein presented his ideas on brainwashing. Addressing the topic of ‘Man against Man’: Brainwashing, he stated:


In order to produce marked changes of behavior and/or attitude, it is necessary to weaken, undermine or remove the supports to the old patterns of behavior and the old attitudes. Because most of these supports are the face to-face confirmation of present behavior and attitudes, which are provided by those with whom close emotional ties exist, it is often necessary to break those emotional ties. This can be done either by removing the individual physically and preventing any communication with those whom he cares about, or by proving to him that those whom he respects aren't worthy of it and, indeed, should be actively mistrusted (quoted in Chorover 1979).


Dr. Schein then provided the group with a list of specific examples:


?Physical removal of prisoners from areas sufficiently isolated to effectively break or seriously weaken close emotional ties. ?Segregation of all natural leaders. ?Use of cooperative prisoners as leaders. ?Prohibition of group activities not in line with brainwashing objectives. ?Spying on prisoners and reporting back private material.  ?Tricking men into written statements which are then showed to others.  ?Exploitation of opportunists and informers.  ?Convincing prisoners that they can trust no one.  ?Treating those who are willing to collaborate in far more lenient ways than those who are not.  ?Punishing those who show uncooperative attitudes.  ?Systematic withholding of mail.  ?Preventing contact with anyone non-sympathetic to the method of treatment and regimen of the captive populace.  ?Disorganization of all group standards among prisoners. ?Building a group conviction among the prisoners that they have been abandoned by and totally isolated from their social order.  ?Undermining of all emotional supports. ?Preventing prisoners from writing home or to friend in the community regarding the conditions of their confinement. ?Making available and permitting access to only those publications and books that contain materials which are neutral to or supportive of the desired new attitudes.   ?Placing individuals into new and ambiguous situations for which the standards are kept deliberately unclear and then putting pressure on him to conform to what is desired in order to win favor and a reprieve from the pressure. ?Placing individuals whose willpower has been severely weakened or eroded into a living situation with several others who are more advanced in their thought-reform whose job it is to further undermine the individual's emotional supports. ?Using techniques of character invalidation, ie., humiliations, revilement, shouting, to induce feelings of guilt, fear, and suggestibility; coupled with sleeplessness, an exacting prison regimen and periodic interrogational interviews. ?Meeting all insincere attempts to comply with cellmates' pressures with renewed hostility. ?Renewed pointing out to the prisoner by cell mates of where he has in the past, or is in the present, not been living up to his own standards or values. ?Rewarding of submission and subserviency to the attitudes encompassing the brainwashing objective with a lifting of pressure and acceptance as a human being. ?Providing social and emotional supports which reinforce the new attitudes (ibid.).

And, of course, as noted in the introduction to this edition of the Journal, following Schein's address, then-director of the BOP, James V. Bennett, encouraged the administrators and wardens throughout the federal prison system to put Schein's techniques into practice. 'We can manipulate our environment and culture. We can perhaps undertake some of the techniques Dr. Schein discussed.... There's a lot of research to do. Do it as individuals. Do it as groups and let us know the results' (ibid.). (underlined for relatedness to this fornits thread)


…for more viewtopic.php?f=81&t=31774
Breaking Mens Minds : http://www.jpp.org/documents/forms/JPP4_2/Griffin.pdf

.

[Froderik]

And it all came from there. We were treated like prisoners. we were prisoners. Worse than jail. Just so those bastards could make money.

That you were.

The Seed used a hybrid of a few peer-based "group therapies" to enact its evil deeds, notably one called Guided Group Interaction. GGI was initially used as a means of behavior modification of adult male prisoners in New Jersey right after World War II. Shortly thereafter, in 1950, that usage was expanded to a facility for the treatment of juvenile delinquents.

GGI was originally based on TC-modalities used in military prisons during WW II.

Ursus, maybe you can help fill in the names here.. ?
So.. Straight cropped up out of The Seed, thanks to certain individuals (?) who have been named (if not on this thread then certainly on other threads on this forum over the years)...then if you trace back further, you get to Synanon...(so who was it from Synanon that started the Seed?) but trace back even further than Synanon and you get to (according to people I have spoken with) MKULTRA..(so who was it that was involved in MKULTRA that started The Seed)? Thanks in advance for any info you (or anyone) provide(s) on this.

[Ursus]

And it all came from there. We were treated like prisoners. we were prisoners. Worse than jail. Just so those bastards could make money.

That you were.

The Seed used a hybrid of a few peer-based "group therapies" to enact its evil deeds, notably one called Guided Group Interaction. GGI was initially used as a means of behavior modification of adult male prisoners in New Jersey right after World War II. Shortly thereafter, in 1950, that usage was expanded to a facility for the treatment of juvenile delinquents.

GGI was originally based on TC-modalities used in military prisons during WW II.

Ursus, maybe you can help fill in the names here.. ?
So.. Straight cropped up out of The Seed, thanks to certain individuals (?) who have been named (if not on this thread then certainly on other threads on this forum over the years)...then if you trace back further, you get to Synanon...(so who was it from Synanon that started the Seed?) but trace back even further than Synanon and you get to (according to people I have spoken with) MKULTRA..(so who was it that was involved in MKULTRA that started The Seed)? Thanks in advance for any info you (or anyone) provide(s) on this.

I've barely even touched MKULTRA yet. But I think that there's a misunderstanding harbored by many ... that presumes some sort of clean, distinctive line from Synanon to The Seed. I think there was certainly more than a little influence, but ... as to origins? Personally, at this point, I think one has to go back further. Earlier than MKULTRA even.

As far as some of those earlier programs for juveniles are concerned, it's my understanding that back in those "early days" of the 1950s through 70s, psychological coercion was considered essentially benign, with no lasting ill effects! Certainly nothing on the order of the physical brutality that went down in places like Marianna. Many folks believed they were actually doing a good and helpful thing.

[Ursus]

The person responsible for installing GGI and/or modalities similar to that (by that time there were more than a few spinoffs, including William Glasser's Reality Therapy) in the Florida Juvenile Justice system was Oliver Keller, who was courted for the job by "distinguished Tampa lawyer and former President of the Florida Senate and Member of the Florida House of Representatives" Louis de la Parte.

From what I've been able to discern thus far, there were two areas in particular that Keller placed a good deal of focus on: substituting peer-based "group therapy" for the physical brutalities that had gone on previously, and, relying more on smaller, community-based programs. Was Art Barker trying to capitalize on this change in the Florida juvenile justice scene?