Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Yeah, I know.  I was excited too for a minute.  They're talking military boot camp though.  

http://tinyurl.com/2wz2lb

Drill sergeant faces 225 abuse charges

By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 29 minutes ago

SAN DIEGO - A Marine drill instructor has been charged with 225 criminal counts connected to abusing recruits, a Marines spokesman said Thursday.

In one incident, Sgt. Jerrod M. Glass allegedly ordered a recruit to jump head-first into a trash can and then pushed him further into the container, according to court documents cited in The San Diego Union-Tribune. He is also accused of striking recruits with a tent pole and a heavy flashlight.

Two other drill instructors, Sgt. Robert C. Hankins and Sgt. Brian M. Wendel, face special courts-martial in the case, the Marines said. Arraignment dates have not been scheduled for either Marine.

A fourth drill instructor, whose name was not released, was disciplined and reassigned to administrative duties.

Glass postponed making a plea during a court appearance at San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot, where he worked, said spokesman Austin Mansfield. The charges include 91 counts of assault, 90 of failure to obey lawful orders and 27 of cruelty and maltreatment.

The charges cover about 110 alleged incidents between Dec. 23, 2006 and Feb. 10, the Marines said in press release. No member of his platoon was seriously injured.

Glass, who had worked as a drill sergeant for less than a year when the alleged mistreatment occurred, was relieved of duty as a drill instructor in February. He is scheduled to go to court-martial Nov. 8.

In court Wednesday, Glass did not speak except to answer basic questions from the judge, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks. Defense lawyer Capt. Patrick J. Callahan asked that all counts be read aloud.

Callahan did not immediately respond to a phone message for comment Thursday.

About 17,000 recruits graduate each year from the San Diego depot. Newly enlisted Marines train there and at Parris Island, S.C.

Last year, four Marines at the San Diego depot were charged in the drowning of a fellow drill instructor during a water survival training course. Two were acquitted of wrongdoing in the case. Charges were dropped against a third Marine and a fourth received nonjudicial discipline.

Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge who teaches law of war at Georgetown University Law Center, estimates that on average about six drill instructors, or DIs, are charged nationwide each year with abusing recruits.

"These kids are helpless before DI's," Solis said. "The DI is God and they have no immediate recourse."

___

Associated Press writer Allison Hoffman contributed to this report.

I swear to god, I'm getting the hell outta Dodge as soon as is humanly possible.  This shit is has gotten so far out of hand.





http://www.townhall.com/news/sci-tech/2 ... ole_cities

Scientists Drug-Test Whole Cities
By SETH BORENSTEIN
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
 

Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city's sewer plant.

The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.

Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.

"It's a community urinalysis," said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven't gotten as far as the Oregon researchers.

One of the early results of the new study showed big differences in methamphetamine use city to city. One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities. Yet methamphetamine levels were virtually nonexistent in some smaller Midwestern locales, said Jennifer Field, the lead researcher and a professor of environmental toxicology at Oregon State.

The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine, Field said.

Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population, but Field declined to identify them, saying that could harm her relationship with the sewage plant operators.

She plans to start a survey for drugs in the wastewater of at least 40 Oregon communities.

The science behind the testing is simple. Nearly every drug _ legal and illicit _ that people take leaves the body. That waste goes into toilets and then into wastewater treatment plants.

"Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete," Field said.

In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water from each of the cities was tested for 15 different drugs. Field said researchers can't calculate how many people in a town are using drugs. continued...
 
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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... entnews-tv

'Kid Nation' parents: What were they thinking?
Some mothers respond to the critics condemning them for allowing their children to participate in the CBS show.
By Maria Elena Fernandez, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 17, 2007

For weeks, critics have been condemning the parents of the "Kid Nation" pioneers for allowing their children to be used by CBS and reality show producers. So The Times spoke to three of the mothers this week to learn about their children and to ask that burning question: What were you thinking?

Peggy, the mother of 12-year-old Laurel of Boston, who went to a casting call because she is interested in acting:

Like any parent, who wants to let their 12-year-old child be away from home for 40 days? It's kind of a scary thought, especially with cameras filming them. I really didn't think safety was a big concern.

They had all those bases covered. I was panicking that it was going to be a show to embarrass kids. We all have to send our kids back to school when this is over, so I didn't want her to have to return and deal with that. One day Laurel sat me down and said, "I know you're having a hard time with this, but if you don't let me go, it's something I'm going to regret for the rest of my life." And, honestly, after talking to everyone who was affiliated with the show, I was comfortable letting her go.

Suzanne, the mother of 10-year-old Zachary of Miami Beach, who is an only child:

He does live in what I call a sheltered environment. He goes to a small school. Most of the schoolmates and friends that he knows he's known almost his entire life. I thought that this was a good opportunity for Zachary to experience some independence and learn some self-reliance. And if he was able to do this, I thought that was a very good way for him to build confidence in himself.

I worry that in today's world kids don't realize things they might have to face in life that might be difficult because, I think, as baby boomers we tend to be very protective of them. And I want him to know that he has the capability to be out in the world and be independent and self-reliant.

Shari, the mother of 15-year-old Greg of Reno, the oldest citizen of Bonanza City:

When we spoke to them, I felt the integrity of the people we were dealing with was high. I felt that they believed in kids, something that I have believed in for a very long time -- that kids don't get the credit that they deserve. They also aren't allowed to fail in order to succeed. I knew Greg, and I was hoping he would have an opportunity to test his leadership skills. And that didn't mean that I felt he would be a success all of the time.

What I was hoping was that he would have an opportunity to fail and then succeed or succeed and fail, just to experience life. To see what it was like to meet people you haven't met, to try to come together, to have value in everybody, so that everybody could work together and realize that you can't do it all on your own.

OK, I'm just starting to hear trickles about the connection here, so my information is incomplete, BUT.....I'm finding some things that are definitely piquing my interest.

Google Sembler Cappelli (I don't want to put the long link here and I don't know how to condense it, someone else feel free) and see what comes up.  The first two hits look like they were someone's blog about it, but it's been removed suspiciously akin to Sue Scheff's removal of certain truths.

Let's start digging around.  Here is the deal with Cappelli.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/08/16/South ... rres.shtml

Rising GOP star arrested

    Angelo Cappelli is accused of theft from the estate of a deceased bank client.

By NICOLE HUTCHESON and AARON SHAROCKMAN, Times Staff Writers
Published August 16, 2007

Angelo Cappelli, 37, a prominent local Republican who lost a heated campaign to win a state House seat last year.

Capelli was arrested by St. Pete police and charged with first degree grand theft and perjury.
Breaking News Video

ST. PETERSBURG - Less than a year ago Angelo Cappelli was a hot newcomer on the local political scene, building key allies in his race for House District 52.

Cappelli narrowly lost the election, but his fundraising prowess, Ivy League pedigree and well-established banking job with SunTrust solidified his future with the local Republican Party.

That was until SunTrust began taking a closer look at paperwork coming from his office.

After a six-week investigation, police arrested Cappelli on Wednesday morning at his lawyer's office on Central Avenue. He faces grand theft and perjury charges, according to St. Petersburg authorities.

Cappelli, 37, is accused of stealing more than $100,000 from the trust of a deceased bank client. By Wednesday evening, Cappelli was out of jail on $55,000 bail. He could not be reached for comment.

"He was very emotional and provided the detectives with a complete confession to the crimes," said Bill Proffitt, a St. Petersburg Police Department spokesman.

Cappelli worked at the SunTrust Bank at 300 First Ave. S for the past four years as a wealth and investment adviser. He sold clients products but did not have direct access to their accounts.

So it was unusual when bank officials discovered that Cappelli had signed paperwork with the Pinellas County Circuit Court probate division regarding a deceased SunTrust client's will.

In those papers, Cappelli listed the estate of Mario Granata at $58,000, when Granata's trust was worth almost $160,000.

A bequest to charity

Granata, 83, died in February and had no spouse or children. Granata's will allocated all his assets at the time of his death to the Pinellas County Community Foundation, a charitable organization based in Clearwater.

In June, Cappelli delivered a $45,353 check to the foundation.

"When the check was delivered, I had no reason to think anything was wrong," said Julie Scales, executive director of the foundation.

Cappelli then committed five different fraudulent transfers taking a total of $110,500 from Granata's estate account, according to police. He put the money into an account he opened at Mercantile Bank in St. Petersburg named the "Y Club of Tampa Bay c/o Community Foundation."

Cappelli paid personal credit card bills with some of the money.

He also conducted another fraudulent transaction in which he paid $4,489 to St. John's Insurance Co., which provided his homeowner's insurance, police said.

Nephew saw problem

The transactions went largely unnoticed until a distant nephew of Granata's came to St. Petersburg to clean out his deceased uncle's apartment. He found a will and bank account statements. He phoned Granata's attorney, Cynthia Orozco.

The court documents "alerted me that something was going on," said Orozco, an estate planning lawyer in St. Petersburg who drafted Granata's will in 1998. "It was unusual that Mr. Cappelli signed in those capacities. That's something that the lawyer's office was supposed to do."

SunTrust officials launched an investigation and relieved Cappelli of his duties in late June. St. Petersburg police got involved shortly after.

Strong resume

Cappelli graduated from Yale and Fordham universities where he earned both a law degree and a master's of business administration. Prior to his recent troubles, his resume listed service on the boards of St. Anthony's Hospital, the Arts Center of St. Petersburg and the Police Athletic League.

Well-known developer Mel Sembler and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker supported his run against Democrat Bill Heller for House District 52. Cappelli ended up raising $160,000 more than Heller but lost the race in a difficult election year for most Republicans across the state.

Finances turned grim

Cappelli's personal financial picture became increasingly grim in the last several months. Details of his money problems are sketchy, but authorities said Cappelli had been complaining to co-workers about financial hardships.

In July 2006, Cappelli and his wife, Michelle, took out a loan with SunTrust bank for $880,000 and began building an almost 3,700-square-foot home in the Placido Bayou area of St. Petersburg, according to records. It was an adjustable rate mortgage.

Shortly after his dismissal at the bank, Cappelli reimbursed the loss - $114,989 - to SunTrust Bank, according to police reports. The bank then gave all the funds to the foundation.

Mayor Baker said Wednesday that the judicial process has to play out before deciding whether he's guilty or not.

"I'm saddened by the news," he said.

Nicole Hutcheson can be reached at [email protected] or (727) 892-2273. Times news researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

[Last modified August 15, 2007, 22:33:36]

Story

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5044317.html

2 accused of dragging girl behind van at boot camp

Associated Press

BANQUETE — Arrest warrants have been issued for two officials at a Christian boot camp accused of dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van after she fell behind the group during a morning run, authorities said.

Charles Eugene Flowers and Stephanie Bassitt of San Antonio-based Love Demonstrated Ministries, a 32-day boot camp, are facing aggravated assault charges for the alleged June 12 incident.

The two were accused of tying the girl to the van with a rope then dragging her, according to an arrest affidavit filed Wednesday by the Nueces County Sheriff's Department. Arrest affidavits for Flowers and Bassitt list a $100,000 bond.

A call to Love Demonstrated Ministries was not immediately returned today. No listing was found for Bassitt. An answering machine at a listing for Flowers cut off during an attempt to leave a message today.

Flowers, the camp's director, allegedly ordered Bassitt to run alongside the girl after she fell behind, the affidavit said. When the girl stopped running, Bassitt allegedly yelled at her and pinned her to the ground while Flowers tied the rope to her, according to the affidavit.

The girl's mother gave investigators photos of her daughter's injuries that were taken at a hospital where the girl was treated and a sworn statement from a witness who claimed to see the girl being dragged on her stomach at least three times.





Fark main page

http://www.fark.com/


Fark comment thread on story

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comment ... nk=2993108




Read the Fark FAQ before posting for terms about links, the do have specific rules about it

http://www.fark.com/farq/

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dYkv6BfqJdA

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).

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