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Thought Reform Exists:
Organized, Programmatic Influence
Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.
Recently, cult apologists have attempted to create the impression that the
scientific community has rejected the concept of thought reform. This is
untrue.
As recently as May of this year, the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association
cites thought reform as a contributing factor to “Dissociative Disorder Not
Otherwise Specified” (a diagnosis frequently given to former cult members).
Thought reform (notes 1,2,3 below) and its synonyms brainwashing and coercive
persuasion (4,5) were also noted in DSM-III (1980) and in
DSM-III-Revised (1987), as well as in widely recognized medical texts (6,7).
Thought reform is not mysterious. It is the systematic application of
psychological and social influence techniques in an organized programmatic way
within a constructed and managed environment (6,7,8,9,10). The goal is to
produce specific attitudinal and behavioral changes. The changes occur
incrementally without its being patently visible to those undergoing the process
that their attitudes and behavior are being changed a step at a time according
to the plan of those directing the program.
In society there are numerous elaborate attempts to influence attitudes and
modify behavior. However, thought reform programs can be distinguished from
other social influence efforts because of their totalistic scope and their
sequenced phases aimed at destabilizing participants' sense of self, sense of
reality, and values. Thought reform programs rely on organized peer pressure,
the development of bonds between the leader or trainer and the followers, the
control of communication, and the use of a variety of influence techniques. The
aim of all this is to promote conformity, compliance, and the adoption of
specific attitudes and behaviors desired by the group. Such a program is
further characterized by the manipulation of the person's total social
environment to stabilize and reinforce the modified behavior and attitude
changes (8,9,10).
Thought reform is accomplished through the use of psychological and
environmental control processes that do not depend on physical coercion.
Today's thought reform programs are sophisticated, subtle, and insidious,
creating a psychological bond that in many ways is far more powerful than
gun-at-the-head methods of influence. The effects generally lose their potency
when the control processes are lifted or neutralized in some way. That is why
most Korean War POWs gave up the content of their prison camp indoctrination
programs when they came home, and why many cultists leave their groups if they
spend a substantial amount of time away from the group or have an opportunity to
discuss their doubts with an intimate (11).
Contrary to popular misconceptions (some intentional on the part of nay Sayers),
a thought reform program does not require physical confinement and does not
produce robots. Nor does it permanently capture the allegiance of all those
exposed to it. In fact, some persons do not respond at all to the programs,
while others retain the contents for varied periods of time. In sum, thought
reform should be regarded as “situationally adaptive belief change that is not
stable and is environment-dependent” (8, 10).
The current effort by cult apologists to deny thought reform exists is linked to
earlier protective stances toward cults in which apologists attempted to deny
the cults' active and deceptive recruitment practices; deny the massive social,
psychological, financial, spiritual, and other controls wielded by cult leaders;
and thus dismiss their often destructive consequences.
These earlier efforts to shield cults from criticism rest on a “seeker” theory
of how people get into cults, which overlooks the active and deceptive tactics
that most cults use to recruit and retain members. When bad things happened to
followers of Jim Jones or David Koresh, the twisted logic of some apologists
implied that these “seekers” found what they wanted, thus absolving the cult
leader and his conduct.
Finally, to promulgate the myth that thought reform has been rejected by the
scientific community, cult apologists doggedly stick to a faulty understanding
of the process. Contrary to the findings in the literature, they aver that
physical coercion and debilitation are necessary for thought reform to occur,
and that the effects of thought reform must be instant, massive, uniform,
universally responded to, and enduring.
The recent upholding of thought reform in DSM-IV is but one more piece of
evidence that this orchestrated process of exploitative psychological
manipulation is real and recognized within the professional psychiatric field.
To say then that the concept of thought reform is rejected by the scientific
community is false and irresponsible. The phenomenon has been studied and
discussed since 1951, and continuing studies by social psychologists and other
behavioral scientists have solidified our understandings of its components and
overall impact.
c 1994 M. T. Singer
References
Lifton,
R. J. (1961). Thought
Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. New York: W. W. Norton. (Also:
1993, University of North Carolina Press.)
Lifton,
R. J. (1987). Cults: Totalism and civil liberties. In R. J. Lifton, The Future
of Immortality and Other Essays for a Nuclear Age. New York: Basic Books.
Lifton,
R. J. (1991, February). Cult formation. Harvard Mental Health
Letter.
Hunter,
E. (1951). Brainwashing in China. New York: Vanguard.
Schein,
E. H. (1961). Coercive Persuasion. New York: W. W. Norton.
Singer,
M. T. (1987). Group psychodynamics. In R. Berkow (Ed.), Merck Manual, 15th ed.
Rahway, NJ: Merck, Sharp, & Dohme.
West, L.
J., & Singer, M. T. (1980). Cults, quacks, and nonprofessional
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Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry III, pages 3245-3258). Baltimore:
Williams & Wilkins.
Ofshe,
R., & Singer, M. T. (1986). Attacks on peripheral versus central elements of
self and the impact of thought reforming techniques. Cultic Studies Journal,
3, 3-24.
Singer,
M. T., & Ofshe, R. (1990). Thought reform programs and the production of
psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric Annals, 20, 188-193.
Ofshe,
R. (1992). Coercive persuasion and attitude change. Encyclopedia of Sociology.
Vol. 1, 212-224. New York: Macmillan.
Wright,
S. (1987). Leaving Cults. The Dynamics of Defection. Society for the
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