Psychology of Brainwashing

Men have always fought for control over the minds of their fellows, but it is only recently--largely because of the furor over brainwashing--that the methods of gaining such control have been openly and widely debated. In a new book (Battle for the Mind; Doubleday, $4.50), British Psychiatrist William Sargant lays out a pat theory to explain as essentially the same not only political brainwashing and extorted confessions but religious conversions as well. The all-purpose key, according to Sargant, is to be found in the theories of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), the Russian physiologist and would-be psychologist who proved that his famed "conditioned-reflex" dogs knew for whom the bell tolled, and why.

Pavlov's conditioned-reflex theory (a dog regularly fed at the ringing of a bell will eventually salivate at the mere sound, even though no food is offered) was only the beginning. In later work, which got little attention in the West, Pavlov sought to prove that dogs are of four temperamental types, "strong excitatory," "lively," "calm imperturbable, or phlegmatic," and "weak inhibitory."* Further, he developed an elaborate theory of both positive and negative conditioned responses, which appear in varying patterns when a dog is subjected to unendurable stress ("trans-marginally stimulated"). A dog usually breaks down if the stress signal, e.g., an electric shock, is merely increased in intensity, also if an unwonted time lag is left between the signal and the food that follows, or if signals are simply mixed. A fourth way, and to Dr. Sargant the most important for human analogy, is to wear a dog dowri by subjecting it to excessive work (on a treadmill), upsetting its stomach with irregular feedings or bad food, or inducing a fever. Even if the first three fail to break down a "calm imperturbable" dog, the fourth will work, according to Pavlov.

Mind & Mouse. Psychiatrist Sargant, 50, thought he saw similar mechanisms in the breakdowns of British soldiers and heavily bombed civilians in World War II. From his evidence that the strongest-willed soldier would collapse if battle stress were sufficiently prolonged, Dr. Sargant took a flying leap to the conclusion that virtually any man's mind, if it cracks, will follow one of the behavior patterns that Pavlov thought he saw in dogs. At first, says Sargant, the mind seems to equalize all stimuli and reacts with the same intensity to a bomb attack or the squeal of a mouse. Second, it may go into a "paradoxical phase," and respond more vigorously to weak, unimportant stimuli than to strong ones. Finally, in what Pavlov called the "ultraparadoxical" phase, everything is upside down--a man who has been hounded mercilessly day and night by a relentless police interrogator may suddenly begin to look upon his tormentor as his friend and protector.

Quakers Shakers. Raised as a good go-to-meeting Methodist, Psychiatrist Sargant examined the dramatic conversions made by Methodism's Founder John Wesley, decided that they fitted Pavlov's pattern. After early failures, Wesley turned his back on appeals to the intellect, made a frank and crude assault on the emotions. He preached so eloquently and graphically of the horrors of hell-fire.and brimstone that the wayward among his hearers found the prospect an unbearable stress, says Dr. Sargant. He quotes Wesley as describing meeting after meeting at which the penitent burst into tears, cried aloud, sweated profusely, shook all over, and often fell into stuporous states. This final stage seemed to fit both Pavlovian theory and modern psychiatric observation--that a patient usually collapses exhausted after a soul-wringing catharsis which is achieved by reliving an emotionally damaging experience.

Psychiatrist Sargant sees these quick conversions under great emotional stress almost anywhere. He believes that every important conversion recorded in the New Testament (most notably that of Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of Christians, to Paul the Apostle) was of this type. In modern times, thinks Sargant, many conversions to and from Communism (e.g., Arthur Koestler's carefully recorded experiences) followed the pattern. So, too, did religious and pagan dedications among Voodooists in Haiti, among some tribes on the west coast of Africa, among the Quakers (says Sargant, because they "shook and trembled before the Lord"), among the lamas of Tibet and among U.S. revivalists, including those who induce frenzies by the handling of venomous snakes.

As Sargant sees it, the Inquisition used fear (i.e., of immediate torture or of eternity in the fiery pit) more than torture itself to stupefy an accused so that he readily confessed his heresy. Sargant glibly equates this with Communist techniques for extorting confessions and brainwashing and credits Russians and Chinese Reds with having refined their methods after a study of Pavlov.

Safety in Humor. Can any man be safe from involuntary confession or conversion? A few may, says Dr. Sargant guardedly. But not the "average man" or the well-adjusted extravert--he is already a conformist and will be more suggestible than other subjects. Neither does it do any good to be openly hostile; by the ultraparadoxical reaction, the most violent anti-Communists are as susceptible to brainwashed conversion as those originally friendly to Communism. The man best able to resist, says Dr. Sargant, is likely to be a husky, phlegmatic type with a good sense of humor.

Sargant's Battle for the Mind has been extravagantly praised, not by fellow psychiatrists but by big-name laymen and critics, e.g., Philosopher Bertrand Russell, Los Angeles Methodist Bishop Gerald Kennedy, Critic V. S. Pritchett, Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr ("fascinating and profound"). Actually, plausible though it sounds, Sargant's thesis is based on shaky premises. He accepts uncritically the Pavlovian view that the brain and nervous system are something "which man shares with the dog and other animals." In effect, the human brain, probably because of its greatly enlarged cerebrum and vastly multiplied nerve junctions, is different in quality as well as quantity from that of even the higher apes. As a Pavlovian, Sargant sees all the phenomena he describes as "physiological" though obviously they depend on emotional reactions, with physical changes present only in some of them.

There is no evidence either that the latter-day Reds have applied Pavlov's principles to their practices in extorting confessions or making brainwashed conversions. Many experts believe that confession and conversion should not be lumped, that confessions involve different emotional mechanisms. (Another distinction: confessions and temporary conversions are common and easily obtained; true, long-lasting conversions are difficult and more rare.) An exhaustive study for the U.S. Department of Defense by Manhattan Drs. Lawrence E. Hinkle and Harold G. Wolff--based on hundreds of intensive studies of escaped and repatriated prisoners from Eastern Europe and China and with former Red inquisitors who have "come over"--showed that modern techniques of political persuasion behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains are simply an extension of time-honored methods used by cops and thought-controllers for centuries. The few refinements recently added are probably the result of studying past experience, not of applying Pavlov. But in the battle for his own mind, Psychiatrist Sargant has surrendered to Pavlov without a struggle.

*Paralleling Hippocrates' division of human temperaments into choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.