I am currently in Melbourne visiting my daughter and her family. While she is at work, I work too on my research. I underestimated the impact that this work would have on me. Since June this year I have become gradually more and more focussed on it - and it drains my energies. So much is happening in the brethren world too that it is hard to keep up - Pie Days, park benches, charity commission matters etc etc.
I am not entirely clear why the only way I find that I can survive this work is to shut myself off - normally i am in contact with a lot of former brethren, hearing their stories, trying to help ease their pain but now I want more to be like a hermit! I guess it is a form of burn out. So I must listen to myself.
In any event when reading through the transcripts of interviews I need to shut out my past and also other people's stories in order to focus just on what my interviewees have said. Which is why I want to change my supervisor as she is also a former member of the brethren - it feels all a bit incestuous.
I was going to go through Lifton's 8 criteria but haven't done so. I will but I am not sure anyone is listening. So perhaps there is no point because the point of doing that was to get comments from others.
2 comments:
Lifton’s eight criteria were described by him as criteria for “thought reform” which I suppose is another name for brainwashing, but the criteria look to me as if they are equally good criteria for identifying mind control, which is not the same thing as thought reform.
I reckon the Exclusive Brethren system scores an unequivocal 8 out of 8, but I would say they practise mind control, not thought reform. Is that a fair comment?
Yes it is fair comment. Lifton of course calls it thought reform because for the population he was studying it was appropriate and this works well for first generation members. For second generation since they are born into the environment and therefore are indoctrinated in a certain way since birth you can really talk about thought reform.
Some refer to it as "thought forming" instead - not sure about that one but it does seem more appropriate than perhaps mind control - or does it!
And i would agree that the brethren led by Hales would score 8 out of 8 as would many other groups of course
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