Brainwashing is the art of transforming a persons mind by putting together different types of attitudes. It is a sought of thought reform. Brainwashing is a sort of social influence on a person to try and change his way of thinking into somebody else’s viewpoint, without the assent of that person. Brainwashing can be achieved by either obliging or persuading the other person, to think in the line of the person who is brainwashing. To brainwash another person total segregation and belief of the subject is absolutely necessary.
Brainwashing is usually undertaken in prisons, to change the mindset of the prisoners, and to help them think in a right manner, and to change their behaviour. The person who is brainwashing has to have the person to be brainwashed totally under his control, so much so that all the daily routines of the person are under the control of the person who is brainwashing. The person who is brainwashing influences the other person so much so that, the person’s mind doesn’t work at all losing his complete identity.
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The brainwashing person than replaces the person’s mind with a different set of thoughts and behaviours. According to psychologists, brainwashing is possible under certain conditions, but while dealing with hardcore criminals or prisoners, it is necessary that they use physical abuse in order to see that these people are properly brainwashed. And to erase all their previous thoughts and identity, so that their mind will be fresh with a new set of attitudes after the brainwashing session, which helps them to improve their lifestyle, and lead a better life without going back to their criminal mannerisms.
According to studies it is known that the effect of brainwashing is short term only, the original identity of the brainwashed person is totally not washed out, but it is hidden and once the present thoughts of the person stop working, the old identity comes out from hiding, and the person behaves in the same manner as he used to previously. The results of brainwashing mostly are the same on every person irrespective of his culture, history and physical appearance.
Some of the commonly used techniques in brainwashing are loneliness, as the people being brainwashed are isolated and not allowed to meet his friends or family members, insisting on agreement to certain demands which include matters such as clothing, food and money etc, the person is subjected to poignant blackmail, pressure, lenience occasionally, total control and criticism of the person being brainwashed to such an extent that the person doubts his own worth, and feels that everything he does is wrong.
The person is reduced to such a wreck that he does not believe in himself. Brainwashing or mind control is used in many ways; it is used by many persons in different fields to their advantage. Parents use brainwashing on children, so that they can achieve a certain standing in social, personal and educational endeavours. While teachers try to brainwash children in the classroom, so that they can have a clearer idea of what is being taught in class.
Even hypnotizing a person is a sort of brainwashing or mind control, where in the person is taken to his subconscious state of mind, and made to believe that he is a completely changed person, by drilling into his mind different thoughts and behaviours that need to be replaced. Some people use fear or violence to brainwash a person, but this way of brainwashing is not right, as the brainwashed person cannot be controlled, because he will escape as soon as the brainwashing person leaves him.
Some people might practice brainwashing to commit illegal activities like, they might brainwash or hypnotise a woman and try to rape or rob her. And some religious cults might try to brainwash people and force them into converting to a particular religion. Using brainwashing to commit such crimes should not be encouraged, and the effects of brainwashing should be used to change a person into a better human being. Brainwashing should be done to have control over a person’s mind, but not to put him out of control or doing such things which are not in his control.
The Government authorities also use brainwashing to help them extract the truth from criminals by using shock treatments, lie detectors or narcotic analysis, which have an impact on their brain, by which they can find out if the criminal is telling the truth or not. To confound and weaken a person with the help of electronic equipment or chemicals is not controlling that person. Gaining control over a person who loses control over himself is not always the same.
It is clear that the government authorities do not have control over anyone’s mind, and it is also clear that these authorities would do anything to gain control over a person’s mind. When a person physically abuses his wife on a daily basis, the wife who fears of violence does not reciprocate but bears her spouses tantrums and abuse, not because he has a control over her mind, but might be because she is totally dependent on her spouse. The wife doesn’t have any other choice, but to stay with her spouse. In other words the husband has reduced her chances in such a way that she cannot leave him.
By staying on even after such battering, means that it is the wrong choice of the woman, but not the control her spouse has over her mind. Another method of brainwashing used by various religious missions is using love as a tool to control a person’s mind. These people make the person believe that they are the only people, who love them, and that they have faith in the person, and that the person should have faith in them. They try to convince the person to such a level that the person believes that even his family and friends are hurdles in his way to deliverance and attaining God’s faith.
These people make the person so fearful that he believes that if he does not listen to them he might be punished, all this makes the person totally dependent on these people and he becomes obsessed. Guilt is also another strategy used by these people; they make the person feel so guilty that, he begins to believe that he is nothing without god and these people. They fill the person with so much contempt for him that he loses his ego, self esteem and his belief in himself. The person becomes completely reliant of these people that he is at the mercy of these people.
Even psychiatrists follow such strategies to have the patient under their control. This strategy would help the psychiatrist in knowing the person even better, and this would help the doctor in curing the patient. When a person is under the spell of such people, these people might take the advantage of the situation and can try to rob the person of his whole property, when he is under their control. They might even make the person commit illegal activities on their behalf, which the person would come to know only after coming to his senses.
Under the control of such people a person can lose his wealth, his body and also his soul. Therefore brainwashing can be used for the good and the bad both. At sometimes it can help a person and other times it would completely ruin a person. Brainwashing is a very complex strategy; it is more of healing a person than a method. For example during the Korean War many US soldiers were brainwashed into communism. Brainwashing is such a technique which can break or make a man, it is a very complicated technique used by psychiatrists, religious missions, teachers, parents and the government authorities.
This technique can be used to the full advantage, if it is understood properly and used in the right manner; it will give very good results and help people in solving their problems very effectively. When a person is brainwashed, he goes into a sort of trance and is completely in the control of the person who is brainwashing. The person is in such a situation that, he doesn’t remember any thing and his mind can be controlled by feeding some other thoughts, that he becomes a totally changed person after the brainwashing session.
A person who is trying to brainwash another person, should be very smart and tactful when dealing with such situations, and he should have the power to make the other person believe him, then only he will have total control over the other person’s mind. On the whole brainwashing should be considered as an important and necessary strategy, and it should be employed by all and sundry wherever the necessity arises, but people should not take advantage of this strategy and should not try to use it for committing illegal activities.
If used properly and effectively it could help cure so many people who are in depression and undergoing severe stress, it could help to make a convict a better person and help parents and teachers in guiding the children to better and bright futures. Brainwashing should be definitely used if a person can benefit and lose his depression and make him a better person. Works Cited Rober Todd Carroll, Mind Control (Brainwashing), The Skeptic’s Dictionary, 14 November 2007, <http://skepdic.
com/mindcont. html>. Julia Layton, How Brainwashing Works, How Stuff Works, 14 November 2007, <http://people. howstuffworks. com/brainwashing. htm>. Julia Layton, How Brainwashing Works, Brainwashing Techiques, How Stuff Works, 14 November 2007, <http://people. howstuffworks. com/brainwashing1. htm>. Uzma Mazhar, Brainwashing Tactics in Domestic Violence, 14 November 2007, <http://www. crescentlife. com/psychissues/brainwashing. htm>.
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