The Dark Side of Milton Erickson

Milton Erickson has become a highly revered figure among certain anti-cult activists.

I wonder if such activists are aware of the following method, recommended by Erickson in a journal article in 1962:

Erickson, M. H. (1962). The identification of a secure reality. Family Process, 1(2), 294-303.

Erickson’s methods had no research in the form of well designed controlled studies, to support them. His typical style of presentation was telling detailed clinical anecdotes, and being the great story teller he was makes this one all the more horrifying. In this article, he presents a case of an 8 year old boy who was combative, defiant and having serious behavior problems in spite of his mother’s repeated attempts to discipline. Finally, the exasperated mother took the boy to see Erickson and followed his advice. The following weekend, the boy was engaging in his usual oppositional behavior, demanding breakfast from his mother. The mother carried out the following, as instructed by Erickson [later in the article he makes it crystal clear that these were his instructions she was following – he emphasized how she needed to put her full weight on the boy]:

Erickson, 1962, p. 296-297 [Please note that I am properly citing and quoting this because some true AT believers have tried to have things removed from other websites with bogus charges of copyright violations. This is fair use.]:

His mother merely smiled at him, seized him, and threw him quickly to the floor on his stomach and sat her full weight upon him. When he yelled at her to get off, she replied mildly that she had already eaten breakfast and she had nothing to do except try to think about ways to change his behavior. However, she pointed out that she was certain she did not know any way, therefore it would all be up to him.

The boy struggled furiously against the odds of his mother’s weight, strength, and watchful dexterity. He yelled, screamed, shouted profanity and obscenities, sobbed and finally promised piteously always to be a good boy. His mother answered that the promise did not mean anything because she had not yet figured out how to change his behavior. This evoked yet another fit of rage from him which finally ceased and was followed by his urgent plea to go to the bathroom. His mother explained gently that she had not finished her thinking; she offered him a towel to mop up so he would not get too wet. This elicited another wild bit of struggling which soon exhausted him.

He goes on to describe how the mom, while sitting on the boy, chatted on the phone, ate fruit and drank coffee. She allowed the boy to get up and go to the bathroom once during the torture (p. 297):

Shortly before noon the boy politely told her he really did need to go to the bathroom. She confessed a similar need. She explained that it would be possible if he would agree to return, resume his position on the floor, and let her sit down comfortably upon him. After some tears, he consented. . . .After over five hours, Joe surrendered by stating simply and abjectly that he would do anything and everything she told him to do. Her mother replied just as simply and earnestly that her thinking had been in vain; she just did not know what to tell him to do. He burst into tears at this but shortly, sobbing, he told her he knew what to do. She replied mildly that she was very glad of this but she did not think he had had enough time to think long enough about it. Perhaps another hour or so of thinking about it might help.

After another hour, the mom finally let him go, after she finished reading her book chapter, but the sadistic behavior of the mom, as advised by Erickson, continued and she deprived him of all his meals for an entire day (p. 297).

With the chapter finally finished, the mother got up and so did Joe. He timidly asked for something to eat. His mother explained in laborious detail that it was too late for lunch, that breakfast was always eaten before lunch, and that it was too late to serve breakfast. She suggested instead that he have a drink of ice water and a comfortable rest in bed for the remainder of the afternoon.

Erickson then goes on to describe how Joe awakened to odors of dinner being served, but his mother would not allow him to have dinner because “it was customary first to eat breakfast and then lunch and then dinner.” He had missed breakfast and lunch, so now he would have to miss dinner. He was not allowed to eat until the next day. The next morning. The whole family had pancakes and sausages the next morning except for Joe, who was made to eat only oatmeal. Later for lunch, he was only given “cold, thick sliced oatmeal” and for the evening meal was only allowed leftovers.

Erickson described how he “educated” the mother: p. 298-299:

The education of Joe’s mother to enable her to deal with her son’s problem by following out the instructions was a rather difficult task. She was a college graduate, a highly intelligent woman with a background of social and community interests and responsibilities. . . The mother’s apparently justified statement that her weight of one hundred and fifty pounds was much to great to permit putting it fully on the body of an eight your old child was a major factor in winning the mother’s full cooperation. At first this argument was carefully evaded [I assume he means that he, Erickson evaded it].”

He finally managed to manipulate the mom into agreeing to carry out his instructions, against her common sense objection about her weight on the boy. At the end of the article, Erickson brags about how Joe became unquestioning about whatever he wanted.

He also noted: p. 303:

Joe is not the only patient on whom this type of therapy has been employed. Over the years, there have been a number of comparable instances, some almost identical.

Erickson’s work had no controlled studies to support it and this rather chilling anecdote makes me wonder just what his goal was. It looks to me like it was to have been a boy who would be unquestioningly obedient. This “cure” may have been worse than the problem itself if it produced a mindlessly obedient child. What sort of message does this send? Is this what people fighting cults want to endorse? How ironic.

The article is eerily reminiscent of the writings of many AT proponents who had very similar advice about parenting children with behavior problems and alleged “attachment disorders”.
For instance, there is this quote from AT parenting "coach" Nancy Thomas quoted on a website exposing AT abuse:

I have had instances where a kid is so out of control that they refuse to stay. When that happens, I will sit on the child. I have had to do this with dogs as well, and they are generally more dangerous with their teeth and claws than children. … I pick a good book and read while I sit on a child and that really seems to upset them because they feel that I should be miserable like they are. ---Bonding & Attachment Workshop (Chatsworth, CA: Foster Care & Adoptive Community,Online Training Program, nd, 2 parts) [material currently available for CEUs]

I wonder if Nancy got this idea from Milton.

I found out about this 1962 article through Jean Mercer who had mentioned Erickson on her blog. I asked her for the reference, she gave it to me and I was able to obtain a hard copy of the article, which I reference above. Although I have read worse in commercially published books on AT, this is by far the most horrendous article in a professional journal I have ever read. Google Milton Erickson and you’ll find pretty much all positive accounts. I have to wonder how many people actually read his writings and were aware of what he actually did. This shows how far abuse of children in the name of mental health practices dates back. I regret that abuse and torture are about the only words I can think of to describe this published work. Knowing now what happened to Candace Newmaker in 2000, who was smothered to death when several adults put their full weight on her while she was wrapped a blanket, I have to wonder if Erickson's influence may have played a role although of course they took this procedure to much more of an extreme. Some mental health professionals today would like to turn a blind eye to all of this and say it is in the past, and to mention it is mere "sensationalism" but is it realistic to believe that all this would just suddenly go away? While hopefully there is now more awareness about such abusive practices, I hardly think that is a realistic point of view to think that and to slam anyone who tries to mention it as being "sensationalistic". No, some of us are not so willing to sweep all this under the rug.

Is Scientology Really the Worst Cult Ever? A myth Resurfaces

The myth that Scientology is the worst cult ever has recently resurfaced in the form of an interview given by one of the people who was instrumental in starting this myth in the first place. In an interview with Rush PR News, one of the authors of the book, Snapping, Jim Siegelman, made the pronouncement that:

Siegelman and his wife have studied cults for over 20 years. He contends that Scientology has the worst long term effects. “People who come out of this group report to us very high levels of amnesia, memory loss, of insomnia, of disorientation, of hallucinations and delusions, of perceptions of bewildering psychic experiences that will plague them…for up to 12 years after they leave the group.”

In the way of background, Conway has a PhD in Communications and Siegelman has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Harvard. Neither have mental health degrees. But I am not contesting this with an argument from authority. Here are the substantive problems I have with their assertions:

Just what is this assertion based on? Conway & Siegelman conducted a study nearly 30 years ago, using a convenience sample of former cult members. This study was never published in any peer reviewed journal; it was published in a popular science magazine Science Digest and later in their book Snapping. Besides being nearly 30 years old, the sampling methods of this study, as well as the author's lack of valid assessment measures for mental health problems claimed, precludes any such conclusion being made.

Although they describe the survey study as "sweeping" in their book, the study actually consisted of 353 (out of 1000 invited to participate) participants who were all former members of cults, recruited into the study mostly from anti-cult organizations, deprogrammers, therapists and the like. The sample consisted of ex-members from 48 different cults. Only 33 were Ex-Scientologists. They report they got more detailed information from 98 participants, so the number of ex-Scns in that group would have been even smaller.

But there are even more fundamental problems with this study. The sample was drawn from people who had been in contact with organizations that fought cults or people who were in therapy for their cult experience, who would likely be more dissatisfied and perhaps suffering more than those who did not contact such organizations or seek help.

73% of the participants were deprogrammed out of their cults, but 75% of the sample of ex-Scientologists had walked out on their own and later contacted anti-cult organizations.
How were the symptoms assessed for? By the self-report of the respondents. That is not to discount self-reports entirely, but the fact is that we do not know if any of the symptoms reported reached diagnosable levels. For instance, many people might describe themselves as feeling "depressed" but that doesn't mean that they suffer from clinical depression. A recognized assessment such as the Beck Depression Inventory would need to be used in order to determine that.

Perhaps the most ludicrous assertion is that people who were in Scientology suffered from "amnesia". Tell that to people like Margery Wakefield, John Duignan, and the many other ex-Scientologists who have written and videoed very detailed accounts of their time in Scientology and those details were often being told of events that had transpired 20-30 years ago. Here is a 16 part YouTube series of Duignan's detailed recollections over the past 22 years and he is not unusual at all. Duignan's account is particularly interesting, though, because in his book he reports that he had a history of problems with dissociation before he ever got involved in Scientology and he reported classic symptoms of dissociation while he was in. If anyone would be amnestic, according to dissociative disorders theories, he would, and yet this did not seem to impact his ability to recall with great detail his experience, as the YouTube videos and his book illustrate.

While nobody's memory is perfect and all such accounts are fallible, one thing the many people who have come forward with detailed accounts (many more than were in the aforementioned study) are not is amnestic. Apparently, Conway and Siegelman are not aware of all the literature that has accumulated throughout the 90s and 2000s, that discredits the myth that people who suffer from trauma have amnesia. Trauma is usually very well remembered, although another problem with this is that not everyone in cults suffered from events that could be classified as "trauma" per the DSM definition of PTSD. People in cults might very well be like what has been discovered in recent studies about people who suffered the milder forms of sexual abuse as children: at the time they experienced the events, they did not feel upset or traumatized. It was only after the experiences when they came to have a different understanding of them, that they then, in retrospect felt traumatized. Some children do not understand that they were being subject to abuse at the time it happened, but later come to fully realize the horror of what was done to them. Many people in groups considered to be cults, might actually feel euphoric at the time they are having the experiences but later after they get out, view the experiences as abusive. But that's another topic.

What was the basis for their conclusion that ex-Scientologists suffer from amnesia? Here is a quote from Snapping that gives us some clue as to how they came to this:

A woman emerged from the Church of Scientology with near-total amnesia: "I woke up in horror and realized that I had been shut off, sleeping mentally, for six and a half years, since the first day of doing the cult exercises." (p. 192)

Near total amnesia? There is no way to know if this person had been speaking metaphorically and there is no report that her memory was ever tested. This is a rather typical report of an ex-member who has read about certain symptoms ex-cult members reportedly suffer from and then describes the experience as being "mentally asleep". Does that mean she couldn't remember if asked to tell about her experiences? This is highly doubtful given that this same person supposedly just responded to their detailed survey about her experiences in the group. If she really blanked out 6 and a half years, that would be highly unusual if not unheard of and would fly in the face of all we now now about memory and trauma. I have known literally thousands of people who have been in Scientology and not once have I ever met anyone with "near total" or even partial amnesia for their experiences (amnesia being the inability to recall experiences, even when cued -- it does not mean the normal kinds of gaps we all have in our experiences or forgetting of details). Was there normal forgetting? Of course. Nobody has perfect recall of everything that goes on in any experience because the mind is not a video recorder.

Another point to keep in mind is that at that time (early 80s), ex-cult members in contact with anti-cult organizations seemed to be feeding off one another, each one telling a horror story that was worse than the next. The social demand characteristics were high, to say the least.
Also, with regard to ex-Scientologists self-reporting the most symptoms that is not surprising. When Scientologists have Scientology/Dianetic auditing, they are trained to report symptoms (pains, sensations, emotions, and attitudes) in detail to their auditor so perhaps the ex-Scientologists were trained to be more acutely aware of symptoms and reporting them than people from other groups.

They then go on to report the results of several later studies. None showed Scientology as being the worst, but they had similar reports of a variety of symptoms. However what they neglect to mention is that this studies were also done on samples of people who had been in contact with anti-cult organizations, a disproportionate number who had been deprogrammed. The studies of Marc Galanter, Eileen Barker, and others which did not use such samples, did not have all these symptoms. Galanter's studies did report negative symptoms but they reported that they had these symptoms before getting involved in the UC, so we cannot say that the symptoms were caused by the UC. Ditto for Eileen Barker's studies, where only a minority of leavers reported any kind of severe symptoms after leaving.

On the Neuroskeptic blog, on another topic, an excellent analogy is provided:

Suppose that I have some eggs. I want to know whether any of the eggs are rotten. So I put all the eggs in some water, because I know that rotten eggs float. Some of the eggs do float, so I suspect that they're rotten. But then I decide that I also want to know the average weight of my eggs . So I take a handful of eggs within easy reach - the ones that happen to be floating - and weigh them.

Obviously, I've made a mistake. I've selected the eggs that weigh the least (the rotten ones) and then weighed them. They're not representative of all my eggs. Obviously, they will be lighter than the average. Obviously.

The "rotten" eggs are the easiest to grab for samples. But in this case, it is even worse than that because Conway and Siegelman did not even have the bowl (namely, a sampling frame) from which to draw the eggs. There is, of course, no "bowl" of ex-cult members and that is one of the limitations that anyone studying ex-cult members has to deal with. This is a limitation that needs to be kept in mind, even with studies that did use larger samples and standardized assessment methods, but with this study, there is no basis whatsoever to say that Scientology is the worst cult, much less proclaim it to the media, nearly 30 years later.