Thought reform - Definition and Overview

Thought reform is the alteration of a person's basic attitudes and beliefs by outside manipulation. The term usually relates closely to brainwashing and mind control.

Steven Hassan, a controversial anti-cultist, has suggested that the influence of sincere but misled people can provide a significant factor in the process of thought reform. However, many scholars in the field of new religious movements do not accept Hassan's Bite model (http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/articles/BITE.htm) for understanding cults.

One of the first published uses of the term thought reform occurred in the title of the book by Robert Jay Lifton (a professor of psychology and psychiatry at John Jay College and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York): Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China (1961). (Lifton also testified at the 1976 trial of Patty Hearst.) See also Religious conversion

External Links

• Lifton's research (http://wellspringretreat.org/journal/v9n2/reform2.html)

References

• Hassan, Steven Releasing The Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, 2000. ISBN 0967068800.