Thought reform: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Thought reform is the alteration of a person's basic attitudes and beliefs by outside manipulation. The term is usually synonymous with brainwashing and mind control. Steven Hassan, who is influential in this field, wrote that one factor in thought reform can be the influence of sincere people who have been misled themselves. However, his Bite model [1] for understanding cults is not accepted by a great deal of scholars in the field.

One of the first published uses of the term is in Robert Jay Lifton's (a professor of psychology and psychiatry at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York) book, 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

References

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