Cultic Studies
Review, Vol. 7,
No. 2, 2008, pp.
99-128
Contemporary Uses of
the Brainwashing
Concept: 2000 to
Mid-2007
Stephen A. Kent,
Ph.D.
University of
Alberta
Abstract
The brainwashing
concept is
sufficiently useful
that it continues to
appear in a wide
variety of legal,
political, and
social contexts.
This article
identifies those
contexts by
summarizing its
appearance in court
cases, discussions
about cults and
former cult members,
terrorists, and
alleged victims of
state repression
between the years
2000 and mid-2007.
In creating this
summary, we discover
that a physiologist
has examined the
biochemical aspects
of persons going
through brainwashing
processes, and that
(to varying degrees)
some judges and
others related to
the judiciary have
realized that people
who have been
through these
processes have
impaired judgment
and often need
special counseling.
Most dramatically, a
new brainwashing
program may be
operating in
Communist China, a
country whose
political activities
toward its own
citizens in the late
1940s and 1950s
spawned so much of
the initial
brainwashing
research.
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