A brief history of mind control

Daniel Pick, psychoanalyst and Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, explains the science of influence and mind control.

Daniel Pick

Psychoanalyst and Professor of History

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Daniel Pick

Psychoanalyst and Professor of History

22 Sept 2021

Key Points

Freud’s early work focuses on hysteria and hypnosis and how to help patients free themselves of their neurotic symptoms. Psychoanalysis begins with the idea and the ideal of freedom: freedom of mind, free association and freedom in knowledge.
A hundred years before Freud, there were also consequential debates about mind control and persuasion. In the late 18th century, the Viennese doctor, Franz Anton Mesmer, develops a set of theories about animal magnetism and its potential therapeutic role.
Debates about mind control in the 20th century are focused on the role of psychology, technology and science in an age of totalitarianism and inevitably linked to concerns about brainwashing, thought control and so on.
An area of concern centres around perverse forms of “group therapy” used during the Cold War, as a form of group manipulation on behalf of the State. Brainwashing afterwards is concerned with the misuse of drugs to break and condition people.
The phenomenon of transference is crucial to understanding influence and persuasion and is consequential outside of psychoanalytic therapy. Research focused on group psychology and politics examines what followers unconsciously look for in their leaders.

Mind control

Photo by sp3n

Mind control can mean many things according to context, time and place. In researching the history of mind control, I’m aware that there are long-standing fears about possession and indoctrination. It’s an ongoing question whether or not we’re free of covert influences and forces that can possess us.

Nevertheless, I think debates about mind control in the 20th century are focused on the role of psychology, technology and science in an age of totalitarianism. I believe mind control is inevitably linked to concerns about brainwashing, thought control and so on.

Freud’s interest in hysteria and hypnosis

When thinking about psychoanalysis and mind control, one has to look back to the origins of the practice; that is, the beginnings of Freud’s interest in hysteria and hypnosis.

Freud’s early work focuses on these phenomena and how to help patients free themselves of their neurotic symptoms. Psychoanalysis truly begins when Freud endeavours to be more than a charismatic doctor and hypnotist. Sure enough, he aspires to create a context in which patients can free-associate without any directing influence from the physician.

Overall, psychoanalysis begins at this time with the idea and the ideal of freedom: freedom of mind, free association and freedom in knowledge. These notions are essential to Freud’s theory of the mind. He believes that people are always conflicted and that they are never singular, fully transparent or self-knowing. Instead, there are unconscious forces at work in the mind. This implies that we are unaware of much of what goes on in our mental life.

Psychoanalysis and mind control

On the topic of mind control and influence, Freud wrote a critical study of a psychotic patient and former judge, Daniel Paul Schreber, who had written a memoir of his nervous illness. Freud’s analysis of this memoir detailed his interest in the patient’s own ideas about influence.

Work by an early follower of Freud is even more illuminating. Victor Tausk wrote a rather remarkable paper, ‘The Influencing Machine’, that appeared after the First World War. In that paper, Tausk wrote about his work with schizophrenic patients and what he observed. He claimed many of his patients reported feeling subjected to an influencing machine outside of themselves. This machine controlled and determined their thoughts.

‘The Influencing Machine’

There’s something very suggestive and powerful in the idea that an entity has utter control of a patient’s mind. This notion also helps us make sense of patients’ experiences. After all, Tausk wasn’t the only psychoanalyst to write about this. There’s a history of work on these ideas about influencing machines and similar agencies.

Regardless, Tausk observed that several patients were anxious that their doctor might also be under the control of an influencing machine. This observation raised an important question about the influences involved with our more ordinary, day-to-day anxieties.

In other words, can a therapist work freely? How much are they under the influence of other forces? Tausk’s patients imagine a kind of omnipotent influencing machine; however, philosophical questions can be raised around whether an analyst can genuinely think for themselves.

Before psychoanalysis

A hundred years before Freud, there were also consequential debates about mind control and persuasion. A whole tradition of thought arose around the work of the Viennese doctor, Franz Anton Mesmer. In the late 18th century, Mesmer develops a set of theories about animal magnetism and its potential therapeutic role. Through the 19th century, debates about influence, group suggestion and hypnosis continue to reverberate.

Photo by Everett Collection

The topic acquires a new significance in the 19th century, as debates about widening the political franchise emerge. In Britain, reform bills propose growing the size of the electorate. Other reform acts pass through the 19th century, further widening the electorate. This leads to discourse about mass democracy and the influence of fashion and fads. This is the case enfranchising working-class men, and with women during the suffragette movement.

One of Freud’s heroes, John Stuart Mill, is also a significant proponent of widening the franchise. Mill writes an essay on the subjection of women in the 1860s. Yet, he has this anxiety about whether educated voters would be able to make informed decisions or whether they would be swayed by the latest crazes and influences from civil society.

Misusing mind control

An area of concern centres around the Cold War and perverse forms of “group therapy” used during the period, as a form of group manipulation on behalf of the State, not as a form of therapy. In ritual confessions, groups of people would be schooled and persuaded to fit into a narrative that fits the requirements of the regime.

There’s a whole body of literature about group brainwashing seen during the Cold War. There are also forms of confessionals produced in groups. The brainwashing literature of the 1950s and afterwards, on the other hand, is concerned with the misuse of drugs to break and condition people and to produce hallucinogenic effects. This literature also discusses the use and manipulation of dark and light, sound and silence and isolation and group pressures. As a result, the question of influence is brought into debates about liberty and totalitarianism in the 20th century.

The significance of transference

When considering psychoanalysis and persuasion, it’s crucial to think about another critical concept pioneered by Freud: transference. Freud describes transference in some of his early cases, most notably with his patient “Dora”.

Transference essentially identifies that a patient brings all their unconscious baggage to bear throughout therapy. In other words, the patient is not just dealing here and now with their therapist; instead, they are investing in their physician all kinds of unconscious assumptions based upon their past experiences.

Freud first addresses the phenomenon by explaining his difficulty in recognising it. Freud only recognises after, how Dora’s transference made it difficult to treat her.

From obstacle to tool

Photo by Anton_Ivanov

Initially, Freud views transference as an obstruction to his work with patients. However, he soon realises that he can leverage the phenomenon as a kind of compass. He begins to understand that a patient’s unconscious transference can be analysed to understand the issues they bring to therapy.

He starts to question how a patient regards their physician throughout therapy and to understand that the analyst might represent some bits of a parent, sibling, friend, foe or other figures from the unconscious world of the patient.

Conversely, the issue of countertransference also becomes an issue in psychoanalysis. Countertransference describes the unconscious feelings or thoughts stirred up in an analyst by a particular patient.

Transference and politics

Of course, the processes of transference are consequential outside of psychoanalytic therapy. Most importantly, these kinds of unconscious patterns of influence and projection occur in social and psychic life all the time.

Research focused on group psychology and politics examines what followers unconsciously look for in their leaders. It also considers the realm of unconscious dreams and transferential wishes that are in play in politics.

Moreover, I believe this area of psychoanalysis is crucial to understanding persuasion in cultural and political life. This is key when considering what individuals invest in politics – for example, their hopes and dreams – and how charismatic figures may be able to manipulate a group’s transferential wishes for nefarious political purposes.