CCChat-Magazine Cults-Coercion - Flipbook - Page 15
M: That’s all very familiar.
A: That's where you're having the dissociation
and the trauma bonding, because now, they're
the right ones, they've got power over you and
you're no longer able to think because the
stress is just too much. There's a particular
region of the brain that is turning off in trauma
and that's dissociation, when you freeze and
give in. I've talked about the alternation of
assault and leniency and, this is from Judith
Herman's wonderful book, what she calls “the
capricious granting of small indulgences”, so
they're stressing you, stressing you, stressing
you and then occasionally, giving you a little pat
on the back, or the bunch of flowers or ‘ I'm
sorry I hit you last night, darling’.
M: The way you’ve described it is really
impactful and visceral. I think a lot of people
reading this will have a much clearer
understanding of what trauma bonding is.
You named your book ‘Terror, Love and
Brainwashing’ which I think is such a brilliant
title. What made you call it that and what's the
book about?
A: Well I think it's everything I've been saying,
you know, the terror is that chronic feeding in of
stress by the perpetrator. The love, really
should in a way be in quotes because it's not
real love. It's that capricious granting of small
indulgences, or it's the charisma, the initial love
bombing. I mean, if a person is only horrible or
if a group is only horrible, you'd go away at the
first glance, but it's the “love” part that draws
“These are fear driven systems.
That is what is at their core.”
You know, it’s classic, and you're so grateful for
that and it strengthens the trauma bond,
because then you think: they do care about me,
they do love me, this is the right place to be.
This is the organisation – or relationship - I
should be in. But they never give you enough
comfort. In a healthy relationship, you can calm
down adequately from all the stress, and they
also let you go, you know, a good friend will
listen to you say I'm totally stressed I can't
stand it anymore, but they're not going to hang
on to you. You’ll say goodbye and then go on
with your life. And maybe connect later to them
on another issue, or to get comfort again. But
they also let you go, whereas in a trauma bond
relationship they won't give you enough
comfort, just enough to keep you hooked and
they're hanging on to you, but not enough for
you to have independence, to go off
independently and continue life as an
independent autonomous person with agency.
people in. When I say “love” I'm using that in a
very loose sense, it is charisma, it is attraction,
it is whatever. But the terror comes first,
because these are fear driven systems. That is
what is at their core and if you use those two
things like Zablocki said, the alternation of
assault and leniency is another way of saying
terror and love, right? You can create a
brainwashed aka coercively controlled person.
So, in my book I'm trying to break down the
central dynamic and I'm trying to show how it
works, how they isolate you and how they
engulf you within their own system, how the
structure does that, and how this comes from
the leader’s personality. I talk about how they
are charismatic and authoritarian, so they're
like a charismatic bully, but they have to have
both those elements. Donald Trump is a classic
example of that.
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