ABSTRACT
Brainwashing is a sensationalist, not scientific, term. Etymologically, it suggests being able to erase the contents of a person’s mind and introduce new content that conforms to the will of the perpetrator. Medically speaking, this is impossible. However, the term has gained popularity because of its impact in the media and as a way of selling popular books (e.g Taylor, 2004). It has been said that the word was coined by an American journalist, Edward Hunter (1951), who studied ‘re-education’ programs applied to American prisoners in North Korean concentration camps. Hunter claimed that ‘brainwashing’ is a translation of the Chinese phrase his nao, which was (according to his informants) how the Chinese referred to similar re-education programs. Lifton (1961) argues that this was soon applied by extension to the methods (purportedly) used by any communist country to indoctrinate its citizens, interrogate political dissidents and convert enemy spies into allies. The term gained popularity and was incorporated into jokes and folk psychology, and other media such as an educational film that dramatically portrayed the way a prisoner was treated in the USSR and the way he was ‘brainwashed’ to follow communism (see Chapter 10).
