CCChat-Magazine_Cults-Coercion

It's a cognitive freeze, so that a person cannot
think their way out of that system, or that
relationship and even if they could, there are
often many practical barriers to escape. Often
you can't even get to the practical barriers
because of the dissociation which leads to you
to be unable to think clearly about the situation
and you have no other place to turn, no other
relationships.
That's a real effect and is referred to as
brainwashing. Some people like that word,
some people don't, but we can also call it
coercive control. The coercive control is
happening, both in the feelings, and in the
cognitive, reasoned thinking part of the brain of
the person affected.
attachment theory we call being in a situation of
fright without solution. So, if you're in an
earthquake, and you're trapped under the
rubble of a house, you're going to have trauma
and that's going to be fright without solution
until, if you're lucky, somebody digs you out
and then you come out and can then deal with
that trauma at some later date. In relational
trauma, it's an ongoing chronic state of that
feeling of “I'm trapped there's nothing I can do.”
So if a person feels that there's no useful action
they can take to escape the fear, then you're
going to get this trauma bond. I'm not saying it
always happens, we're human beings, not
mechanical things and in fact, one thing we
know from some useful scholarship about
prisoners of war and the Chinese re-education
camps from the work of Robert Lifton and other
" when people say “why doesn't she leave?”
It’s because she's been made to feel the outside world is no help."
It's an emotional and cognitive effect so when
people say “why doesn't she leave?” It’s
because she's been made to feel the outside
world is no help. There's no way out and the
same is true in cults. When people can leave
it's often because someone is able to reach
them and help them feel there is a safe
alternative and then they can feel there's a way
out, they can reengage their useful brain
processes, and they can find a way out, even
though that way as we also know may
sometimes come with a high risk.
M: Does trauma bonding happen automatically
or does it only happen in certain sort of
situations and, if so, what might those
circumstances be?
A: I’m not quite sure by what you mean by
automatically but when it does happen, it
happens as a result of a person being isolated,
it happens when they're fearful, and it's what in
people - Judith Herman is also very good on
this - is that if people understand how the
trauma bond works, if they have prior
knowledge, they can sort of protect
themselves, they can focus on their internal
resources and notice what's happening.
It's when we don't understand how it works that
we are most subject to it, and given that we
don't teach our children anything about this,
you know how bullying works, how terrorist
recruitment works, how coercive control works,
you know, this should be being taught at all
levels in the educational system. It's very
teachable and we are starting to do it in terms
of domestic relationships and we're starting to
see it in the media as well - watch out if your
boyfriend is isolating you from your friends,
right?
Making The Invisible Visible