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About the Author
Rachel Oblak, MA, earned her Master’s in
Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Antioch
University New England and is a nationally
certified counselor through the National Board
for Certified Counselors. She is working toward
licensure in Vermont, where she owns a private
practice. She has experience working with
depression, anxiety, sexuality and gender
identity, hearing voices, trauma, cult survivors,
transitioning adults, grief, and emerging young
adults. She also works with individuals on job
burnout and wellness issues.
She originally wrote this article as part of a
supervised independent study while attending
Antioch for her master’s degree.
Correspondence concerning the article should be
directed to Rachel Oblak, 8031 Williston Rd.
Suite 2, Williston, VT 05495. Contact:
roblak@antioch.edu

14 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019
Contextualizing Debates About Brainwashing Within the Discipline of
Sociology
By Stephen A. Kent and Kelsey Lindquist
University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Abstract
As a discipline, sociology lacks a core of
universally accepted paradigms. Consequently,
noncognitive factors, such as political and
ideological values, influence sociologists’ choice
of research problems and responses to conflicts
between and among theories, which hinders
theory growth. In this article, we examine
aspects of the theoretical debate within
sociology about brainwashing to assess the
possibility of theory growth in the absence of
universally accepted paradigms. We do so by
returning to important debates between
sociologist Benjamin Zablocki and
transpersonal psychologist Dick Anthony, and
also published exchanges between sociologists
Stephen Kent and Lorne Dawson. These debates
reveal imprecision over whether the
brainwashing term refers to a psychological
condition or a social program, and
disagreements over the implications of
brainwashing for controversial sociological
concepts that involve agency versus free-will
restrictions. Imprecision and disagreements
within these debates hinder theoretical growth
involving brainwashing as a useful, scientific,
sociological concept.
In this article, we examine the brainwashing
theory1 debate primarily within sociology, using
1 A basic definition of brainwashing as a social psychological
phenomenon is “the systematic, scientific[,] and coercive
elimination of the individuality of the mind of another” (Scheflin
&Opton, 1978, p. 40). As an organizational program,
brainwashing involves coercive regimens of harsh punishment,
forced self-confessions, social isolation, hard labor, and intense
doctrinal study (see Kent, 2000, p. 9). We are aware that the term’s
first Western appearance was in works published by journalist and
CIA employee Edward Hunter (see Scheflin &Opton, 1978, pp.
15, 86–87), leading some to see it as being “first and foremost an
emotional scare word” (Scheflin &Opton, 1978, p. 23). Hunter,
however, simply used a translation of the Chinese term hsi nao
(“wash brain” [Lifton, 1961, p. 3 see Taylor, 2004, pp. 4–5]).
Berger, Willer, and Zelditch’s (2005) theoretical
research program as a framework for theoretical
growth, to assess the possibility of theoretical
progress within a context of limited consensus.
By doing so, we hope to untangle several thorny
issues that seem to be impeding reasoned
discussion and possible theoretical advancement
of brainwashing as a social scientific (especially
sociological) theory. We begin the article with
an overview of arguments by sociologist
Stephen Cole (b. 1941) and physicist/historical
philosopher Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) about
advancement in scientific theory, especially their
discussions about paradigms and core concepts.
We follow these discussions with Berger et al.’s
response to them, then use this exchange as a
framework through which to examine the
conflict within sociology over the scientific
status of brainwashing. In the final section, we
discuss the implications of this analysis of the
concept for theoretical growth in sociology. We
examine literature from both sides of the
brainwashing-theory debate to obtain a current
overview of the argument as it relates to
controversial religions2 that have flourished in
the West after World War II (Kent, 2009).
Going beyond the term’s origins, Kathleen Taylor observed that
“as brainwashing became more popular it became more
academically disreputable, perhaps in part because of its highly
political origins. But in the early 1950s academic psychologists
and psychiatrists were still prepared to associate themselves with
brainwashing research, resulting in a flurry of studies on Korean
prisoners of war” (Taylor, 2004, p. 269, n. 3).
2 Scholars who use the term new religious movement tend to have a
positive disposition toward the group, whereas scholars with a
more critical stance tend to use the term cult (for further
explanation, see Zablocki &Robbins, 2001, p. 5). The purpose of
this article is not to evaluate the accuracy of these terms, but rather
to examine the ways in which the scholars attempt to resolve
theoretical conflicts. Therefore, whenever possible, we use the
term controversial religions in this article to reflect a neutral
approach.