Memoir - Communism Taught in "Psycho Therapy"
March 23, 2011
by Rollin Stearns(for henrymakow.com)
Your recent article on AIDS reminded me of a movement my wife and I took part in back in the 1980s -- called Reevaluation Counseling (or "RC").
RC was a psychotherapy movement based on co-counseling (i.e., people counsel each other in pairs or in small groups, without a therapist "authority figure").
It was founded by Harvey Jackins, who set up the guidelines. He derived much of his theory and practice from L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics (which later morphed into Scientology).
Unlike Scientology, which took on a "fascistic" tone, RC and Jackins were decidedly left-wing. Based out of Seattle, Jackins thought highly of Mao (though he kept this in the background, as RC was presented as psychological rather than ideological).
Back in the 80s, lots of people with no political sophistication or commitment were drawn into RC. It promised to free you from your "distress patterns." It provided a kind of "community" -- much desired in our anomie-ridden society. And, unlike conventional therapy, it was cheap.
But it had a hidden agenda: to radicalize people who came into it, and to energize activists on behalf of various issues, such as "women's liberation" and "gay rights." Therapeutic groups were organized around these and other issues.
In short, RC was a movement of cultural Marxism, designed to empower radicals, but disguised as a neutral therapeutic community.
WHAT WE LEARNED
Taking an active part in RC enabled my wife and I to see up close how such a movement works.
For example, at a time when the AIDS hysteria of the 80s was just beginning, we learned that homosexual activists were actually happy about it. They saw it as an opportunity to advance their agenda by marginalizing their opponents.
Women, too, were organized under the rubric, "No Limits for Women." Under the rationale of freeing women from distress, they were encouraged to identify their discontents as forms of male oppression. The resentment and anger that was generated reinforced their distress rather than discharge it.
But our involvement in RC also enabled us to see the real distresses that ordinary people brought into RC. Even though these were often exploited rather than resolved, they made us appreciate the depth of certain socially-induced problems.
GERMAN AND JEW
In one meeting where new people were introduced to RC, we all sat in a circle. Each person in turn was to say their name, and to say what their family's national background was.
Everyone did so as a matter of course -- until it came to one man. He gave his name -- George -- but couldn't go on. He had to be repeatedly encouraged before he finally got it out.
His family background was German. It wasn't that he or his family were recent immigrants. But he was ashamed of his German ancestry, ashamed to a degree that was emotionally crippling.
Obviously, he felt stained by the collective guilt -- the alleged unique monstrosity -- of the Germans, stemming from the Holocaust.
Then I remembered other people I had known who had shown -- in less vivid ways -- the same kind of impaired identity.
I remembered the surprise in a broadcaster's voice when he reported that a survey of the national backgrounds of the American people showed that the second largest ethnic group (after the still-dominant English) was German.
Few people think of German-Americans, because they have made themselves invisible. They have blended in and become completely "American." In one way, this is commendable. But in another, it is a sign of the degree to which they have hidden their identity out of shame.
This goes back a long way. In his work on the American Civil War, Patriotic Gore, Edmund Wilson talks about the anti-German hysteria that erupted when America was brought into the first World War. He noted that this suppression of identity resulted in a tragic skewing of American culture.
THE REST OF THE STORY
There's another side to this story. My wife co-counseled with a young Jewish woman named Nicki.
Nicki was intelligent, outgoing, attractive and seemed to be enjoying success in her chosen profession. To me, she didn't seem to have any outstanding distress, other than what everyone has in life.
But my wife told me otherwise. She probably shouldn't have, as counseling is supposed to be confidential. But my wife was so affected by what Nicki had revealed -- crying and shaking -- that she had to talk about it.
It seems that Nicki suffered from nightmares -- and not just while she was asleep. One part of her mind was rational, and told her that her fears were exaggerated. But another -- and deeper -- part told her otherwise.
Nicki was paranoid. Not clinically paranoid, not schizophrenic. But she was obsessed by the fear that someday "they" would come for her -- because she was a Jew.
She was fixated on the Holocaust, which she had heard about all her life, ever since she was a small child in the 1950s. It was on her mind, in the background, every day of her life. She tried to discharge the fear and its effects, but she couldn't shake it.
In truth, I don't think RC could discharge such fears. In fact, I think RC probably serves to entrench them further, even while it gives the illusion of temporary relief.
LOOKING BACK
My wife and I gave up on RC after a couple years, when we moved from the New York area to Maine. At the time, it was an active movement on the East Coast as well as the West. I don't know if it still is or not, but my impression is that it has faded.
Harvey Jackins died about ten years ago, and RC now seems to have receded largely back to Seattle and the Northwest, where it originated.
Lots of groups and movements like this serve the Illuminati agenda for awhile, become popular, and then recede, to be replaced by others.
But RC still serves as a good example of a number of things. One is how psychologically based movements (like religious and other movements), which appeal to people's needs, can be used to manipulate them for a political agenda.
A broader question is the way modern psychology in general has been (and is) used to advance an Illuminati agenda.
That's a topic for another day. But one lesson is clear. The Illuminati love to divide and conquer, to pit one group against another.
One group may be assigned the role of victim, the other may be assigned the role of guilty party. But often the truth is that neither are guilty, and that both are victims.
Both are victims of the Illuminati, who love nothing more than to degrade people and to perpetuate a tragedy that should never have happened -- or that, once it had taken place, should have been resolved long ago.
RC cannot release us from these kinds of collective trauma. We need to find our own ways of doing so.
--
Rollin Stearns is a former book editor who lives in Maine.
Related- Makow - The Soviet Art of Brainwashing
Michael said (March 24, 2011):
Sensational article. Cuts to the meat of the matter, psychology and those who have learned to use it as a manipulative tool.
That said I am emailing you with a query on the following quote from the text,
"Unlike Scientology, which took on a "fascistic" tone, RC and Jackins were decidedly left-wing."
Is the opposite of left wing "fascism'? Wouldn't Stalins communism be considered left wing? Was Hitler a conservative or a right wing republican?
Lately I am baffled by peoples use of right wing left wing speak. As I read your site often and considering your talent for conveying ideas, could you please clarify right wing and left wing as it relates to the articles on your site?