Chickens...

Repetition is often used in hypnotherapy to take the subject into a trance like state. By merely repeating the same phrase or instruction you can make your subject relax and at the point of trance suggest outcomes to them which they will then go on to make reality. Of course, you can’t get a subject to do anything that they don’t want to do but it is strange that some people will happily behave like chickens.

Yes, often we do things not because we want to, but because we are worried that not doing them will upset the status quo – therefore we want to do as suggested even though we don’t want too.

Fear of rocking the boat that you are sat in is common. You see this in the workplace all the time; people following instruction they know to be wrong. It’s how dictators get otherwise normal people to do such despicable things, and it’s why so many people stay in unhappy and abusive relationships for as long as they do. It’s about conditioning – being brainwashed if you will. It’s about accepting a lot as the norm when it really isn’t and not having the will to do anything about it. After all you aren’t in control, your keeper is.

One of the simplest ways to brainwash a person is to keep repeating a lie until it becomes a fact in their minds. Of course you need to be in a position of control and power to do this; and you will have needed to lower your subject’s self-esteem over a protracted period of time. Broken their will, to your will.

You see this in many marriages where one partner controls the other simply by telling them that they are wrong and he or she is right. Shouting them down at every opportunity and getting them so confused and compliant that things they know to have happened a certain way no longer seem to have. In many cases the controller also believes the lie they have formed and are unable to differentiate between reality and a reality altered within his or her mind. When challenged they often get angry and they struggle with the two opposing realities – what actually happened and what they have created in their minds. This anger reinforces the false beliefs until the only world that is real to is the one created by their mind and at this point they no longer live in the real world.

Often people experiencing this may exhibit personality changes and thought disorder. Depending on its severity, this may be accompanied by unusual or strange behaviour or moods, as well as difficulty with normal social interaction and sometimes impairment in carrying out daily life activities like holding a reasonable conversation without flying into a rage.

These people are psychotic, which covers a number of disorders including schizophrenia, paranoia and bipolar type 1. It leads to a loss of contact with reality way beyond being a dreamer and into a very scary place where everything and everybody is against you unless they are compliant. 

I guess many of us know at least one individual like this. I know I do - and his poor victims.