Robert briefly explained that he could reconvene the government to try to help Chapman cope with the aftermath of the tragedy that he had allowed the small, Evil One inside him to create. Chapman considered the offer, but decided against it. He was too ashamed, he said.
During his imprisonment, Chapman became possessed by demons, a not uncommon occurrence in people with dissociative disorders. The demons went away in response to exorcisms conducted by Chapman alone and by Chapman and a prison minister in 1985. The demons must have been disavowed, angry parts of his mind.
Mark David Chapman was not a full Manchurian Candidate because there was no amnesia and because he was self-created. He did carry out an assassination, though. He was not schizophrenic - if he had been correctly diagnosed at Castle Memorial Hospital in 1977, and provided skilled psychotherapy, John Lennon might be alive today.
By the time he killed John Lennon, Chapman had transformed his identity into Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye262. This was but one more in a long series of transformations of identity, none permanent or successful. The psychological processes of Mark David Chapman are closely related to those of Sirhan Sirhan; he provides another example of the self-created Manchurian Candidate assassin.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
23
IATROGENIC MULTIPLE
PERSONALITY DISORDER
As I describe in my 1997 textbook258, there are four pathways to multiple personality disorder, now officially named dissociative identity disorder by the American Psychiatric Association: (1) childhood abuse; (2) childhood neglect; (3) factitious; and, (4) iatrogenic. Iatrogenic means created by the therapist. The same four pathways may result in partial or incomplete forms of multiple personality called dissociative disorder not otherwise specified.
Dissociative identity disorder may arise as (1), a natural response to severe, chronic childhood abuse, which may include any combination of physical, sexual, emotional and verbal abuse. It may be a response to (2), severe, chronic childhood neglect. It may be (3), a factitious disorder, that is, the symptoms may be self-created by a person who wants to get into the patient role. Finally, (4), the disorder may be iatrogenic, which means created by a doctor or therapist. In civilian therapies, iatrogenic dissociative identity is created unwittingly and is malpractice, while in Manchurian Candidate Programs it is created on purpose.
Civilian iatrogenic dissociative identity disorder is grounds for a successful malpractice lawsuit: this fact alone establishes that the Manchurian Candidate Programs were harmful, unethical and a violation of human rights. They were designed to create an enduring psychiatric disorder, which is the opposite of what doctors are supposed to do under the Hippocratic Oath and the Nuremberg Code.
Sirhan Sirhan and Mark David Chapman correspond to the factitious pathway, while Palle Hardrup, Candy Jones and Patty Hearst correspond to the iatrogenic pathway.
Controversies concerning the percentage of multiple personality cases that are due to the different pathways have been analyzed in my other writings258, 259, 260. In clinical work, I rarely encounter pure factitious or iatrogenic cases. Instead, most cases contain elements of all four causal pathways, in ratios that vary from case to case.
The reality of iatrogenic multiple personality and the reality of the Manchurian Candidate prove each other. If iatrogenic multiple personality actually occurs, and individuals in such cases experience real but iatrogenic amnesia, auditory hallucinations and posttraumatic stress disorder, then the disorder has been created unwittingly by incompetent, misguided therapists. If therapists can create multiple personality disorder unintentionally, then a skilled mind control doctor should be able to create a Manchurian Candidate on purpose. The therapies in which multiple personality is created unwittingly should mimic the conditions and techniques used by Palle Hardrup, Bjorn Neilsen, Donald DeFreeze and BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE doctors to create Manchurian Candidates.
Inversely, if Manchurian Candidates are real and have been used in actual operations, and if their locking mechanisms, amnesia barriers and post-hypnotic suggestions present a serious barrier to counter-intelligence detection and penetration, then one would expect iatrogenic cases to occur in therapies that mimic the conditions of mind control.
Additionally, if iatrogenic multiple personality and Manchurian Candidates are real, then cases should arise naturally and spontaneously under conditions that mimic misguided therapies and mind control programs. The fundamental condition is inescapable control by adults with power and authority who behave in contradictory, unintegrated ways, at times kind and protective, at others abusive and hateful. This is the classic good cop-bad cop method of interrogation. It is also the experience of children in abusive, traumatic and neglectful families.
If cases of multiple personality disorder never arose spontaneously in abusive and neglectful families, I would expect Manchurian Candidates to be difficult or impossible to create, and I would not expect to encounter iatrogenic cases of multiple personality disorder. I would conclude that the human mind just doesn’t work that way, and doesn’t split off new identities under difficult circumstances, except perhaps in extremely rare cases.
All four pathways to multiple personality depend on the core features of the condition, amnesia and dissociated executive control, being universal aspects of normal human psychology, a view for which I present the evidence and logic in my other writings258-260. I am not trying to prove anything about iatrogenic dissociative identity disorder in this chapter. My goal is to explain why the Manchurian Candidate programs could help us better understand clinical dissociative disorders.
In the course of my work as an expert witness, I have encountered five cases of relatively pure iatrogenic multiple personality disorder. In each case I have reviewed medical records, interviewed the person directly, and administered a battery of self-report, computer-scored and structured interview measures, and in several I analyzed the opinions, affidavits and testimony of the defendants. In one case, I listened to audiotapes of therapy sessions. Additionally I have attended workshops and talks by some of the defendants and reviewed their published writings.
The conclusion that each of the five cases was iatrogenic was reached in several ways. Each litigant was making that claim. In all five cases, there was no evidence of a dissociative disorder existing prior to therapy in the medical records or in the histories I took. There was abundant evidence of treatment techniques and boundary violations that mimicked the mind control techniques used by destructive cults, Bjorn Neilsen, Donald Defreeze, Gilbert Jensen, and BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE doctors.
Subsequent to retracting their multiple personality and false memories, all five litigants experienced spontaneous stable remission of their multiple personality disorder without any therapy designed to achieve that goal. The multiple personality melted away quickly once the litigants escaped the control of their therapists.
I compared the five iatrogenic cases to twelve cases I judged to be examples of the childhood abuse and neglect pathways to multiple personality disorder. Each of these twelve individuals had participated in specific psychotherapy for multiple personality for a period of years and had reached stable integration according to criteria accepted in the field258. None of the childhood trauma pathway cases had retracted her diagnosis or trauma history.
At the time of interview, the two groups did not differ on any of the measures I used. These included the Dissociative Experiences Scale, the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule, the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID), the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory II and III, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, and the Beck Mood Inventory. Four of the iatrogenic subjects also completed the posttraumatic stress disorder section of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. All these measures are commonly used in the field and are referenced and discussed in my writings258, 81, 82.
The two groups did not differ on their lifetime psychiatric profile on the Structured Clinical Interv
iew for DSM III-R. They did not differ on demographic features or childhood histories of physical and sexual abuse as reported on the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule, the text of which is available in my textbook258 and on my web page at www.rossinst.com. The iatrogenic cases had retracted much of their trauma, but their non-retracted trauma histories were still substantial.
Dissociative symptoms prior to diagnosis of the multiple personality were mild in intensity and low in frequency in the iatrogenic cases; the dissociative symptoms appeared to be components of other disorders such as depression and bulimia. The iatrogenic patients’ involvement in the mental health system prior to the iatrogenic therapy was minimal. In contrast, the childhood onset cases had long, complicated mental health histories prior to diagnosis of their multiple personality, including chronic, complex dissociative symptoms.
In the five iatrogenic cases, pre-existing diagnoses of bipolar mood disorder were made in three, and major depressive disorder in the other two. Self-defeating and/or dependent personality disorder were present in all five cases. Three of the four iatrogenic cases tested were positive for posttraumatic stress disorder, and in each case the PTSD was caused by false memories and the trauma of therapy.
The iatrogenic cases provided extreme examples of massive overutilization of treatment techniques and boundary violations. As I describe in a composite case in my textbook258, the treatments mimicked the mind control techniques used by destructive cults289, and by the mind control doctors who created Manchurian Candidates. The treatments included prolonged inpatient admissions lasting as long as two years which imposed conditions of sensory deprivation, sleep and food deprivation; repeated trance induction; isolation from the outside world; control of information; and altered states of consciousness due to drugs.
The patients’ families of origin were defined as Satanic and all doubts about the reality of the multiple personality or the false memories of Satanic ritual abuse were defined as symptoms of cult programming or resistance to treatment. The treatment team had a hierarchical organizational structure with a charismatic leader at the top, just like destructive cults. The treatment violated the methods and principles I recommend in my book, Satanic Ritual Abuse: Principles of Treatment256, and it did so to an extreme degree.
Boundary violations by the therapists ranged from minor problems to sexual involvement. There was excessive personal disclosure by therapists, and the patients often knew the names of therapists’ spouses and children. The personal beliefs of the therapists about “the cult,” and the therapists’ fear and paranoia, were well known to the patients. In many cases, the treatment plan was modified to protect the therapist and patient from the cult. Mail was opened by hospital staff and reviewed for secretly implanted triggers. Control of the patient’s life space, thoughts, beliefs, behaviors and interactions was extensive or complete for prolonged periods of time.
Serious medical problems were ignored or interpreted as cult programming. For instance, a pneumonia was said to be an attempt to sabotage therapy; an extreme elevation in blood pressure during a voluntary physical restraint session was not treated; a purulent discharge went untreated for a week while being interpreted as the workings of a cult alter personality; and the importance of other medical problems was minimized. Serious untreated medical problems included multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, hypothyroidism, an abscessed tooth, and hypertension.
The medical records were extremely unusual. There were no target symptoms or problems that could be treated in an acute setting. The charts were full of comments about the cult, programming, Satanic holidays and the like. These were reported as facts, not allegations of the patient, and were the primary concern of the staff. Stabilization, return to the outside world, building daily coping skills, employment, and the quality of outside relationships all took second place to the cosmic battle with the powers of evil, as represented by the cult, the cult alter personalities, and the cult programming. There was no evidence that any of the Satanic ritual abuse was real.
The five cases show that the threshold for creation of iatrogenic multiple personality is set very high. The degree of control and social influence required to create an iatrogenic case of multiple personality is comparable to the brainwashing conditions required by destructive cults, Communist Chinese interrogators, and creators of Manchurian Candidates. An hour or two of outpatient therapy per week is not enough. In the five iatrogenic cases I reviewed as an expert witness, there was massive over-involvement of the therapist and massive over-utilization of standard treatment techniques. In the most severe cases, total control of the patient was exerted in an inpatient environment for months or years.
Creating a Manchurian Candidate requires intrusion into the subject’s life space on the scale experienced by Palle Hardrup and Patty Hearst. G.H. Estabrooks said that months of training were required, even though subjects had been carefully selected.
I have also served as an expert witness for the defense in iatrogenic multiple personality cases. In several of these cases I judged the complaint of iatrogenic multiple personality to be fake. I call this condition false false memory syndrome. These people do not really have iatrogenic multiple personality; they are faking it. In these cases, there was a prolonged history of faking all kinds of medical conditions prior to the factious multiple personality arising. The conditions of extreme social influence and control by the therapist were absent.
The plaintiffs in these cases had faked multiple personality and now were suing for damages, blaming the therapist for their own deceptive behavior. It is possible that Candy Jones’ story was fake; the information necessary to make a decision about causal pathway in Candy Jones’ case is contained in still-classified documents not available under the Freedom of Information Act.
If more information about the Manchurian Candidate was declassified by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, this would help me in my clinical study of multiple personality disorder. The available Manchurian Candidate documents were declassified in the 1970’s. It is time, I think, for another round of declassification. I close this chapter of The CIA Doctors with a request for more documents.
24
THE REALITY OF THE
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
What does it mean to say that the Manchurian Candidate is real? “Real” or childhood-onset dissociative identity disorder is never literally real. There is never really more than one person there. According to the diagnostic rules of the American Psychiatric Association12, psychiatric diagnoses must be based on observed behaviors and reported symptoms. This is true for all psychiatric diagnoses. Multiple personality disorder is an observed behavior. The person with multiple personality acts as if he or she has different people inside who take turns being in control of the body. This is a behavior, not a literal fact.
The causal pathway of the multiple personality is not relevant to making the diagnosis by American Psychiatric Association rules. Multiple personality, on the one hand, is never literally real. On the other hand, one “really” has multiple personality if one exhibits the behavior of switching and amnesia, unless the condition is being consciously faked, in which case the diagnosis is factitious disorder. By American Psychiatric Association rules, multiple personality is equally “real” if the causal pathway is childhood abuse, childhood neglect or iatrogenic. Therefore a Manchurian Candidate has “real” multiple personality.
The clinical reason to be interested in etiological pathway is not to decide if a case is “real” or not, but to help in treatment planning. The controversy about “real” versus iatrogenic multiple personality is based on a misconception. The disorder is never literally or concretely real, which is why it can be treated with psychotherapy. Despite the fact that it is not literally real, multiple personality can have very real consequences. There are no better examples of this fact than Mark David Chapman and Sirhan Sirhan. The separate identities and amnesia barriers in multiple personality are symptoms, not literal facts. When I speak of an
amnesia barrier, for instance, I realize that there is no physical wall inside the mind.
People actually do find themselves in strange locations, unaware of how they got there, because of multiple personality. These things really happen. Study of the Manchurian Candidate helps us understand the sense in which multiple personality disorder is real. The amnesia barriers, locking mechanisms, and layers of personalities in the Manchurian Candidate actually do provide a barrier to counter-intelligence penetration, as G. H. Estabrooks described. Like the Manchurian Candidate, the person with iatrogenic multiple personality actually experiences the symptoms of the disorder, and actually has dissociative identity disorder by American Psychiatric Association rules.
Consider the hypnotized patient in the middle of gallbladder surgery. The patient is awake, alert and reporting no pain or discomfort. His pulse, blood pressure, muscle tension, and all other physiological measures are normal. What does it mean to say that the pain control isn’t “real,” that the person is “only hypnotized?” Nothing.
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