The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [93]
A particularly instructive example is reported by Robert Lifton in his study of thought reform among Westerners in Chinese prisons. He quotes one of his converted subjects, a Frenchman, as saying the following about de Gaulle:
“Well, give him a chance. See what he can do. I was rather against him at first because I thought he was reactionary. Then someone said that Moscow was not against him because they thought he would break NATO. Since then I have not been so much against him, because Moscow had that opinion. If Moscow stands for de Gaulle, then I am for de Gaulle.”[5]
On the basis of all the preceding considerations, the following hypothesis seems tenable: a normal person will change his beliefs or behavior whenever suggestions for such change are seen by him to emanate from some figure or institution he accepts as a positive authority. Either he will change his beliefs and behavior so that they conform with what he believes positive authority expects of him, or, if he cannot or will not change, he will alter his beliefs about the positive authority itself; he will become more negative or more disaffected with the authority and, in the extreme, he will even formulate new beliefs about new authorities to rely on.
What has this theoretical discussion to do with our study of the three delusional Christs? How could these notions be applied to produce further changes in the delusional beliefs and behavior of our subjects? Many psychiatrists and psychoanalysts would agree that the severely regressed paranoid person has no external positive reference persons or groups; this is precisely why he is so difficult to treat. His delusional beliefs are unshakable because they are wholly without support by others, and this accounts for the secretiveness, seclusiveness, and solitary rumination so frequently observed in the patient with paranoid delusions. He knows that no one in the real world will accept his beliefs, so why communicate them and thereby risk subjecting himself to ridicule or to the stress of argument? Better, as Joseph said, to keep one’s mouth shut. Possibly because the paranoid psychotic has been tremendously hurt by significant referents of his earlier life, he has renounced all positive referents outside himself. The only external referents he has are negative ones, referents to whom he looks in order to know what not to do; this accounts for the negativism so characteristic of the paranoid person. Since he looks to no one outside himself in a positive way, it is extremely difficult for the therapist, or anyone else for that matter, to say or do anything that would make a real difference. Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes that a basic prerequisite for positive change in the therapeutic situation is the capacity of the patient to form a positive transference relationship with the therapist—that is, the patient must establish the therapist as a positive referent. But in psychosis, and particularly in psychoses involving paranoid tendencies, a positive transference is deemed extremely unlikely[6] and for this reason the typical prognosis is, at best, “guarded,” and more usually, “poor.” The whole system of belief has become more or less primitive, including the normally nonprimitive beliefs about selective authority. Thus, since there are no positive referents outside the self, it is considered to be extremely difficult to contradict delusional beliefs from the outside. Logical persuasion by others is ineffectual since the person is beyond the reach of all external referents. His delusional system represents a closed network of beliefs designed, on the one hand, to make him completely independent of external referents—thus putting himself beyond reach and hurt—and on the other, to help him account for what he does, or understand why he feels as he feels, and