Thought Manipulation: The Use and Abuse of Psychological Trickery (21 page)

EXPANDING OR LIMITING CHOICES

Our point of departure is a liberal manipulator who believes that his target is a closed-minded and biased individual. The benevolent manipulator understands that the target’s problematic position is somewhat functional for him, the target. For example, the target prefers to escape into a sweet imaginary fantasy than to cope with extremely difficult circumstances. Our liberal manipulator decides to help, or maybe to save, the target. However, it is reasonable to expect that the target will not stay apathetic to any move intended to shift his “precious” conception, so the liberal manipulator’s road to open new horizons for the target is fraught with obstacles. Could it be that the difficult circumstances will eventually turn a liberal manipulator into a paternalistic or even oppressive one? Is it possible that our liberal manipulator, who has his own opinion, is actually leading the target to embrace the manipulator’s position? Will it be too much of exaggeration to wonder if expanding manipulations are, in practice, no more than theoretical camouflage for limiting manipulations? These questions are not new and certainly not original. For example, generations of psychologists have been tortured, and still are, by the very question of the neutrality of the psychological therapy. There are strong arguments that any therapist, like every one of us, can never be neutral, as he has his own opinion of the patient’s situation. The neutral, or maybe the liberal, expectations of the therapist—”only” to help the patient to discover new options, possibilities and horizons—are not realistic. Is it possible that the therapist, in practice, is leading his patient to embrace one specific position that is, incidentally, his own? Is it possible that the therapist who starts his job with liberal intentions becomes a paternalistic therapist in the better case and an authoritarian therapist in the worst one?

These difficulties are highly relevant to many other areas in the social sciences, among them the difference between a liberal education and an oppressive one; the boundary between constructive criticism and destructive criticism; and the distinction between social reformer, social spoiler, and social oppressor. However, it is the psychological treatment that provides laboratory conditions to examine these difficult problems. The next chapters examine the interrelationships of ethical difficulties in therapeutic sessions and general problems in the wider social context. This methodology should help pave the way to understanding the complicated interaction between a liberal manipulator and his target.

NOTES

1. For a further discussion on strategic surprises in wars, see, for example, Wohlstetter R.,
Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962) and Whaley, B.,
Codeword Barbarossa
(Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1974). Of course, they dig much deeper than the schematic and brief description that I offer here. My purpose is only to demonstrate the strength of conviction in a conception that contradicts the facts on the ground.

2. For a further discussion on rationalization, see Grunbaum, A., The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique (London: University of California Press, 1985), 70; Szabadoa, B., “The Self, Its Passions and Self Deception,” in M. Mike (Ed.) Self-Deception, and Self-Understanding (KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985), 155.

3. See Kuhn, T. S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962).

4. See, for example, Fried, Y., and J. Agassi,
Paranoia: A Study in Diagnosis
(Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1976), 31: “...Bacon’s bad scientist, who instead of waiting for the facts to lead him to a theory, dares to invent one and test it empirically. Clearly, said Bacon, his test will not be of any use since he will not give up his theory just because a small fact contradicts it. This, added Bacon, is especially true if he has disciples. He will have a fixation on it; he will rather distort ad hoc, either his theory or his facts, than give up his pet doctrine and the advantage it gives him over his disciples. And, unable to take the cure of accepting facts which run contrary to his theory, he will be trapped in his error; his theory, thus, will act as both spectacles and blinkers.”

5. See Fried and Agassi,
Paranoia
.

6. Compare to Berlin, I.,
Four Essays on Liberty
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 21–23: “It is this change of attitude to the function and value of the intellect that is perhaps the best indication of the great gap which divided the twentieth century from the nineteenth...For the first time it was now conceived that the most effective way of dealing with questions, particularly those recurrent issues which had perplexed and often tormented original and honest minds in every generation, was not by employing the tools of reason, still less those of the more mysterious capacities called ‘insight’ and ‘intuition,’ but by obliterating the questions themselves. And this method consists not in removing them by rational means—by proving, for example, that they are founded on intellectual error or verbal muddles or ignorance of the facts—for to prove this would in its turn presuppose the need for rational methods of philosophical or psychological argument. Rather, it consists in so treating the questioner that problems which appeared at once overwhelmingly important and utterly insoluble vanish from the questioner’s consciousness like evil dreams and trouble him no more. It consists, not in developing the logical implications and elucidating the meaning, the context, or the relevance and origin of a specific problem—in seeing what it amounts to—but in altering the outlook which gave rise to it in the first place.” It seems that Berlin’s description is too much of an exaggeration. As I will try to demonstrate, change, even by employing creative and unusual approaches, is not easy.

7. See, for example, Suber, P., “Paternalism,” in C. B. Gray (Ed.)
Philosophy of Law: An Encyclopedia
(New York: Garland Publishing, 1999): “Paternalism” comes from the Latin pater, meaning to act like a father, or to treat another person like a child...In modern philosophy and jurisprudence, it is to act for the good of another person without that person’s consent, as parents do for children. It is controversial because its end is benevolent, and its means coercive. Paternalists advance people’s interests (such as life, health, or safety) at the expense of their liberty.”

8. To better clarify the term liberal paternalism I would like to explain its difference from somewhat similar notion, libertarian paternalism. Thaler and Sunstein (Thaler, R. H., and C. R. Sunstein, “Libertarian Paternalism,” The American Economic Review 93(2) (2003): 175–179), who appear to have coined the term libertarian paternalism, view it “as an approach that preserves freedom of choice but that authorizes both private and public institutions to steer people in directions that will promote their welfare.” (the emphasis is mine). Liberal paternalism, however, is a motivating strategy geared toward expanding people’s field of vision on existing options. In contrast to the libertarian paternalist, who seems to know, or at least estimate, that a specific option is likely to promote another’s welfare, the liberal paternalist identifies a larger spectrum of possibilities with improving people’s well-being. Thaler and Sunstein seem to emphasize the paternalistic aspect of their unusual mixture libertarian paternalism, while in my own somewhat strange coupling, liberal paternalism, the emphasis remains the liberal aspect.

9. The twentieth century taught us to sober up from the illusion of possible neutrality and objectivity. Even Freud, who claimed that psychoanalysis is an objective science, was far from being detached or neutral. For a further discussion, see Szasz, T. S.,
The Myth of Mental Illness
(New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 257.

CHAPTER 10

Spotlight on Therapy: Therapeutic Manipulation

THE POWERFUL SUPERVISOR AND HIS ATTRACTIVE SECRETARY

Many stories have been written about the “winning team” of the beautiful, ambitious secretary and her demanding supervisor. Of course, ordinary people are not often as fascinating and glamorous as those presented in Hollywood movies. However, some of the ethical dilemmas that even grade-B movies present, in order to evoke audience sympathy, do actually have some basis in ordinary workday reality. Indeed, it is not difficult to dramatize such a meeting between a secretary and her superior, and thus to present an important real-life ambiguity: the difference between legitimate courtship and sexual harassment.

In order to dramatize the issue, let us assume that both characters have ulterior motives. The ambitious secretary schemes for a promotion at any cost, while her womanizing superior lusts after her. Therefore, they are both involved in a contest that creates almost impossible difficulties for an impartial spectator wanting to identify the “real” manipulator: Is it the beautiful, elegant, wily, and ambitious secretary or is it her powerful and domineering, but lonely and frustrated superior?

This dilemma becomes extremely difficult in cases where our dramatis personae, the superior and his secretary, have many desirable career options opening up to them, are working together completely of their own volition, and are able to resign whenever they want. Since each of them has sufficient self-determination to fulfill his or her dreams and desires, the interaction becomes a mutually manipulative game; that is, until the situation escalates out of control. Unfortunately, the interaction that starts as a mutual manipulative diversion often ends in reciprocal accusation and litigation. For example, the disappointed secretary, who did not get the promotion, accuses her superior—or, more precisely, her former superior—of sexual harassment. He, frustrated at her rejection and scorn, responds by claiming deception and entrapment in her provocative behavior and use of feminine wiles.

As is well known, many human interactions create tensions and confrontations. The most important question is not how to resolve such an archetypical conflict, but how to avoid it. Indeed, the more productive riddle is whether it is possible to channel the opposing motivations of the secretary and her superior to create a real winning team, a team that works together in harmony and yields beneficial results. My intention is not to confront this challenging ethical issue in a real-life workplace. Rather, my chief purpose is to shed light on a similar ambiguity that appears in a more discrete situation, the psychological treatment. Accordingly, I move from manipulative courting in the workplace and delve into the dark corners of a human relationship as it appears in the laboratory conditions of a therapist’s couch.

Speaking of courtship and therapeutic interaction, it is common that when two human beings meet, even occasionally, to discuss the most intimate secrets of one of them, they will probably not remain indifferent to each other. Moreover, it was Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, who interpreted these meetings as being most relevant to the ambiguous connection between manipulation and legitimate courtship. Freud explained most of human misery psychosexually. Likewise was his view of psychoanalysis itself, with its emphasis on the well-known phenomenon of transference-love that is an essential component in Freudian therapy and is relevant to the discussion of manipulative behavior and sexual courtship. But let us begin with some general background.

THE FREUDIAN COUCH AND MANIPULATION

A person usually comes to psychoanalysis because of distress that she cannot cope with by herself. Unfortunately, it turns out that getting to the root of psychological problems is not easy. Often, the patient actually seems to conceal key issues that have crucial bearing upon her misery. In order to elicit honest expression and gain access to the source of her hurt, the therapist must offer compelling incentives both to distract the patient’s mind from her usual defenses and to motivate her to act in unpleasant manners, such as when revealing her most intimate secrets. Examples of such powerful motivating incentives are love and sexual desire.

Love and sexual desire work a powerful magic that can blind even the most reasonable human being. However, the inevitable questions arise: What is the connection between such incentives and psychoanalysis? More precisely, how exactly must the analyst employ such powerful tools for the benefit of the patient? Why not employ as interrogators top models in order to ease the patients of their secret burdens? Or, maybe a necessary prerequisite for becoming an analyst is a natural talent for seduction?

One need not be Freud to realize that choosing sex and love as the motivating mechanisms in psychoanalysis raises significant ethical problems. Moreover, analysts, including Freud himself, do not always look like movie stars. Nevertheless, as I will explain later, love and sex are often viewed as motivating vehicles of psychoanalytic sessions, at least in Freud’s way of thinking. Before plunging into the controversy over eroticism in psychoanalysis, however, we continue with more necessary general background.

THE MANIPULATOR THAT MIGHT FALL VICTIM OF HIS OWN TRAP

The idea of “therapeutic” manipulation is based on the observation that the typical psychoanalytic client will not readily facilitate the analyst’s work, which is to help the patient make a change. With this in mind, Freud saw in the transference-love phenomenon—the erotic feelings of a meaningful childhood image (usually a mother or father) that the patient projects onto the analyst—as an opportunity to lead the patient to examine major aspects of his or her life from a new perspective. To be more specific, Freud hoped to use the erotic feelings that psychoanalysis provokes to maneuver the patient into discovering details from her early life that are relevant to her present suffering.

Ironically, it seems that Freud, occupied in developing his paradigm, did not explore the possibility that he, himself, might be the victim of manipulation. In other words, being occupied in devising a manipulative method for the patient’s benefit, it seems to have evaded Freud’s thinking that it might be the patient who was maneuvering the analysis.

The idea of such modification in classical Freudian psychoanalysis is implicit in the thought of Thomas Szasz, one of the sharpest critics of Freud. According to Szasz’s way of thinking, transference-love is the childish behavior of a patient who searches for a protective father or a fairy godmother. To put it differently, by imitating infantile patterns, the patient hopes to maneuver the analyst into taking responsibility for the patient’s behavior and decision-making.