What are the dangers of extreme psychological control?
“Alexandra Stein combines deep knowledge of cultic groups from Jehovah's Witnesses to ISIS with wide-ranging research and a rich trove of interviews. This wise and informed book will interest the specialist and the general reader.” - Charles B. Strozier, lead author and editor, The Fundamentalist Mindset
Terror, Love and Brainwashing draws on the author’s 25 years of study and research to explain how almost anyone, given the right set of circumstances, can be radically manipulated to engage in otherwise incomprehensible and often dangerous acts.
Richly illustrated with stories from a range of cults and totalitarian systems, Alexandra Stein reveals details of how charismatic, authoritarian leaders control their followers’ attachment relationships via manipulative social structures and ideologies. Emotionally and cognitively isolated, followers become unable to act in their own survival interests.
A survivor of a political cult herself, Stein draws upon her own experience, as well as stories from a range of religious, political and commercial cults, in order to portray the psychological impact of these environments. She shows how the combined dynamic of terror and ‘love’ works to break down people’s ability to think and behave rationally. From small local cults to global players like ISIS and North Korea, the impact of these movements is widespread and growing.
“The most important means of protecting ourselves and our loved ones from enmeshment in totalistic organisations, or abusive personal relationships, is to learn the precise mechanics of how these systems work,” Stein explains. “My goal in this book is to clearly explain and illustrate these methods and the dangers of extreme psychological control.”
Relevant to academic and casual readers alike, Terror, Love and Brainwashing provides timely guidance to foster greater awareness and prevention of brainwashing and cultic groups. Alexandra Stein explains the topics of recruitment, indoctrination, interpersonal relationships, ideology and totalitarian leadership.
This book offers clarity and a unique perspective on the dynamics of these systems of control, and expands the conversation of cults and other controlling groups and relationships and their political, social and cultural significance.
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If you would like any further information, or to arrange a telephone interview, please get in touch.
About the Author:
Alexandra Stein, PhD, is a social psychologist who lectures and writes on cults and totalitarianism. Formerly, she was an associate lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London, UK and has also taught at the University of Minnesota, US and the University of Westminster, UK. As a young woman she was a member of a political cult, an experience she described in her first book, Inside Out.
NOTES FOR EDITORS
For more information, or to request a review copy, please contact:
Natalie Turner, Associate Marketing Manager, Routledge
Tel: +44 (0) 207 017 74309 | Email: Natalie.Turner@tandf.co.uk
When referencing the book, please include: Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein, published by Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group).
*Learn more about Terror, Love and Brainwashing
at: https://www.routledge.com/9781138677975
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