Sixteen Ways to Break A Person

The following is from an actual court case:

Sixteen Ways to Break a Person

The following is taken from the Court case of State of California v. Hooker, (1986)

Dr. Hatcher, an international expert on "how to break a person", testified as an expert witness on this case, his credentials would fill 2 pages, but in brief form, U.S. Department of Justice, Scotland Yard, Hong Kong Police, San Francisco Police, Los Angeles Police, U.S. Secret Service. Dr. Hatcher was testifying for the California State prosecutor, he is paid $300 per hour, this is his story on brainwashing, breaking a person, and coercion.

His exact words from the transcript in this above mentioned court case. You can also get his story from a book titled Perfect Victim, published in 1988, authors Christine McGuire and Carla Norton, interesting note: McGuire was the state prosecutor in this case, her marriage ended in divorce over this case, but she had to tell the truth.

Dr. Hatcher's background includes involving hypnosis, terrorism, and victim behavior of hostages, captivity, kidnapping, mind control, and coercion, imprisonment, involuntary servitude and pseudo-masochistic behavior.

Dr. Hatcher used a graph to describe the degrees of mind control.

The Dr. stated, "This can be physical pressure, it can also be mental or psychological pressure. Of course, there can be many degrees and variations of coercion or extreme pressure, self destruction can be the end result."

The Dr. stated, "In brainwashing, what theoretically happens is not just that a person is pressured to do something or not to do something, but in fact their whole adult processes, their values, their way of looking at the world is changed completely."

McGuire (the prosecutor) asked: "To 'break' a person, is that the same thing as coercing a person?"

Dr. Hatcher said, "the term, accepted within psychological literature usually referred to 'techniques' initially developed by the Soviets and Chinese to establish coercion [to a degree that] you are able to extract a behavior or a confession, to the point at which a person essentially gives up their overt resistance and will do what you ask them to do."

McGuire then asked the doctor if there were specific steps which could be followed to break a person.

Dr. Hatcher replied, "that they were more accurately 'techniques' rather that steps." Dr. Hatcher pointed out that "not all the techniques need be applied, and they needn't be applied in any particular order." "The degree and intensity" of application of these techniques is "so variable that you could take three or four of them, and with particular individuals, achieve the result," (to control or break them).

Dr. Hatcher said, "The techniques of invoking control over a person involve the variable degree use of fear and guilt. A feeling that one's worst fears are being realized, and then raising that level of fear and anxiety."

McGuire next asked "how might someone learn the steps of breaking a person?"

Dr. Hatcher listed three sources: "the study of psychology, the government law enforcement and military forces."

I am going to list Dr. Hatcher's noted "techniques" 1 through 16, I will also add the comments of Dr. Hatcher and Dr. Leary, a Harvard trained psychologist, to their respective points, steps or techniques, and along with that I will add my own words of understanding. What I put in quotes is from the trial transcript, and yes they did win the case and did prove that "breaking a person" was caused by the hereafter mentioned and listed steps (techniques) or points. My own personal experience is also stated below in short.

1. "Seize the victim and take them away." Dr. Hatcher, "a sudden unexpected abduction, followed by isolation as soon as possible." "Refuse to answer questions, place them in a cell-like environment and begin humiliation and degradation." "These magnify the feeling of vulnerability."

2. "Isolate the victim and make them totally dependent on you for survival." Dr. Hatcher, "the second step in breaking someone, is to physically abuse the person, to expose the captives vulnerability and shock him or her, to illustrate just how exposed and vulnerable they really are, in which there is no perceived way of escape."

3. "Dominate the victim and encourage them to seek your recognition and approval." Dr. Hatcher, "you must get permission for every major reason."

4. "Instruct the victim and reeducate them to think and act in terms of our (captor's) ideology." Dr. Hatcher, "commenting on the captive being allowed to do new activities in new settings where other people are present. The fact that these situations do not result in discovery or anyone interfering begins to reinforce, in the majority of captive's minds, that this is the way life is, and they are going to have to accept that."

5. "Coerce the victim and provide them with a new value system." Dr. Hatcher, "basically, what you want to do here is destroy a person's sense of privacy."

6. "To punish for no apparent rhyme or reason." Dr. Hatcher, "Initially the victim tries to figure out some rationale to the intermittent punishment, but, finding none, eventually has to simply accept that punishment will occur with no reason."

7. "Require the victim to constantly ask permission for anything or any behavior." Dr. Hatcher, "this is a type of training procedure."

8. "Getting a person to realize things have changed in a permanent sense." "If you displease me, (the government) I can remove any shred of personal privacy or personal identity, with the exception of what I have chosen as your slave designation."


9. "Continue to isolate the person." Dr. Hatcher,"The captor has now become the source of food, water, and human contact as well." "Use of the media to accomplish this goal impart"

10. "Is to present a goal or model of future behavior, a model of how to please the captor." Dr. Hatcher, "It was common to have the captive victim echo the captors (government) belief system."

11. "Is to threaten family and relatives with a similar fate."

12. "Is to threaten to sell or give the captive to an even worse master."

13. "Continue to punish at irregular intervals."

14. "irrelevant leniency," Dr. Hatcher,"this is to allow small privileges for no reason, making the captive more confused and more pliant."

15. "to obtain further confessions and signed documents," Dr. Hatcher,"thus having the captive give over more and more control in writing."

16. "to incorporate new behavior goals." Dr. Hatcher pointed out, "Its enormously time-consuming to carry out a successful coercion. (The reason and need for big government!) So you need to establish some type of pattern where you won't have to be constantly physically monitoring this victim." And Hatcher explained "it's imperative to permit the captive/victim some degree of freedom, without the captors constant presence, and then suddenly appear, giving the captive/victim a feeling the captor is omnipresent."

Dr. Hatcher, "a person in a captive situation against their will is in a coercive situation." What is its effect?

Dr. Hatcher, "there are several, the most interesting one is a numbness . . . of affect. There is a flatness or blunting of affect, they (the victim) want to let God or someone else take charge of retribution or punishment," (captor's evil to be dealt with by God).

Current government action equals social power steering, invoking a compliance direction for all general human factors of social interaction. Government magnifies its ever increasing body through propaganda and a silent (sub rosa)(sound byte) esoteric language, artificial is the media battle cry as verbalized "it's for the good of the people," and again "let government be your guide and savior." Who can fight against such irony of so called goodness? When entering the government realm, one encounters the four (4) "C's", Confusion, Complication, Compliance and Control.