Family Court judges routinely weaponize mind control to empower fathers over their family, alienate mothers from their children, and force silence and compliance on the children.
Mind control refers to the destructive changing of a person’s mind by someone in a position of power. Science fiction novels and movies have portrayed mind control as some magical, mystical, even creepy process. But the process of changing someone’s belief system and loyalties is now well understood.
The scientific term for mind control is “coercive persuasion” and the term used legally is “undue influence”. It is colloquially referred to as brainwashing, manipulation, indoctrination, programming, thought reform, conversion, etc.
The use of mind control is recognized in cults, sex trafficking, intelligence and military ops, religion, politics, authoritarian regimes, families, and interpersonal relationships—anywhere someone benefits from controlling a person or group of people.
What hasn’t been recognized widely yet is that mind control—both the concept and the practice—is being systematically and methodically weaponized in Family Court to facilitate switching custody of children from loving mothers to abusive fathers. This achieves the goal of keeping the father in power in his family, the age-old patriarchal imperative that is alive and well in family courts around the world.
WAYS AND MEANS
There are two synergistic ways and means that mind control, and the concept of mind control, is being weaponized in Family Court.
On the one hand, judges falsely accuse mothers of using mind control on their children to get them to disclose abuse by the father to damage their relationship with him. There are a variety of terms they use for this, including alienating, coaching, programming, influencing, interfering with the father’s relationship, enmeshing, etc. This bogus finding is then used to justify switching custody to the father.
On the other hand, judges use true mind control on children to get them to recant, “forget”, or just be silent about abuse by the father and comply with their orders to live with him. Judges use deceptive terminology to disguise the fact that they are ordering mind control—such as reunifying, deprogramming, curing an alienated child, treating a child’s psychological disorder/impairment, etc.
So in a through-the-looking-glass-like scheme, the judge claims the mother has programmed her child to disclose abuse to justify an order to deprogram the child, which, in reality, is an order to program the child into silence about the abuse. Or, in common court parlance, the mother is found to be alienating to support an order for “therapy” to treat the alienated child, which is then used to actually alienate the child from the mother.
Ironically, much like ordinary abusers, judges use projection: falsely accuse the mother of doing what they themselves are actually doing. But judges are no ordinary abusers. They have the power to destructively alter children’s identities, beliefs and loyalties, to turn them against their mother and destroy women’s and children’s lives in the process. This is the most serious social justice issue by far for women, but most are not even aware it’s happening—until it’s too late.
HOW IT’S DONE
In the ’50’s, Dr. Kurt Lewin studied the brainwashing of Korean War POW’s and came up with a simple 3-step theory to explain how a person’s mind and loyalties can be changed, which is still useful today: 1: unfreeze; 2: change; 3: refreeze.
The person is “unfrozen” by being broken down and made vulnerable; “changed” through indoctrination into a new belief system and a replacing of bonds; and “refrozen” into a new “psuedo-identity”.
Family Court judges usually initiate the “unfreezing” by removing children partially or totally from their mother. They start to feel lonely, helpless and powerless, making them vulnerable to further mind control tactics. They begin to dissociate off negative emotions caused by having lost their primary bond. Dissociation is a natural psychological defense mechanism used to cope with trauma.
Once vulnerable, the children are “changed” using a selection of mind control tactics specific to each situation. Dr. Steven Hassan, a cult specialist, has handily categorized these methods in his “BITE” model: Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion Control. Behavior is tightly controlled, Information restricted, Thoughts reformed, Emotions manipulated.
Common tactics used in this middle step are: environment regulation, dependence, rewards, punishments, threats, intimidation, imprisonment, rules, beatings, kinds of torture, withholding and distorting of information, isolation from family, friends, and internet, implanting of lies and false information, indoctrination with new narratives, undermining of critical thinking, manipulation of memories, teaching thought and emotion stopping techniques, incitement of guilt, anger, doubt, shame, fear, love-bombing, etc.
As the dissociation grows more severe, the children begin splitting more and more off from their original self, the one who holds the truth, as their subconscious has deemed that self is dangerous to their psychological, and perhaps even physical, survival.
In the last “refreeze” step, the new self with the new belief system and replaced bonding are solidified. This can be done by using carrot and/or stick reinforcements. As most behavioral scientists know, carrots are most effective. The trauma bond with the father has now superseded the children’s primary bond with their mother, effecting a Stockholm-like, misplaced loyalty, and, most importantly for the abuser and his enablers, ensuring silence about the abuse.
The dissociative process is now complete and the new pseudo-identity prevails. This form of dissociation is diagnosable in the psychiatric bible—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM] under Code 300.15 Type 2: Identity disturbance due to prolonged and intense coercive persuasion.
Although it is very difficult to counteract dissociation, children can dissolve their pseudo-identity and regain their authentic selves with expert trauma treatment. The problem is, there are very few good therapists who do this work. In contrast, there are plenty of unethical therapists who will conduct the malignant coercive persuasion.
UNETHICAL THERAPISTS
Judges usually appoint, or allow the father to hire, therapists experienced in mind control, sometimes referred to as “reunification therapists”, to accomplish the feat of changing children’s minds.
Younger children do not necessarily require professional intervention, as simply placing them under the custody and control of the abuser can get them to “identify with the aggressor” and trauma-bond with him.
Older, more resistant children are often sent to lock-down behavioral modification facilities and camps, where more severe methods and actual physical torture are used.
These parasites profit greatly from conducting these unethical, immoral practices. But the profiteering is not the driving force, it is just a reward for their participation in the overall scheme.
WHY??
So why would judges do this knowing full well how horrific a fate that is for both mothers and children?
In one word: POWER. The same reason everyone who uses it does.
Judges want to increase, or at least maintain, their power and status, i.e. keep their job or get promoted. And to do that, the old boys require them to uphold male power in the family—the first, last and greatest patriarchal entitlement.
Patriarchy's chief institution is the family.
Kate Millet, Sexual Politics
What is intensely disgusting, but necessary to really get, is that the prerogative to sexually assault one’s own child has been the most coveted of patriarchal perks over the centuries. Freud exposed how sexual abuse by fathers was common and caused serious mental illness, but he “recanted” when the old boys coercively persuaded him, using the loss of his job and reputation. He was rewarded with great fame, position and wealth for this about face, this “Assault on Truth” as Jeffrey Mousaiff Mason chronicles.
Similarly, judges (and others in positions of power) know that if they go along with the agenda to keep men empowered in their family, especially the coveted prerogative to sexually abuse their children if they so choose, their own power and status will increase. As one protective mother puts it, “The scum rises to the top.”
Judges Lorna Alksne and Michael Smyth, the two judges who went all out in covering up sexual abuse by Damon’s father (story below), are perfect examples of this dynamic. They were promoted to Presiding and Assistant Presiding judges of San Diego Superior Court. This is not coincidental.
CASE EXAMPLES
Thousands of mothers have spoken out about the use of mind control/alienation of their children from them, but it’s especially compelling to hear it directly from children who were subjected to it. Keep in mind, though, these are the exceptional cases in which children escaped intact, undissociated. Most were not so lucky.
ALLY
Ally says she and her sister were taken by force from a family courtroom in Kansas and “trafficked” across the country to a 4 day intensive “reunification” program in Montana where they were “held captive”. They were “isolated from the world” with no phones or internet. The judge made a 90 day no-contact order with their mother.
We were coerced into saying that our mother had brainwashed us into believing we had been abused.
Ally
The sisters had to “denounce” their mother and say they loved their father, their abuser. They were not allowed to talk about their father’s abuse and were coerced into denying the abuse occurred and saying their mother had brainwashed them.
The program leaders made it clear that if the girls told anyone about what was being done to them at the camp, they would be punished. Ally says they were traumatized, but at first refused to comply with the program.
The sisters were threatened that if they didn’t comply with the goal of the program—stop saying their father abused them and agree to live with him—they’d be separated and sent to a wilderness camp, psychiatric facility, or foster care until they were 18, so they complied with the mandate.
As often happens, the judge lied about them being able to get back with their mother if they complied, and they were not allowed to see her at all for another 7 months.
DAMON
Damon recently wrote an essay he entitled “Teenager Pressure Cooker” after researching mind control to determine how it had been carried out on his brothers and him.
When Damon disclosed sexual abuse by his father, Judge Michael Smyth covered up the abuse, accused his mother of having influenced him, and forced Damon to live with his father. The abuse worsened, so his mother took his brothers and him into hiding.
The next judge, Judge Lorna Alksne also covered up the abuse and accused his mother of having exerted “undue influence” on Damon, despite him detailing four years of abuse to court-appointed professionals. His father filed a motion to send him to a deprogramming camp, but Alksne chose an insider “reunification therapist” instead.
Dr. Breffni Barrett, an expert in coercively persuading children to live with abuser fathers used coercive persuasion on Damon and his brothers for a year. It did not work on Damon, so Alksne threatened to send him to a camp to “cure” him of his “psychological impairment” of believing his father had molested him. He escaped that awful fate by running away and Fox News LA covered his time in hiding.
Damon stayed in hiding for almost 2 years until he was able to get married on paper at 16 and emancipate himself. The one that got away…
While in hiding, Damon wrote this “Reunification” essay which describes through a teen’s eyes how Barrett tried to brainwash him and his brothers.
ALANNA
Alanna spoke to Fox News about the attempted brainwashing on her as part of the “Children Lost in the System” series that was initiated by Damon being in hiding.
The lawyer who was appointed to represent my best interests ignored my reports of abuse…The judge rubber-stamped any order my father requested…They said I had been brainwashed by my mother.
When Alanna would not stay quiet about her father’s abuse and agree to live with him, the judge ordered she go to a lock-down behavioral modification facility for “deprogramming”. She says this about what happened there:
I got into this really interesting dynamic where they were saying I had been brainwashed, and my challenge was to convince them I believed them, while still holding on to the truth.
I had to during the day convince them I believed what they were saying, and at night going over in my head, “Ok I know what is true: my mother loves me, my father abused me. Hold onto what’s real in this world.”
And it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
Kudos to these brave survivors for speaking out.
THE DEVASTATION
Children who have been brainwashed do not realize they have been coerced into changing their mind, and appear on the surface to be doing OK. But that does not mean they are not greatly harmed.
The truth and their true self still exist dissociated off in another part of their mind, which can cause many problems they don’t realize are being caused by dissociation. Symptoms include: depression, anxiety, derealization, panic attacks, substance abuse, self-harm, suicidal ideation, etc.
Although it’s devastating for a mother for her children to be taken away from her physically, it’s even more horrific to have their minds and hearts stolen as well. To watch your child become a different person, living a lie, bonded to their and your abuser, is agonizing, like experiencing the death of a child.
A GENDERED ISSUE
The use of mind control in Family Court is a gendered issue disproportionately affecting women.
There is an epidemic of judges falsely accusing mothers of alienating to justify switching custody to an abusive father, then ordering mind control used on those children, then permitting the father to alienate them from the mother.
Conversely, there is no epidemic of judges falsely accusing fathers of alienating to justify switching custody to an abusive mother, then ordering mind control used on those children, then permitting the mother to alienate them from the father.
Not only is there no epidemic of the latter, that does not even rise to the level of a social problem. That is because the core cause of the crisis is systemic male entitlement. Even if men are sometimes treated unjustly in family courts, it is certainly not due to systemic female entitlement.
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION
Taking children away from their mother and subjecting them to coercive persuasion/undue influence techniques to change their belief system and identity comes under the UN’s definition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment—“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person…by or at the instigation of…a public official...”
Thus, what judges are doing is a violation of international law under both the UN Convention on Torture and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Likewise, it qualifies as a violation of many State and provincial codes.
However, judges who subject mothers and children to this torture are not only criminals, they are amoral. Their conscienceless torment and destruction of lives for their own benefit, is downright evil.
And for the women judges who do this, to paraphrase former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, “There’s a special place in hell for women judges who sell out women and children.”
ONE TOOL IN THE TOOLBOX
Mind control is just one tool used in achieving the overall Family Court agenda of keeping men entitled in their families, but it is an especially powerful and destructive one. Judges usually use it when other means of disempowering and silencing women and children have failed.
Mothers who’ve lost their children often place blame on the “soldiers” actually performing the mind control—psychologists, reunification professionals, camps—but the judge is the “boss”. However, without the “boss’s” order or acquiescence, it could not/would not occur; so it is judges who are ultimately responsible for the horror inflicted.
The Women’s Coalition is documenting cases in which mind control has been used to silence and manipulate children in an effort to support our contention its use is indeed prevalent. So if you are a mother who was falsely accused of alienating, influencing, brainwashing, etc. and/or your child was subjected to mind control via reunification therapy, a camp, behavioral modification facility, please take a minute to fill out this form.
NOTE ABOUT THE TERM “ALIENATION”: TWC’s position is that the term alienation should be used instead of replacing it with other terms. The public readily understands what alienation is, so instead of debating whether it is valid, it should be made clear that it is being used against women, as described in this column. [In short: women are being falsely accused of alienation and judges are allowing fathers to alienate our children from us.]
Women have finally gained enough political power to demand a new system in which children will not be taken away from loving mothers and subjected to draconian mind control tactics—but a unified will is needed. Join The Women’s Coalition.
IN OTHER NEWS
PROTEST!
If you’re interested in joining a protest in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 19th, please email: info@womenscoalitioninternational.org [subject: protest].
This protest is tied into the class-action lawsuit, so members and representatives in the LA area are encouraged to attend.
More will be posted about it in next week’s column.
UPDATE: CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT
There was an overwhelming response to our class-action lawsuit! Thanks to all for filling out the member forms.
We got so much interest in other states that we are into the possibility of filing simultaneously in all 50 United States. We have members from every state except Tennessee. If you know mothers there, please encourage them to fill out this brief class member form.
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