He wanted me to
denounce
others, and I didn't want to do this.
Lifton-Robert-Jay-Thought-Reform-and-the-Psychology-of-Totalism
What was the real point of view of the government about religion?
He was told that the government was not opposed to foreigners living and working in China, and that he would be able to stay; that the government did not oppose religion; and all those who did not oppose the religious reform movement could continue their religious activities.
The reform movement referred to was the Communist-sponsored, nationwide, "triple autonomy" campaign for all of Chinese Christianity, ad- vocating Chinese rather than foreign direction of worship, funds, and organization.
To the Communists, this movement was merely a way to cast off outside "imperialist" influence and form a "na- tional church"; but most of the Catholic missionaries saw it as a way to get the Church under direct Communist control.
The Legion of Mary was strongly opposed to the reform movement, but Luca himself had favored a much more moderate position than some of his superiors.
In this discussion, the official conceded that Luca "was not like other foreigners," as he had always been against the presence of foreign troops and Western concessions in China; but at the same time the official strongly condemned Luca for his re- peated defense of the Church in the cell, and insisted that he was attempting to influence the cell chief, a Chinese Catholic who was bitterly critical of Church activities.
In this and other talks with officials, there was a sense of better mutual understanding than in previous talks, although Luca nonetheless encountered periodic outbursts of personal "struggles" and vindictive criticism, largely
relating to the issue of the Church.
There were also indications that Luca's imprisonment might
soon come to an end: the appearance of other foreigners, including another priest, in his cell; more rewriting, translating, and summariz- ing of his confession with the help of his compatible prisoner- official; orders for the foreigners to send for their luggage. His con- fession, simplified and clearly damning, was finally pruned down to just two points: his relationship with Father C, and his Legion of Mary activities. In the first, "espionage" was still mentioned;
? FATHER LUCA: THE FALSE CONFESSION 59
and in the second, a new emphasis was placed upon details of organizational structure and membership. The confession was ac- curate to the extent that it included only real events; it was distorted only 'in the interpretation of these events. When the confession was in final form, Luca was called into a special room, where he was photographed and recorded reading it aloud.
During his last weeks of imprisonment, Luca experienced what was perhaps his highest point of co-operation with his captors. During a last "confession movement," he brought out yet more details about his resistance to the government in his Legion of Mary work. After this, he became actively involved in helping two newcomers to confess. With one of them, he felt justified:
I believed that his attitude wasn't good--he had done bad things-- beatings and possibly killing people. There was no use for him not to confess.
But the other man was a Chinese Catholic priest, which put Luca in a difficult situation:
It was for me a very great strain. I dared not stay out of helping him, but I would not enforce upon him things I felt were wrong. I tried to make a compromise--to find real facts which were not against religion, to let him use words that didn't imply something. But either he did not understand my tactics, or else he just would not use them.
These incidents of co-operation--and especially the second--were also difficult for Luca to discuss.
His final sessions with judges and officials were held in an atmos- phere of friendly exchange between reasonable people. There was, however, some talk about a ten-year sentence. Luca admitted some of his "errors," and certain specific "bad behavior" concerning his relationship with Father C and with the Legion of Mary; but he emphasized that at the time, he had been unaware he was com- mitting a "crime. " The judge said:
We know we made mistakes with you--that is, with your body--but when you go away you must also admit that you had some faults, and you must not exaggerate what happened here. . . . You must realize that at the beginning it was difficult for us to fully master the prison situation--we had many bad people among the other prisoners--and now all of the beatings have stopped, which shows that our real policy
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is not so bad as might seem if one were to consider only what happened to you during the first year.
Luca responded by agreeing that he had observed these improve- ments in prison procedure.
During one of these interviews he was told for the first time that he was to be expelled from China; official confirmation came a few minutes later when he was taken before another judge and another official, who read the formal sentence. The "crimes" named had been reduced to three: the "military information" to Father C, his Legion of Mary activities (both included in his last confession), and "information to imperialists" transmitted in letters written from China.
Luca had mixed feelings about the resolution of his case:
Of course I felt some relief--the feeling that now it is all finished--no more strain. But at the same time I had the feeling that the conclusion is not totally satisfying--I didn't want to be out of my missionary work--and not see the many friends--the Christians left there--and no longer have any connection with them. . . . I also had the feeling that the things I said in the beginning were retracted--but that all of the case was not totally clear.
Release and Search
He still had these mixed feelings when he boarded the ship which took him from China to Hong Kong. On the way, he ex- perienced transient beliefs that there must be Communists among the sailors who would report on his shipboard behavior. He also observed and described to me the sequence of his feelings about his experience: the first day, sadness at leaving China; second day, chagrin at his "needless suffering" in an experience so "stupid and meaningless"; third and fourth days, the feeling that the Church had made mistakes in China which should be corrected; fifth and sixth days, a vague melancholy. When he landed in Hong Kong on the seventh day, he was quoted by reporters as saying that his arrest had been due to a "misunderstanding"--avoiding then any strong statement or condemnation.
When I saw him a few days later, his paranoid thinking had dis- appeared, his depression had diminished, and his attitude was no
? FATHER LUCA: THE FALSE CONFESSION 6l
longer neutral. He was once more the dedicated Catholic priest, preoccupied with the problems of his Church, cared for, attended to, and continuously visited by his religious colleagues. His prin- cipal regret was his inability to maintain allegiance to both the Church and to China:
To leave the prison was to be expelled--if I could have left the prison without having been expelled, I would have liked that most.
By the second interview (just two days after the first) little confusion remained: he spoke clearly of the "false accusations" made against him, of his conviction that he had been "unjustly" treated. But he did not stop with these condemnations; rather, he embarked upon a determined search for understanding of his ordeal. He sought--through meditations, talks with me, and his writings--to discover why the Communists had behaved as they did, what mistakes the Church had made in China which might have contributed to this behavior, and how he, as a priest who had undergone an ordeal, could help his Church to improve itself in the future. He told me of the detailed reconstruction of his entire imprisonment which he had begun while on the ship, essentially for his own use; of the special reports he was preparing for Church authorities; of the articles he was writing for Catholic periodicals. One of these articles dealt with apologetics, and refuted the Com- munist point of view on religion. Another article was a detailed re- port on the activities of the Legion of Mary in China.
When I was in jail they had me write very much about this. Now I would like to write freely about it and have a good look at the thing. . . . My aim is to have a document that a few people can study to see whether we made mistakes, and how these can be corrected. . . . And to show what were the false accusations that the Communists made against us.
Others were more simple vignettes of Catholic faith: he told of praying to the Virgin Mary during a painful ordeal of struggle and beating, which resulted in the immediate arrival of prison of- ficialswho stopped the abuse; and of the progress of a little Chinese girl, at first "naughty" and "fierce," whom Luca had succeeded in converting to active Catholicism despite the initial opposition of her parents. So preoccupied was he with these activities that it was
? 62 THOUGHT REFORM
not until the third session with me that he went into any detail about his prison experience.
When he did, it was usually in a self-deprecating manner. He spoke of his "weakness/* his "cowardly behavior/' of his failure to set a proper example as a leader of Chinese Christian youth. Nor could he always find comfort from talking with his fellow priests in Hong Kong: some would express amazement at his having made such a false confession, and he would interpret this as a feeling on their part of his having let the Church down; others received him as something of a hero, and this made him feel no better.
People now say, "You are wonderful. You have suffered so much--like a martyr/' I become uncomfortable and confused when they say this. There are so many things I should have done better.
Martyrdom was for him an ideal which he felt he had failed to live up to, and he viewed his imprisonment as a missed opportunity.
I felt not too useful because I had an insufficiently good attitude--and because I had confessed to false things. I had the idea of a somewhat wasted occasion.
He summed up his feelings in the language of the Church:
I am guilty of many sins, but not the ones that the Communists accuse me of; and I hope to make amends for my sins.
Yet it did mean a great deal to him to be once more living in a world of priests, nuns, and fellow Christians. He was especially pleased when he received visits from young colleagues, former students, or from Chinese Christian youths who told him of the inspiration they had derived from his leadership in the past.
As he continued his explorations, he remained thoughtful and moderate in his views about the Communists as well as about his own Church, and always qualified his judgments. Concerning his own treatment, he said:
I think it is wrong to seek by evil means such guilty interpretation of my behavior. . . . I feel that they treated me wrongly. . . . Of course it is better that they admitted their mistakes--and let me retract. But even when they admit their mistakes, they don't go to the bottom of the question of why they make mistakes.
? FATHER LUCA: THE FALSE CONFESSION 6 j
The reasons for these Communist "mistakes" were, he felt;
They are prejudiced against the Catholic Church. . . . They are too confident about their own judgment. . . . They are not sufficiently correct about criticizing or punishing their own misbehavior, or that of their semi-official associations.
He had some praise for the Chinese Communist regime as well; he recognized its accomplishments in building and industry, he was impressed with their planned production, and he felt that many of their concepts about economics were "logical. " And al- though he himself had long been critical of the Nationalist Regime which preceded the Communists, its shortcomings, and especially its corruption, had become more vivid to him: "I have somewhat more understanding of the reason why so many people in China were discontented with the old order. "
Nonetheless, he believed that the Chinese people were paying a heavy price for their accomplishments--especially in the "great strain" being imposed upon them, and in the limitations upon their thought. He thought the Communists were particularly deficient in "the question about how to let people have their own ideas, and especially about a way of making justice in the courts. " There had been some improvement, he felt, but not enough:
At the beginning they were totally wrong; since three years ago, they have been in some ways better, but not sufficiently so that one could say that their ways were good.
Father Luca also had pointed and specific criticism for his own Church. He especially disapproved of those among the Catholic priests who became involved in military activities against the Chinese Communists, both on ethical and practical grounds: "I think it is not according to the Christian way of proceeding--and it is of no use," He claimed that he had always disapproved of these activities, but he had been made to feel during his imprisonment that he had "indulged" those among his friends who pursued such policies, and now his opposition was more firm. He was also critical of foreign priests who lived too lavishly in China ("They forgot the spirit of poverty"), and more basically of the Church's failure to build up a highranking Chinese hierarchy, and its tendency to keep foreign priests in the senior positions in China. He felt that both
? 64 THOUGHT REFORM
the Communists and the Church should mend their ways: that the former should admit and correct their mistakes and develop a "more fair attitude" towards religion; and that the latter should "see more what was wrong in our attitudes" and then seek to change them.
In all of this, Father Luca maintained a distinction between the fallible actions of individual priests, and his more basic religious convictions:
When there was criticism of priests, I knew that much was true, and I admitted it. But about the existence of God--I was convinced of the emptiness of their arguments when they said there was no God.
His religious feelings aside, Luca felt he had undergone an im- portant personal change. He found himself more willing to listen to others' opinions, more patient, and less quick to "get in anger. " He also thought that he had become more articulate, and had largely overcome a previous tendency to "feel nervous because I couldn't express the things I wanted to say/'
During the month in which we were working together, Luca showed periodic signs of restlessness, "nervous diarrhea," and anxiety concerning his future. But these gradually diminished as he became increasingly focused and relaxed within the Hong Kong Catholic setting. His physical condition also improved, although he was told that he would never be well enough for the active life of a parish priest. He showed throughout an obvious reluctance to leave Hong Kong; although it was not China proper, it had at least a partial Chinese atmosphere, and permitted him to use the Chinese language. At first he expressed this directly: "I regret the possibility that I may have to go back to Europe. " But gradually, he began to accept the inevitable, and when he finally left, he was looking ahead to future work. Yet he also looked back to his life in China--and his mood was one of sadness.
? CHAPTER 5 PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS
There is a basic similarity in what both Dr. Vincent
and Father Luca experienced during Communist imprisonment. Although they were held in separate prisons far re- moved from each other, and although they differed very much in their responses to reform, they were both subjected to the same general sequence of psychological pressures. This sequence was es- sentially the same despite the fact that these men were very dif- ferent from each other, with different personal and professional life styles. Nor was this thought reform pattern common to just these two: it was experienced by all twenty-five of the Westerners whom I interviewed.
The common pattern becomes especially important in evaluating the stories these Westerners told me. Each was attempting to describe, in most instances as accurately as possible, the details of an ordeal from which he had just emerged. But what each reported was also inevitably influenced by his immediate life situation--his psychological transition between the two worlds, his personal struggles for both integrity and integration, his feelings about suc- coring and threatening colleagues and strangers in Hong Kong, his view of me as an American, a physician, a psychiatrist, and a person. All of these circumstances could affect his account, and especially its emotional tone. Therefore, both during the inter- views and in the later study of my notes, I had to sift out what was
65
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most characteristic and most consistent, to evaluate this informa- tion in terms of my understanding of the people supplying it, and then to piece together a composite analysis of the process itself.
Death and Rebirth
Both Dr. Vincent and Father Luca took part in an agonizing drama of death and rebirth. In each case, it was made clear that the "reactionary spy" who entered the prison must perish, and that in his place must arise a "new man/' resurrected in the Communist mold. Indeed, Dr. Vincent still used the phrase, "To die and be reborn"--words which he had heard more than once during his imprisonment.
Neither of these men had himself initiated the drama; indeed, at first both had resisted it, and tried to remain quite outside of it. But their environment did not permit any sidestepping: they were forced to participate, drawn into the forces around them until they themselves began to feel the need to confess and to reform. This penetration by the psychological forces of the environment into the inner emotions of the individual person is perhaps the outstanding psychiatric fact of thought reform. The milieu brings to bear upon the prisoner a series of overwhelming pressures, at the same time allowing only a very limited set of alternatives for adapting to them. In the interplay between person and environ- ment, a sequence of steps or operations*--of combinations of manipulation and response--takes place. All of these steps revolve about two policies and two demands: the fluctuation between assault and leniency, and the requirements of confession and re- education. The physical and emotional assaults bring about the symbolic death; leniency and the developing confession are the bridge between death and rebirth; the re-education process, along with the final confession, create the rebirth experience.
Death and rebirth, even when symbolic, affect one's entire being, but especially that part related to loyalties and beliefs, to the sense of being a specific person and at the same time being related to and part of groups of other people--or in other words, to one's sense of inner identity. 2 In the broadest terms, everything that hap- pened to these prisoners is related to this matter. Since everyone differs from everyone else in his identity, each prisoner experienced
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 6j
thought reform differently, nor did anyone respond completely to all these steps; at the same time, the experiences had such magnitude that they affected every prisoner in some measure, no matter what his background and character.
1. THE ASSAULT UPON IDENTITY
From the beginning, Dr. Vincent was told he was not really a
doctor, that all of what he considered himself to be was merely a cloak under which he hid what he really was. And Father Luca was told the same thing, especially about the area which he held most precious--his religion. Backing up this assertion were all of the physical and emotional assaults of early imprisonment: the confusing but incriminating interrogations, the humiliating "strug- gles," the painful and constricting chains, and the more direct phys- ical brutality. Dr. Vincent and Father Luca each began to lose his bearings on who and what he was, and where he stood in relation- ship to his fellows. Each felt his sense of self become amorphous and impotent and fall more and more under the control of its would-be remolders. Each was at one point willing to say (and to be) whatever his captors demanded.
Each was reduced to something not fully human and yet not quite animal, no longer the adult and yet not quite the child; instead, an adult human was placed in the position of an infant or a sub-human animal, helplessly being manipulated by larger and stronger "adults" or "trainers. " Placed in this regressive stance, each felt himself deprived of the power, mastery, and selfhood of adult existence.
In both, an intense struggle began between the adult man and the child-animal which had been created, a struggle against regres- sion and dehumanization. But each attempt on the part of the prisoner to reassert his adult human identity and to express his own will ("I am not a spy. I am a doctor"; or "This must be a mistake. I am a priest, I am telling the truth") was considered a show of re- sistance and of "insincerity," and called forth new assaults.
Not every prisoner was treated as severely as were Dr. Vincent and Father Luca, but each experienced similar external assaults leading to some form of inner surrender--a surrender of personal autonomy. This assault upon autonomy and identity even extended to the level of consciousness, so that men began to exist on a level
? 68 THOUGHT REFORM
which was neither sleep nor wakefulness, but rather an in-between hypnogogic state. In this state they were not only more readily in- fluenced, but they were also susceptible to destructive and aggressive impulses arising from within themselves. 3
This undermining of identity is the stroke through which the prisoner "dies to the world/' the prerequisite for all that follows.
2. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GUILT
Dr. Vincent and Father Luca found themselves unanimously
condemned by an "infallible" environment. The message of guilt which they received was both existential (you are guilty! ) and psy- chologically demanding (you must learn to feel guilty! ). As this individual guilt potential was tapped, both men had no choice but to experience--first unconsciously and then consciously--a sense of evil. Both became so permeated by the atmosphere of guilt that external criminal accusations became merged with subjective feelings of sinfulness--of having done wrong. Feelings of resent- ment, which in such a situation could have been a source of strength, were shortlived; they gave way to the gradual feeling that the punish- ment was deserved, that more was to be expected.
In making their early false confessions, Dr. Vincent and Father Luca were beginning to accept the guilty role of the criminal. Gradually, a voice within them was made to say, ever more loudly: "It is my sinfulness, and not their injustice, which causes me to suffer--although I do not yet know the full measure of my guilt. "
At this point their guilt was still diffuse, a vague and yet per- vasive set of feelings which we may call a free-floating sense of guilt. 4 Another prisoner expressed this clearly:
What they tried to impress on you is a complex of guilt. The complex I had was that I was guilty. . . . I was a criminal--that was my feel- ing, day and night.
3 . T H E SELF-BETRA Y AL
The series of denunciations of friends and colleagues which both Dr. Vincent and Father Luca were required to make had special significance. Not only did making these accusations increase their feelings of guilt and shame, it put them in the position of subvert- ing the structures of their own lives. They were, in effect, being made
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 69
to renounce the people, the organizations, and the standards of behavior which had formed the matrix of their previous existence. They were being forced to betray--not so much their friends and colleagues, as a vital core of themselves.
This self-betrayal was extended through the pressures to "accept help" and in turn 'lielp" others. Within the bizarre morality of the prison environment, the prisoner finds himself--almost without realizing it--violating many of his most sacred personal ethics and behavioral standards. The degree of violation is expanded, very early in the game, through the mechanism of shared betrayal, as another priest described:
The cell chief kept asking information about Church activities.
He wanted me to denounce others, and I didn't want to do this. . . . A Chinese Father was transferred into the cell, and he said to me, "You cannot help it. You must make some denunciations. The things which the Communists know about any of your Church activities you must come out with. " . . . Much later I was put in another cell to bring a French priest to confession. He had been stubborn, and had been in solitary for a few months. He was very fearful and looked like a wild animal. . . . I took care of him, washed his clothes for him, helped him to rest. I advised him that what they might know he might as well confess.
Although there is a continuing tension between holding on and letting go, some degree of self-betrayal is quickly seen as a way to survival. But the more of one's self one is led to betray, the greater is one's involvement with his captors; for by these means they make contact with whatever similar tendencies already exist within the prisoner himself--with the doubts, antagonisms, and ambivalences which each of us carries beneath the surface of his loyalties. This bond of betrayal between prisoner and environment may develop to the point where it seems to him to be all he has to grasp; turning back becomes ever more difficult.
4. THE BREAKING POINT; TOTAL CONFLICT AND THE BASIC FEAR
Before long, Father Luca and Dr. Vincent found themselves at an absolute impasse with their environment. Each was looked upon not only as an enemy, but also as a man completely out of step. They were aware of being in painful disagreement with al- leged truths about their past, and yet at this point they were un-
? 70 THOUGHT REFORM
clear about what these "truths" were.
At the same time, they had been impressed with the inflexibility
of their milieu. The government, being infallible, would not give way; it was the "stubborn criminal" who had to "change. " Their situation was like that of a man taken suddenly from his ordinary routine and placed in a hospital for the criminally insane, where he is accused of a horrendous but vague crime which he is expected to recognize and confess; where his assertion of innocence is viewed as a symptom of his disease, as a paranoid delusion; and where every other inmate-patient is wholly dedicated to the task of pressuring him into a confession and a "cure. " 6 The sense of total reversal is like that of Alice after falling down the rabbit hole; but the weirdness of the experience is more that of a Kafka hero.
The prisoner's dilemma leads him to a state of antagonistic es- trangement. He is not totally estranged from the environment, be- cause even antagonism is a form of contact; but he is totally cut off from the essential succor of affectionate communication and related- ness, without which he cannot survive. And at the same time, his increasing self-betrayal, sense of guilt, and his loss of identity all join to estrange him from himself--or at least from the self which he has known. He can contemplate the future with only hopeless- ness and dread. Literally and emotionally, there seems to be no escape from this hermetically-sealed antagonism.
As the assaults continue, and as they are turned inward, he begins to experience one of the most primitive and painful emotions known to man, the fear of total annihilation. This basic fear e--considered by some the inherited forerunner of all human anxiety--becomes the final focus for all of the prison pressures. It is fed by every threat and accusation from without, as well as by all of the destructive emotions stimulated within. The fear is compounded by the hor- rifying realization that the environment seems to be making it come true. Dr. Vincent did not only fear annihilation; he actually felt himself to be annihilated. It was this confirmation of a primitive fear which led him to hope for relief through quick death.
This is the point at which physical and mental integration break down. Some prisoners may be brought by their severe anxiety and depression to the point of suicidal preoccupations and attempts:
They scolded me in a nasty way. I had the feeling that everyone was cross with me and despised me. I thought, why do they despise rne?
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 71
What have I done? . . . I was eating very little. . . . I refused toeat or drink. . . . I felt very much down. I felt there was no chance for me. . . . It was so utterly hopeless. For six weeks I did nothing but think how I might kill myself.
Others experience the delusions and hallucinations usually as- sociated with psychosis:
I heard investigations taking place below, and one day I heard my name called. I listened while Chinese were indoctrinated to testify how I had been gathering information on troop movements. . . . The next day I recognized the voice of my Chinese accountant who was told that I had confessed everything and therefore his confession better agree with mine. . . . Once I heard the guards saying in a social con- versation with a German that they would soften me up by locking me in a cage which used to be used by the KMT. . . . I wasnear going nuts.
Such symptoms are clear evidence of the loss of the capacity to cope with one's environment. At the same time, they represent --as do any psychiatric symptoms--protective efforts, attempts on the part of the human organism to ward off something perceived as an even greater danger: in these cases, the anticipation of total annihilation.
Many of Father Luca's transient delusions represented just such a combination of breakdown and restitution. His imagining (and believing) that his consul was visiting the prison, or that he was once more among his fellow Christians, were evidence he had lost the ability to discriminate between the real and the unreal. But in experiencing these same delusions, the content of which re- inforced his fantasies of rescue, Father Luca was clinging tenaciously to his own life force, and at the same time warding off his basic fear. 7
No prisoner, whatever his defenses, ever completely overcame this fear of annihilation. It remained with each in greater or lesser degree throughout imprisonment, and in some cases for a long time after- ward. It was a constant inner reminder of the terrible predicament he might again be forced to face should he further displease his captors.
At this point, the prisoner's immediate prospects appear to be physical illness, psychosis, or death. If his death is to remain sym- bolic--and psychic damage kept from progressing beyond the re-
? 72 THOUGHT REFORM
versible stage--some form of desperately needed relief must be supplied.
5. LENIENCY AND OPPORTUNITY
A sudden change in official attitude--the institution of leniency --supplies this relief. The unexpected show of kindness, usually occurring just when the prisoner is reaching his breaking point, breaks the impasse between him and the environment. He is per- mitted--even shown how--to achieve some degree of harmony with his outer world.
"Leniency" does not mean that the milieu budges from any of its demands, or even from its standards of reality. It simply lets up on its pressures sufficiently for the prisoner to absorb its principles and adapt himself to them. When Dr. Vincent, after two months of imprisonment, suddenly encountered friendliness and consideration in place of chains and struggles, there was no cessation of the pressure for confession. In fact, the effect of leniency was to spur him on to greater confession efforts. He was able to make these efforts because his leniency was accompanied by guidance; he had a chance to learn and act upon what was expected of him. Father Luca had no such good fortune. He, too, after one month, was given a respite: the removal of chains and handcuffs and the op portunity to sleep; but his was the unusual experience of leniency without guidance. He was willing to comply (his false confession was, among other things, a profound expression of compliance); but he was unable to find the desired approach. In his case, there- fore, a new impasse was created, which resulted in a brutal inter- ruption of his leniency.
The timing and the setting of leniency can be extremely dramatic, as it was for another priest.
It was Christmas Day. I was brought to see the judge. For the first time I found the room full of sunlight. There was no guard and there were no secretaries. There were only the kind faces of the judges offer- ing me cigarettes and tea. It was a conversation more than a question- ing. My mother could not have been much more good and kind than the judge was. He said to me, "The treatment you have received here is really too bad. Maybe you are unable to stand it. As a foreigner and a priest, you must be used to good food and better hygienic standards. So just make a confession. But make it really good, so we can be satis- fied. Then we will close your trial and finish your case. "
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 73
In other cases, leniency was utilized to confront the prisoner with a threatening life-or-death alternative. It might include a new "good" interrogator who replaces or alternates with the "bad" one:
An inspector had talked to me nastily and I collapsed. Soon after, a nicer inspector came to visit me. He was worried--very friendly to me--and asked me if I had heart disease. . . . He said, "Your health is not good; you must have a better room. " He called on me again and said, "We must get your case settled now. The government is interested in you. All you must do is change your mind. There are only two ways for you to go: one way leads to life, and the other to death. If you want the road that leads to life, you must take our way. You must re- form yourself and re-educate yourself. " I said, "That sounds very good," I felt light of heart and told the other cellmates about it. They said, "That's good. Write your confession about how wrong your old political ideas were, and how willing you are to change your mind--and then you will be released. "
This threat also was clear in the experience of another prisoner who had been transferred to a hospital after an attempt at suicide:
At first they told me that I had tried to kill myself because I had a bad conscience. . , . But the doctor seemed very kind. . . . Then an official came to see me and he spoke to me in a very friendly voice: "The government doesn't want to kill you. It wants to reform you. We don't want to punish you at all, we just want to re-educate you. " , . . It was my first glimmer of hope. I felt finally there might be a way out. I wasn't feeling so hopelessly alone any more. The official had actually shown some human quality. 8
Apparent in all these examples is the immense stimulus which leniency provides for the prisoner's reform effort. Total annihila- tion is no longer all he can visualize. He has been offered rest, kind- ness, and a glimpse of the Promised Land of renewed identity and acceptance--even freedom; annihilation is now something he can avoid, and in fact must avoid at all costs.
The psychological decompression of his environment serves to win him over to the reform camp, especially to that part of the reform camp which is working on him. In other words, he becomes motivated to help the officials achieve what they are trying to do to him. He becomes, as did Dr. Vincent, their grateful partner in his own reform.
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6. THE COMPULSION TO CONFESS*
Long before any suggestion of leniency, Father Luca and Dr. Vincent had perceived the dominant message of their milieu: only those who confess can survive. Indeed, everything in the way of assaults and leniency--all pressures of breakdown and promised restitution--served to reinforce this message. In such a climate, the two men had no choice but to join in the universal compulsion to confess. Their first expression of this compulsion was the early elaboration of false "crimes. " Even when a prisoner was aware that his confession was "wild"--as was Dr. Vincent--he had begun to submit to the confession requirement, and to behave as if he were a criminal. This was even more true, and the guilt even more pro- found, for those who, like Father Luca, came to believe in their own falsehoods.
These first confessions are preliminary (although prison officials do not necessarily mean them to be such) to the main manifestation of the compulsion to confess--the total soul purge. Both Dr. Vin- cent and Father Luca, when their false confessions were rejected, hit upon the expedient of simply confessing everything, with spe- cial emphasis on what might be considered most sinful. In doing so, they moved beyond mere playing of the criminal role. They were beginning to accept as valid parts of themselves the two basic identities of thought reform.
The first of these is the identity of the repentant sinner. The prisoner in effect says: "I must locate this evil part of me, this mental abscess, and excise it from my very being, lest it remain to cause me more harm. " This leads directly to the second identity --that of the receptive criminal, the man who is, at whatever level of consciousness, not only beginning to concur in the environment's legal and moral judgment of him, but also to commit himself to acquiring the beliefs, values, and identities officially considered de- sirable. The acceptance of these two identities led both Dr. Vin- cent and Father Luca to express the idea that one had to get rid of old thoughts and emotions in order to make room for the new ones. Precisely this compulsion to reveal everything provides the continuity between breakdown and restitution, between confession and reform.
The compulsion to confess is not static; it continually gathers
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 75
momentum, and provokes an increasing sense of submission--as described by another priest:
After a while one wants to talk . . . they press you, so you feel you must say something. Once you start you are deceived: you are at the top of the tree and you go down. . . . If you say the first word, there is always something more: "Lao shih"--No, no, be a good boy! Say the truth! --, "t'an pai"--Confess! --are constantly repeated every two min- utes. I felt myself wanting to say more to make him shut his mouth, he was so insisting. . . . It made me weak; it made me want to give in.
Equally important, as both Dr.
relating to the issue of the Church.
There were also indications that Luca's imprisonment might
soon come to an end: the appearance of other foreigners, including another priest, in his cell; more rewriting, translating, and summariz- ing of his confession with the help of his compatible prisoner- official; orders for the foreigners to send for their luggage. His con- fession, simplified and clearly damning, was finally pruned down to just two points: his relationship with Father C, and his Legion of Mary activities. In the first, "espionage" was still mentioned;
? FATHER LUCA: THE FALSE CONFESSION 59
and in the second, a new emphasis was placed upon details of organizational structure and membership. The confession was ac- curate to the extent that it included only real events; it was distorted only 'in the interpretation of these events. When the confession was in final form, Luca was called into a special room, where he was photographed and recorded reading it aloud.
During his last weeks of imprisonment, Luca experienced what was perhaps his highest point of co-operation with his captors. During a last "confession movement," he brought out yet more details about his resistance to the government in his Legion of Mary work. After this, he became actively involved in helping two newcomers to confess. With one of them, he felt justified:
I believed that his attitude wasn't good--he had done bad things-- beatings and possibly killing people. There was no use for him not to confess.
But the other man was a Chinese Catholic priest, which put Luca in a difficult situation:
It was for me a very great strain. I dared not stay out of helping him, but I would not enforce upon him things I felt were wrong. I tried to make a compromise--to find real facts which were not against religion, to let him use words that didn't imply something. But either he did not understand my tactics, or else he just would not use them.
These incidents of co-operation--and especially the second--were also difficult for Luca to discuss.
His final sessions with judges and officials were held in an atmos- phere of friendly exchange between reasonable people. There was, however, some talk about a ten-year sentence. Luca admitted some of his "errors," and certain specific "bad behavior" concerning his relationship with Father C and with the Legion of Mary; but he emphasized that at the time, he had been unaware he was com- mitting a "crime. " The judge said:
We know we made mistakes with you--that is, with your body--but when you go away you must also admit that you had some faults, and you must not exaggerate what happened here. . . . You must realize that at the beginning it was difficult for us to fully master the prison situation--we had many bad people among the other prisoners--and now all of the beatings have stopped, which shows that our real policy
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is not so bad as might seem if one were to consider only what happened to you during the first year.
Luca responded by agreeing that he had observed these improve- ments in prison procedure.
During one of these interviews he was told for the first time that he was to be expelled from China; official confirmation came a few minutes later when he was taken before another judge and another official, who read the formal sentence. The "crimes" named had been reduced to three: the "military information" to Father C, his Legion of Mary activities (both included in his last confession), and "information to imperialists" transmitted in letters written from China.
Luca had mixed feelings about the resolution of his case:
Of course I felt some relief--the feeling that now it is all finished--no more strain. But at the same time I had the feeling that the conclusion is not totally satisfying--I didn't want to be out of my missionary work--and not see the many friends--the Christians left there--and no longer have any connection with them. . . . I also had the feeling that the things I said in the beginning were retracted--but that all of the case was not totally clear.
Release and Search
He still had these mixed feelings when he boarded the ship which took him from China to Hong Kong. On the way, he ex- perienced transient beliefs that there must be Communists among the sailors who would report on his shipboard behavior. He also observed and described to me the sequence of his feelings about his experience: the first day, sadness at leaving China; second day, chagrin at his "needless suffering" in an experience so "stupid and meaningless"; third and fourth days, the feeling that the Church had made mistakes in China which should be corrected; fifth and sixth days, a vague melancholy. When he landed in Hong Kong on the seventh day, he was quoted by reporters as saying that his arrest had been due to a "misunderstanding"--avoiding then any strong statement or condemnation.
When I saw him a few days later, his paranoid thinking had dis- appeared, his depression had diminished, and his attitude was no
? FATHER LUCA: THE FALSE CONFESSION 6l
longer neutral. He was once more the dedicated Catholic priest, preoccupied with the problems of his Church, cared for, attended to, and continuously visited by his religious colleagues. His prin- cipal regret was his inability to maintain allegiance to both the Church and to China:
To leave the prison was to be expelled--if I could have left the prison without having been expelled, I would have liked that most.
By the second interview (just two days after the first) little confusion remained: he spoke clearly of the "false accusations" made against him, of his conviction that he had been "unjustly" treated. But he did not stop with these condemnations; rather, he embarked upon a determined search for understanding of his ordeal. He sought--through meditations, talks with me, and his writings--to discover why the Communists had behaved as they did, what mistakes the Church had made in China which might have contributed to this behavior, and how he, as a priest who had undergone an ordeal, could help his Church to improve itself in the future. He told me of the detailed reconstruction of his entire imprisonment which he had begun while on the ship, essentially for his own use; of the special reports he was preparing for Church authorities; of the articles he was writing for Catholic periodicals. One of these articles dealt with apologetics, and refuted the Com- munist point of view on religion. Another article was a detailed re- port on the activities of the Legion of Mary in China.
When I was in jail they had me write very much about this. Now I would like to write freely about it and have a good look at the thing. . . . My aim is to have a document that a few people can study to see whether we made mistakes, and how these can be corrected. . . . And to show what were the false accusations that the Communists made against us.
Others were more simple vignettes of Catholic faith: he told of praying to the Virgin Mary during a painful ordeal of struggle and beating, which resulted in the immediate arrival of prison of- ficialswho stopped the abuse; and of the progress of a little Chinese girl, at first "naughty" and "fierce," whom Luca had succeeded in converting to active Catholicism despite the initial opposition of her parents. So preoccupied was he with these activities that it was
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not until the third session with me that he went into any detail about his prison experience.
When he did, it was usually in a self-deprecating manner. He spoke of his "weakness/* his "cowardly behavior/' of his failure to set a proper example as a leader of Chinese Christian youth. Nor could he always find comfort from talking with his fellow priests in Hong Kong: some would express amazement at his having made such a false confession, and he would interpret this as a feeling on their part of his having let the Church down; others received him as something of a hero, and this made him feel no better.
People now say, "You are wonderful. You have suffered so much--like a martyr/' I become uncomfortable and confused when they say this. There are so many things I should have done better.
Martyrdom was for him an ideal which he felt he had failed to live up to, and he viewed his imprisonment as a missed opportunity.
I felt not too useful because I had an insufficiently good attitude--and because I had confessed to false things. I had the idea of a somewhat wasted occasion.
He summed up his feelings in the language of the Church:
I am guilty of many sins, but not the ones that the Communists accuse me of; and I hope to make amends for my sins.
Yet it did mean a great deal to him to be once more living in a world of priests, nuns, and fellow Christians. He was especially pleased when he received visits from young colleagues, former students, or from Chinese Christian youths who told him of the inspiration they had derived from his leadership in the past.
As he continued his explorations, he remained thoughtful and moderate in his views about the Communists as well as about his own Church, and always qualified his judgments. Concerning his own treatment, he said:
I think it is wrong to seek by evil means such guilty interpretation of my behavior. . . . I feel that they treated me wrongly. . . . Of course it is better that they admitted their mistakes--and let me retract. But even when they admit their mistakes, they don't go to the bottom of the question of why they make mistakes.
? FATHER LUCA: THE FALSE CONFESSION 6 j
The reasons for these Communist "mistakes" were, he felt;
They are prejudiced against the Catholic Church. . . . They are too confident about their own judgment. . . . They are not sufficiently correct about criticizing or punishing their own misbehavior, or that of their semi-official associations.
He had some praise for the Chinese Communist regime as well; he recognized its accomplishments in building and industry, he was impressed with their planned production, and he felt that many of their concepts about economics were "logical. " And al- though he himself had long been critical of the Nationalist Regime which preceded the Communists, its shortcomings, and especially its corruption, had become more vivid to him: "I have somewhat more understanding of the reason why so many people in China were discontented with the old order. "
Nonetheless, he believed that the Chinese people were paying a heavy price for their accomplishments--especially in the "great strain" being imposed upon them, and in the limitations upon their thought. He thought the Communists were particularly deficient in "the question about how to let people have their own ideas, and especially about a way of making justice in the courts. " There had been some improvement, he felt, but not enough:
At the beginning they were totally wrong; since three years ago, they have been in some ways better, but not sufficiently so that one could say that their ways were good.
Father Luca also had pointed and specific criticism for his own Church. He especially disapproved of those among the Catholic priests who became involved in military activities against the Chinese Communists, both on ethical and practical grounds: "I think it is not according to the Christian way of proceeding--and it is of no use," He claimed that he had always disapproved of these activities, but he had been made to feel during his imprisonment that he had "indulged" those among his friends who pursued such policies, and now his opposition was more firm. He was also critical of foreign priests who lived too lavishly in China ("They forgot the spirit of poverty"), and more basically of the Church's failure to build up a highranking Chinese hierarchy, and its tendency to keep foreign priests in the senior positions in China. He felt that both
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the Communists and the Church should mend their ways: that the former should admit and correct their mistakes and develop a "more fair attitude" towards religion; and that the latter should "see more what was wrong in our attitudes" and then seek to change them.
In all of this, Father Luca maintained a distinction between the fallible actions of individual priests, and his more basic religious convictions:
When there was criticism of priests, I knew that much was true, and I admitted it. But about the existence of God--I was convinced of the emptiness of their arguments when they said there was no God.
His religious feelings aside, Luca felt he had undergone an im- portant personal change. He found himself more willing to listen to others' opinions, more patient, and less quick to "get in anger. " He also thought that he had become more articulate, and had largely overcome a previous tendency to "feel nervous because I couldn't express the things I wanted to say/'
During the month in which we were working together, Luca showed periodic signs of restlessness, "nervous diarrhea," and anxiety concerning his future. But these gradually diminished as he became increasingly focused and relaxed within the Hong Kong Catholic setting. His physical condition also improved, although he was told that he would never be well enough for the active life of a parish priest. He showed throughout an obvious reluctance to leave Hong Kong; although it was not China proper, it had at least a partial Chinese atmosphere, and permitted him to use the Chinese language. At first he expressed this directly: "I regret the possibility that I may have to go back to Europe. " But gradually, he began to accept the inevitable, and when he finally left, he was looking ahead to future work. Yet he also looked back to his life in China--and his mood was one of sadness.
? CHAPTER 5 PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS
There is a basic similarity in what both Dr. Vincent
and Father Luca experienced during Communist imprisonment. Although they were held in separate prisons far re- moved from each other, and although they differed very much in their responses to reform, they were both subjected to the same general sequence of psychological pressures. This sequence was es- sentially the same despite the fact that these men were very dif- ferent from each other, with different personal and professional life styles. Nor was this thought reform pattern common to just these two: it was experienced by all twenty-five of the Westerners whom I interviewed.
The common pattern becomes especially important in evaluating the stories these Westerners told me. Each was attempting to describe, in most instances as accurately as possible, the details of an ordeal from which he had just emerged. But what each reported was also inevitably influenced by his immediate life situation--his psychological transition between the two worlds, his personal struggles for both integrity and integration, his feelings about suc- coring and threatening colleagues and strangers in Hong Kong, his view of me as an American, a physician, a psychiatrist, and a person. All of these circumstances could affect his account, and especially its emotional tone. Therefore, both during the inter- views and in the later study of my notes, I had to sift out what was
65
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most characteristic and most consistent, to evaluate this informa- tion in terms of my understanding of the people supplying it, and then to piece together a composite analysis of the process itself.
Death and Rebirth
Both Dr. Vincent and Father Luca took part in an agonizing drama of death and rebirth. In each case, it was made clear that the "reactionary spy" who entered the prison must perish, and that in his place must arise a "new man/' resurrected in the Communist mold. Indeed, Dr. Vincent still used the phrase, "To die and be reborn"--words which he had heard more than once during his imprisonment.
Neither of these men had himself initiated the drama; indeed, at first both had resisted it, and tried to remain quite outside of it. But their environment did not permit any sidestepping: they were forced to participate, drawn into the forces around them until they themselves began to feel the need to confess and to reform. This penetration by the psychological forces of the environment into the inner emotions of the individual person is perhaps the outstanding psychiatric fact of thought reform. The milieu brings to bear upon the prisoner a series of overwhelming pressures, at the same time allowing only a very limited set of alternatives for adapting to them. In the interplay between person and environ- ment, a sequence of steps or operations*--of combinations of manipulation and response--takes place. All of these steps revolve about two policies and two demands: the fluctuation between assault and leniency, and the requirements of confession and re- education. The physical and emotional assaults bring about the symbolic death; leniency and the developing confession are the bridge between death and rebirth; the re-education process, along with the final confession, create the rebirth experience.
Death and rebirth, even when symbolic, affect one's entire being, but especially that part related to loyalties and beliefs, to the sense of being a specific person and at the same time being related to and part of groups of other people--or in other words, to one's sense of inner identity. 2 In the broadest terms, everything that hap- pened to these prisoners is related to this matter. Since everyone differs from everyone else in his identity, each prisoner experienced
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 6j
thought reform differently, nor did anyone respond completely to all these steps; at the same time, the experiences had such magnitude that they affected every prisoner in some measure, no matter what his background and character.
1. THE ASSAULT UPON IDENTITY
From the beginning, Dr. Vincent was told he was not really a
doctor, that all of what he considered himself to be was merely a cloak under which he hid what he really was. And Father Luca was told the same thing, especially about the area which he held most precious--his religion. Backing up this assertion were all of the physical and emotional assaults of early imprisonment: the confusing but incriminating interrogations, the humiliating "strug- gles," the painful and constricting chains, and the more direct phys- ical brutality. Dr. Vincent and Father Luca each began to lose his bearings on who and what he was, and where he stood in relation- ship to his fellows. Each felt his sense of self become amorphous and impotent and fall more and more under the control of its would-be remolders. Each was at one point willing to say (and to be) whatever his captors demanded.
Each was reduced to something not fully human and yet not quite animal, no longer the adult and yet not quite the child; instead, an adult human was placed in the position of an infant or a sub-human animal, helplessly being manipulated by larger and stronger "adults" or "trainers. " Placed in this regressive stance, each felt himself deprived of the power, mastery, and selfhood of adult existence.
In both, an intense struggle began between the adult man and the child-animal which had been created, a struggle against regres- sion and dehumanization. But each attempt on the part of the prisoner to reassert his adult human identity and to express his own will ("I am not a spy. I am a doctor"; or "This must be a mistake. I am a priest, I am telling the truth") was considered a show of re- sistance and of "insincerity," and called forth new assaults.
Not every prisoner was treated as severely as were Dr. Vincent and Father Luca, but each experienced similar external assaults leading to some form of inner surrender--a surrender of personal autonomy. This assault upon autonomy and identity even extended to the level of consciousness, so that men began to exist on a level
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which was neither sleep nor wakefulness, but rather an in-between hypnogogic state. In this state they were not only more readily in- fluenced, but they were also susceptible to destructive and aggressive impulses arising from within themselves. 3
This undermining of identity is the stroke through which the prisoner "dies to the world/' the prerequisite for all that follows.
2. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GUILT
Dr. Vincent and Father Luca found themselves unanimously
condemned by an "infallible" environment. The message of guilt which they received was both existential (you are guilty! ) and psy- chologically demanding (you must learn to feel guilty! ). As this individual guilt potential was tapped, both men had no choice but to experience--first unconsciously and then consciously--a sense of evil. Both became so permeated by the atmosphere of guilt that external criminal accusations became merged with subjective feelings of sinfulness--of having done wrong. Feelings of resent- ment, which in such a situation could have been a source of strength, were shortlived; they gave way to the gradual feeling that the punish- ment was deserved, that more was to be expected.
In making their early false confessions, Dr. Vincent and Father Luca were beginning to accept the guilty role of the criminal. Gradually, a voice within them was made to say, ever more loudly: "It is my sinfulness, and not their injustice, which causes me to suffer--although I do not yet know the full measure of my guilt. "
At this point their guilt was still diffuse, a vague and yet per- vasive set of feelings which we may call a free-floating sense of guilt. 4 Another prisoner expressed this clearly:
What they tried to impress on you is a complex of guilt. The complex I had was that I was guilty. . . . I was a criminal--that was my feel- ing, day and night.
3 . T H E SELF-BETRA Y AL
The series of denunciations of friends and colleagues which both Dr. Vincent and Father Luca were required to make had special significance. Not only did making these accusations increase their feelings of guilt and shame, it put them in the position of subvert- ing the structures of their own lives. They were, in effect, being made
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 69
to renounce the people, the organizations, and the standards of behavior which had formed the matrix of their previous existence. They were being forced to betray--not so much their friends and colleagues, as a vital core of themselves.
This self-betrayal was extended through the pressures to "accept help" and in turn 'lielp" others. Within the bizarre morality of the prison environment, the prisoner finds himself--almost without realizing it--violating many of his most sacred personal ethics and behavioral standards. The degree of violation is expanded, very early in the game, through the mechanism of shared betrayal, as another priest described:
The cell chief kept asking information about Church activities.
He wanted me to denounce others, and I didn't want to do this. . . . A Chinese Father was transferred into the cell, and he said to me, "You cannot help it. You must make some denunciations. The things which the Communists know about any of your Church activities you must come out with. " . . . Much later I was put in another cell to bring a French priest to confession. He had been stubborn, and had been in solitary for a few months. He was very fearful and looked like a wild animal. . . . I took care of him, washed his clothes for him, helped him to rest. I advised him that what they might know he might as well confess.
Although there is a continuing tension between holding on and letting go, some degree of self-betrayal is quickly seen as a way to survival. But the more of one's self one is led to betray, the greater is one's involvement with his captors; for by these means they make contact with whatever similar tendencies already exist within the prisoner himself--with the doubts, antagonisms, and ambivalences which each of us carries beneath the surface of his loyalties. This bond of betrayal between prisoner and environment may develop to the point where it seems to him to be all he has to grasp; turning back becomes ever more difficult.
4. THE BREAKING POINT; TOTAL CONFLICT AND THE BASIC FEAR
Before long, Father Luca and Dr. Vincent found themselves at an absolute impasse with their environment. Each was looked upon not only as an enemy, but also as a man completely out of step. They were aware of being in painful disagreement with al- leged truths about their past, and yet at this point they were un-
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clear about what these "truths" were.
At the same time, they had been impressed with the inflexibility
of their milieu. The government, being infallible, would not give way; it was the "stubborn criminal" who had to "change. " Their situation was like that of a man taken suddenly from his ordinary routine and placed in a hospital for the criminally insane, where he is accused of a horrendous but vague crime which he is expected to recognize and confess; where his assertion of innocence is viewed as a symptom of his disease, as a paranoid delusion; and where every other inmate-patient is wholly dedicated to the task of pressuring him into a confession and a "cure. " 6 The sense of total reversal is like that of Alice after falling down the rabbit hole; but the weirdness of the experience is more that of a Kafka hero.
The prisoner's dilemma leads him to a state of antagonistic es- trangement. He is not totally estranged from the environment, be- cause even antagonism is a form of contact; but he is totally cut off from the essential succor of affectionate communication and related- ness, without which he cannot survive. And at the same time, his increasing self-betrayal, sense of guilt, and his loss of identity all join to estrange him from himself--or at least from the self which he has known. He can contemplate the future with only hopeless- ness and dread. Literally and emotionally, there seems to be no escape from this hermetically-sealed antagonism.
As the assaults continue, and as they are turned inward, he begins to experience one of the most primitive and painful emotions known to man, the fear of total annihilation. This basic fear e--considered by some the inherited forerunner of all human anxiety--becomes the final focus for all of the prison pressures. It is fed by every threat and accusation from without, as well as by all of the destructive emotions stimulated within. The fear is compounded by the hor- rifying realization that the environment seems to be making it come true. Dr. Vincent did not only fear annihilation; he actually felt himself to be annihilated. It was this confirmation of a primitive fear which led him to hope for relief through quick death.
This is the point at which physical and mental integration break down. Some prisoners may be brought by their severe anxiety and depression to the point of suicidal preoccupations and attempts:
They scolded me in a nasty way. I had the feeling that everyone was cross with me and despised me. I thought, why do they despise rne?
? PSYCHOLOGICAL STEPS 71
What have I done? . . . I was eating very little. . . . I refused toeat or drink. . . . I felt very much down. I felt there was no chance for me. . . . It was so utterly hopeless. For six weeks I did nothing but think how I might kill myself.
Others experience the delusions and hallucinations usually as- sociated with psychosis:
I heard investigations taking place below, and one day I heard my name called. I listened while Chinese were indoctrinated to testify how I had been gathering information on troop movements. . . . The next day I recognized the voice of my Chinese accountant who was told that I had confessed everything and therefore his confession better agree with mine. . . . Once I heard the guards saying in a social con- versation with a German that they would soften me up by locking me in a cage which used to be used by the KMT. . . . I wasnear going nuts.
Such symptoms are clear evidence of the loss of the capacity to cope with one's environment. At the same time, they represent --as do any psychiatric symptoms--protective efforts, attempts on the part of the human organism to ward off something perceived as an even greater danger: in these cases, the anticipation of total annihilation.
Many of Father Luca's transient delusions represented just such a combination of breakdown and restitution. His imagining (and believing) that his consul was visiting the prison, or that he was once more among his fellow Christians, were evidence he had lost the ability to discriminate between the real and the unreal. But in experiencing these same delusions, the content of which re- inforced his fantasies of rescue, Father Luca was clinging tenaciously to his own life force, and at the same time warding off his basic fear. 7
No prisoner, whatever his defenses, ever completely overcame this fear of annihilation. It remained with each in greater or lesser degree throughout imprisonment, and in some cases for a long time after- ward. It was a constant inner reminder of the terrible predicament he might again be forced to face should he further displease his captors.
At this point, the prisoner's immediate prospects appear to be physical illness, psychosis, or death. If his death is to remain sym- bolic--and psychic damage kept from progressing beyond the re-
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versible stage--some form of desperately needed relief must be supplied.
5. LENIENCY AND OPPORTUNITY
A sudden change in official attitude--the institution of leniency --supplies this relief. The unexpected show of kindness, usually occurring just when the prisoner is reaching his breaking point, breaks the impasse between him and the environment. He is per- mitted--even shown how--to achieve some degree of harmony with his outer world.
"Leniency" does not mean that the milieu budges from any of its demands, or even from its standards of reality. It simply lets up on its pressures sufficiently for the prisoner to absorb its principles and adapt himself to them. When Dr. Vincent, after two months of imprisonment, suddenly encountered friendliness and consideration in place of chains and struggles, there was no cessation of the pressure for confession. In fact, the effect of leniency was to spur him on to greater confession efforts. He was able to make these efforts because his leniency was accompanied by guidance; he had a chance to learn and act upon what was expected of him. Father Luca had no such good fortune. He, too, after one month, was given a respite: the removal of chains and handcuffs and the op portunity to sleep; but his was the unusual experience of leniency without guidance. He was willing to comply (his false confession was, among other things, a profound expression of compliance); but he was unable to find the desired approach. In his case, there- fore, a new impasse was created, which resulted in a brutal inter- ruption of his leniency.
The timing and the setting of leniency can be extremely dramatic, as it was for another priest.
It was Christmas Day. I was brought to see the judge. For the first time I found the room full of sunlight. There was no guard and there were no secretaries. There were only the kind faces of the judges offer- ing me cigarettes and tea. It was a conversation more than a question- ing. My mother could not have been much more good and kind than the judge was. He said to me, "The treatment you have received here is really too bad. Maybe you are unable to stand it. As a foreigner and a priest, you must be used to good food and better hygienic standards. So just make a confession. But make it really good, so we can be satis- fied. Then we will close your trial and finish your case. "
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In other cases, leniency was utilized to confront the prisoner with a threatening life-or-death alternative. It might include a new "good" interrogator who replaces or alternates with the "bad" one:
An inspector had talked to me nastily and I collapsed. Soon after, a nicer inspector came to visit me. He was worried--very friendly to me--and asked me if I had heart disease. . . . He said, "Your health is not good; you must have a better room. " He called on me again and said, "We must get your case settled now. The government is interested in you. All you must do is change your mind. There are only two ways for you to go: one way leads to life, and the other to death. If you want the road that leads to life, you must take our way. You must re- form yourself and re-educate yourself. " I said, "That sounds very good," I felt light of heart and told the other cellmates about it. They said, "That's good. Write your confession about how wrong your old political ideas were, and how willing you are to change your mind--and then you will be released. "
This threat also was clear in the experience of another prisoner who had been transferred to a hospital after an attempt at suicide:
At first they told me that I had tried to kill myself because I had a bad conscience. . , . But the doctor seemed very kind. . . . Then an official came to see me and he spoke to me in a very friendly voice: "The government doesn't want to kill you. It wants to reform you. We don't want to punish you at all, we just want to re-educate you. " , . . It was my first glimmer of hope. I felt finally there might be a way out. I wasn't feeling so hopelessly alone any more. The official had actually shown some human quality. 8
Apparent in all these examples is the immense stimulus which leniency provides for the prisoner's reform effort. Total annihila- tion is no longer all he can visualize. He has been offered rest, kind- ness, and a glimpse of the Promised Land of renewed identity and acceptance--even freedom; annihilation is now something he can avoid, and in fact must avoid at all costs.
The psychological decompression of his environment serves to win him over to the reform camp, especially to that part of the reform camp which is working on him. In other words, he becomes motivated to help the officials achieve what they are trying to do to him. He becomes, as did Dr. Vincent, their grateful partner in his own reform.
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6. THE COMPULSION TO CONFESS*
Long before any suggestion of leniency, Father Luca and Dr. Vincent had perceived the dominant message of their milieu: only those who confess can survive. Indeed, everything in the way of assaults and leniency--all pressures of breakdown and promised restitution--served to reinforce this message. In such a climate, the two men had no choice but to join in the universal compulsion to confess. Their first expression of this compulsion was the early elaboration of false "crimes. " Even when a prisoner was aware that his confession was "wild"--as was Dr. Vincent--he had begun to submit to the confession requirement, and to behave as if he were a criminal. This was even more true, and the guilt even more pro- found, for those who, like Father Luca, came to believe in their own falsehoods.
These first confessions are preliminary (although prison officials do not necessarily mean them to be such) to the main manifestation of the compulsion to confess--the total soul purge. Both Dr. Vin- cent and Father Luca, when their false confessions were rejected, hit upon the expedient of simply confessing everything, with spe- cial emphasis on what might be considered most sinful. In doing so, they moved beyond mere playing of the criminal role. They were beginning to accept as valid parts of themselves the two basic identities of thought reform.
The first of these is the identity of the repentant sinner. The prisoner in effect says: "I must locate this evil part of me, this mental abscess, and excise it from my very being, lest it remain to cause me more harm. " This leads directly to the second identity --that of the receptive criminal, the man who is, at whatever level of consciousness, not only beginning to concur in the environment's legal and moral judgment of him, but also to commit himself to acquiring the beliefs, values, and identities officially considered de- sirable. The acceptance of these two identities led both Dr. Vin- cent and Father Luca to express the idea that one had to get rid of old thoughts and emotions in order to make room for the new ones. Precisely this compulsion to reveal everything provides the continuity between breakdown and restitution, between confession and reform.
The compulsion to confess is not static; it continually gathers
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momentum, and provokes an increasing sense of submission--as described by another priest:
After a while one wants to talk . . . they press you, so you feel you must say something. Once you start you are deceived: you are at the top of the tree and you go down. . . . If you say the first word, there is always something more: "Lao shih"--No, no, be a good boy! Say the truth! --, "t'an pai"--Confess! --are constantly repeated every two min- utes. I felt myself wanting to say more to make him shut his mouth, he was so insisting. . . . It made me weak; it made me want to give in.
Equally important, as both Dr.
