CZ Talk:Cold Storage > Extreme Abuse Survey

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Revision as of 23:26, 25 January 2009

Definition of extreme abuse

Unless it's in an unlinked CZ article, I believe it essential that the introduction of this article clearly define "extreme abuse", not by external citation, but what is meant in this context. As far as I know, it's not a DSM-IV definition, although I don't have a copy here. Frankly, it comes across as a non-neutral term; there may be sufficiently objective definition to modify that impression, but the material needs to be in the article.

The term "mind control" also does not give a sense of neutrality.

Looking further at the references, I see they are all books, not peer-reviewed publications.

Howard C. Berkowitz 05:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment above. One book is written by Karnac, a respected publisher. The second is edited by Noblitt, a respected researcher in the field. I am unsure what you mean about the term "mind control" not giving a sense of neutrality. Neil Brick 05:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I should note that I consider it extremely premature to claim that an article is "Ready for Approval" on the same day it is created. Book sources -- and I speak as an author of published books in my field -- are generally less preferred to peer-reviewed articles, consensus statements of professional organizations, etc.

Mind control? Sourced, neutral definition, please. I am very familiar with the literature on pressures in, for example, Korean and Vietnam War POW camps, and I don't remember it as a term of art. I don't remember it in the MKULTRA documents. It's not something seriously believed possible in human-source intelligence.

Is it a DSM-IV or ICD definition? Searching for "mind control" in Medical Subject Headings of the National Library of Medicine returns "no entry." Howard C. Berkowitz 05:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments

As a brief and stricly factual article about the EAS I have no fundamental problem with this. I am a bit concerned about the "Attacks" section which seems to be innuendo, and of no fundamental relevance to what the EAS is. I also think it right to consider some wording carefully - these surveys as I understand them do not collate date on abuse; the collate allegations of abuse. If the wording is changed to reflect this then I am fine with it. Otherwise there would need to be neutral text on the potential unreliability of such data, referencing false memory syndrome etc.Gareth Leng 11:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comment on this. I have made a change to the first line of the article that should address your second point. I do believe that the attacks section is important, since it does discuss an important problem that could have stopped the study from occurring. The section itself simply states the facts about the attacks. I will delete the word "however" from the section to avoid any inference that the attacks were meant to stop the study from occurring, though this is probably what they were meant to do.Neil Brick 03:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"Background" section

First, I'm not sure, from an article design standpoint, what this adds. If anything, it gives more of a sense of belonging in a press release or essay than in a neutral article. Following CZ conventions, I have moved problematic text here for discussion, and explaining my reasons for moving it.

Wanda Karriker is a retired psychologist in the United States. She was interviewed on Court TV as an expert in Extreme Abuse. She wrote about the after-effects of extreme abuse in her novel “ Morning, Come Quickly.”

Court TV and a novel are not what would usually be assumed as source qualifications on CZ. Her background as a psychologist might be much more relevant, but "retired" doesn't give any information.

Carol Rutz is a healed extreme abuse/mind control survivor in the United States. She wrote “A Nation Betrayed: The Chilling True Story of Secret Cold War Experiments Performed on Our Children and Other Innocent People (2001).

It has not yet been agreed, in CZ consensus, what "extreme abuse" and "mind control" actually mean. They are not used in child abuse. Without definition, they give me a strong flavor of being terms that evoke emotion rather than add information. The title of Rutz's book does not remotely seem neutral; it seems a strong advocacy position.

Thorsten Becker is a social worker and freelance supervisor in Germany. He served as a case consultant in several suspected cult-related cases in Europe. In 1994, he received the “German Child Protection Award” for his team’s work with severely abused children.

I don't know what "freelance supervisor" means. Supervision usually implies an organizational structure inconsistent with "freelance".

"Suspected" is clearly not authoritative. "Cult" is also an emotionally laden term, not defined in context. There is no reference obvious to me, a non-German, on the significance of the "German Child Protection Award."

I am also troubled by "team" and "severely abused". There is no indication of the team's affiliations. Did it, perhaps, not address moderately abused children?

CZ now has a child abuse article, which does have a taxonomy although the general acceptance of the taxonomy is not completely clear. Nevertheless, the word "extreme" never occurs in that article; "severe" is used once with a context and citation.

The more I reread here, the more I am concerned with the neutrality of language. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your ideas on this. At this point, I accept the removal of the above section from the article, until the above problems can be worked out. Neil Brick 03:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I do thank you for discussing these things, which are meant constructively. It's always a little tense when one first criticizes.

Have you looked at the child abuse article? What do you see as its relationship to here? Now, if there is a distinct syndrome that is addressed here and not there, that's fine — the goal is articulating the syndrome and showing the difference. We can take on controversial topics, but the goal is neutrality and accuracy. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I have looked at the article and it appears that this is not addressed there. Any ideas on articulating the syndrome further would be appreciated. Neil Brick 04:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Let me make what might seem a radical solution. Rename this article "extreme child abuse" or something that ties strongly to the professional literature that deals with the subject. I can help with the mechanics if you do want to do that.

Even if you keep the current title, start out by giving a solid, unemotional, sourced definition of the concept; it's confusing to read about a survey trying to measure something I don't recognize. I've just done a PubMed/Medline search for "extreme abuse survey" and gotten no hits. After 7 pages of Google search for the exact string, there were no hits from anything that appeared to be a scientific journal or general medical/psychological professional association. There were, however, a great many hits on what seemed to be websites with a strong position, a considerable amount of mention of "ritual abuse", and a nontrivial amount about satanism. I have to say that it is starting to concern me that this survey has a preconception that there is a widespread, not generally recognized in the medical or behavioral literature, but there is a great deal of emotion about it.

Speaking for myself, I've never encountered the term in this usage, but I don't work with children. From the military/intelligence side, I've had a fair bit of exposure to principles of trauma, including the psychological aspects of torture and such things as ideological "reeducation" in prison camps. I'm reasonably familiar with the DSM stress syndromes and current concepts of diagnosis and treatment, but I don't still haven't found a clear definition of "extreme abuse".

It further concerns me that I see, in these searches, quite a few references to "mind control." Again, there is little scientific support that such a thing exists, and the practical matter that intelligence agencies tried very, very hard to produce it and failed.

I can't help you articulate a syndrome I don't understand and for which I can't seem to find mention except in...well, sources that don't strike me as obviously objective. Howard C. Berkowitz 05:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You make some good points above. A "solid, unemotional, sourced definition of the concept" sounds like a good idea.

How about this for a definition "Extreme abuse is child abuse that includes torture, threats, confinements, violence, and other types of unlawful or immoral exploitation that children may have endured during the abuse, which results in debilitating after-effects." This is basically a definition by the authors of the survey. Neil Brick 02:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

It may be what the survey authors were looking for, but using that to define the subject is rather circular. There is no question there that child abuse exists, and it is real. The "extreme" term, however, seems to belong, on my review of web sources and inability to find it in PubMed, seems to be the term of activists, rather than a different sort of child abuse not generally recognized in the medical literature, makes me concerned that this different concept comes from activists.

Respectfully, I am a bit concerned about the statement, in your webpage, that you focus on coverups of child abuse. The McMartin and other more extreme cases simply did not hold up. There is, clearly, a community of people that believes in the existence of large ritual abuse systems, and, in some cases, things termed mind control.

The authors of a responsible survey do not get to define the subject. They start with something recognized in medical or social science literature. Survey techniques are not necessarily the best instruments of research. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Howard, you make good points above, about definitions and about surveys, as well as your concerns about this particular set of surveys. We could say something like Neil said, but add:

• "The authors of the surveys focused particularly on types of child abuse that they considered "extreme" (thus the name) such as torture, threats, confinements, violence, and other types of unlawful or immoral exploitation that children may have endured during the abuse, which results in debilitating after-effects."

We wouldn't have to do this if we were to find that there was indeed a set of abuses that were defined as extreme.

D. Matt Innis 04:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Let me preface what I'm about to say next with that my reading is preliminary. Some critics of the survey, however, suggest that the authors looked for allegations of child abuse that met their criteria, rather than externally validated cases. Take a look at pseudoscience#other, with emphasis on footnote 5, which is what I would call a reputable source. Satanic ritual abuse and "the use of hypnosis for memory recovery", among other things, are questioned. If you'll pardon a slight rolling of eyes at the Rorshach test, my mother was a psychotherapist, and I grew up surrounded by all of the normally restricted psychological test manuals. She had what I called an annoying habit of volunteering me for research studies, and I must say that it was an interesting research test of my own to experiment with the psychologists performing Rohrshachs and some of the other less well-validated projective tests.

If, for example, the authors here believe that Satanic ritual abuse is a real issue, some authoritative criticism of the article section I just cited would seem appropriate within Citizendium. We've had a recent experience that may suggest that contributors that focus only on one controversial subject in a very limited number of controversial articles may not be in the interest of CZ as an authoritative, expert-guided resource. That, in turn, gets into uncomfortable issues of Neutrality Policy. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

My reading is certainly preliminary as well, and the more I read, the more I see why you are worried. I do agree that if this article were to make specific claims, that those claims should be fully discussed and include other perspectives, including the quality of the studies and the case study type style with confirmation bias, etc., etc.. However, I don't think we need worry about what specific authors think as long as we all collaborate toward a neutral article. As far as authors focusing only on certain limited number of controversial article, well, I don't see that we need worry about them any more than we need to worry about those that keep arguing with them :-) Most people only write about things that interest them, don't ya think? The CZ:Neutrality Policy should prevail. D. Matt Innis 04:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

"Most people only write about things that interest them, don't ya think?" Not necessarily, for at least two reasons, one of which is not pertinent here. If you are correct, why, then, should other authors or editors care to enter into extensive discussion of a topic where they believe the subject is irretrievably flawed? My answer would be that they care about the integrity of CZ. There are, however, finite resources. I want to create readable new content from reasonable expert knowledge and sourcing. If, however, the limited number of people with specific knowledge that might move an article to an utterly neutral position simply don't want to spend time on neutralizing rather than creating, what happens? Do they simply allow what they believe to be non-neutral material to stand, leaving the field to people that believe fervently in a biased source? Do you really think that people will continue to want to be associated with CZ if their choice is mostly to counter bias and keep integrity, turning the initiative over to anyone who wants to bring in a partisan position? Howard C. Berkowitz 09:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps some general clarifications, meant constructively

Don't assume CZ will not cover things that are not generally accepted. While it was a hard effort, the homeopathy article eventually got to a point that both its advocates and critics felt was fair, although it was neither an endorsement nor a condemnation. The sourcing did have to be authoritative, generally meaning as coming from accepted peer-reviewed sources, or, in some aspects dealing with government policy, the primary government sources.

While I won't try to give a general explanation of the Neutrality Policy, it is possible to have discussions of controversial subjects, but not from one side alone. CZ is not the right place if the goal is to "expose" something. Forgive me if I am assuming anything improperly, but your user page, and possibly some web links, suggest you are concerned with coverups of child abuse, mind control, ritual abuse, and recovered memory. Do not assume that other Citizens will automatically agree with your positions, or that this is a place to convince them.

It is a place where umemotional descriptions could be written, as long as you are prepared for equally unemotional and sourced disagreement. Frankly, it bothered me that this article was immediately called Ready for Approval; approval often takes quite a bit of consensus-building and expert approval. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

My asking for approval prematurely was an error on my part due to my inexperience with the citizendium process. I can withdraw that request if it would help with the consensus-building process. Neil Brick 02:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Definitely so. Right now, it is not at all clear why extreme abuse is not a subset of child abuse. Even there, I am a bit concerned that most of the citations seem to be to websites, when there is, indeed, a large body of peer-reviewed data on child abuse, as well as, for example, reasonably well-established child pornography operations. The ritual abuse area, as well as the technique of recovered memories, do not appear to have strong expert acceptance, although the idea is understandably very emotional for some. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently there are a set of surveys that are being called "Extreme abuse Surveys". I think the title can be used as long as it is placed correctly, and I haven't decided how that should be. We could use this with, as a resource for, a subpage of child abuse or an extreme abuse article that has links to all sorts of those types of abuse that have been characterised as extreme abuse. Certainly linked to satanic ritual or Ritual abuse (which seem to overlap). It seems that the name (extreme abuse survey) is not so much a diagnosis, per se, but a proper name being given to these surveys. Since notability is not a prerequisite here, it's not so much how notable, but more of how to appropriately use the information to give it the proper place. A good psychology editor can help decide the location, but that shouldn't stop the article from progressing yet. Neil, I would suggest that you use our mailing list to contact an editor and see if anyone responds.

I am concerned that the first reference seems to point to a book with a different title than the description, which does in fact lead us to the list of surveys. I think this is an error, right? D. Matt Innis 03:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Matt, I noticed you have a pink link to satanic ritual. When I did a search on "satanic", there didn't seem to be such an article; the closest things that mentioned it are conspiracy theory and pseudoscience. I'm not suggesting there isn't such a thing as Satanism, as in the late Anton Levey's Church of Satan [1]. I've even met a few self-identified Satanists.

Your point that it is the name of a group of surveys is well taken. My concern is that the current form of the article seems to suggest that "extreme abuse" is assumed to be an established diagnostic syndrome. Howard C. Berkowitz 03:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean, Howard. However, when I google extreme abuse that is the first thing that comes up - not that I trust a google search, but it does get us started. It seems that extreme abuse might not be a diagnosis, but it does seem to be used to differentiate between lessor forms of abuse and looks like it might be related to Dissociated Identity Disorder which certainly gets serious. I'm no psychologist, so I don't know if "extreme abuse" is used as a proper noun, or if it fits into some heirarchy of abuse, but we do know there are some surveys that are named "Extreme Abuse Surveys", so we can develop the article and then figure out where it goes.(Ha! I forgot you hate doing it that way!) I agree that this article should mostly describe the surveys for now, but it has to give some feel for what the surveys are about, which of course would be abuse of extreme dimensions. D. Matt Innis 03:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

You're right; I hate developing that way. Seriously, though, even looking at the link you gave, it seems to be a very common term in a particular community, but, if I can't find a single peer-reviewed paper on it, it begins to suggest that it is ... ummm ... an ideological position, not to be confused with a diagnosis. Indeed, while I am not a psychologist, I do have considerable experience with military stress, the history of torture in interrogation, and psychological warfare. In the small world department, I have just started an interesting correspondence with a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, about the use of torture in the Algerian War, and was able to provide him with some information here (i.e. Roger Trinquier). The issue of torture is a current news issue; Obama is, in my somewhat professional opinion, quite properly shutting down techniques that have never been widely accepted in intelligence circles; the commander of Guantanamo Detention Camp, who set up Abu Ghraib, was not an intelligence officer.

I will probably start editing the torture article, which can stand a good deal of work and is apt to get a number of hits. In the interest of CZ, I'm hesitant to see discussions of torture that are not well sourced. Some of the surveys have been questioned as attempting to document a preconception. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems that these surveys might also consider some of those even "acceptible" torture methods as extreme, huh. You say: Some of the surveys have been questioned as attempting to document a preconception. Let's make sure that perspective is included in a neutral description of those surveys. I do agree that extreme abuse is not a diagnosis, but there is no doubt that abuse that is extreme does exist and these surveys play a role in the big picture of the ways people try to study and/or document it, or as I am sure some think - exagerate it into a conspiracy theory. It's all still okay to write about. D. Matt Innis 04:32, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Acceptable torture? Acceptable to whom? Having known a few Satanists, I'm not sure they would want Dick Cheney. :-( We do need a Psychology/Health Sciences Editor giving some guidance here. If, however, torture, especially in the context of human-source intelligence interrogration, gets mixed in with this — which I'd really like to avoid in this article discussion since children were not being tortured as terrorist suspects — that would reasonably bring the topic under the Military Workgroup as well. See, for example, [2]; I have been corresponding with Prof. Moran and even got some nice words about our Roger Trinquier article. That the Naval Postgraduate School's research center, the Senate Armed Services Committee, etc., consider torture an issue in counterterrorism and intelligence, I believe, substantiates that it does fall into the Military area. Howard C. Berkowitz 04:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Use of references

Inline references are generally preferred; when a source is not tied to a specific portion of text, such as the Becker and Rutz books, that sort of reference is usually best put in a Bibliography page, with annotation about its significance. Bibliography pages are not intended to replace the references, but supplement them. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Confused

The opening paragraph says "Extreme abuse is child abuse that includes....." but then later i read that one of the surveys is focused on adults. This seems contradictory. Chris Day 04:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Is the adult survey of "adult survivors" the adults recalling abuses from their childhood. This would settle my confusion above, however, then I have to ask, can adults not be targets of "extreme abuse"? If this is a technical term its usage should probably be defined since in laymans terms I think many would say that adults can be the victims of extreme abuse. Chris Day 05:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe there is a way to clarify this better. You make a good point above. I would agree that adults can be victims of EA also. I will attempt to fix this on the page.Neil Brick 05:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem in discussing EA of adults is that as I understand it, it was not the subject of the EAS. If this article is to be limited to the EAS, then EA of adults is out of scope. Howard C. Berkowitz 10:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting the article folds in adult abuse, rather that it needs to be clearer that the surveys are about child abuse. But, on the other hand not imply that extreme abuse only applies to children. Chris Day 13:44, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Two problems there. First, "lower case" extreme abuse certainly happens to adults. We need to be careful, however, that we do not give validation to a syndrome that seems completely unreported in the peer-reviewed literature. Please feel free to try to find it; I could not come up with anything in PUBMED, and I saw absolutely nothing, in various Google searches, that came from anything recognizable as an objective scientific source.

Second, the media kit and other information I've found in the last few hours indicates that at least one of the team has a strong agenda about governments that is being wrapped in the mantle of "protect the children"; the verifiable programs that were cited in the media kit were clearly aimed at adults.Howard C. Berkowitz 14:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Definition fixes

As per talk page requests, I have made several fixes to add sourced definitions to the page. I have defined EA and mind control as per the authors of the survey. I also added a definition from Lifton of MC. I have attempted to make the intro more neutral and I have moved a book and article to the bibliography section. Neil Brick 05:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Neil! If you find anything else to add, go ahead and do it. They will all help us answer some of these other questions. D. Matt Innis 05:53, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

See "mind control" below. Unfortunately, Lifton never actually uses the term; he uses "thought reform", which is quite different. The authors may define mind control to suit their goals, but it simply is not something that has ever been achieved, not by lack of trying by intelligence agencies and political police. I just can't accept that definition as neutral, even if it's just the study authors defining it for their own purposes. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The authors use "mind control" which I think is a "loaded lay term" to affect a certain response from it's readers. It is our article that needs to be neutral, not the subject of the article. We can't help if the subject is controversial or slanted, but we can make sure that our article is not. D. Matt Innis 14:58, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

If they chose to use an emotionally loaded word, that is yet additional suggestion that the survey was not neutral. Especially after seeing the media kit, I tend to think that repeating their word and presenting its implications is legitimate commentary on the style of the authors. Your point about it being our article cuts both ways: we don't want to insert needlessly inflammatory terminology, but, if the article is about the study and the authors chose to use that terminology, I believe that to be relevant and open to analysis. If the subject, a document, is controversial or slanted, how is it neutral to avoid mentioning a term that makes subject matter experts cringe? An ostensibly scientific survey that is written for emotional impact...well... Howard C. Berkowitz 15:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

...how is it neutral to avoid mentioning a term that makes subject matter experts cringe? Goodness, I hope I didn't say that we shouldn't mention a word that makes subject matter experts cringe.

An ostensibly scientific survey that is written for emotional impact...well... then it is what it is. I think that the authors consider themselves victims that have found some relief and, as such, are looking to encourage other "victims" to respond to their survey in an effort to "validate the suffering of victims around the world". They got some response, but unfortunately, this method of data collection would be considered by most scientists as particularly biased and would have to be treated as such. That does not preclude the fact that this work is elevating the concept of "extreme abuse" by creating this survey. I am not so sure that it is an attack on any particular type of abuse, so that is not the issue. It is about the people that report that they have been extremely abused. I was reading late last night, but I remember seeing something in the therapist section that many reported incest as a factor in their extreme abuse... what does that have to do with governments and torture? D. Matt Innis 16:28, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Mind control

I am increasingly concerned with the use of the term "mind control", and, in particular, the redefinition of the term "thought reform", used by the respected academic psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, to mean what an apparent advocacy group calls mind control. I've read quit a bit of Lifton's work, the best known being The Nazi Doctors; I have never seen anything indicating he uses "mind control". Lifton's book title contains "thought reform", which has a well-understood meaning in Communist ideology (I can provide Mao Zedong's text) and is decidedly different than I quote from the article,

The authors of the study defined mind control as “all mind control procedures designed to make a victim follow directives of the programmer without conscious awareness.”

One advocacy site, Steven Alan Hassan's Freedom of Mind Center states (my emphasis) "Dr. Lifton's work was the outgrowth of his studies for military intelligence of Mao Tse-Tung's "thought-reform programs" commonly known as "brainwashing." In Chapter 22, Lifton outlines eight criteria for when any environment can be understood as exercising "thought-reform" or mind control. Lifton wrote that any group has some aspects of these points. However, if an environment has all eight of these points and implements them in the extreme, then there is unhealthy thought reform taking place." [3] Even accepting Hassan's reformulation, it is decidedly different than "follow[ing] directives of the programmer without conscious awareness"

The following text was removed from the talk page; if Lifton is cited, I want to see a direct quote in which he uses the term "mind control" as distinct from "thought reform":

Lifton describes eight mind control elements: milieu control, mystical manipulation or planned spontaneity, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, sacred science, loading of the language, doctrine over person and dispensing of existence.

<ref name=Lifton1989>{{cite book |title=Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China | last = Lifton | first = R.J. | year = 1989 | url = http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en |isbn=0-8078-4255-2}}</ref> A text search on the Google Books copy of Lifton does not return the string "mind control". The individual words "mind" and "control" are present, but not together. There are numerous websites that cite Lifton and reinterpret "thought reform" to be "mind control". That is simply not justified by the evidence.

If "brainwashing" is still cited directly or indirectly as evidence of a total form of mind control, that should bring the article under the purview of the Military Workgroup, which includes such topics as psychological warfare. If the Military Workgroup does get such oversight, I will make an Editor Ruling that primary sources on Communist prison camp indoctination, in North Korea and North Vietnam, never suggest that brainwashing implies this sort of mind control. Yes, it was used to force confessions used for propaganda. While the excellent novel, The Manchurian Candidate, does have a theme of such control, I have neither seen anything in military or intelligence literature, nor had mentioned in my psychological warfare classes (e.g., Dr. Ferenc Molnar, School of International Service, The American University), nor had been suggested in my work at the Center for Research in Social Systems or from the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare center.

The Central Intelligence Agency attempted to break Nguyen Tai, and failed after several years of effort. [4] Other extreme measures including the strict detention of Yuri Nosenko. [5].

Soviet "show trials" of the Great Terror of the 1930s indeed obtained dubious confessions, although some prisoners, who unquestionably were tortured and knew there was no possibility the court would acquit them, still argued innocence. (See Robert Conquest, The Great Terror) Howard C. Berkowitz 05:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this article should concentrate on the Extreme Abuse Surveys only. There are certainly responders to the survey that accuse governments of being perpetrators of extreme abuse. I don't doubt there are those that do blame governments for such actions that resulted in personality disorders - and that is what these surveys accumulate. I can imagine that some of them are totally accurate, just as I can imagine that some are imaginary and pathological fabrications from minds that were already having issues. We can't know which are which and we can't create original research to pretend to know, but we can repeat what the authors say and we can illustrate weaknesses in the studies, especially if we have an authority that can reflect this. I don't feel comfortable making a workgroup comment as I would not want to mislead you on the workgroup choices. D. Matt Innis 06:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Matt, I cannot agree with the assertions, especially when they actively redefine Lifton. Also, I make a distinction between "extreme abuse" and "mind control". I will, very reluctantly, accept the use of extreme abuse in terms of child abuse. Speaking as one with considerable direct experience in intelligence and psychological warfare, there were certainly very serious attempts to produce a state of mind control, as in MKULTRA, North Korean POW camps, the Soviets under Beria, etc. They failed.

I do not consider it worthy of the neutrality policy to have to counter every conspiracy theory brought into CZ. I have emailed a Psychology editor with my concerns, and, specifically if the "mind control" and "brainwashing" allegations are continued, I will seek to have those terms, used in political warfare and intelligence, brought under the purview of the Military Workgroup. Get references to mind control and brainwashing out of the article and I back off the position.

There may be a survey that goes out and asks people about the aliens that controlled them, but I cannot see taking the assumption of alien or demonic possession without abundant evidence. Now, that cats may have me well trained is quite another matter. Nothing secret about that, especially when they determine it is time to be scratched, fed, or amused. When Rhonda or Mr. Clark decide to groom my beard or lick my nose, resistance is futile. The dogs use pitiful expressions and claims of imminent starvation as their technique of control. :-)

Howard C. Berkowitz 06:15, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I'm not sure what you are sorry about, I agree with you concerning the assertions and think we should fix them. Let's just try not to pretend that "extreme abuse" is a proper noun and give it any more credibility by trying to define it using well established terms. The article is about "extreme abuse surveys", a set of surveys that were performed over the internet over the last year or so... They have all kinds of responses, some of which are government related, some aren't. I haven't read them all, yet. If it's the workgroup issue that you are sorry about, I just don't want any misunderstandings to occur as a result of whether I agree with you or not. I've gone there before and got the T-shirt, no thanks :-)

It is my understanding that the neutrality policy needs to used on every article on CZ, whether about a conspiracy theory or not?

By the way, I am just acting as an author on this article.

D. Matt Innis 06:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I cannot accept that neutrality policy requires a discussion of every possible issue, with subject matter experts expected to spend their time presenting alternate views rather than writing original articles. If, when you wrote "we can repeat what the authors say and we can illustrate weaknesses in the studies, especially if we have an authority that can reflect this", I cannot accept that there is no CZ discretion in being unable to choose not to repeat the statements of dishonest authors. As far as the specific survey, if the authors cite Lifton as defining "mind control", and it can be established that Lifton's book never contained the term but used a quite different one (in the title), I have to say that I find the scholarship irretrievably flawed and the study simply not worth discussing. That's not a matter of alternate views or neutrality policy; that's a matter of intellectual dishonesty sufficient to throw serious doubt on the integrity of the surveys themselves.

Just in case that Google book search might have missed the phrase, I have the book on order through interlibrary loan. They cited Chapter 22. If Chapter 22 does not contain the phrase "mind control", and other sources are available that show that "thought reform" means something quite different than what the authors imply, where are we then? Does neutrality policy extend to falsification, or the inability to understand the sourced material? There's a legal concept of "fruit of the poisoned tree", in which material derived from tainted evidence is inadmissible. Where does that fit in neutrality policy?

I am sorry that this is happening with Neil, who seems to be a gentleman and trying to contribute. There is no reason to believe he is not accurately citing what the survey authors said. If it was his bias, then CZ: Article Deletion Policy, "the article is of such low quality (in terms of inaccuracy, bias, poor writing, or whatever) that it would be more efficient to start over than to try to clean up the current one (this also can be achieved by blanking, if one does in fact wish to start over)" would apply.

That policy, however, is not clear about what to do if the subject has severe problems with accuracy and bias. I have sent a request to a Psychology Editor as well as a Health Sciences Editor to review this matter. If the military/intelligence terms "brainwashing" and "mind control" continue to be used, or are in the surveys themselves, I shall seek a consensus that the article also falls under Military. My initial thought would be to put the jurisdictional issue to the CZ-Editors list. As I have said, if this does fall under Military, I believe a ruling can be made on the use of those specific terms, as well as the applicability of the Lifton reference. Howard C. Berkowitz 09:43, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I cannot accept that neutrality policy requires a discussion of every possible issue Remember, this page is for talk about how to improve the article. Right now, the only thing I see that can pertain to this discussion is CZ:Maintainability and Topic Choice. Notability is certainly not an issue here at Citizendium as people are allowed to write about anything they wish. But, lets leave that discussion somewhere else and concentrate on how to present "extreme abuse surveys" neutrally. Right now, I don't have any issues with any of the concerns that you have. If you want to make those changes to the article, please do and we will go from there. D. Matt Innis 15:04, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

...policy, however, is not clear about what to do if the subject has severe problems with accuracy and bias. We report on the facts the best we can and leave the rest to the reader. D. Matt Innis 15:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

"Remember, this page is for talk about how to improve the article." Not that alone, since, after all, an editor can recommend deletion, which sometimes equates to improvement.

It is outside the scope of how to improve the article whether or not we report or even have it. I shall merely say that I am not alone, among some active Citizens, in assuming that it is wise or practical to have articles on any controversial subject — certainly if there is a shortage of people qualified, or having the time, to point out questionable material.

The discussion of whether we should have controversial articles is what we should not be discussing here. If you want to start a thread somewhere, I'll tell you my opinion. Meanwhile, concerning whether to delete this article, we still can't get around the fact that there is an "Extreme Abuse Surveys". D. Matt Innis 16:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I really don't want to go that far afield here, but I'll make a simple statement: lots of things exist. There are resource constraints if nothing else. For example, I keep not getting around to writing B83 (nuclear weapon), which is the biggest bomb in U.S. inventory. Still, unless someone else wants to do it, I'll do that sometime when I have a couple of hours to look up some sources; I might yet do a stub just from (expert) memory.

As soon as a controversial article comes in, maintaining neutrality involves more resources than the author's resources alone. There are always simple priority decisions. Shocking as it is, Larry and I probably agree there should be more about folk music. I can't speak for him, but I don't know enough about popular music to know to what alternative music is an alternative. It doesn't bother me. Now, do I want to spend my time, perhaps, adding to Hayford's articles on some big-time sixties folk groups I loved, writing about the relationship of Shaker folk music to the symphonic compositions of Aaron Copland, fact-checking things about government ritual abuse, or doing some very lengthy research in primary documents to give a CZ unique but thoroughly sourced article on some aspect of military history? Reading bad scans of the North Vietnamese Politburo theoretical journal is both hard on the eyes and jarring to the sense of writing style, but the results seem worth it.

Now, can I be comfortable that someone else will do the fact-checking I've done here, simplified, by some extent, that expertise let me know that certain sources existed, or what certain government programs were, by every serious analysis, trying to accomplish? If I don't, I am faced with wondering if CZ's integrity will be maintained. Trust me, I'd really rather not be working on this, but I also don't especially like cleaning the litter box.Howard C. Berkowitz 18:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Additional sourcing

I don't want to change my comments, but to add additional sourcing. One or two things are at hand in hard copy; the government document is probably online, and perhaps the Robert Conquest material is on Google Books. I will get back on POW materials. Nguyen Tai is already sourced as is Nosenko. The CIA activities used drugs and caused at least one suicide as well as long-term damage; the Soviet purges in the Great Terror exerted confessions from many, often calling for their own execution. In neither case, however, did the victims come under unconscious control. Some of the Soviet victims actively defended themselves, regardless of torture, execution of family members, etc., until they themselves were put to death.

• Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States ("Rockefeller Commission"), June 1975. (Note: far more detail was in the subsequent Church Committee hearings, and also documents at the George Washington University National Security Archive; these all should be online). "The Testing of Behavior-Influencing Drugs on Unsuspecting Subjects Within the United States", pp. 226-228.
• Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: a Reassessment. Chapter 5, "The Problem of Confession", pp. 109-131. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Howard C. Berkowitz 10:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

attacks

I removed the following section:

On January 2, 2007, the server that had the survey faced an intense amount of port scans at low and high ports and attempts to access non-existing server pages. These were carried out on a large scale. This used an enormous amount of bandwidth. The attacks diminished and after three weeks almost ended. In early March 2007, there was an attack to hack into the server, but this failed. Several attempts were also made to obtain the private data of some technicians and surveyors. The EAS survey was successfully completed on March 31, 2007.^[1]
"Extreme abuse survey" produced no Google hits when paired with the North American Network Operators Group, Réseaux IP Européens (the European internet operations forum), or the Association for Computing Machinery RISKS digest. While investigations are continuing, this server attack does not appear to have been reported to any of the major Internet Service Provider operational forums.

It seems on the low side with regard to useful information. Chris Day 14:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was having issues there as well. I don't think it has anythng to do with the actual 'surveys' themselves. If we were to delve into the issues surrounding the controversy about them, then I suppose both the claim and the fact that they aren't reported anywhere could be explained, but I don't see that as particularly necessary. D. Matt Innis 15:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Fine with me, with the slight caveat it adds to the conspiratorial flavor that comes across in so many ways. (switches to Computers Editor hat, the one with the propeller on top). Again, if allegations are made, I'd like to see details, correct terminology, and less drama. This is much less significant than the media kit. Still, if a controversial claim is made, if it's not removed, alternate explanations are quite within my understanding of neutrality.

"Hack into" also is a bit vague. There are some network intrusion detection appliances routinely cursed by ISP support desks, for reporting perfectly normal Internet activity that is part of the infrastructure. Repeated port scans are suggestive of reconnaissance for an attack, but they rarely don't take up a lot of bandwidth. At least in Internet server farms I design or purchase, port scans usually can be stopped at the firewall or router.

Let's put it this way...If I were trying to bring down a server, I wouldn't be using either port scans or HTTP GET(invalid page). I don't think, however, I'll discuss exactly how I might go about it. :-) Howard C. Berkowitz 15:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

As a compromise, I have removed the section and made it into one sentence at the end of another section. Neil Brick 19:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

What is your reasoning for having the material at all? I would note that it is not described or sourced in any way meaningful to an Internet security professional. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The reason for mentioning the material briefly is because what happened is atypical for an online study and may reflect on the issue of someone trying to keep the data from becoming public. Neil Brick 17:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

"May reflect on" is hypothetical, and, with a complete absence of technical detail that allows a computer security professional to judge if there was a serious attack, non-authoritative. Every day, end users call help desks claiming they are under attack, and, unless the user is knowledgeable in network security, the perceived attack may be accidental or even normal infrastructure activity. Some perceived attacks turn out, in fact, to be bad server implementation.

To give this any serious consideration, there either needs to be much more detail, or at least verification that the study team, or specific resources they consulted, were qualified to recognize a real attack against a properly protected server and access network. A port scan might have been a mild threat, but I remember taking some simple steps, in 1991, that immunized my server. Port scanning is a technique for finding vulnerabilities in a server, not for attacking it. To take examples of definite attack techniques against which any reasonable system is protected, flooding with ICMP or UDP directed broadcasts, or TCP SYNs, are attacks. Sorry, this is speculative at best.

What is your evidence, incidentally, that such probing is atypical for online services in general, not just surveys? My experience, over many years of Internet engineering, is that most new servers come under probing often within minutes of coming online. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Publicity by study author

I have added, to the main article, links and some content to a media kit issued by Wanda Karriker, which consists of about three-quarters of allegations about government abuses, and a relatively small amount about the study itself. The press kit itself is self-contradictory about the existence or nonexistence about documentation on the CIA ARTICHOKE/MKULTRA project; I have provided several references to it.

MKULTRA definitely existed, and at least one American government scientist died from being made an unwitting test subject for LSD as an interrogation drug. While it has been said that the records were destroyed, a considerable amount has surfaced — I was rather shocked to find that the CIA had paid for the Gorman Building at Georgetown University Medical Center, where I worked in the clinical laboratory in 1966. Georgetown provided academic cover for some of the work.

MKULTRA and related programs were eventually cancelled, because the CIA found them completely useless for the intended purpose of interrogation. If need be, I'll dig up quite a few citations. My basic point is that it makes no sense that they would have targeted children, who rarely have information of intelligence interest. Karriker, however, harps on this indeed highly illegal and immoral activity, which makes me wonder about her agenda.

The media kit. Lifton used inappropriately as a source. How much data need be presented before CZ can look at this not as a matter, under the neutrality policy, for different views about child abuse, but as what increasingly seems to be a much more general agenda by the survey team? How many inconsistencies need to be found before the question must be asked: is the survey project itself sufficiently credible to be covered? Howard C. Berkowitz 14:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree the media kit exposes the bias by the authors and the fact that is was read by everyone before filling out the survey creates a weakness in the validity of the of data collection, but I would feel more comfortable hearing from an expert on this. The question is how to use it. D. Matt Innis 15:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It hadn't even occurred to me that the media kit would be a possible bias to respondents; since the kit reports some survey results, the survey presumably was done before the kit was issued. So, I don't think expertise in survey methodology is all that relevant. Incidentally, survey research is part of professional education in psychological warfare. It also was not exactly a strange subject when I was a political research director.

If, however, you are looking for an expert on the allegations about government programs, their intentions, and the internal contradictions between citations in the kit, I believe I qualify. Rest assured that the more information that can be located about allegations, from the survey authors, about government acts, usually by intelligence services, the stronger a case is made that the matter, like any other intelligence issue, falls into the purview of Military. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I moved the entire section to the publicity section for clarity.Neil Brick 19:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I object to that move. Indeed, I had originally had it all in the publicity section. I moved key information only to the introduction, in the interest of neutrality. I believe it is entirely appropriate to have sourced information that indicates possible bias on the part of a survey author. Removing it does not create clarity, but presents the study without any indication that it might be criticized.

You will note that the details remained in the Publicity section. The fact of the media packet, and that it dealt significantly with government programs rather than child abuse, is, I believe, highly significant. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that study criticism at this point should be kept in the subsection, until there is published data on this. Also, there is criticism in the intro about MeSH and PubMED data. Neil Brick 17:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I believe the Neutrality Policy requires the early recognition of dissenting views. A good example is the homeopathy article, which required months of compromise, whose introduction does contain criticism. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Chris, did I lose your text?

I discovered I had edits open in two windows, and sleepily saved the longer one after I responded to what I think was a point of yours about adult abuse. Please check if I need more coffee.

What I think you said was that adult abuse is not part of the survey, but still exists. I agreed that "lower case" extreme abuse certainly happens to adults, as with MKULTRA. Let's be careful not to suggest that Extreme Abuse Syndrome is a recognized entity. Please double-check me; I could not get a hit in PUBMED, and no Google search on it returned anything that looked remotely peer-reviewed.

Anyone got a recent DSM-IV with supplements? I probably can't get to one until Tuesday at the earliest, assuming there is one in a local mental health center where I know some staff, but I'll probably have to play voicemail tag with one of the psychiatrists or therapists to tell the administrators where to find it if it's there--if it isn't someone's personal book at home. Ah, as a teenager, I could simply have asked my mother, if, of course, DSM existed when I was a teenager.  :-) Howard C. Berkowitz 14:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Everything is back now. Chris Day 14:24, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I deleted a few sentences that had no sources including opinions, but left all sourced information. Neil Brick 19:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Media Packet

I've looked at the media packet; it is not an account of survey findings, but issue-promoting publicity; the content comprises partisan juxtapositions of allegation, selective information and out-of-context quotations. I suggest deleting this and confining this article to a neutral account of the EAS. As a reference item it is not helpful in retrieving the survey data, and I don't think it's appropriate to reference it in the article. Maybe in the external links with a warning annotation.Gareth Leng 19:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely that it is publicity. My problem is that I don't find the EAS itself to be neutral or objective, and such a finding, if it can be supported, is part of a neutral article on it. The very fact that a study author is making such partisan statements, to me, is highly relevant to a CZ reader trying to understand if the study itself is neutral — not something to be relegated to an external link.

When you mention survey findings, remember that we don't yet have any real information on the quality of survey methodology or independent validation of the data. While I may be wrong, it appears that the respondents self-selected, which is an exceptionally questionable design given, at best, that the respondents, by definition, are traumatized. Now, if a study author is partisan, does that not throw further question on whether the study was intended to be objective? Is that not legitimate in a neutral article about the study? Do we routinely have articles on political polls that are intended to support the candidate's campaign, rather than opinion polls done by reputable research firms whose methodology can be validated? Howard C. Berkowitz 20:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll keep watching and thinking. Gareth Leng 21:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking that the only way to neutrally organize this article is to give a brief description of the EAS and its stated purpose and how they did it and use it as a subpage to some larger article concept. The data was received from self-registration of participants after reading a 'media package', which was definitely biased. The question is whether these same people would have responded had they not been promised 'validation for what they have gone through'. The interseting thing is that 'care givers' and 'therapists' responded as well and pretty specifically about 'ritual abuse' and 'mind control' (though it isn't clear by whom as incest was also relatively high on the list). Regardless, the story here, as Howard suggests, would have to include that it could be catering to conspiracy theorists - but the data received could still illuminate something - if not only that these people did or did not report similar symptoms... I think it is obvious that they are in the stage of 'disseminating' stage of this project, but I am still not sure what conclusions that they are disseminating, other than people and therapists have reported abuse byt others. I definitely would like you're opinion on that. D. Matt Innis 23:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)