APA Task Force On Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control - Comments On The DIMPAC Report

Comments On The DIMPAC Report

The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements

The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements interprets the DIMPAC report as a the result of the "professionalization of the Anti-cult movement" based on a broad-based effort to reconceptualize mind-control theory so that it would pass muster with the judiciary and professional associations, as part of an alleged campaign to gain professional legitimacy. It also asserts that the effort never achieved complete success, and that it influenced popular more than scientific culture.

Andrew P. Bacus' statement delivered to the Illinois Senate Committee on Education

In a statement titled "Challenging 'Mind Control" in Illinois", Bacus referred to Singer's theories as being "reviled by her peers" and stated that Singer's theories "continue to be viewed as sophomoric by her peers", and referred to the APA rejection as "research has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of mental health professionals as not reliable."

Dick Anthony's "Pseudoscience and Minority Religions"

Dick Anthony, in an article published in the Social Justice Research journal in 1999, wrote that relevant professional academic organizations had opposed testimony based on brainwashing theory as unscientific and that courts had repeatedly excluded such testimony from American legal trials.

2001 Amitrani, Di Marzio article

In 2001 Alberto Amitrani and Raffaella Di Marzio, from the Roman seat of the GRIS (Group for Research and Information about Sects), published an article in which they state that one should not construe the rejection of the report as a rejection of the theories of thought reform and mind control as applied to New Religious Movements, and that the rejection by one division of the APA does not represent the whole association. They quote Benjamin Zablocki, professor of sociology and one of the reviewers of the rejected DIMPAC report, as describing in 1997 people as "misled about the true position of the APA and the ASA with regard to brainwashing", and as writing that the APA urged scholars to do more research on the matter. They also write that they have reason to believe that the APA still considers "psychological coercion" as a phenomenon worth investigating, and not a notion rejected by the scientific community.

"Cults of hatred" panel session

In 2002, at the APA's 2002 Annual Convention in Chicago during the panel session "Cults of hatred", Alan W. Scheflin, professor of law at Santa Clara University, stated that "Extreme influence has remained dormant in the field of psychology". He went on to describe such topics as a legitimate field of study and to state that psychology needs an organized response, saying: "We need to stop this germ from spreading."

The panelists also called for the APA to form a new task force to "investigate mind control among destructive cults". (Panelists included Deborah Layton, survivor of the People's Temple mass suicide/murder at Jonestown, Steven Hassan, Cynthia F. Hartley, Stephen J. Morgan, a faculty member of the American Management Association/Management Centre Europe in Brussels, Belgium, and then APA President Philip Zimbardo.)