Totalist systems and control
Exploring how the LDS church creates and maintains trauma bonds as its primary method of control
Introduction
I read Alexandra Stein’s “Terror, Love & Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems” recently, and it resonated so deeply that it took me months to process it.
The book explained A LOT about my lack of self trust and my struggle to authentically relate to people without crushing anxiety.
It felt crucial to my Mormon disassimilation process, so I offer this as a humble book report of sorts. It’s a collection of quotes from the book that I’ve arranged in a way to make sense of my own experience.
The process of sorting and assembling the LDS videos next to Stein’s work solidified the idea that the church actively disorganized my sense of safety, dignity, and belonging—and that has made navigating the world fearful and lifeless.
This book also gave me the tools to ask questions of other systems I swim in.
There’s much to be learned here about white supremacy and the attachment to whiteness. Where else is my fear exploited to keep me attached to a closed, exclusive power structure that guarantees safety only to the compliant few?
I feel more equipped to ask and embody these questions, now that I better understand how somatic fear can be wielded to isolate me from feeling, empathy, and interdependence.
I hope it offers clarity to you. And if this Mormon-focused synopsis sparks interest, grab the whole book at your local bookstore or library.
Table of contents
I. Totalism
II. Attachment theory
III. Fear arousal
IV. Outcomes
V. Ideology
a. Two purposes
b. Loaded language
All text is Alexandra Stein’s
I. Totalism
Totalism: the practice of a total worldview or a total ideology.
“As Hannah Arendt said of totalitarian ideologies, they are 'isms that pretend to have found the key explanation for all the mysteries of life and world.’”
“The structure of such a belief system is total: closed and exclusive, allowing no other beliefs, no other truths, no other affiliations and no other interpretations, proposing to be true for all time and under all conditions.”
“The ideology is determined by the leader and can be changed at a moment's notice by the leader, and only by the leader.”
“Dissension cannot be tolerated. In its all-encompassing nature and its single point of origin, the ideology therefore mirrors the closed, steeply hierarchical structure of the group.”
“Totalist groups, cults, totalitarianism, even controlling forms of domestic violence, are set apart—not by the fact of religion or ideology—but by the nature of the relationship between … the group and the follower.”
“This is a relationship that is rooted in the creation of, and experience of, trauma.”
“Both attachment and trauma theory look at the impact of trauma on the brain, and these ideas are key to understanding the response of followers to the totalist situation.”
II. Attachment theory
“The core idea of attachment theory is that human attachment behavior has evolved as a survival mechanism.”
“Attachment to others serves as a source of protection, and seeking attachments in order to gain such protection—a safe haven, in attachment theory terms—is as much an imperative for humans as seeking food, shelter or sex.”
Secure attachment
“When [a] child experiences threat or stress their attachment system is activated and through an array of attachment behaviors (such as crying, smiling, reaching out to be held), and they seek out their attachment figure, who, ideally, will provide appropriate comfort and protection.”
“When the threat passes, and the child has been comforted and attains a state of ‘felt security,’ their attachment system is deactivated and the child is free to explore and move away from the attachment figure.”
Disorganized attachment
“The classification of disorganized attachment was developed by Mary Main and Judith Solomon when they noticed unusual behaviors in a set of children who had been unpredictably frightened by their caregivers.”
“Their caregiver is at once the safe haven and also the source of threat or alarm.”
“The child experiences the unresolvable paradox of seeking to simultaneously flee from and approach the caregiver.”
—
“In most cases the need for proximity … tends to override attempts to avoid the fear-arousing caregiver. So usually the child stays close to the frightening parent while internally both their withdrawal and approach systems are simultaneously activated, and in conflict.”
“In the face of this impossible situation the child's attachment strategies collapse, hence the term disorganized.”
—
“Why is all this important? Because totalist groups rely on disorganizing followers as the fundamental means of control.”
“Disorganized attachment results in dissociation and it is this that makes it a powerful and dangerous control mechanism.”
—
“Dissociation separates thinking from feeling. It dis-integrates the left, logical, verbal, thinking side of the brain from the right, emotional, non-verbal side of the brain.”
“Disabling people's ability to think and talk about their feelings drastically impairs their ability to see their situation and to exert agency within it.”
“In thus separating or dissociating the feeling from the thinking side of the brain, these disconnected realms can now be colonized by the totalist leader for his or her own purposes.”
“The dissociated follower comes to accept the group as the safe haven and thus forms a trauma bond.”
III. Fear arousal
“The fear arousal aspect of disorganized attachment is the essence of totalist deployability.”
“Three different types of fear operate to retain people in totalist environments.”
Fear of leaving a total world
Fear of retribution by the group
Existential fear
—
“This third fear is the element that is specific to a trauma/disorganized attachment bond, and reflects the state of fright without solution.”
“It is a generalized terror that cannot be clearly thought about or articulated given the dissociation between emotional and cognitive processing that characterizes the disorganized relationship.”
“The group member cannot draw up plans to deal with this third type of fear, precisely because the emotional-cognitive links have been disrupted by the situation of fright without solution.”
“The group member experiences fear caused by the group, but at the same time is told by the group (and believes) that everything in the relationship is fine: thus the member must try and hold two different and contradictory views of reality at the same time.”
IV. Outcomes
“On the one hand is the fear that these leaders arouse in followers (‘running from’), and on the other is the haven of safety that they create—the ‘love’ that they offer (‘running to’)—while removing any alternate, competing safe havens from the reach of the follower.”
“Now you have a person who is locked into an attachment relationship with the group and who cannot think clearly.”
“The follower's cognitive deficit is handily filled by the group's ideology, which offers a path out of the confusion. 'Don't worry, We will do your thinking for you.’”
“This moment of submission, of giving up the struggle, can be experienced as a moment of great relief, and even happiness, or a spiritual awakening.”
“A state of chronic trauma in relation to the group is created.”
“This is the glue that, up until leaving, has bound the group member to the group.”
—
“The result of this system is a leader with extreme control over hypercredulous and hyperobedient followers: they'll believe anything and do anything. Followers can now be exploited and deployed.”
“They may be exploited financially; through use of unpaid labor; sexually; through exploitation of their children; and, in the extreme case, through giving up their lives in the service of the leader's needs, as for example in group suicides, or suicide terrorism.”
—
“This psychological trauma—resulting in dissociation—can engender a passive 'defeat’ or learned helplessness response where the person disengages from the external world.”
“In studies of disorganized infants, the result of this type of chronic relational-induced trauma 'is a progressive impairment of the ability to adjust, take defensive action, or act on one's own behalf, and blocking of the capacity to register affect and pain, all critical to survival.’”
—
“Further, followers often show a (group-enforced) lack of empathy to others (to put it mildly), both inside and outside of their groups.”
“The group-induced isolation from both self and others … is also reinforced by the dissociative state: 'dissociatively-detached individuals are not only detached from the environment, but also from the self—their body, their own actions, and their sense of identity.’”
—
“A totalist ideology denies the right to existence of any who do not adhere to it, and justifies, supports and hides actions by repressive leaders who seek to utterly crush and reject the independence and agency of followers.”
“The one purpose of these belief systems is to control and keep followers subordinated to that control.”
V. Ideology
a. Two purposes
“The ideologies of totalist organizations vary from left to right … but they all share a set of common formal traits and functions.”
“The first purpose is to reflect and justify the absolute control and single point of power of the leader and the isolating structure he or she creates.”
“The second purpose of totalist ideologies is to maintain dissociation.”
—
FUNCTION 1
SHORE UP THE TOTALIST STRUCTURE
“The structure of the ideology mirrors and reinforces the rigid structure of the group and the divide between those in the group and those outside.”
“It mirrors the structure by having a single truth as there is a single leader.”
“This single truth then, and its supposed genesis in the epiphanies and expertise of the leader, supports their absolute power, which then entitles them to the guaranteed attachments of loyal followers.”
“The ideology then serves to reinforce this by raising the leader both to god-like omnipotence and to the symbolic position of parent to the group.”
FUNCTION 2
MAINTAIN DISSOCIATION
“The ideology directly supports dissociation in several ways.”
“The ideology must reflect the three-fold process of creating fright-without-solution—this being the primary control mechanism the leader employs.”
“First, the ideology must present the leader/group as the only safe haven.”
“Second, it must label all other potential safe havens (family, friends, the outside world) at worst as dangerous, and at best as ignorant obstacles to ‘salvation.’”
“And third, it must broadcast elements of fear, stress or threat to trigger the traumatic disorganized bond of the follower to the group, and set in place the resulting dissociation that this maladaptive response causes.”
“Once this total ideology gains a foothold through this dissociated window in the follower's mind, it serves to continually reinforce and shore up the initial dissociation.”
b. Loaded language
“Loaded language is the language used to deliver the fictions of total ideology.”
“Loaded language consists of group jargon that acts as ‘verbal fetters’ preventing followers from articulating anything—any thought or feeling—outside the bounds of what the group determines is acceptable.”
“Every cult or totalitarian system has its own loaded language.”
—
“Along with other dissociating techniques it is used to dominate, constrict thought, [and] restrict conversation and communication.”
“Language used in this function will be repetitive, canned and replete with jargon, as opposed to the ‘fresh’ language of open, imaginative and unfettered communication. “
“Loaded language has a dreary, predictable and, often, incoherent (especially to the outsider) quality.”
“The dissociation of right and left brain, the block against thinking about feelings and therefore of making cognitive evaluations of the group is also achieved by the ideology lacking any concrete content.”
“Words stand in for things, without the things themselves actually being discussed in any detail.”
“These terms thus become vague abstractions that can stand for anything. They are repetitive, all-encompassing phrases—’thought-terminating clichés’—which serve as ‘'interpretive shortcuts’ devoid of concrete content.”
“These features of the ideology: its singular nature as the only truth allowed, the lack of dissent, its fictional quality, the loaded language and lack of concrete content, all work together to support peripheral rather than central route thinking.”
“Peripheral processing (automatic thinking) is a low-effort mode of thinking. We use it when we are tired, stressed, under time pressure and lack motivation to engage in its opposite: central route processing (systematic thinking).”
—
“When using central route processing we pay attention to the quality of the arguments being put forth and then evaluate these arguments using knowledge, logic and careful consideration.”
“People can be discouraged from central route processing and encouraged to peripherally process by creating distractions to prevent focal attention.”
“Such distractons can include fear arousal, rapid delivery of the message (and lack of time to process it), quantity rather than quality of arguments, excessive repetition or complexity of language and delivery by an attractive or ‘expert’ messenger.”
—
“In the peripheral mode we are persuaded by the more obvious and easily accessible elements of a persuasion attempt, but do not engage in the more effortful work of thinking about the elements central to the question at hand.”
“In fact, the main goal of dissociating a follower is to disengage their ability to use central route, or systematic and critical processing.”
—
“Thus, cognitive processing about the group, its ideology and the follower's relationship with the group is disabled overall and never truly makes it into the higher-order brain regions where thinking about feeling takes place.”
“For an individual person, the effect of the language of ideological totalism can be summed up in one word: constriction.”
“[The person] is, so to speak, linguistically deprived; and since language is so central to all human experience, [their] capacities for thinking and feeling are immensely narrowed.”
All text from Alexandra Stein’s “Terror, Love & Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems.”
Video sources
📼A Profile of Faith (1992)
📼Church History Home and Family Collection (2005)
“The First Vision” (1976)
📼Come Unto Me (1990)
“Man’s Search for Happiness” (1986)
“Morality for Youth” (1982)
📼D&C and Church History Video Presentations 13-22 (1998)
“Light and Truth: Part 2” (1999)
📼D&C Stories: Volume 1 (1987)
“Before the Doctrine and Covenants”
“Getting Ready for the Church of Jesus Christ”
”The Prophet Is Killed”
“The Three Kingdoms of Heaven”
📼 Family Home Evening Video Supplement 1 (1987)
“The Commandments Are for Our Protection”
”True Friendship”
📼 Family Home Evening Video Supplement 2 (1990)
”Heavenly Father Answers Prayers”
“Repentance: It’s Never Too Late” (1987)
“True Friends Help You Keep the Commandments” (1989)
📼 Lorenzo’s Songbook (1990)
📼New Testament Video Presentations (1997)
“Godly Sorrow” (GBH quote from 1983)
📼Old Testament Video Presentations (1996)
“In the Image of God”
“Leading By Example”
📼 Our Heavenly Father’s Plan (1986)
📼President Gordon B. Hinckley Speaks to Parents and Youth (2000)
📼Teach One Another (1990)
“Search the Scriptures” (1988)
📼The Plan of our Heavenly Father: Discussion 1 (1989)
📼What Is Real? (1989)
📼 Young Women Fireside: A New Vision and Focus (1987)
—
📀 Book of Mormon DVD Presentations 1-19 (2005)
”Act for Themselves” (1993)
“Spiritual Crocodiles” (1993)
”The Mediator” (1995)
📀 Come, Follow Me Video Resources for Youth Volume 1 (2013)
”Always in Our Sights”
“Be Not Troubled” (1999)
”Bloom Where You’re Planted”
“Dare to Stand Alone” (2011)
“Enemy Territory” (2011)
“God Is Our Father”
“He Knows Me”
”Invite Us to Testify”
“Lifting Burdens” (2001)
“Men’s Hearts Shall Fail Them” (2011)
“Our True Identity” (2009)
“Stay Within the Lines” (2011)
“The Plan of Salvation”
“Use Media Effectively”
“Waiting on Our Road to Damascus” (2011)
“Watch Your Step”
”We Need Living Prophets”
“You Know Enough” (2008)
“You Will Be Freed”
📀 D&C and Church History Visual Resources DVD (2010)
“Righteous Desires” (1996)
“Satan Seeks to Deceive Us” (2004)
“Selective Obedience” (1989)
“Take Upon You My Whole Armor” (2002)
“Those Tithed Not Burned at His Coming” (1979)
“Thwarting Satan’s Evil Designs” (2004)
“Windows of Heaven Open to Obedient” (1995)
📀 First Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting (2003)
“Standards of Worthiness”
📀 Gospel Lessons for Family and Personal Use: Volume 1 (2010)
“The Plan of Salvation”
📀 Gospel Lessons for Family and Personal Use: Volume 4 (2009)
“Living the Gospel”
”Modern Prophets”
”The Atonement”
📀 Old Testament Visual Resources DVD (2007)
“A Seer Will I Raise Up”
“Blessings of Following Prophets” (2003)
“Children of Israel” (1995)
“Following the Prophet” (1997)
“Following Prophetic Counsel” (2001)
“Many Esaus” (1985)
“No Light Without Prophets” (1979)
“Perilous Times” (2001)
“Sin Results in Suffering” (1990)
”The Sealing Power”
📀 Preach My Gospel: The District 1 (2007)
”Episode 1”
“Questions for the Soul”
📀 Preach My Gospel: District 2 (2010)
“Invitation to Attend Church”
“The Purpose of Missionary Work”
📀 Teaching the Gospel (2007)
“Helping Others to Be Spiritually Led”
“The Charted Course of the Church in Education” (1938, revised in 1994?)
“The Role of the Student in Gospel Learning”