Despite his influence on Cold War pop-cultural, and countercultural, discussions about the brain, Grey Walter was curiously reticent on the subject of ‘brainwashing’. Andreas Killen shows how, nevertheless, Walter’s work played a key role in debates about mind control.
Posts By: Guest
Persuasion in the Air: Background music and the authenticity of happiness
Alexandra Hui describes an early example of our cultural ambivalence about background music. In 1958 a journalist asked: does it make us happy, even when we would prefer not to be?
Collusion with torture – a case from Brazil
Aline Rubin reminds us that there have been harrowing points of intersection between psychoanalysis and political oppression, particularly in Brazil. Scholars of psychoanalysis have only begun to reckon with this challenging history.
Orwell and Post-truth Politics
Danae Karydaki explains why, in our age of ‘post-truth politics’, George Orwell’s essays are now more relevant than ever.
Motivated or Manipulated? Ernest Dichter and David McClelland at Work
Kira Lussier, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, discusses a recent New York Times article on Amazon employees, placing its critique within the history of how motivational psychology has been used in the workplace.
Critical Incidents: Laura Stark on APA Ethics Policy
A still from the film Obedience (1962), a production by the psychologist Stanley Milgram made in the course of his ‘Obedience to Authority’ experiments at Yale University. It is now widely believed that these experiments could not be recreated today due to ethical guidelines established by psychologists in 1973. By Laura Stark ‘I… Read more »
Reflections on Enhanced Interrogation
When the Senate Intelligence Committee released their report on the CIA’s use of ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques, Dick Cheney was quick to respond. (The report, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, can be downloaded in full here) On NBC’s Meet the Press the former Vice President kicked against the accusations… Read more »
