DIMPAC Task Force
In the early 1980s, some U.S. mental health professionals became well-known figures due to their involvement as expert witnesses in court cases against groups they considered to be cults. In their testimony they presented theories of brainwashing, mind control, or coercive persuasion to support the legal positions of former group members against their former groups.
The American Psychological Association (APA) in 1983 asked Singer, who was one of the leading proponents of coercive persuasion theories, to chair a taskforce to investigate whether brainwashing or "coercive persuasion" did indeed play a role in recruitment by such groups. The task force was titled APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC).
The final report of the Task Force was completed in November 1986. The APA Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) rejected the report, stating that it lacked scientific rigor and an evenhanded approach, but also stating that it did not have sufficient information to take a position. There is dispute about whether the rejection of the report constituted a rejection of Singer's theories by the APA.
Singer and her professional associate, sociologist Richard Ofshe, subsequently sued the APA, and a group of scholars and lawyers. in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy" and lost in 1994. In a further ruling, James R. Lambden ordered Ofshe and Singer to pay $80,000 in attorneys' fees under California's SLAPP suit law. At that time, Singer and Ofshe declared their intention to sue Michael Flomenhaft, the lawyer that represented them in the case, for malpractice.
Singer was subsequently not accepted by judges as an expert witness in four cases alleging brainwashing and mind control.
After the report was rejected, Singer reworked much of the rejected material into the book Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives, which she co-authored with Janja Lalich.
Read more about this topic: Margaret Singer
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