Black and White Thinking after Exiting: Adventures in Ambiguity (Part I)

I spent much time studying chemistry, thinking about the Bohr Model of the Atom, and I was so fascinated by the periodic table.  I suppose that along with math, it seemed like one of the few consistent things in my life.  Language could be misinterpreted, but chemistry presented a fixed, definitive type of truth.  And I lacked that in my life.


How can something be true and untrue at the same time?

Then I bolt off to college at sixteen, still very young and desperately searching for consistency in life.  I didn't know who I was, really, but I could learn about reality around me.  Well, imagine my dismay when my freshman chemistry professor says, "The Bohr atom isn't really real.  It's only a theory."  The nice and neat picture in my head of electron shells that encircle an atom were merely a statistical means of representing how matter behaves, but it is all theoretical.  It's based on quantum theory, yet another theoretical science.
  I want my Bohr atom dream back!

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Deciphering and Responding to Loaded, Complex Questions

Vyckie Garrison at NoLongerQuivering.com posted a response to one of the many frequently asked questions she hears in response to her website and those who participate there.  Though she now rejects the alleged wisdom offered by the whole of the Quiverfull Movement (QF) and its theology, she loves and celebrates her children, often mentioning the new joy and freedom that the kids enjoy since the family abandoned the legalistic standards it demanded of them all.  Vyckie’s latest response and “FAQ” concerns the defensive questions that Christians still involved in QF ask her, though I really don’t find them to be questions at all.  Her excellent response is quite moving and should not be missed.

Which of your 7 children would you go back and kill in order to not have lived the life you lived up to this point?

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More on Black and White from Steven Martin

A little reminder about what Steven Martin has to say about Lifton’s “Doctrine over Person”:

Fitting the Rigid Mold ( from Pg. 109)

Doctrine Over Person consists of fitting everything under the leader’s dominating control into a pre-conceived mold.

This involves:

• Human experience and the interpretation of those experiences.

• Human feelings and the interpretation of those feelings.

• Disregarding one’s feelings or sensitivities.

• No appreciation of someone’s talents, individuality or creativity; the only goal is to fit everyone and their personalities into the dominating vies and influence of the one in control, opposing diversity and individual differences.

• The rigidity of the doctrinal mold resists adaptation even when adaptation may prove to be best.

• The rewriting of history to fit the system of the doctrinal mold.

Stating it another way, the controller reinterprets the personal feelings and experiences of the group members to fit his own dominating views and influence. He disregards and remolds past events, individual differences and capabilities to fit his own preconceived mold. In essence, the controller rejects everything that does not fit into his preconceived mold or framework.

-Summary & paraphrase of Dr. Lifton on Doctrine Over Person

Read more from Steven Martin HERE.

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Thinking Only in Black and White

It’s interesting living in a family where we have a great number of drug allergies and idiosyncratic (unusual, odd or unexpected) responses to medicines. Doctors hate it and some have become angry with us, the patient because our bodies don’t elicit the “correct” response. There’s a particular class of medicines that causes a life-threatening asthmatic response and my tongue and face swell. I went to a new doctor, seeking an alternative to the medicine to which I was allergic, and he recommended that since “I had not taken it in awhile,” I should try an injection of it there in their office. I told him that he would have to phone the local emergency room in advance to plan for my arrival and have epinephrine ready there in his own office. The last time I took the medicine orally, my lung capacity dropped to less than 50% of normal and my tongue and airway started to swell shut. He was actually offended that I refused the medicine Needless to say, I left that doctor and never went back.

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What Goes on In the Soul of Those Who Abuse For the Cause of the Greater Good?

What Goes On in the Soul

of the Spiritual Abuser?

This question, more than any, other troubled me very much as I healed and continue to heal from my realization of spiritual abuse.

Delving deep to find these answers perhaps impeded my own healing in some ways, though after many years of pursing true forgiveness, I believe I also needed to search out the answers for my own well-being and acceptance. When one has been deeply wounded, I believe it is natural to ask questions about why someone was motivated or why they neglected to notice how profoundly they wounded us. I found it troubling to realize that there were essentially no simple answers to these questions.

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Demand for Purity (Lifton 101)

Within a manipulative group, the demand for purity describes the “black and white” or the “all or nothing” thought that pervades the ideology and leadership of the group. This follows naturally from the rigid standards of perfection that the group ideology establishes and often develops out of necessity due to milieu control. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for the extreme perfection. Dissidents or competing ideologies are labeled as entirely untrustworthy and are given the connotation of near-heresy. (In psychology, this ego defense is termed "splitting" and is a normal, temporary function of early childhood.) As a support to the milieu control, the demand for purity enhances the group norm and ideals of focus.

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Psychological "Splitting" and Spiritually Abusive Patriarchy

Ever hear a child say, “He is a bad man”? I occasionally would hear this from a friend of my family whose son is a high-functioning adult with Down’s Syndrome. He’s so high functioning, that I tend to forget that he’s impaired until I hear him call something “bad.” For a small fraction of a second, I realize that he’s still unable to discern many things beyond the extremes of good or bad. When he’s speaking so well, I completely forget his limitations (something I find to be wonderful as a consequence of my great love for him). His identification of things and people as “bad” represents his healthy means of self-protection because he lacks the ability to safely discern.

Like children, adults often also study new concepts by their contrasts, first defining ideas in terms of extremes. They then develop additional ideas in perspective between those extremes as they discern the distinctives of each point along a continuum. But adults can sometimes lack discernment or the ability to discern things that are (for whatever reason) psychologically threatening. Paradoxes can be threatening because of their complexities. When an adult tends towards a view of seeing issues in contrast only and do not appreciate the continuum between the extremes (or if they can only comprehend the contrasts), this is called the ego defense or a cognitive distortion of “psychological splitting.” All adults to this to some extent, but many do not grow in their understanding, maturing to discover that there is a “grey zone” between the black and white.

Within spiritually abusive groups, and especially within patriarchy, there is a great deal of this type of thought. Nearly everything (ideas, practices, people) are seen in terms of “all or nothing.”

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