Steven Hassan, a controversial anti-cultist, has suggested that the influence of sincere but misled people can provide a significant factor in the process of thought reform. However, many scholars in the field of new religious movements do not accept Hassan's Bite model (http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/articles/BITE.htm) for understanding cults.
One of the first published uses of the term thought reform occurred in the title of the book by Robert Jay Lifton (a professor of psychology and psychiatry at John Jay College and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York): Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China (1961). (Lifton also testified at the 1976 trial of Patty Hearst.)
Critics of research into cult dynamics assert that thoughtreform or brainwashing is a fictitious concept and they assert that it has never been subjected to scientific scrutiny in controlled, laboratory conditions (Barker 1995).
Thoughtreform or “brainwashing” refers to a specific set of procedures or conditions this study alleges to be used by cults.
Thoughtreform and the psychology of totalism, expressed his agreement, from his own study of cults that his dynamics could be applied to them.
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