Word: sargant
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...nature of Bailey's argument was previewed in London by British Psychiatrist William Sargant, who spent five long sessions with Patty last November, at the Hearst family's request. Writing in the London Times, Sargant claimed that "there is not a shred of truth in any allegation that she cooperated in her kidnaping." He said studies of prisoners of war show that a normal person cannot endure more than 30 days of confinement, harassment and threats from terrorist captors without breaking down. After Patty had been blindfolded for 60 days and tortured, he said, "she had a short...
...finally settled in 1964 when, at 52, he met and fell in love with Valerie Pitts, 27, a reporter sent to interview him for BBC-TV. They lived together for two years ("It was a violent affair," understates Solti) until Hedi and Valerie's husband James Sargant, a theater executive, obtained divorces in 1966. Solti and Valerie married the next year. Hedi now is married to Patrick O'Shea, a landowner in Ireland...
Safety in Humor. Can any man be safe from involuntary confession or conversion? A few may, says Dr. Sargant guardedly. But not the "average man" or the well-adjusted extravert-he is already a conformist and will be more suggestible than other subjects. Neither does it do any good to be openly hostile; by the ultraparadoxical reaction, the most violent anti-Communists are as susceptible to brainwashed conversion as those originally friendly to Communism. The man best able to resist, says Dr. Sargant, is likely to be a husky, phlegmatic type with a good sense of humor...
...Sargant's Battle for the Mind has been extravagantly praised, not by fellow psychiatrists but by big-name laymen and critics, e.g., Philosopher Bertrand Russell, Los Angeles Methodist Bishop Gerald Kennedy, Critic V. S. Pritchett, Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr ("fascinating and profound"). Actually, plausible though it sounds, Sargant's thesis is based on shaky premises. He accepts uncritically the Pavlovian view that the brain and nervous system are something "which man shares with the dog and other animals." In effect, the human brain, probably because of its greatly enlarged cerebrum and vastly multiplied nerve junctions, is different in quality...
...persuasion behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains are simply an extension of time-honored methods used by cops and thought-controllers for centuries. The few refinements recently added are probably the result of studying past experience, not of applying Pavlov. But in the battle for his own mind, Psychiatrist Sargant has surrendered to Pavlov without a struggle...