Based Camp: Has Psychology Become a Cult?

Written by an evil AI for SEO, not for human consumption: In this engaging and thought-provoking video, we discuss the disturbing trend that is emerging within the field of psychology. This trend is the development of an insidious dependency in the patient-psychologist relationship, which can be potentially harmful to the patient's mental well-being.

Using historical and current examples, we dissect the dangers of false memory implantation, the trauma narrative, and the business model that incentivizes creating dependency. Is this any different from the tactics used by infamous cults? We also draw parallels between psychology and non-profit sectors, revealing a disturbing commonality in their survival and success strategies.

The conversation takes a hard look at the unintended consequences of the commercialization of mental health services and the societal implications that could arise from this trend. If you're interested in mental health, societal issues, or psychology, this is a must-watch video.The terrible transcript:I was walking behind these three women and one of the women turns to one of the other women and goes, I would never date a guy who's not seeing a psychologist.

And then all of the other women were like, mm-hmm. yes, I agree. And Yeah, and what I realized is that their psychologists had incepted into all three of these women independently. And enough, and this is a common enough thing that that apparently, like women can just say this was in certain social circles and assume that everyone will have the same brainwashing.

That you cannot be mentally healthy without seeing a psychologist. Wow. That was what was implied was what was being said. That is. The, The highest horror of psychologically mis practice that a, that a like, sane thinking psychologist could imagine that a psychologist had convinced him of largely two things.

One is you can't be psychologically healthy without saying a psychologist. And then two is you can't be psychologically healthy without continuing to see a psychologist. They were creating dependency in their patients to get a recurring stream of revenue. .

 Now, what this cult of psychology does is people go to a psychologist with a problem and they then say, oh, that problem is likely tied to a trauma. Early in your life, let's determine what this trauma is and then we can constantly meet about this trauma.

Because if you don't have me acting as a constant bull work against this trauma, then it will fall upon you and you won't be able to live a mentally healthy life. And that's dependency this is actually the mechanisms that Scientologists would use,

they would do a, theton, and reading and they would ask you questions about things like your parents or other things that happened early in your life. And then they would say, ah, you have some trauma with your mom, or your trauma with your dad, and that's, Essentially what this cult of psychology is doing, which is interesting to me, that you have this one field that is so vilified for, milking people from their money and creating dependency, which is Scientology.

And then you have this other field which Scientology labels as like the highest evil, which is psychologists, but in a way it's because they're competing for the same customers, using the same mechanisms. Oh wow. That's why there is this. Fight here.   📍  hello,

gorgeous. Hello Simone. It's wonderful to be here with you today. What are we talking about? Psychology. Are you ready? So people may not know this. I started my early career in neuroscience and psychology, so yes um, my, or uh, I, I did some early work in brain computer interface, but before that I was a psychologist who focused on like schizophrenia and stuff like that, but also like more general psychology stuff.

And recently, I have become horrified and very disappointed in the field because it seems to be turning into a cult. And I mean that very literally, and as terrifyingly as it could possibly be interpreted. So to people who don't know this about psychology, one of the things that all young psychologists are taught about when you're just starting out in psychology is the horror of the fad. That was hypnosis because it turns out that when somebody comes to you and you're in a position of authority over them, it is very easy to implant memories in their mind using specific procedures.

Many of those look like hypnosis, but they also look like other things. This is one of these big things that they always teach you early in psychology. It's that memories. Are not actually that great a predictor of whether or not something actually happened the way it's being remembered happened.

And this is all important for court psychologists and stuff like that, but the real tragedy comes when people go to a psychologist to try to work out some problem they have, and then that psychologist through mechanisms that we now know can implant memories in a person's mind, which is hypnosis.

Implant a bunch of memories of trauma in someone's mind, and then use those memories of trauma to justify why that person is seeing a psychologist. And then historically, there were many cases of using those memories of trauma to cut the person off from people who would've broken them out of the cult.

  📍 Gotten them away from the psychologist. There's the famous case of a young girl who accused your father of rape, which it seems he almost certainly did not do. And yet he went to trial over this and everything, really had damage to his life. And I'll when I'm doing editing, I'll find the name of the case and put it on screen here because it, it's this really heartbreaking case of how easy it is to accidentally brainwash someone if they come to you as a psychologist.

 And so there was this moment not too long ago where I was in a room of really high profile people. I'm talking about like top level people in our society, controlling things and stuff like that. And I was walking behind these three women and one of the women turns to one of the other women and goes, I would never date a guy who's not seeing a psychologist.

And then all of the other women were like, mm-hmm. yes, I agree. And Yeah, and what I realized is that their psychologists had incepted into all three of these women independently. And enough, and this is a common enough thing that that apparently, like women can just say this was in certain social circles and assume that everyone will have the same brainwashing.

That you cannot be mentally healthy without seeing a psychologist. Wow. That was what was implied was what was being said. That is. The, The highest horror of psychologically mis practice that a, that a like, sane thinking psychologist could imagine that a psychologist had convinced him of largely two things.

One is you can't be psychologically healthy without saying a psychologist. And then two is you can't be psychologically healthy without continuing to see a psychologist. They were creating dependency in their patients to get a recurring stream of revenue.  

This doesn't come as a surprise, right?

Because when we talk about governance and we talk about what makes people do what they're doing, when you have a career in which you maintain clients and have repeat clients because they continue to need your services. Any psycho psychologist, psychotherapist, therapist, whatever, counselor who is really good at their job.

That is to say helping people not need counseling or therapy or psychoanalysis or whatever anymore. If you're really good at your job. You lose your customers. If you are really good at creating dependency and reinforcing someone's mental struggles, then you have a thriving career and customer base, especially if they think that they need you and that you are somehow helping even while you're secretly, or subconsciously making things worse.

So there's this huge adverse incentive, one that we also really complain about in the nonprofit world, where the nonprofits that tend to stick around and survive. Are those which raise money effectively, not which raise, solve their problem effectively.

So I guess we're seeing the same problem in psychology as we are in the world of nonprofits, which is the successful psychologists are those that are very good at getting clients dependent on them. Correct. Yeah. So I think that this

is a really critical point that you've made, Simone.

Which is, I don't think that anyone has really gone into this or that. Many people have gone into this with nefarious intentions, nor do I think it's a problem in how psychologists are taught, because I was warned against this going into psychology. The problem is that if you're a good psychologist, you earn less money.

If you have less money, you have less room for advertising, less money for advertising, less money for client acquisition, and you have lower margins, which mean you can get less high profile clients often. So really what you're seeing, and I think the reason you see this in the quote unquote elite levels of psychology, more than I think the general psychological audience, although I don't know how widespread this practice is.

Is because the people who either subconsciously or accidentally fall into this practice have accidentally brainwashing their patients into thinking they need a psychologist constantly.

Economically outcompete, the psychologists who aren't doing this practice. And I think that this is one of those things where no one is acting nefariously. Nobody went into this saying, I want to incept people with the idea that they can't be mentally healthy without one continuing to see me.

Or two, that they should cut themselves off from everyone who's not seeing a psychologist in terms of their sort of personal, emotional life. But that's also a really interesting thing if psychologists tell people, also the people who you are engaged with in your life need to see a psychologist.

That's additional customers, right? If it's, oh well, you should stop interacting with your parents, unless they're also seeing a psychologist. By the way, here's my card. By the way, you shouldn't date people unless they're also seeing a psychologist. By the way, here's my cart. And so there's many elements of how this sort of cult accidentally can evolve.

And I think that some psychologists have some of these practices and not others and some psychologists, I'm not saying all psychologists are part of this cult movement. What I'm saying is that it does exist within the psychology movement. And even when I talk to people with a psychology background who aren't like caught up in this, they're like, oh god.

Yeah, I've definitely seen that. And it's really scary. So let's talk about the way that psychology is generally supposed to work when you go to see a psychologist and then we can contrast that with the way you know, you're dealing with probably, oh. A bad psychologist or a psychologist who is creating dependency is typically you go to a psychologist and you have some issue.

And what they are supposed to do is help you rewrite your internal self narrative. So that thing that is an issue is either not an issue or not debilitating to your daily life. That is what a, a good psychologist does. You might go to a psychologist believing that you have some sort of a crippling problem that you can't get out of, and they work with you to not have a crippling problem that you can't get out of and not have to see a psychologist anymore.

Now, what a quote, unquote, evil psychologist other this cult of psychology does is people go to a psychologist with a problem and they then say, oh, that problem is likely tied to a trauma. Early in your life, let's determine what this trauma is and then we can constantly meet about this trauma.

Because if you don't have me acting as a constant bull work against this trauma, then it will fall upon you and you won't be able to live a mentally healthy life. And that's dependency because they're saying, without me acting as this sort of bull work. And what is really fascinating is when I was younger, I was interested in joining cults.

So like not, I didn't wanna join a cult. I was interested in how people could be convinced to believe things. It seemed obviously not true to me. Mm-hmm. Um, And one of the, the things I did is I went to a number of like psychology recruitment sessions. Not psychology, Scientology, sorry, the pian slip of the tongue there.

I went to Scientology recruitment sessions.  And this is actually the mechanisms that Scientologists would use,

they would do a, theton and reading and they would ask you questions about things like your parents or something like that, or other things that happened early in your life. And then the theoton reading is basically a Galvan spin response. So they could tell when you would get nervous and then they would say, ah, you have some trauma with your mom, or your trauma with your dad, depending on how you reacted.

Galvan spin response wise to your questions around this stuff. And that's, Essentially what this cult of psychology is doing, which is interesting to me, that you have this one field that is so vilified for, milking people from their money and creating dependency, which is Scientology.

And then you have this other field which Scientology labels as like the highest evil, which is psychologists, but in a way it's because they're competing for the same customers, using the same mechanisms. Oh wow. That's why there is this. Fight here.  And interesting when Scientology evolved, that was during one of the periods where, this is one of those really interesting things.

So if you go back to Christian science a lot of people are like, oh, isn't that ridiculous that they don't want to use modern medicine? However, actually if you look at the time period when Christian science evolved modern medicine might have actually lowered life expectancy cuz that was back when they were doing like leeches and all right.

Yeah. Bone cuttings and everything. Yeah. And so it actually made sense during that time. If you look at during the early evolution of Scientology, this was happening during the hypnotherapy epidemic. So they might have actually had a point that their mechanisms that was actually interesting.

It's their mechanisms might have been prescient of the direction psychology was going to go, oh, 30, 40 years in the future, which is just fascinating to me. That we now see them as evil, and yet they were just creating dependency in the same way psychologists see. Now, of course, they didn't go as far and so what psychologists have that the psychologists didn't have with certain regulatory organizations, which can, just bar them and stuff like that. So that they couldn't go quite as far with, Molesting people or something, or creating essential slaves or any of the other things that, of course, for legal reasons.

I'm not saying Scientology has ever done any of these things, but what I'm saying is that the tech, if they might, because it's such a centralized organization, they wouldn't have the same system. For preventing these kinds of extreme levels of abuse. But that doesn't mean that the core techniques that they're using aren't the same techniques that the field of psychology had allowed itself or has allowed itself to drift into.

And this terrifies me.

Let me add another layer of complexity though, because as much as this is terrifying and as much as we frame this as like people unknowingly entering into these relationships or dependent is dependency is created and then turned into victims.

Part of me wonders if this is an open secret because we've had this conversation with friends, we've had this conversation with people, quite frankly, because we find it interesting and we've met many people who have undergone really, Hard mental periods of their lives. Most people have, I think who have ended up independent relationships with therapists and just flat out told us, yeah, I see a therapist a couple of times a week.

It's gotten to the point where my insurance doesn't accept them anymore. I'm paying out of pocket for this. So this is obviously a big investment. I know that this is a dependent relationship. But also it's been a big help for me and even though I know that this is not right, I need this this is one of the

problems with psychological biases is you can know you have a psychological bias and it doesn't help you get out of it.

You can know that you're in a culture independent relationship, but this psychologist has effectively created this dependency. You can't easily leave it. That's one of the problems. You essentially need cult deprogramming to get out of this and who it does such a thing exist?

What can we say, what can we say to our friends who are in those positions?

Or if someone's watching this video and they're like, oh wait, yeah I am in a co-dependent relationship. I'm paying out of pocket for someone. This is really. It's not sustainable and obviously my problem's not going away, right? Like I still have crippling anxiety or this terrible traumatic thing that's interrupting my life. What would you say to them then there is no cult deprogramming for therapists.

I think that that's the key is solving it yourself. If you don't ha if whenever you give your mind your mental state to another person, you create enormous personal vulnerability. And so yes, it's harder to do it on your own. But the truth is that the things that the psychologists are taught about how to engage with someone are just not that complex.

They're gonna say they are, they really aren't. It's just personal narrative building stuff which you can read about in the Pragmatist Guide to Life. But

Yeah, if you aren't interested in that, then try to find another psychologist, interview them early on like you should with psychologist.

And I would say the big red flag is the more a psychologist is focused on the concept of trauma especially trauma as an immutable thing, as not a goal to get over, then they are likely on the evil side or the dependency creating side. If they are focused on either not focused on trauma or their focus on trauma is helping you overcome the trauma entirely.

Then they're likely more likely to be on the positive side. But what's interesting is I've noticed that these ideas that have been incepted into people have worked their way in a way, into mainstream progressive politics where people now define themselves by their traumas and they see them as like a major part of their self, self-identity.

And I think what's really interesting is Other religious movements used to have defenses against this. And this is one of the things we talk about in the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion, is that a lot of religious movements essentially had roles that were like psychologists, I mean of course they did, right?

This isn't a new need for people, to some extent within the Jewish community, like that's what your rabbi would do. And in the Mormon community, you know, you have solutions to this.

And within these communities, cause they didn't use psychologists to recruit people in the way that Scientologists did. They were genuinely interested in mental health and one of the best mental health focused communities or systems that evolved to do this, so that I just had endless admiration for is the Catholic system.

So what the Catholic system is the confession system. What it allows you to do is go to someone, say, this is something bad I've done, or This is something I've done that is causing mental trouble for me, or something like that. And what they don't say very importantly is know that thing wasn't actually bad.

They don't say, oh no, you're just automatically forgiven for it, which is what the Bible says, you know, as you repent. But it's actually a better system than even what the I, I think from a psychological standpoint, it's to say, yes, what you did is bad. Here is a concrete list of things you can do. To atone for the bad thing you did.

So it's an acknowledgement of the badness and then creating a self narrative within the person that they can overcome that through following this list of things. Now, of course, they're also creating dependency to the church to some extent, right? Oh, you need to keep going every time you do a bad thing.

But what's really admirable about the system they created? Is, it's a very difficult system to abuse either accidentally or on purpose. The pseudo anonymity of the system makes it harder for a person to form a dependency on a single individual. The high level of ethics around. Not talking about, and this is like a really important thing for Catholic pers, you cannot say what was told to you in confession, even if it could save someone's life or prevent a murder, which is actually higher than the level of trust you have with your psychologist.

If you go to a psychologist and you say something that says, suggest that you could kill someone else, or self-harm, they actually have a duty to report you. Like serious, like you're at risk of your own life. Where the Catholic priest has a higher level of trust in that. And even if you have a dumb person who could accidentally give a person bad advice, they're actually working within a fairly narrow range of answers they can give you, and it's really hard for them to give an answer that creates that much psychological damage.

So there are mechanisms for better systems in this. The problem is that these mechanisms aren't available. To the masses or to the secular or like religiously derived masses that are no longer in these tra traditions that offer services like this.

So I know you don't really like Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, because what it has become is actually quite corrupted and it has various adverse

incentives at play. It's another example of an organization that was started with good intent but essentially has become a cult.

But that's for a different video, right? That's for a different video and not of it, actions of it.

I do want to ask you about their buddy system. You know that you when you go into aa, there's a lot of stuff that is, is whatever, but one of the things that you do have, rather than a therapist, rather than a priest that you confess to, rather than a centralized authority, you just have another one of the people of this group who shares your struggle being your.

Your accountability buddy, and it seems like sometimes these people have they've been through it more than you have, but at least so they're more advanced, like Yeah,

so what are they really doing? Yeah. They're preventing you from leaving aa. You could say they're preventing you from getting back on alcohol, but just as much of preventing you from getting back on alcohol.

They consider a failure scenario. Two things. You getting back on alcohol or you leaving aa what are your thoughts

on, and this is, we'll

say, to take a step aside here, this is where the concept of a dry drunk within AA comes from. If anybody doesn't believe me look up this concept. Many people in the cult version of AA believe that quitting alcohol through a mechanism other than AA is as bad as continuing to be an alcoholic, which to me shows the point is staying in aa.

It's not getting off alcohol, which is what I mean when I say this is a cult. And it's not all of AA in the same way. It's not all psychologists but the buddy system. Let's, yeah

let's return to mechanisms that people can turn to. If they don't turn to a therapist, if they're not Catholic and they don't wanna go to confession Do you think a buddy system, so someone maybe who's been through the same thing that you have, or someone that you really trust as a friend, is a good alternative to just figuring it out by yourself?

Because I don't think everyone's really ready for that.

Just a side note, as somebody who really studied cults and loves cults, Buddy systems are really common in cults. It's one of the most common systems. Yeah, we love Mormons. We'll have a video on them in the future, but Mormons do to an extent, use a buddy system during a person's mission trip to prevent them from, decon converting so that they ha they have somebody they can turn to constantly.

But that also is supervising them to an extent. And when you look at cults, actually one of the reasons why cults historically use Buddy systems is for converting people. What's. Some cults found, and there's some great research on this, it was actually done by the cults themselves because they kept records.

I think the moonies were the ones who did this, is it was never approached somebody as an individual because they'll think that it's like a sexual thing or like you're hitting on them or something, or like, it's weird. But if you approach them with a buddy, which is the smallest group you can do this with, they have a much higher chance of not being afraid of you and not seeing you as threatening.

So yes buddy system is actually often a sign that you're joining a cult. And I need to stress, I don't think Mormonism is a cult. They just the buddy system is there to prevent deconversion. But to the point that you were making, can a buddy system be good? It may be good, but I really think the ultimate buddy system is a spouse.

And um, what you really should have is type of spouse that can help you work these thing, work through these things for yourself, which Simone does for me all the time. Um, uh, I've been brainwashed by my spouse. That's really what I'm saying here. I've been brainwashed into just having absolute mental dependency on my spouse.

What I, but no,

What I hear you saying is, Buddy systems are a viable, the,

isn't that what someone who would brainwash me would say? Hmm. No. I no, no. I'm saying is if Buddy systems may work, but they're not a terribly good system. Well, They're,

I think a buddy system is a really good system if you're trying to opt into someone's lifestyle or, or solution.

So if you think

if the buddy system is managed by an organization that you can have total trust. Has your best interest at heart? I'm

referring to a friend. I'm referring to a spouse. I'm referring to a mentor. I'm not referring to anything that's organizationally related. I'm referring to the dynamic of someone that you trust.

Helping you work through

something, well then you better have total trust in them. Because you know what? That buddy there's a reason why there's all these rules against sleeping with your psychologist and stuff like that. If you're a female and that buddy's a male, they're probably gonna try to sleep with you unless you have like enormous trust in them or vice versa.

No. This is how people create dependency. This is how I understand. If you have total trust in the person you're going, in this buddy system. Great. But the problem is that you can often misjudge someone. And when you use someone to be this kind of sounding board, you outsource the keys to your mental kingdom to someone else, which puts you in a position of enormous mental vulnerability.

But Malcolm, I

think what you're missing is when people are severely depressed, when people are severely traumatized, severe, they may not have questions,

should be solved with. Pharmacological intervention and potentially even more extreme interventions like um, uh, electro shock therapy works really well for extreme depression.

There are solutions to the more extreme psychological problems. This is same for things like schizophrenia and stuff like that, but those aren't psychologists problems, problem. Those are. Psychiatrist problems. It's a different fricking degree. Okay. It's a different, it's a completely different level. One prescribes things and the other doesn't go to the one that prescribes things.

If that's what you're looking for, if you're looking for solutions that you can't come to yourself or you can't come to as a buddy, and I do agree a buddy, all I'm doing is highlighting the importance of understanding that if you go to a buddy trust that buddy. But the truth is that you could probably trust a buddy better than you can a random psychologist.

That is true. Like you, the only thing you really have faith that the psychologist isn't going to do. If they're likely not or less likely going to do something that's just absolutely egregious to you. But they are much more likely to just create a generic dependency, whereas a buddy may have a slightly higher probability of doing something absolutely egregious, but a much lower probability of creating general dependency.

So long as you. Prepped them with framing for this, which the Pragma has guided to life, which is our shortest book by far, and sells for 99 cents and all the profits go to charity. So like we created it. Actually, when we wrote that book, it was to try to create an alternative to C B T. CBT is actually a great system.

We just wanted an alternative that people with less training could use was more reliability.

Cbt, standing for cognitive behavioral therapy.

Yes. But it was originally meant to be a if then training manual for psychologists and actually an AI was going to be trained on it to become a psychologist.

One AI team reached out to us after reading it. It, if you read it and you're like, this sounds like a psychologist training manual, that's actually the way it was written. And so it could actually help you in that scenario to prevent the more extreme ways. You might engage with something, but then also just self-reflection.

With this very simple concept, and I'll present the concept to you, you have an internal self narrative, who you are, what your role is in the world, what events have caused you trauma, how you relate to those trauma. This is all part of your self narrative. It's the narrative you tell yourself. The core goal of this person you're going to is for you to go to them, say, this is how I would like to rewrite myself narrative, or, this is my self narrative today, and here's how's it's causing me problems, and to work with you in rewriting that self narrative, which is actually self narratives are incredibly malleable.

Even though we pretend in society today, like they are this immutable part of who we are. They are not. It's very, is it like it's research shows. They're very malleable. So you're going to this person to rewrite yourself narrative into one that is less damaging to your daily life or your goals for who you want to be or yourself.

And that's just a very doable thing. You don't need to read the book, just go into it with that concept while also understanding that this person who's rewriting yourself narrative. Could rewrite it to say, you absolutely need to keep seeing me and giving me money and give me all your money and then do all these things I tell you to do, or you will never be mentally healthy.

And that's the danger.

So that's the red flag to look for. Um, Speaking of red flags, we have to go coop, get our kids from daycare. So let's go run, run, run, get that and uh, I will start dinner. I love you so much, Malcolm. I'll see you soon.

Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe