Browsing by Author "Hunter, John."

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Brainwashing in a large group awareness training? : the classical conditioning hypothesis of brainwashing.
(2015) Hunter, John.; Durrheim, Kevin Locksley.
This dissertation provides an analysis of the processes of “death” and “rebirth” employed by Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs), and suggests a theory of brainwashing based upon Pavlov’s concept of classical conditioning. An autoethnographic account of LGAT participation is supplemented chiefly with two varied accounts to provide insight into the experience, with emphasis placed on LGATs’ tendencies to devalue reason, exalt blind trust, elevate emotional experience as a source of knowledge and then trigger an emotional experience. The result, it is argued, is belief predicated upon a manipulated experience, rather than traditional evidence. It is contended that this process – which circumnavigates critical thinking - is a form of brainwashing, never before articulated.
Stress-induced hypomania in healthy participants : the allostatic “manic-defence hypothesis”.
(2017) Hunter, John.; Collings, Steven John.
This thesis analyses the structure, conditions, promises, and results of Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs)³, demonstrating that established environmental triggers for hypomania/mania are core features of the LGAT process, and that the majority of (ostensibly healthy) LGAT participants display symptoms that closely resemble hypomania/mania. Through an understanding of the biology of stress (the common element in identified environmental triggers for hypomania/mania), and with reference to the dopamine hypothesis of bipolar disorder, the 1911 manic-defence hypothesis is revisited, and an allostatic⁴, rather than solely psychoanalytic, mechanism by which the structured application of psychological stress leads to hypomania/mania is hypothesised.