The paper cited in swimmer963′s Action and Habit post about how things learned under stress tend to be performed habitually seems to explain well enough how the installation happens, if you assume that the emotion discussed in the OP is close enough to the stress discussed in the paper. (Be a little bit careful there, since Swimmer963 and I seem to agree that he misread the paper the first time around.)
I would be very grateful for any thoughts the community has and hopefully we can generate some useful techniques for understanding how to appropriately uninstall emotional software (in the instances when it’s useful to do so)… even the kinds of emotional software that we ourselves (rationalists) often fall victim to in our own imperfect understanding of the world.
Hassan’s Combatting Cult Mind Control describes the best way out I’m aware of. Support the mind control victim emotionally (to minimize activating the stress-learned habit) and talk to them about firsthand experience of escaping from some other cult, and they can often use that to help find their own way out. The full generalization of this seems to be Ericsonian hypnosis and communication-by-metaphor, which are much discussed in NLP circles.
I have little experience with actually doing this. I talked my wife out of her Christianity early in our relationship, but she wasn’t very committed to it to start with and I didn’t follow any particular process, so that should barely count.
The paper cited in swimmer963′s Action and Habit post about how things learned under stress tend to be performed habitually seems to explain well enough how the installation happens, if you assume that the emotion discussed in the OP is close enough to the stress discussed in the paper. (Be a little bit careful there, since Swimmer963 and I seem to agree that he misread the paper the first time around.)
Hassan’s Combatting Cult Mind Control describes the best way out I’m aware of. Support the mind control victim emotionally (to minimize activating the stress-learned habit) and talk to them about firsthand experience of escaping from some other cult, and they can often use that to help find their own way out. The full generalization of this seems to be Ericsonian hypnosis and communication-by-metaphor, which are much discussed in NLP circles.
I have little experience with actually doing this. I talked my wife out of her Christianity early in our relationship, but she wasn’t very committed to it to start with and I didn’t follow any particular process, so that should barely count.