Human Development

Compulsion to confess

Description:
In contrast to false confessions made when self-betrayal seems the only way to avoid further suffering, confessions at this stage are repentant and an attempt to win favour in a system the individual is beginning to accept and commit himself to. Confession leads to further confession as the individual is pressed to say more and is guided through his own inner fantasies. He starts, under supervision, to fill the space left by what he has rejected in himself.
[[Context]] A stage reached in thought reform, a system of organized, deliberate and total psychological training which effects individual change through two basic elements - [confession] (renouncing of past beliefs and attitudes) and [re-education] (remaking of the individual in the required image).
Broader:
Thought reform