Human Development
Channelling of guilt
Description:
As the individual feels compelled to confess, he begins to see evidence in past actions which justify his previously unfocused feelings of guilt and self-evil. Viewing his past acts as criminal is strengthened by the support of the environment and the knowledge that some inner feelings accompanying the most altruistic of such actions were such as to corroborate this attitude. He condemns himself not for what he has done but for what he was.[[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