#icure techniques

Very broad question without clear, satisfying answers Anon.

 Basically: there is no guaranteed way to change a person’s mind. There are strategies we know can’t work. But everything that has a chance of success also has a chance of failure. And it isn’t a clear cut thing that I can give you a clean list of factors for.

 Humans are difficult creatures to study because they come with a lot of inbuilt confounding factors and individual variation. This makes it very difficult to identify clear reasons why something didn’t work. Because we have to assume that multiple factors are at work and the interaction of those factors may be as important as each factor individually.

 Even if you write your villains performing ICURE ‘perfectly’ there is still a chance of failure. And therefore it is realistic for you to decide it fails for this character.

 We can’t really study which ‘bits’ of ICURE are most effective. Partly because of that little thing called ethics but partly because setting up a study would be incredibly difficult. It’s hard enough to measure belief. Finding a large enough sample size, controlling for every possible confounding factor or variable and studying people for the years it would take to get any answers… It’s a big ask. It’s probably never going to happen.

 So with the caveat that we can’t tell if any of the parts of ICURE are more important let’s talk about how they can break down.

 ICURE, for everyone who hasn’t heard me talk about it before, is a set of techniques which can (sometimes) be used to manipulate a person into changing their views. They take months or years to have any real effect and as mentioned they’re not always successful.

 The acronym stands for Isolate, Control information, create Uncertainty, Repetition and Emotive responses. And if you’re writing a story where villains are trying to apply this but not doing it well it can break down at literally any one of these points.

 I would say based on what I’ve read that different groups focus more heavily on different aspects depending on their setting and strategy. Groups that are straight up kidnapping or imprisoning people often seem to focus more heavily on isolation and controlling information but often fall down on the other three. Whereas the impression I get of cults and some extremist political groups is that they focus more on creating uncertainty and emotive responses, which they can then use to further isolate members from family and friends.

 Controlling information is a common place for ICURE to break down nowadays. The rise of the internet and the decreasing size of devices has made it easier for victims to access unauthorised sources even when imprisoned.

 But repetition is also a very common place for ICURE to break down because in large groups not every individual is going to follow the same script perfectly. Group members can also undermine ICURE by lashing out, physically or verbally, driving their target away.

 Creating uncertainty doesn’t always work. Sometimes victims straight up do not believe what they’re told. Some attempts to create uncertainty around core beliefs lead to a knee-jerk rejection of what’s being said. Sometimes targets know more about a given subject then the person trying to create uncertainty and as a result the attempt is absurdly obvious.

 Emotive responses are similarly… charged. Attempting to instil a sense of disgust or rejection of something an individual supports won’t always work. Over a long period of time it can. But I can think of a lot of cases where it has instead taught individuals to lie to the group, hide their beliefs or activities and served to drive them away from the group.

 Isolation is either difficult or easy depending on the context of the story. A character who is in a literal prison can easily be isolated from anyone but vetted individuals. A character who has been targetted by a cult, but is still going about normal day to day business, is a lot harder to isolate completely.

 Cults and extremist groups tend to rely on uncertainty, repetition and emotive responses because they know that if they can shift a target’s beliefs the target will isolate themselves.

 Let me give you an example to illustrate this. Imagine a country where there’s a big, culturally important celebration that involves eating candied orange peel and wearing red. Now imagine a cult within the country that rejects candy as sinful and wearing red as a sign of bad character.

 A character targetted by this cult might feel increasingly uncomfortable with this festival. May be at first they go with their friends and family, wear red but don’t eat the candied orange peel. May be the year after they decide not to go, missing a chance to spend time with their friends and family. May be a few years later their rejection of the festival is so deep they try to persuade their friends and family not to go.

 This leads to a big argument. They and their friends/family say things in the heat of the moment. Now all sides are upset and communication becomes harder.

 These kinds of patterns of behaviour lead to the target isolating themselves from friends and family, as their views become more extreme and drive away people who aren’t members of the cult.

 But crucially they can still choose to socialise with people outside of the cult. This will probably be met with social censure from the cult, making it difficult and painful. It is still possible. And outside friendships or activities can help a person to break free or resist ICURE techniques.

 All of this basically means you have a lot of options for your story because there are plenty of things you can weave in that would undermine ICURE.

 Your character is in prison, so breaking isolation is more difficult. But if the prison is overcrowded or there’s a sudden influx of people being transferred between facilities the character might end up with a… poor choice of cell mate from the guard’s perspective. Some one with beliefs radically opposed to the guards or someone who could support and shore up the character’s old beliefs.

 There may also be opportunities for covert communication and bonding within the prison. Perhaps prisoners can gather during breaks and have worked out a cant or code to talk about beliefs the guards are trying to stamp out.

 Control of information can break down because isolation has broken down, with prisoners trading information. It can also happen through the prisoner trading for a phone or a similar item allowing them to access forbidden information. Or it can happen through things like guards inadvertently giving out information.

 Uncertainty is difficult to create around core beliefs. The impression I get from anecdotal accounts is that pushing too hard at core beliefs too early often causes targets to withdraw from the people attempting ICURE. It can also lead to targets doubling down on their beliefs.

 People attempting ICURE can also mess up on creating uncertainty, as described above.

 Repetition can break down because guards don’t all do or say the same things consistently. They could contradict each other. Or they might just not repeat the same thing very often.

 Emotive responses can break down in much the same way creating uncertainty does. Not everyone responds emotionally to the same things or in the same way. Once again different guards can undermine the desired response. The character might dig in to their original position, they might withdraw from the people attempting ICURE. They might just learn to lie to them.

 I think as a writer the best approach to this is to use a mix of internal and external factors effecting multiple parts of ICURE. Just because I think that would create a better story.

 The readers can see the internal struggle and resistance in the character. They can also see the guards messing up and how that impacts the character. May be the importance of support from other people, fellow prisoners or cleaning staff or doctors or anyone else that fits with the setting.

 Basically including multiple elements will give you a more fleshed out story with more emotional depth and impact. That’s a good narrative reason to include it.

 I hope that helps. :)

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Is it easier for a “faux-loving cultist organization raised a child soldier” character to reintegrate into society if she was taken around 10, then escaped at 20/25, and has a sister she knows and loves from childhood and who supports her? Is it possible that she never fully integrates or integrates in a very long time period (decades) but can interact comfortably with a small group of (5-7) people she trusts? Does any of this change if her spouse in the cult abused her when she tried to leave?

There’s quite a lot to this one. (I also wrote out an answer assuming these were two parts of the same ask and it has belatedly occurred to me that they could be seperate asks. I’ve left the original answer as it stands and I hope that’s alright.)

When it comes to whether a piece of fiction handles a delicate topicpoorly- well I think that’s very subjective. I try not to tell people what towrite because I know an awful lot depends on the execution, on how it’s written.

I make exceptions for fictional scenarios that are both unrealistic and encourage real life torture.

I’ve also made a couple of case-by-case exceptions based on prettydetailed scenarios that had multiple, connected issues. I usually only say ‘no’to those if the asker comes across as unwilling to think about what they’reactually writing and the real people affected by the issues they’re planning totackle. I don’t get that impression from your ask at all.

I don’t personally like these sorts of child soldier stories very much.That doesn’t mean that they can’t bewell written or that they can’t be respectful, and I try to keep my personaltaste out of my answers as much as possible.

I think a lot of good writing is about balancing different elementssuccessfully. What I’m getting from this ask is that you’re unsure how tobalance the idea that this character’s trainers were kind to her directly withthe fact that their overall actions are abusive.

That’s a good question.

A book I acquired recently compares it to grooming and I think that’s agood comparison. This sort of manipulation is selfish, exploitative and oftenhugely damaging to the victim.

But it works because in large part that’s not how the victim sees thesituation at the time.

It’s not ‘just’ kindness. It’s the fact that these people makethemselves the central (or even only) positive social contact in the victim’slife. One of the common abbreviations for this sort of process should help makeit a little clearer: ICURE- Isolate from their previous environment, Controlwhat they perceive, increase Uncertainty about previous beliefs/values, useRepetition to instil new beliefs/values, manipulate Emotions to weaken formervalues and strengthen new ones.

In your story the character is isolated from a pretty young age. At thatsort of age it is easier to convincesomeone their old family has rejected them, stopped looking for them, doesn’tlove them anymore. And once convinced of that the conditional ‘kindness’ of thecult becomes very attractive indeed.

I actually left my family and country at roughly the same age as yourcharacter (less dramatic than it sounds). It can really knock your world view and sense of self. Many of thechildren at the school I was in were in a similar position. Some reallystruggled. Some thrived.

I remember being extremely susceptible to new ideas and not beingparticularly critical. I was incredibly isolated and looking for something toconnect to- fortunately most of what I found was world mythology.

My point is that given the situation she’s been forced into I don’tthink it would be unreasonable for your character to bond with her captors,accept their beliefs and go along with their training in return for affection,a positive social circle and their conditional kindness.

The thing with a set up like this is that the kindness is conditional on her obedience.

Growing up like this she will have seen the social consequences ofdisobeying; isolation, censure, ridicule, bullying. She’ll have been taughtthat love is a reward for ‘good’ behaviour.

Since you have both the groupdoing awful things and the character leaving the group I don’t think younecessarily have to worry about glorifying child soldiers. It sounds to me asif you’ve given the whole scenario a fair bit of thought and that’s always agreat first step.

However if you want to add more from the character’s childhood then I’dsuggest showing a child who didn’t do as well as she did. Perhaps they clung tothe idea of their old family, or perhaps they just weren’t as good at doingwhat the organisation wanted.

Beating them or killing them would hinder this sort of organisation andrisk any ‘progress’ made with the other children. Instead you might see thingslike…forbidding the other children to talk to this child for several days,ritually humiliating them in front of the rest of the ‘class’. Or the sortof…group recrimination that’s sometimes used in China, with the ‘teacher’making the other children stand in a circle around the targeted child andencouraging them to take turns to tell the victim their ‘faults’.

That’s incredibly intimidating and emotional for adults. For a childwithout any outside emotional support I think it would be pretty damn terrible.I’d be incredibly surprised if a child that age and under that pressure didn’tburst into tears. You could use that to illustrate that these aren’t nicepeople and perhaps witnessing something like that could influence yourcharacter’s decision to leave later.

Some of the factors you’ve mentioned around her escaping wouldprobably help but others might not.

Having someone who does genuinelylove and support her would make a huge difference to her mental health andemotional wellbeing. That in turn would help her…..not necessarily‘re-integrate’ but re-adjust to life outside the group.

I don’t think her age when sheescapes would make much difference. It’s hard to tell and some people put morestock in ‘youth’ as a measure of how well people adapt than others.

I think the age she’s taken wouldmake a difference. Ten is more than old enough to remember her life before she was forced to become asoldier. That would almost certainly help.

But reintegrating into society is a tricky business. It requires…well itrequires society accepting a formerchild soldier back into society. They need to be able to socialise with peoplenormally, get jobs, access opportunities. They need to believe they have anhonest shot at happiness in ordinary mainstream society.

That’s often tricky in the real world because many ordinary people are naturally rather afraid of individualswho fought with the terrorists that were shooting at them yesterday. That’scompounded by the lack of education child soldiers receive; they often don’t know how to do anything beyondfight and if they can’t get a decent job or a chance to catch up on theschooling they missed then they’re oftentargeted by criminal gangs who want to make use of their ‘skills’. And lack ofchoice.

From her end I’d say she’s got a much better chance than many real lifechild soldiers: she has a good support network and society isn’t totally new toher.

But that’s really not the only factor at play. The environment she’strying to integrate into also matters a lot.

I’d say both the scenarios you suggest (never entirely re-integrating orre-integrating very gradually over decades) are possible. You might also wantto think about what integrating back into society means.

There are plenty of people who function perfectly well day-to-day intheir society but are arguably not ‘fully integrated’. People who don’t speakthe majority language for example. They arecut off from certain opportunities and social events, but that doesn’tnecessarily mean they aren’t leading happy lives.

Once again positive social circles are the key.

What does ‘fully integrated’ mean to you, your story and your character?She’s probably not going to berunning for political office within a year. On the other hand she might well beable to interact positively with a small group of friends, perform small-scaleinteractions like buying things from the shops and hold occasional jobs.

The situation you’re suggesting seems reasonable to me. I guess what I’msaying is does it matter to the story if your character still has ‘weird’ingrained behaviours decades later? If she’s not hurting anyone and managesmost everyday things do her mental health problems (or difficulty graspingmainstream culture) automatically mean she’s not fully integrated?

Because by that logic I’m notfully integrated into British society, and I do alright.

Consider what she needs to beable to do versus what’s considered ‘normal’ by the society around her. Andfocus on the first category to figure out what sort of help she’ll actuallyneed over time.

Having a small close friendship group sounds reasonable and realistic tome. Difficulty trusting and interacting with people would be common for someonecoming out of the extremely isolated environment she’s been in.

It would be important that she doesn’t feel judged by these people and,given the environment she’s come out of, it would probably be important to herthat they listen to and respect her opinions and desires, instead of trying toimpose their own on her. She might respond particularly negatively to thingsthat are supposed to be gentle hints or attempts to persuade her to change hermind.

Lastly- I thinking having someone (spouse or not) from the cult abuseher when she tries to leave is actually incredibly realistic and in keepingwith how these sorts of groups behave.

But yes, it probably would make things more difficult for her.

That said, I’m not sure it would change your overall timescale for herrecovery. You’ve set a reasonably cautious pace and that’s a very good thing. Once again having thesupport of her sister would make a huge difference.

I’m not particularly knowledge about the long term effects of spousalabuse so I’m going to leave it at that. Scripttraumasurvivors has some verygood pieces on spousal abuse and looking through their tags could help you dealwith that aspect specifically.

You mightfind this BBC article by a woman who was raised in a ‘cult’ useful. Obviouslyshe wasn’t trained as a soldier but she talks a little about the process ofleaving her community and trying to fit in to mainstream society. I think thatcould be useful for your story.

Child Soldiers International also has some resources about reintegratingchild soldiers into society. Keep in mind the differences between what you’rewriting and the cases they’re discussing though, some of what they describewill be due to a community that’s hugely aware of and fighting these armedgroups. That might not be the case in your story.

Thisis a guide developed specifically focusing on girls in the Congo.

WarChild has this very short primer that discusses some of the myths about childsoldiers, those related to ‘regaining childhood’ are relevant. They’ve also got a pretty goodlong form post about the impact of war on children generally.

Child soldiers are a topic I’m not quite as knowledgeable on as some ofthe other things I talk about. Given the volume of asks I get on the subjectI’m prioritising it as an area of research and I hope I can produce somerelevant Masterposts on the subject this year.

Generally though, I get the feeling you’re on the right track andapproaching the topic with thought and sensitivity.

I hope this helps. :)