Margaret Thaler Singer (July 29, 1921 – November 23, 2003) was an American clinical psychologist and researcher with her colleague Lyman Wynne on family communication. She was a prominent figure in the study of undue influence in social and religious contexts, and a proponent of the brainwashing theory of cults.
Singer's main areas of research included schizophrenia, family therapy, brainwashing and coercive persuasion. In the 1960s, she began to study the nature of social and religious group influence and brainwashing, and sat as a board member of the American Family Foundation and as an advisory board member of the Cult Awareness Network. She was the co-author of the book Cults in Our Midst.
Education
Singer was born in Denver, Colorado, to Margaret McDonough Thaler and Raymond Willard Thaler. Her mother was a secretary to a federal judge and her father was chief operating engineer at the US Mint.
Career
After obtaining her PhD in clinical psychology, Singer worked at the University of Colorado's School of Medicine's department of psychiatry for eight years. She conducted research with the National Institute of Mental Health, the United States Air Force, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As noted in one obituary, her collaboration with Lyman Wynne was particularly important.
Singer began to study brainwashing in the 1950s at Walter Reed in Washington, DC, where she interviewed United States soldiers who had been taken prisoner during the Korean War. Beginning in the late 1960s, she expanded her studies in the field of cults and published a number of articles on mind control ("psychological coercion") and similar areas. She developed theories about how cults recruit and retain members (such as her Theory of Systematic Manipulation of Social and Psychological Influence) and was on the board of many of the major anti-cult groups and organizations in the United States. At one point, Singer interviewed Charles Manson.
By the 1970s, Singer was a leading researcher in the field of psychosomatic medicine, and became the first female and first psychologist President of the American Psychosomatic Society in 1974. She also served as a member of the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute review board and the American Family Foundation board.
Singer testified as a brainwashing expert at the trial of Patty Hearst, presenting her conclusions that Hearst had been brainwashed, but outside the jury's presence. Melton has written that afterward, courts began to shift toward accepting the position held by the great majority of scholars studying new religious movements, moving away from the minority perspective of Singer and others sympathetic to her brainwashing claims. According to Melton, this had significant consequences later on, since it meant that brainwashing could no longer be used as a defense for the practice of deprogramming.
Singer and her associate, sociologist Richard Ofshe, subsequently sued the APA, and a group of scholars and lawyers, in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy," and lost in 1994. In a further ruling, James R. Lambden ordered Ofshe and Singer to pay 80,000 USD in attorneys' fees under California's SLAPP-suit law. At that time, Singer and Ofshe declared their intention to sue Michael Flomenhaft, the lawyer that represented them in the case, for malpractice.
Singer was subsequently not accepted by judges as an expert witness in four cases alleging brainwashing and mind control. After the report was rejected, Singer reworked much of the rejected material into the book Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives, which she co-authored with Janja Lalich.
Landmark Education legal dispute (1996)
In 1996, Landmark Education sued Singer for defamation. Singer mentioned Landmark Education in Cults in our Midst; it was unclear whether she labeled Landmark Education as a cult or not. Singer issued a statement stating that she did not intend to call Landmark a cult, nor did she consider it a cult.
Amanda Scioscia reported in the Phoenix New Times that Singer never called Landmark a cult, but that she described it as a "controversial new age training course". She also stated that she would not recommend the group to anyone, and would not comment on whether Landmark used coercive persuasion for fear of legal recrimination from Landmark.
Harassment and death threats
Singer faced harassment, including death threats and dead animals placed on her doorstep, from groups that disagreed with her views on cults.
Her criticism of cults and their brainwashing tactics resulted in harassment of Singer's family and students as well, including breaking into Singer's office, stealing students' term papers and sending notes to Singer's students.