It ' s long been known that people ' s behaviour can be totally warped , their moral code completely skewed , when whipped up by a crowd or group .[ 3 ] It ' s also been found that many of us will blindly follow orders when they ' re given by someone we deem an authority figure .[ 4 ] This propensity to follow authority figures seems ' baked in ' to the human condition . ' Authority ' may come in the guise of rank , expertise ( white coats seem particularly effective for this ), age , or simply a sense that the person seems wiser .
Again , talking to the morally injured client about these
natural human principles isn ' t meant to tell them , or even have them think , that what they did was absolutely fine . It simply serves to contextualise it within the wider human pattern .
I reminded Gavin of the
Milgram experiment and other research , and he admitted that these ' human factors ' ( as I called them ) had played a part in what had happened .
" I was so young , and I thought my superiors knew everything !" He paused . " And maybe I did need to do what I did !"
After contextualising comes compartmentalising .
Step three : Put it in a box for safekeeping
Part of contextualising is compartmentalising . I suggested to Gavin that even though what had happened was truly awful , it was still , as everything is , just a part of life . This sort of made sense to him . I conjured up a scenario in which he could " put those memories away for safekeeping " because he really didn ' t need to " take those memories out all the time to look at them ."
I suggested Gavin would always feel terrible about what happened , but that what happened wasn ' t everything that had happened or would happen . And what happened didn ' t need to be everything in Gavin ' s life now .
During therapeutic trance I encouraged Gavin to visualise putting those old memories in a safe casket and putting them away somewhere securely in his mind . He could , if he wished , open that casket and look inside , but that now it was safely stowed he wouldn ' t need to so much .