The International Academy of Law and Mental Health 2024
From Artificial Intelligence to Updating the Laws on Undue Influence
Last month, in July 2024, I had the pleasure of attending the 38th Annual Congress of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health (IALMH) in Barcelona, Spain. The IALMH is dedicated to exploring issues at the intersection of law and mental health, shedding light on how legal systems can either protect or harm individuals, especially those who struggle with mental health issues which make them more susceptible to undue influence and manipulation.
At this year's conference, I was one of over a thousand professionals who met to discuss these complex issues, exchanging valuable ideas about how to shape policy to protect the rights and well-being of individuals, particularly those who are at risk of being exploited or coerced. With experts from all over the world, IALMH promotes global collaboration, connecting presenters from diverse backgrounds to share their experiences and insights on these complex issues. This dialogue is instrumental in developing legal frameworks that uphold justice not only for the general populace but also for those who are particularly prone to harmful influence and who need access to informed treatment to break the cycle of manipulation and escape the criminal justice system.
This was my third time presenting at the IALMH conference, which takes place every other year. This would have been my 4th year attending, but in 2019, just days before my scheduled departure to the conference in Rome, Italy, the IALMH organizers informed me that they had received threats from the Italian government to cancel the entire meeting if I attended. This was unprecedented – the whole congress of over 1400 individuals was threatened over the presence of one individual – Me. To protect the event from catastrophe, I canceled my flight and accepted IAMLH’s offer to do a special presentation at the previous IALMH Congress in France in 2022.
Thankfully, the trip to Spain was, once again, an enjoyable one. I hope that the IALMH Congress will continue to experience growth in both intention and attendance so that we can proliferate the important work of promoting justice, protecting rights, and informing legal practices worldwide with reasonable and researched mental health principles. This year, I had the pleasure of delivering two talks:
The first was a group presentation titled Forensic Models to Update the Law Regarding Undue Influence, where I had the pleasure of speaking alongside Dr. Robin Stern as well as Dr. Barry Roth and Matthew Bywater, MSc, the latter two of whom I had the pleasure of presenting alongside at the 2022 IALMH Conference. Robin delivered a riveting talk about gaslighting as a form of coercive control that leaves victims confused and vulnerable. Barry presented a model for combatting mind control and undue influence, theorizing that social values are key in combatting coercive control. Matthew’s presentation was about “freedom of mind” as a fundamental human right and the importance of combatting authoritarian control.
For my portion of the group presentation, I chose to focus on how cults exploit their influence to brainwash their victims into forced, free labor. I spoke about my experience in the Moon Cult, how they brainwashed me at my most emotionally vulnerable and groomed me for labor trafficking – I worked up to 21 hours each day with no days off, with no pay. The constant work furthered my isolation from my loved ones and further entrenched me within the cult. Similarly, in my many years of experience working with cult victims, I have seen how many cults exploit their victims for profit and labor. Using my Influence Continuum and BITE Model, I illustrated to the attendees how they can recognize when groups are exerting undue influence to restrict their victims’ freedom of mind and their true selves, priming them for exploitation.
My second presentation was titled Social Media, AI, the Metaverse, and a Set of Models to Help Forensically Evaluate Undue Influence. In this talk, I discussed how, in our modern digital age, we are constantly bombarded with psychological warfare. The internet is being used as a tool for mind control, influencing our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions by carefully curating the information we are exposed to through complex algorithms that are designed to keep us engaged and scrolling. In this Digital Age, now more than ever, we need to encourage education, media literacy, and critical thinking in order to avoid undue influence and mind control from indoctrinating us and our loved ones.
Our biological drive for community and peer acceptance makes us vulnerable to external forces that seek to influence the way we perceive and interact with the world. Online communities can operate as cults, preying on our emotional vulnerabilities and radicalizing us against perceived threats. This is how conspiracy cults like QAnon have risen to prominence, first sowing intrigue on fringe online message boards and later rising to such prominence that they were able to encourage an attempted coup during the 2021 US Electoral College Vote. This is why my BITE Model is more crucial than ever to help identify and combat the effects of deceptive information.
Even when not being explicitly employed to sow conspiracy and doubt, social media is rewiring our brains, leading to increased depression, anxiety, and even suicidality, particularly in the younger generation. This is not just a social issue – it’s a public health crisis. Young people need to be taught critical thinking skills in order to combat the constant bombardment of social influence that comes from being perpetually “plugged in” to the internet, and we need to provide strong support systems and encourage offline community engagement in order to mitigate the risks of internet mind control, encouraging freedom of mind and individual will.
Here is the panel talk:
And here is my solo presentation:
Dr. Hassan — Thank you so much for the work you do. I look forward to listening to both presentations as I am interested in advocacy in areas of mental health and law. It’s something I’d like to do myself, although I don’t have proper credentials or law degree. I’ve learned so much from your podcasts and books. The BITE model has helped me develop a greater level of discernment around self proclaimed mental health gurus, saviors and enlightened one especially in psychedelic healing space. I’m wondering what your general thoughts are about psychotherapy. I know you’ve talked about the potential dangers of hypnosis. And I agree as I’ve done hypnosis training. I’ve been reading Masson’s book Against Therapy. Do you think it could be reasonably argued that psychotherapy, as it’s often practiced, can be a form of mind control. I’m thinking specifically of behavioral interventions such as CBT because the premise of this intervention is to alter thoughts, behavior and feelings. I’ve run across my share of wounded healers including covert narcissists in the mental health space, I wish there could be more that could be done to protect people in this area. Thank you.