Cornerstone Magazine

The Grade-Five Syndrome: Are You A Grade Five Personality?
By Jon Trott

The veteran's story was horrifying. As Edward re-counted his experience of watching a buddy's head explode during a firefight, the other vets in the therapeutic group for post-traumatic stress disorder nodded understandingly. Of them all, Ed's Vietnam tour had been the most harrowing. His vivid reliving of wartime events in therapy left both his therapist and himself exhausted emotionally. The therapist had recommended the vets' group as a way to help Ed cope.

A close buddy from the vets' group decided to cheer Ed up by staging a surprise party for his birthday. A little amateur snooping around revealed that Ed's parents lived nearby, and the friend gave them a call. "What?!" said Ed's mother. "He's in a veterans' recovery group? But . . . but he was rated 4F. He never was allowed to go to Vietnam!"

Ed's friends were angry, believing he had lied to them. But he remained adamant he'd been to Vietnam even after being "exposed" as an obvious hoax. Was there another explanation? His therapist, in talking with a colleague, discovered there was.

One out of twelve Americans is susceptible to creating a memory out of thin air . . . then believing it himself. Though most of these individuals don't end up in a situation like Ed's, in therapy and out of therapy some are coming up with stories far more remarkable than the true one above. ^[1] They are victims of . . . The Grade Five Syndrome.

Our gullibility (or lack of gullibility) may have a lot to do with genetics, and for some of us, memories can become a creation from the present instead of recall from the past. One of the early pioneers in researching so-called "brainwashing" techniques is psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel, an expert in hypnosis. Spiegel discovered from numerous studies that between 5 and 10 percent of the American population are not only more susceptible to suggestion, but also exhibit a number of other intriguing characteristics. He labeled such individuals as "Grade Five Personalities," based on scores they achieved in a measure of hypnotizability called the "Hypnotic Induction Profile (HIP)."^[2]

"The HIP is based on a brief series of simple tests and measurements including eye roll and arm levitation," notes Dr. George Ganaway, director of the Atlanta-based Ridgeview Center for Dissociative Disorders. "A person graded two on the scale is considered mildly hypnotizable. Grade fives are what we call the `hypnotic virtuosos.' "^[3]

Fives appear to share a number of common personality traits in addition to their trance proneness. Sherrill Mulhern, a cult researcher and anthropologist doing pioneering work in the field, writes:

Herbert Spiegel studied the behavioral characteristics of a large cohort of highly hypnotizable subjects who presented no significant clinical symptoms. When not hypnotized, these subjects exhibited "a clinically identifiable configuration of personality traits" (Spiegel 1974:303), which he called the Grade Five Syndrome. . . . These subjects exhibit a posture of trust, "an intense, beguiling innocent expectation of support from others" (p. 304). In the therapeutic context, this behavior is translated into a persistent demand that "all attention and concern be focused on them" (p. 304).^[4]

Grade fives are particularly vulnerable to something Spiegel calls "the compulsive triad." The first point of the triad, compulsive compliance, is a fancy way of saying that in a trance state fives feel an all-but-overwhelming urge to comply with someone suggesting a new or variant viewpoint. The second leg of the triad, source amnesia, means basically that the five who comes up with certain information is unable to recall where the information actually came from. The third element, rationalization, occurs when the grade five encounters logical opposition to his or her adopted viewpoint.

How all this works together is described by Sherrill Mulhern:

Grade fives' highly empathetic abilities make them particularly vulnerable to introspective therapeutic techniques. For example, when they are asked to probe their memories for additional details concerning a particular remembered image or event, Grade fives compulsively respond to their therapists' requests by adding information from various sources into their memories to "fill in the blanks." Researchers found that although these subjects ignore the sources of confabulated details, when questioned about the fallacious information, they make enormous efforts to fit the imagined material logically into the ongoing narrative of their recovered and reexperienced memories (Spiegel 1974).^[5]

Fives are intellectually and emotionally normal people, often with more imagination than the rest of us. Along with the triad, fives have some additional characteristics that make them special. Even though a therapist may not useformal hypnosis, the patient may spontaneously go into a dissociated state (shift into mental neutral or "space out"). If they become involved in therapy, particularly therapy which encourages trance states in order to "retrieve lost memories," their recounting of the event will usually be in present tense as though the experience is being relived: "I have my new blue skirt on today, and you know what? It's my birthday. Teacher says I get to sit right beside my best friend, Maria!" not, "I think it was kindergarten. I remember wearing a new blue skirt, and for my birthday the teacher let me sit beside my good friend, Maria." Time can become quite scrambled in the retelling of memories by grade fives, often making it nearly impossible to sort out past, present, and future.

In light of these various factors, the grade five and his or her therapist can unwittingly enter a realm where "memories" are never constant. This becomes "narrative truth," an increasingly complex story whose exact characteristics are never fixed, and whose factuality is unverifiable. Says Dr. Richard Ofshe, psychiatrist, sociologist, and an expert on cultic mind control:

Once one misperceives a pseudo-memory as a genuine memory, he now has a basis for believing it has actually happened. And he then becomes a genuine believer in the things that have been "recalled". . . he's genuinely deceived. Once these themes develop —whatever they are—the consumer of them is really to be pitied. He relies on experts. If those experts pick up something and start running with it, the receivers have no way of differentiating between truth and falsehood.^[6]

Particularly affected is the branch of psychiatry dealing with the so-called dissociative disorders, which includes MPD (multiple personality disorder). When George Ganaway tested a group of fifty-four patients diagnosed with MPD over a 2 1/2-year period, "virtually all of the patients . . . met Spiegel's criteria for the Grade Five Syndrome."^[7]

One fascinating problem reported by a number of fives is "lost time" due to lengthy dissociating. For some, the fact that they cannot remember what happened for what might be hours at a time may lead them to exotic explanations for such missing time. "The person might, for various reasons, need to think his or her life is more exciting than sitting in a trance state," says Ganaway. "It might be very attractive to fill in that blank with an exciting story. It is probably no coincidence that many of the more exotic accounts are of late- night experiences, when there would be few competing memories of real-life events."^[8]

Psychiatrist and child abuse expert Ralph Underwager finds an additional motivation:

When a person comes to therapy, it's because they have a problem. And the therapist can give them a way to understand how those troubles started that doesn't require anything from them. They can reconstruct a memory about childhood events that never happened, and say, "That's why I'm having this problem." And what that does is get them off the hook; they don't have to deal with their own personal responsibility; they don't have to look at themselves. It's the oldest game in the world. It's exactly the same thing that Adam did when God came to him in the Garden saying,"What are you doing? Why do you have that fig leaf on?" Adam pointed the finger at someone else.^[9]

Some therapists use grade fives' testimonies to strengthen their own theories. Others become emotionally involved in grade five stories to the point where objective judgment is lost. Either way, this inappropriate attention motivates the teller to continue to enhance his story. This wide- eyed interest can be enticing for someone who hungers for attention.

At least three different modern myths have roots in the strange symbiotic relationship of patient and therapist: UFO abductions, past life regression, and satanic ritual abuse.

Many therapists supporting past life regression, such as Dr. Brian Weiss (Many Lives, Many Masters) and Helen Wambach, Ph.D. (Reliving Past Lives), cite the experiences of their patients as the evidence reincarnation has been waiting for.^[10] But Dr. Reima Kampman of the University of Oulu in Finland approached the subject from a gently skeptical angle. Beginning with the idea that it was possible for past- life therapists to create false memories in their hypnotized patients, Kampman tested his theory. He began by finding children who were highly suggestible, then hypnotizing them. His next step was simple and direct: "Go back to an age before your birth, when you are somebody else, somewhere else."

The results were spectacular, especially with one schoolgirl who recalled a medieval English tune while under hypnosis. Could this be the real thing? Dr. Kampman hypnotized her again and asked her bluntly where she'd learned the song. Her obliging reply revealed she had glanced at a library book and—with an astonishing show of photographic memory—retained the melody and the words. Such an event shows the dangerously fascinating mix of fact and fancy the mind is capable of producing.^[11]

But where past-life explanations for present-day problems fall short, another even more spectacular phenomenon has some intriguing "evidence." A fairly large number of persons have recalled being kidnapped and experimented upon by aliens in UFO abductions. The alien beings would then reportedly induce amnesia in their human specimens before returning them to earth.

Many alleged victims of UFO abductions are in fact class fives who have been influenced by self-designated UFO experts. One skeptical psychiatrist Martin Orne called UFO buff Budd Hopkins "the Typhoid Mary" of UFO abductions. This isn't hard to believe after reading Hopkins' own accounts of "helping" in memory recall sessions.^[12] Typically the fives who buy into the UFO explanation are individuals who have read about or seen mass media accounts of UFO abductions. Ganaway writes they "seize upon the UFO abduction hypotheses as the only `logical' explanation for their own dissociative experiences."^[13]

Very recently, one of the UFO community's most well-known alleged abductees, Communion author Whitley Strieber, did an about-face, charging that the abduction stories were false: [UFO-ologists'] interpretation of the visitor experience is rubbish from beginning to end. The abduction reports that they generate are not real. They are artifacts of hypnosis and cultural conditioning. . . . What is really behind our experiences? We are. ^[14] Satanic ritual abuse (SRA) is also rooted in, and validated by, therapists and mass media. There is absolutely no hard evidence to back the SRA stories of mass sacrifice, cannibalism, baby-breeding, and elaborate nationwide cult rituals. There is a growing body of evidence that the ebb and flow of story creation between therapist and patient is one of the main sources for the ongoing SRA phenomenon. (See Sherrill Mulhern interview.)

Frank Putnam, a medical doctor who specializes in MPD-related issues with the National Institute of Health and Medicine, voices a most serious consideration for those swept into SRA explanations:

It may be very important for them to displace real traumatic experiences, such as incest, into other areas. I think satanic ritual abuse becomes a way of putting the trauma outside and not having to face what may have happened in the home.^[15]

Bill Backus, psychiatrist and well-known Christian author (Telling Yourself the Truth), underscores an attitude of balance:

The therapist can facilitate, in the way of a midwife at a birth, the recovery of legitimate traumatic repressed memories, some of which have to do with sexual or physical abuse. These, I have no doubt, are legitimate. This has happened to every therapist. What concerns me, however, is the possibility of a therapist actually planting his or her presuppositions and suspicions into the mind of the client. I have seen people who've had this happen to them where the therapist says, "Your symptoms sound like you've been abused when you were a child. What can you tell me about that?" The client denies it, but the therapist won't take no for an answer. That's an illegitimate tactic, because the therapist is a powerful person, and many clients are extremely impressionable, particularly where there's high emotion. Our minds are capable of repression and they are also capable of receiving suggestions. It appears to me that stories of ritual abuse, stories of any kind of abuse or trauma that happens to be popular on the daytime serials, ought to be looked at with caution, because they could be the result of suggestion.^[16]

This warning has added punch when considering the fascinating possibility that UFO, past-life, and SRA therapists are themselves grade fives. When Dr. Ganaway attended a hypnosis workshop, he was stunned when a number of therapists mentioned to him that when hypnotizing their patients they themselves often enter a trance state. "One guy even said he often couldn't remember the session himself when it was over! You wonder, who is hypnotizing whom?" Ganaway concludes:

I'm going to learn more about the SRA phenomenon by studying the therapists than studying the patients. I would suspect the therapists who accept these stories are highly hypnotizable individuals themselves, who in essence are suspending their critical judgment along with the patients' as these memories come forth.^[17]

The term "grade five" isn't magic. It isn't some sort of new label to affix on anyone who appears to be gullible. It is an artificial way to describe a real phenomenon. It seems painfully obvious, however, that many of us (including some of evangelicalism's largest publishers and electronic media outlets) are victimizing highly gullible persons by uncritically repeating sensational testimonial tales. We ought to be leaving that to "Geraldo."

Instead, Christians must be on the forefront of reaffirming the importance of critical thought. We should be looking for ways to guard our brother or sister against being abused by stories without any evidence. And if we're the gullible ones, we must be willing to admit our need! We need to look for Bible-believing and clear-headed Christians. If they're sincere but gullible, they can't help us much. Bill Backus puts it simply:

I have clients tell me, "I went up to the altar for prayer and the elder who prayed with me, laid hands on me, said `I think you've been abused.' " And the person isn't adequately taught by the church how to evaluate that. The church shouldn't be doing that in the first place. But at least there ought to be teaching on how to skeptically evaluate other people's supposedly Spirit-given information.^[18]