The following comes from "How Full is Your Bucket?" by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton, Ph. D:The soldiers actually called it “give up-it is.
Despite the relatively minimal physical torture, “mirasmus” raised the overall death rate in the North Korean POW camps to an incredible 38%--the highest POW death rate in U.S. military history. Even more astounding was that half of these soldiers died simply because they had given up. They had completely surrendered, both mentally and physically.
The “Ultimate Weapon”
Mayer reported that the North Koreans’ objective was to “deny men the emotional support that comes from interpersonal relationships.” To do this, the captors used four primary tactics:
• Informing
• Self-criticism
• Breaking loyalty to leadership and country
• Withholding all positive emotional support
Despite the relatively minimal physical torture, “mirasmus” raised the overall death rate in the North Korean POW camps to an incredible 38%--the highest POW death rate in U.S. military history. Even more astounding was that half of these soldiers died simply because they had given up. They had completely surrendered, both mentally and physically.
The “Ultimate Weapon”
Mayer reported that the North Koreans’ objective was to “deny men the emotional support that comes from interpersonal relationships.” To do this, the captors used four primary tactics:
• Informing
• Self-criticism
• Breaking loyalty to leadership and country
• Withholding all positive emotional support
Relentless negativity resulted in a 38% POW death rate—the highest in U.S. military history.
To encourage informing, the North Koreans gave prisoners rewards such as cigarettes when they snitched on one another. But neither the offender nor the soldier reporting the violation was punished—the captors encouraged this practice for a different reason. Their intent was to break relationships and turn the men against each other.
To promote self-criticism, the captors gathered groups of 10 or 12 soldiers and employed what Mayer described as “a corruption of group psychotherapy.” In these sessions, each man was required to stand up in front of the group and confess all the bad things he had done—as well as all the good things he could have done but failed to do.
The most important part of this tactic was that the soldiers were not “confessing” to the North Koreans, but to their own peers. By subtly eroding the caring, trust, respect, and social acceptance among the American soldiers, the North Koreans created an environment in which buckets of goodwill were constantly and ruthlessly drained.
The third major tactic that the captors employed was breaking loyalty to leadership and country. The primary way they did this was by slowly and relentlessly undermining a soldier’s allegiance to his superiors.
But the tactic of withholding all positive emotional support while inundating soldiers with negative emotions was perhaps bucket dipping in its purest and most malicious form. If a soldier received a supportive letter from home, the captors withheld it. All negative letters, however—such as those telling of a relative passing away, or ones in which a wife wrote that she had given up on her husband’s return and was going to remarry—were delivered to soldiers immediately.
To encourage informing, the North Koreans gave prisoners rewards such as cigarettes when they snitched on one another. But neither the offender nor the soldier reporting the violation was punished—the captors encouraged this practice for a different reason. Their intent was to break relationships and turn the men against each other.
To promote self-criticism, the captors gathered groups of 10 or 12 soldiers and employed what Mayer described as “a corruption of group psychotherapy.” In these sessions, each man was required to stand up in front of the group and confess all the bad things he had done—as well as all the good things he could have done but failed to do.
The most important part of this tactic was that the soldiers were not “confessing” to the North Koreans, but to their own peers. By subtly eroding the caring, trust, respect, and social acceptance among the American soldiers, the North Koreans created an environment in which buckets of goodwill were constantly and ruthlessly drained.
The third major tactic that the captors employed was breaking loyalty to leadership and country. The primary way they did this was by slowly and relentlessly undermining a soldier’s allegiance to his superiors.
But the tactic of withholding all positive emotional support while inundating soldiers with negative emotions was perhaps bucket dipping in its purest and most malicious form. If a soldier received a supportive letter from home, the captors withheld it. All negative letters, however—such as those telling of a relative passing away, or ones in which a wife wrote that she had given up on her husband’s return and was going to remarry—were delivered to soldiers immediately.
