Brief Book Reviews: February 2026

Popular Books Relevant to Mental Health

The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion

Rebecca Lemov; W. W. Norton & Company; 2025

464 pages; $27 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

Rebecca Lemov is a professor of history of science at Harvard University. In her new book, Lemov tackles brainwashing: Is it real? How does it happen? Can healthy people be manipulated into embracing beliefs and identities which seem almost delusional?

Lemov takes the reader through examples of modern era mind-control including American prisoners of war in North Korea, Patty Hearst, and religious cults. What she calls, “cauldrons of such intensive social influence that they resulted in bizarre behavioral outpourings.” These extreme examples show the common features of brainwashing—emotional vulnerability, trauma, and ultimately embracing beliefs as a way to reduce the distress. The failure of the brain to recognize that it is being brainwashed, is another unsettling feature of the process.

However, we do not have to look far to find relevance of the topic to our clinical population. For example, abused women with controlling husbands, and isolated young men who find meaning and comfort in conspiracy theories. Furthermore, mind-control can be seen in some mental health treatments—as with cases of sexual coercion by the clinician, or the recovery of questionable forgotten memories.

While it can seem as though brainwashing only happens to other people, we all have surrendered to influences which we later “awaken from,” and are mystified by how it happened. An easy example is seen when we look back at pictures of our younger selves and wonder, with regards to our previous styles and fashions, “what was I thinking.” It is not “hard” coercion, but “soft” persuasion, that grabs all of us at times. Lemov believes we are in the midst of a brainwashing revival.

This book is not a story per se, but more what might be called psychoeducational. That is, the author has extensively studied the topic, and shares her insights to enlighten the reader. It is informative and interesting, but more of an educational survey, than having the arc of a captivating story.

Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism

Jeffrey Toobin; Simon & Schuster; 2023

432 pages; $20 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

Jeffrey Toobin has written an outstanding story of a home-grown terrorist, one whose actions seem to have foster the current right-wing extremism that permeates a significant portion of our country. McVeigh was a Gulf War veteran who came to believe it was his life’s calling to save America from tyranny and loss of individual freedom. He thought bombing the Federal building in Oklahoma City would avenge the wrongs of Waco and Rubby Ridge, and start a revolution.

In an unusual move, McVeigh’s defense attorney, donated his extensive case files to the University of Texas. The records provided Toobin with extensive information about McVeigh’s past as well as his post-arrest beliefs. He takes us through McVeigh’s upbringing, military experience, his burgeoning development of radical thinking, and his perspective on the aftermath of the bombing.

It is interesting to ponder what happened in McVeigh’s brain to perpetrate such violence. Was he born this way? Brainwashed? Delusional? Toobin gives us a fascinating read about the development of an American terrorist, and the dots connecting McVeigh to the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Dr Higgins is an affiliate associate professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina.