> While you may feel this to be irrelevant I actually think it is quite relevant. If I'm right then you have been to some extent brainwashed into the thinking

> While you may feel this to be irrelevant I actually think it is quite relevant. If I'm right then you have been to some extent brainwashed into the thinking that the training is reasonable. Your response makes sense if you had been brainwashed or if you hadn't. Of course this doesn't prove anything either way. The point is that the proper identification of brainwashing is always going to come from an external observer. To me the process I have heard described of 'breaking someone down and then building them up again' is the definition of brainwashing.