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. “ ot fIN eyes, she was ‘given thegere opportunity to divest hers of her + quilt provoking parentage and position. There is no more complete instance of acting out that a child can engage in, However, her renunciation could only be contemplated if the instrumental ity ‘of her former position was § denonstrably terminated, and such apparently were her perceptions ‘at nd time. of this recording. It is noteworthy, however, that the renunciation did not at this juncture include all of the outside world. She retains her Vink, albeit tentatively and cautiously, with Stephen Weed. ) The press and general public reactions of consternation regarding Patricia's rejection of her family and the developing identification with “the SLA (a process which continues through Tape 5 and eventually culminates in the overt demonstration of the. bank robbery reported in Tape 6) are not surprising. The public seeks stability in the predictability of the | significant personages with which they are concerned. Instability in others. is fear provoking and creates strong pressures to explain away, deny or discount the lack of stability. Hence, the press and public reaction during this period entertained notions of mind control, drugs or outright deception. The effect of this press upon Patricia could only have served to reinforce her perceptions of the lack of understanding for her precarious position and the fact that she was in fact not in control of her struggle for survival. In sound psychological sense, Patricia despaired of any help from the outside world and unconciously adopted the only course of action over which: she might excerise some measure of control; namely, the rejection of the patently unsuccessful outside wortd and adcption of the only reality she might effect, distorted as that reality was. The public, for its part, simplistically assumed that her captors were deranged, brutal criminals fully capable of drugging, torturing and otherwise abusing their innocent