hundreds of thousands of repetitions of a single statement
As early as 1953--the year he headed the American Psychiatric Association--Ewen Cameron (MK-Ultra) conceived a technique he called "psychic driving," by which he would bombard the subject with repeated verbal messages. From tape recordings based on interviews with the patient, he selected emotionally loaded "cue statements"--first negative ones to get rid of unwanted behavior and then positive to condition in desired personality traits.
Cameron developed the theory that mental patients could be cured by treatment that erased existing memories and by rebuilding the psyche completely. Cameron wrote that psychic driving provided a way to make "direct, controlled changes in personality," without having to resolve the subject's conflicts or make her relive past experiences.