logansrun,
I don't know anything about you and I am wondering if you were raised as a witness. I would guess you were not. We are probably playing with semantics here, but I do believe the witnesses brainwash their children. They are brought up in an altenate reality and will continue to believe that there is no other alternative until their reality is challenged. That is how the process of leaving begins.
Perhaps it might be more appropriate to say that they gain adult converts through "coersive measures" instead of brainwashing. Perhaps the proper term to apply to the process of adults becoming witnesses is "indoctrination", but not children. There are two entirely different processes that happen. Adult converts are persuaded, won over, drawn into "the fold", and indoctrinated. Witness children are not. I was not "taught" the truth as a child, I lived it. I was not persuaded to go to the meeting, etc., I was forced to go. The stimulus/response cycle is used from birth. Children are very moldable and impressionable. The stimulus/response technique works very well with them!
The theory of behaviorism is not that outdated. The problem with the stimulus/response approach is that without continual reinforcement, the learned belief/behavior has a greater possibility of failing. I think the society has done rather well at developing a stimulus/response system. Witnesses are reinforced a minimum of three times a week. The more they are reinforced, the more permanent the beliefs become.
There are current theories that believe that if you are presented with something enough times, your brain becomes "hardwired" that way. Your brain actually creates a new neural pathway when something is learned. Eventually, those pathways become permanent, and sometimes it is quite a challege to undo those pathways. So, I think it is incorrect when you say the organization cannot biological get inside your head. In this way, they can.