fishboneschokus -
I personally, seldom use the almost comic-book term 'brainwashing'.
In the past, I've been attacked for replacing 'brainwashing' with the (apparently crude and emotive) term, 'intellectual castration,' but this would seem to be a much more accurate description of persons whose critical, and evaluative, facutlies have been shut down in order that they can be exploited with impunity.
Predictably, cult apologists always claim that the oh so happy members of their groups are excercizing free-choice, and ridicule the idea that anyone can be manipulated into a position of de facto slavery by giving them the illusion that they are making a free choice.
Various coopted academics have also denied reality by claiming that there is no such thing as 'brainwashing.' Interestingly, these same academics don't claim that there is no such thing as intellectual castration.
Self-evidently, what has been described as 'brainwashing' is only the dark art of deceiving vulnerable individuals into accepting an ego-building fiction as fact.
'George Orwell' understood this perfectly.
Orwell's 'Animal Farm' is an excellect depiction of 'intellectual castration/ brainwashing' in action, for ironically, 'Animal Farm' is fact presented as fiction (it's even subtitled, 'A Fairy Story').