I have spent hours on this site reading previous posts. I want to thank "Nettie" if she is still out there for this thread- and also alert people to "pragmatist" as I ignored his posts.
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forum.culteducation.com]
I have discussed my concerns with my husband. My reaction to all this is so mixed. Personally I feel violated by LEC crap, and I believe the therapist is so ingrained with them that she truly believes she is helping us. She is skilled, my husband likes her, and we have had some good results- from the other techniques used. Fortunately my husband is a die hard skeptic who sees through what he considers the LEC kookiness and writes it off- and has no desire to attend anything related to LEC.
The more I read, the more I realize how much LEC vocabulary she uses... and this is concerning. One think I learned from reading this thread is the parts where people feel disoriented after a forum meeting. I noticed that I feel disoriented sometimes after our sessions.
I also saw the part about how LEC regards empathy and sympathy. At one of the 12 step meetings (the one with the LEC members) someone recently brought up a sad and tragic event. A comment later from someone else was that if they were truly far along with their "recovery", this would not have affected them. I got to thinking that if this is the goal of "recovery"- than anyone who could feel empathy or sympathy, or any sadness or guilt, or any dissatisfaction in their lives needed more recovery according to these people. They felt like grief or sadness was a defect. My next thought was that this is a bunch of crap. When a much loved family member died a while back, I genuinely grieved, cried a lot, and then eventually it got better. This was normal to me. I appreciated the sympathy and empathy from others, and I believe it is good for me to feel this for other people. I don't want to be "recovered" to to a non feeling zombie.
I have looked at some of the 12 step literature which says codependency is an incurable sickness that one must stay in meetings forever or return to the sick way of thinking. This stuff sounds rather scary to me- yes, I have some habits that need changing, but I have been a basically functioning person- don't have substance abuse, and a basically functional marriage to a good person- with communication issues. I don't want to believe that if I leave a 12 step program I am doomed. That sounds like a cult. I feel I have gotten some good out of the 12 step program, but also feel like it has been LEC infested- with ideology even if they don't openly promote LEC... as the more I read here, the more stuff I recognize being said.
Now I feel I have been mindf*cked and how sad because I truly sought out these people for help- I am changing 12 step groups but all the groups are attended by some of the same members so I hear some of this weirdness.
As to the therapist- I am keeping the next appt to see how she will handle my LEC protest and if she persists in trying to recruit us. I have certainly changed my outlook and have lost trust in her- which will inevitably end the relationship. If she can drop the recruitment and focus on our communication, perhaps it is worth it, but I am now very very skeptical.