It occurred to me that what Brian/Zeuszor has been engaging in here is a positive form of the ad hominem argument. In relating to us his positive experiences with Steve Hassan where he showed warmth and kindness towards him, he is essentially implying that since Steve allegedly exhibited such behaviors, that the criticism of him is invalid.

In actuality, human beings are complex creatures. No one is 100% bad. Over the years, I have heard quite a few positive anecdotes about experiences people had with L. Ron Hubbard where he showed genuine warmth and kindness and I find these credible because even people who engage in reprehensible behavior can have their moments of warmth and humanity. Now I am not intending to put Steve Hassan in the same category as Hubbard; I only provide this example to illustrate the point that positive personal accounts of someone, even when credible, do nothing to refute substantive criticism.

Dr. Mann made a number of substantive points in her review. This was professional criticism, not a personal attack. It could very well be the case that even though Steve Hassan appears to have borrowed ideas from others without properly citing them in his book or makes unsupported claims about his methods, he has at times shown genuine warmth and kindness towards others. The two are not mutually exclusive.

This was also illustrated in the Conrad Murray trial in the death of Michael Jackson, where he was ultimately found guilty by a jury. As a defense, a number of witnesses appeared, former patients of his who testified how much he helped him and what a kind, selfless person he was. The testimony was sincere and the people giving it were highly credible. Watching it convinced me that Conrad Murray was indeed kind, caring and even competent when it came to his treatment of those particular patients. However, ultimately this testimony was irrelevant to the question of whether or not his actions were a major cause of the death of Michael Jackson. The evidence presented clearly showed that Dr. Murray engaged in gross deviations from an acceptable standard of care and the jury, rightfully I believe, found him guilty. I commented on this in a blog posting:

[phtherapies.wordpress.com]

The point here is not that Steve Hassan is on trial here. Of course he is not, but I use this example to illustrate a principle that people can have many instances where they have been kind, caring and compassionate and even competent, yet engage in actions and other behaviors that warrant legitimate criticism. A rebuttal from Steve Hassan would need to directly address the points of Dr. Mann's criticisms, rather than having an employee or former client (as happened earlier on his FOM list serv) give a testimonial as to what a wonderful person he is. As we have seen, people have presented both positive and negative personal experiences with Steve Hassan, which is not surprising, given that he is a human being. Personally, I have had both types of experiences with him, but such experiences are not the issue here. The issue is the substantive criticisms that Dr. Mann and others have raised about how he conducts his business and his work, writings and claims.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2012 09:22PM by MonicaPignotti.

Dr Pignotti, 100% agree with you here!

Was trying to figure out how to say something similar, but you really nailed it!

Zeuszor, not trying here to be part of a group all choosing to criticize you; ( from what I remember a group you were in liked to do those kind of encounters,and I also have a knee yerk reaction where I hate seeing someone alone trying to defend themselves against a group.)
I do admire your willingness to stand up for what you believe in the face of disagreements/peer pressure.
But, as a general rule, it is possible to both love and care for someone, and to realize that some of the things they are doing may need to be questioned.

i

yasmin:

Yes. Dr. Pignotti has a made an important point.

But so far on this thread zeuszor has been unwilling to question anything about Steve Hassan.

I just wanted to clarify something here. The freedom of mind listserv that I owned and moderated for 9 years did not benefit from one lick of work from Steve Hassan. I did all the work. Hassan liked to take credit for the listserv, calling it "his" list, but he never did anything but post upcoming media appearances. When real issues were present, he would often use someone else to post rave reviews of him. He never responded to any criticism, except to backchannel me and tell me to "get rid" of someone (I never did this, though). When I ultimately decided to close the group in 2009, Hassan wrote to me and called me, asking me to run another discussion group for him. I declined. Since that happened in January of 2009, Hassan has not been able to find anyone else willing to run a listserv for him. I find that very telling. This is another example of Hassan's revisionist history telling, and I wanted to make a record.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2012 12:32AM by Cathleen Mann, PhD.

Quote
Cathleen Mann, PhD
I just wanted to clarify something here. The freedom of mind listserv that I owned and moderated for 9 years did not benefit from one lick of work from Steve Hassan. I did all the work. Hassan liked to take credit for the listserv, calling it "his" list, but he never did anything but post upcoming media appearances. When real issues were present, he would often use someone else to post rave reviews of him. He never responded to any criticism, except to backchannel me and tell me to "get rid" of someone (I never did this, though). When I ultimately decided to close the group in 2009, Hassan wrote to me and called me, asking me to run another discussion group for him. I declined. Since that happened in January of 2009, Hassan has not been able to find anyone else willing to run a listserv for him. I find that very telling. This is another example of Hassan's revisionist history telling, and I wanted to make a record.

As someone who was in on the creation of the FOM list serv, I can attest that what Cathleen is saying is absolutely correct. I co-moderated the list serv with Cathleen for about the first year and then from there on out, Cathleen was the sole moderator who did all the work . It is also worth noting that Steve Hassan chose the two of us to moderate that list serv, which shows how close we once were to Hassan. Steve never did a thing other than to post promotional announcements about his media experiences. The last straw was when I challenged Steve on a statement he made in one of his media appearances. Steve became very defensive and instead of carrying on a rational discussion of the issue, he brought someone else onto the list who engaged in quite vicious attacks against me while Steve argued from authority that because he held a higher position in Scientology than I had, that he was right and I was wrong. No substantive discussion of the real issues at all. Apparently time and position in the cult was more important to him than other qualifications and knowledge that I had acquired since then that were quite relevant to that particular discussion. Things escalate to the point where Cathleen decided to shut down the list, quite wisely, in my opinion.

Ms Pignotti,

can I ask who is/was the Scientologist referred to in your last post? Steve Hassan or the person he brought in to discredit your forum.

I'm finding all this very helpful and appreciate yours and Dr Mann's insider input to this thread.

Quote
GloriaG
Ms Pignotti,

can I ask who is/was the Scientologist referred to in your last post? Steve Hassan or the person he brought in to discredit your forum.

I'm finding all this very helpful and appreciate yours and Dr Mann's insider input to this thread.

It was an ex-Scientologist -- Dennis Erlich.

To whom it may concern:

See [www.culteducation.com]


Disclaimer regarding Steve Hassan

The Ross Institute of New Jersey/May 2013

The inclusion of news articles within the Ross Institute of New Jersey (RI) archives, which mention and/or quote Steven Hassan, in no way suggests that RI recommends Mr. Hassan or recognizes him in any way.

News articles that mention Steve Hassan have been archived for historical purposes only due to the information they contain about controversial groups, movements and/or leaders.

RI does not recommend Steven Hassan.

RI has received serious complaints about Steve Hassan concerning his fees. Mr. Hassan does not publicly disclose his fee schedule, but according to complaints Steve Hassan has charged fees varying from $250.00 per hour or $2,500.00 per day to $500.00 per hour or $5,000.00 per day. This does not include Mr. Hassan's expenses, which according to complaints can be quite substantial.

Steven Hassan has charged families tens of thousands of dollars and provided questionable results. One recent complaint cited total fees of almost $50,000.00. But this very expensive intervention effort ended in failure.

Dr. Cathleen Mann, who holds a doctorate in psychology and has been a licensed counselor in the state of Colorado since 1994 points out, "Nowhere does Hassan provide a base rate and/or any type or accepted statistical method defining his results..."

Steve Hassan has at times suggested to potential clients that they purchase a preliminary report based upon what he calls his "BITE" model. These "BITE reports" can potentially cost thousands of dollars.

See [corp.sec.state.ma.us]

Steve Hassan runs a for-profit corporation called "Freedom of Mind." Mr. Hassan is listed as the corporate agent for that business as well as its president and treasurer.

RI does not recommend "Freedom of Mind" as a resource.

RI also does not list or recommend Steve Hassan's books.

To better understand why Mr. Hassan's books are not recommended by RI read this detailed review of his most recently self-published book titled "Freedom of Mind."

See [www.cultnews.com]

Steve Hassan's cult intervention methodology has historically raised concerns since its inception. The book "Recovery from Cults" (W.W. Norton & Co. pp. 174-175) edited by Dr. Michael Langone states the following:

"Calling his approach 'strategic intervention [sic] therapy,' Hassan (1988) stresses that, although he too tries to communicate a body of information to cultists and to help them think independently, he also does formal counseling. As with many humanistic counseling approaches, Hassan’s runs the risk of imposing clarity, however subtly, on the framework’s foundational ambiguity and thereby manipulating the client."

RI has also learned that Mr. Hassan has had dual-relationships with his counseling clients. That is, clients seeing Mr. Hassan for counseling may also do professional cult intervention work with him.

Professionals in the field of cultic studies have also expressed concerns regarding Steven Hassan's use of hypnosis and Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

Based upon complaints and the concerns expressed about Mr. Hassan RI does not recommend Steve Hassan for counseling, intervention work or any other form of professional consultation.

See [www.cultnews.com]

The Rick A. Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups, and Movements has officially changed its name to The Cult Education Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements.

The new domain name entry point and gateway to the Internet archives of the institute will soon be culteducation.com.

The Cult Education Institute archives is a library of information about destructive cults, controversial groups and movements, which was initially launched in 1996 and has continued to be under construction and expansion for the past 17 years.

The public message board attached to the The Cult Education Institute will soon only be accessible through the domain name culteducation.com. More than 100,000 entries from the former members of destructive cults, controversial groups and movements and others concerned has accumulated at the board over the past decade. The message board content continues to grow daily and it serves as a free speech zone for those who wish to share their insights and concerns about the topics listed.

[www.youtube.com]

For my video on Steve Hassam ....scandalous exploitation of desperate famalies

$250.00 and hour or Up to $5,000.00 a day for the "INTERVENTIONS"

a man that charge like a lawyers ....but as only a few little counselling diplomas

that he is pround to put ....so many letters after his name ....

and naturally he wants everyone to know that he belong to a regular JEWISH temple in NEW YORK ..to give himself more legitimacy

That ex MOONIE as turn is life around ....into lots of MOONEY

exploiting the desperates famalies ...that will morgage their homes and give the money to HASSAM ....with the hope that their beloved son or dauther

will get out of the HARE KRISHNA ...or adoring MASTER CHING HAI ...or a hundred other cult

and maybee become a nice Jewish boy like Mr HASSAM .......... save people from religious scams ...with deprogramming scam

Mr Rick Ross call it UNETHICAL .....he must know what he is talking about