Go to near the very end, to 1:34:40 or so. It's actually my favorite part of the film. The security guard (Kevin) who just gave Ivy the medicine and helped her go back over the wall is just sitting there, ignoring the beeping noise that his vehicle is making, staring into space as if he does not know what in the world to think, as if his reality-testing capacity is temporarily suspended because he cannot conceive that there people living out there. He's now part of the secret.

I feel a bit like I imagine Kevin must feel; like I just cannot believe how hypocritical the whole ICSA thing is with respect to Hassan. It's like I've seen what is on the other side of the metaphorical wall and am saying to myself "WTF?", you know?

[www.youtube.com]

rrmoderator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That is a gross understatement.
>
> "Combatting Cult Mind Control" was released in
> 1988 and is out of date.
>
> Psychologist Margaret Singer's book "Cults in Our
> Midst" published in 1995 is much better written
> and more helpful.
>
> See
> [www.amazon.com]
> 902667/ref=ase_rickross/104-0449391-3996761?v=glan
> ce&s=books
>
> Also the Second Edition of "Snapping" by Flo
> Conway and Jime Siegelman is more current and
> contains the ideas and concepts about information
> control that Hassan copied.
>
> See
> [www.amazon.com]
> 765004/ref=ase_rickross/104-0449391-3996761?v=glan
> ce&s=books
>
> Then there is the book "Thought Reform and
> Psychology of Totalism" by Robert Jay Lifton,
> which is a seminal classic.
>
> See
> [www.amazon.com]
> 842532/ref=ase_rickross/104-0449391-3996761?v=glan
> ce&s=books
>
> Hassan's so-called "BITE model" is borrowed from
> these books.
>
> The B for behavior comes from Lifton and Singer's
> research.
>
> The I for information comes from Conway and
> Siegelman study of "information desease."
>
> The T for thinking comes from Lifton's explanation
> of thought reform.
>
> The E for emotional control comes from Conway and
> Siegelman's second book "Holy Terror" published in
> 1982.
>
> See
> [www.amazon.com]
> 292864/ref=ase_rickross/104-0449391-3996761?v=glan
> ce&s=books
>
> The BITE model is simply a ripoff of other
> people's ideas and research recycled and relabeled
> by Hassan for his marketing and self-promotional
> purposes without giving proper credit to the
> originators of those ideas.
>
> Shameful and unethical.
>
> His latest book "Freedom of Mind" is little more
> than an self-serving infomercial.
>
> See
> [www.cultnews.com]-
> of-steven-hassans-trilogy-adds-little-understandin
> g/
>
> This review of the book by Cathleen Mann, a PhD in
> forensic psychology, exposes its deeply flawed
> concepts and constructs.
>
> Summing up--there are better books and better
> people in the field of cultic studies to read and
> look to for meaningful research. Why reference
> someone who copies the ideas of others withoug
> proper attribution when you can read the original?


Check out his greatly embellished ICSA "People Profile":

Steve Hassan, M.Ed., LMHC, NCC, Director of Freedom of Mind Resource Center, Newton, MA 02459. A licensed mental health counselor and former leader in the Moon organization, Steve has been helping people on cult issues since 1976. He has written three books that have received extensive praise from former cult members, families of former members, clergy, cult experts, and psychologists: Combatting Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988); Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves (2000); and FREEDOM OF MIND, Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs, a paperback and e-book (2012). Steve has pioneered a new approach to helping victims of mind control. His Strategic Interactive Approach (SIA) reflects the respect and care one must bring to the effort to help those involved free themselves. Unlike stressful, sensationalized and illegal deprogramming techniques, his non-coercive approach is an effective and legal alternative that has assisted thousands of families help individuals victimized by destructive group and cult-related mind control. This approach teaches family and friends how to strategically influence the individual involved in a group. He recently participated in a California training for the Joint Regional Intelligence Center presented to law enforcement professionals and has been teaching about mind control in human traficking and terrorism. In 2014 Mr. Hassan received ICSA's Margaret T. Singer Award.

Steve would like for us to think that he thought up all of this stuff, and that his BITE model and its components are all his brainchild, but he didn't invent any of it; his work is highly derivative, and all that he figured out how to do, was how to package and market the work of others into the system of thought that Dr. Mann has aptly described as "Hassanology."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2014 07:26AM by zeuszor.

A personal account:

In November of 2011, I was in the Acute Ward of a VA Hospital for six days. I spoke with Debra (Hassan's assistant at the time) a couple of times from inside the hospital and she told me that she had let Hassan know where I was, and why. As I was in the employ of FOM at the time, was working on projects with them, and we communicated almost every day (the office and I, I mean) of course I had to account for my temporary absence.

Upon my discharge, Hassan never once mentioned my hospitalization, and never once asked me about my stay there, or how I was doing in my recovery. NEVER ONCE. I told Debra, then Debra told him. He NEVER ONCE asked me about that period AT ALL. And I have always resented the hell out of that fact. He never once so much as asked me how I was doing after my hospitalization, or ever even mentioned it. In fact, he was irritated that I had fallen behind in my work for FOM.

People who have never worked for or with him have NO IDEA how that man is behind closed doors. None at all. Former members and other people who have read his books think have this image of him as some kind of hero or savior, but the have no idea about the true character of "the man behind the curtain". The difference between his public persona and his private manner is that pronounced. Behind closed doors and in person, he's actually very different.

He NEVER ONCE asked me how I was feeling and what was going on with me after my hospitalization, never showed any concern or empathy AT ALL. This is why I see him as a total hypocrite. I just cannot respect him on a personal or professional level, one iota.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2014 09:37PM by zeuszor.

Steve Hassan has used and disgarded many people over the years. This has included former cult members he used for interventions, colleagues and office support staff.

When anyone is critical regarding Steve's behavior and/or business practices he commonly characterizes it as somehow a "personal dispute" or a hateful atack against him personally made by bitter people. Any attempt to hold Steve Hassan accountable for his behavior is apta to be cast as a "vendetta" or "conspiracy" by cults or cult members. This is how Steve and his acolytes spin critiscim.

This type of response to criticism is familiar to people that have studied cults and cult leaders. That is, cult leaders and cults are intolerant of criticism and often blame or attack their critics personally, rather than respond to the issues raised regarding bad behavior.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2014 10:16PM by rrmoderator.

Oh yeah, Rick, and I am prepared for the Hassanites and their guru to characterize and come after me thusly. I expect it will happen, as a matter of fact.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2014 10:19PM by zeuszor.

rrmoderator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Steve Hassan has used and disgarded many people
> over the years. This has included former cult
> members he used for interventions, colleagues and
> office support staff.
>
> When anyone is critical regarding Steve's behavior
> and/or business practices he commonly
> characterizes it as somehow a "personal dispute"
> or a hateful atack against him personally made by
> bitter people. Any attempt to hold Steve Hassan
> accountable for his behavior is apta to be cast as
> a "vendetta" or "conspiracy" by cults or cult
> members. This is how Steve and his acolytes spin
> critiscim.
>
> This type of response to criticism is familiar to
> people that have studied cults and cult leaders.
> That is, cult leaders and cults are intolerant of
> criticism and often blame or attack their critics
> personally, rather than respond to the issues
> raised regarding bad behavior.

The reason that I quit working for Hassan, is because he once insulted me in a conversation that we were having over the phone. It irked me at the time, but I thought about how to handle that and slept on it that night. So the next day, I emailed him and told him that he'd insulted me and hurt my feelings. He responded as if he did not know what I was talking about, then told me that I was confused, and was recollecting things that he did not really say. Then I got angry and told him that I was not remembering anything incorrectly. I further told him that it felt as if he was trying to gaslight me, and that it pissed me off very much. Then he tells me to "man up" and take responsibility for my own words and actions (thereby trying to gaslight me again) and I got even more angry. Talk about projection, right? Later that day, I wrote to the office and told them that I quit, and I have not worked for or with him ever since.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2014 02:24AM by zeuszor.

I've always seen the BITE model as something of a reiteration of a Cognitive Behavioral approach to change which I was taught when doing patient teaching.

Think of a diabetic who has been newly diagnosed. They have to learn a great deal of new information upon which their health depends, they must change their behavior (diet, exercise, monitoring of health), they have to change the way that they think about their health and their diet, All of that is a very emotional experience that involves a great deal of grieving and the stages associated with it.

An effective approach as a nurse who must assure that a patient is ready for hospital discharge or home care management can best effect change by encouraging:
- Healthy new behaviors
- Providing information about disease, health, and health maintenance
- Teaching and coaching healthy and optimistic and serious thought about the many aspects of the new process
- Helping the client cope with the emotional aspects of the changes, particularly by addressing the natural grief that they experience.

I don't know about how other disciplines approach lifestyle change, but nurses (and mothers and teachers and mentors) have been doing this all along. It's a cognitive behavioral approach to health. A cult or a manipulator can use the same process for exploitation, but all of this predates Steve Hassan, so far as I know. It just was never coined as the "BITE Method" any more than what the Chinese did to the Korean POWs was coined as thought reform/brainwashing.

I learned these principles in nursing school in the early '80s, and the professors who taught it to me understood this prior to that since they were able to present patient teaching from this approach. They didn't use an acronym but called it a cognitive behavioral approach to change with attention to the nursing care of a patient who automatically experiences an alteration in coping because of the drastic changes they face after such a diagnosis. And family members need the same kind of support as well.

Yes.

It certainly isn't anyting new.

Something like reinenting the wheel without proper attribution to the originators of the model.

Steve Hassan has a habit of relabeling other people's ideas without giving the proper credit to those who first established them.

[cassiopaea.org]

"3. I was also involved in at least 2 deprogrammings with Pat Ryan.
One was in about 1988, and involved Hare Krishna named Bill
Crockett, from Boston. The rest of the deprogramming team was Joe
Szimhart, Jonathan Nordquist, and myself. This case was an unlawful
detention deprogramming. It was not successful.

During the Crockett deprogramming attempt, I recall talking to Ron
Loomis, then the president of CAN, about the case, as the
deprogramming was not going well.

Bob Crockett, Bill's father, later told me he had used Steve Hassan
to do phone counselling for his son, at an extremely expensive
rate, which got not results. He said he felt he spent a lot of
money for nothing."

What can you tell us about the Blocksom matter, Rick?

Mark Blocksom was a fairly well-known cult deprogrammer in the 1980s. He later apparently decided to attack CAN. Jonathan Nordquist likewise also decided to help in an effort to discredit CAN. These attacks were apparently coordinated by Scientology and/or other grops called "cults."

If you dig into the background of Nordquist and Blocksom you will find this information.

Blocksom was involved in a number of failed deprogrammings. And Steve Hassan has admitted that he parcipated in a number of involuntary cult interventions.deprogrammings.