does anyone know about the cult like tendencies of the Grinberg method association???
Seems to be pushing itself quite hard in our area. Anyone know anything?

TheVoid

Hello THE VOID,

Following your post I would like to tell you something more about the Grinberg Method.

First of all I would like to ask you from where you are writing since I'm very interested in this matter.

I'm 32 years old, I’ve and MBA and I’m Export Manager and I live and work in Barcelona (Spain) and I've had my life changed and ruined by the Grinberg Method Association last year.

Almost two years ago, EVA, my beloved ex girlfriend, the girl with whom I had been sharing my life for 5 unforgettable years, was "caught" by these people by accident…

Everything happened during a dinner we had with a couple of friends of her (he was 46 years old and she was 26…sigh…) who convinced her to try the Grinberg Method in order to improve the results of her knee rehabilitation process.
I remember that they started talking about the meaning of energy and that man, who was a 3rd level Grinberg practitioner, ”sold” EVA the story of the Grinberg Method and she finally decided to try a free trial session…she was caught with the simplest and dumbest marketing strategy, the one of “ Please come and try…it’s free and if u don’t like it u can always give up…”

Well, in order to put things forward I would like to tell you that we are not talking about a silly teenager without any kind of culture whatsoever…on the contrary we’re talking about a 28 years old girl with a Master in Biology and with a brain who was actually working pretty good during that time!!!

Anyways, she went to the first free trial session and she was shocked by the way in which her practitioner touch her feet and discovered things about her personality and so forth…she enjoyed so much that after one month she decided to become a practitioner. She said that she was feeling so good after the foot massage and other things she was doing during the sessions!!!

She asked me what I was thinking about it and, even though I’m against all these kind of esoteric techniques, I was seeing her happy and since her happiness was my happiness I told her to go for it…she finally enrolled to the first year of classes and it works basically like this:

In order to become an actual teacher of Grinberg Method you’ve to pay 3.000,00 Euros per year and a part from that there’re one or two compulsory weekend’s session per month which cost around 150 Euros each. The first year is composed by 5 weeks classes and at the end of every year there’s a small exam but the most important thing is to gain at least 5 customers during the first year.

Soon my girlfriend became completely focused on these people and she started explaining me some things about it but she was reticent in telling me exactly what this all method was really about…
She said that it was forbidden to talk about the method in depth with close friends and relatives….at that time I was just too focused on my job and I trusted her so much that I just wanted to stay in peace with myself and that’s it…I saw her changed but I loved her and probably my love made me blind!!

Anyways….a friend of mine tried a free session and he told me that the practitioner’s aim is to make people believe with very stupid and simple assumption that they’ve some problems by only watching their feet… then they start saying that the repetitive and routine daily life things are evil and they’re the reason of most of our mental and physical sickness…
At this point there’s a big jump into a more psychological level in which the practitioner analyzes and/or invents fears of his/her customer in order to make him/her weaker and weaker and easier to be manipulated…the customer is considered a person to be slaved by them and one of the most important thing is that they teach you to manage the changes in life…

The teach you a very individualistic kind of life in which everything is black or white and the main aim is to become a practitioner of the method…at the end of the day the aim of the practitioner is to get more customers and from those customers some potential practitioner…I remember that my girlfriend she was speaking as a sales person with her customers and I was shocked by the way in which she was defending her assumptions…well…I’m a sales person as well but that was just rubbish and she was talking with despise about the people who didn’t believe the Grinberg Method and so forth…

After one year of classes she came one day in our flat and she told me that she wanted to break up and when she was speaking I could see the way in which she was breathing and acting it was completely faked and I could see that she was playing a really nice script with which she could have won an AWARD!!!
She then left me and I almost never seen her again cos I was so shocked and sad than I didn0t know the way in which I could behave in order to have her back…

She left me in may 2009 and since then I started a big research about this method and I also open up a facebook page about this matter to share experiences about the method…

Well…I’d like to know if you know something more about these people…if u send me ur e-mail we could talk privately…

Bye

pacio




ps: there's some bad experience related with the Grinber Method in Italy as well...
In Spain the Grinberg Method is classified as cult...please check the page of this association:
Atención e Investigación en Socioadicciones (AIS)
www.ais-info.org
[...]
barcelona

[Moderator note: Please don't post phone numbers on this message board. It's against the rules]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2010 09:27PM by rrmoderator.

Hello THE VOID,

Following your post I would like to tell you something more about the Grinberg Method.
First of all I would like to ask you from where you are writing since I'm very interested in this matter.

I'm 32 years old, I’ve and MBA and I’m Export Manager and I live and work in Barcelona (Spain) and I've had my life changed and ruined by the Grinberg Method Association last year.

Almost two years ago, EVA, my beloved ex girlfriend, the girl with whom I had been sharing my life for 5 unforgettable years, was "caught" by these people by accident…

Everything happened during a dinner we had with a couple of friends of her (he was 46 years old and she was 26…sigh…) who convinced her to try the Grinberg Method in order to improve the results of her knee rehabilitation process.
I remember that they started talking about the meaning of energy and that man, who was a 3rd level Grinberg practitioner, ”sold” EVA the story of the Grinberg Method and she finally decided to try a free trial session…she was caught with the simplest and dumbest marketing strategy, the one of “ Please come and try…it’s free and if u don’t like it u can always give up…”

Well, in order to put things forward I would like to tell you that we are not talking about a silly teenager without any kind of culture whatsoever…on the contrary we’re talking about a 28 years old girl with a Master in Biology and with a brain who was actually working pretty good during that time!!!

Anyways, she went to the first free trial session and she was shocked by the way in which her practitioner touch her feet and discovered things about her personality and so forth…she enjoyed so much that after one month she decided to become a practitioner. She said that she was feeling so good after the foot massage and other things she was doing during the sessions!!!

She asked me what I was thinking about it and, even though I’m against all these kind of esoteric techniques, I was seeing her happy and since her happiness was my happiness I told her to go for it…she finally enrolled to the first year of classes and it works basically like this:

In order to become an actual teacher of Grinberg Method you’ve to pay 3.000,00 Euros per year and a part from that there’re one or two compulsory weekend’s session per month which cost around 150 Euros each. The first year is composed by 5 weeks classes and at the end of every year there’s a small exam but the most important thing is to gain at least 5 customers during the first year.

Soon my girlfriend became completely focused on these people and she started explaining me some things about it but she was reticent in telling me exactly what this all method was really about…
She said that it was forbidden to talk about the method in depth with close friends and relatives….at that time I was just too focused on my job and I trusted her so much that I just wanted to stay in peace with myself and that’s it…I saw her changed but I loved her and probably my love made me blind!!

Anyways….a friend of mine tried a free session and he told me that the practitioner’s aim is to make people believe with very stupid and simple assumption that they’ve some problems by only watching their feet… then they start saying that the repetitive and routine daily life things are evil and they’re the reason of most of our mental and physical sickness…
At this point there’s a big jump into a more psychological level in which the practitioner analyzes and/or invents fears of his/her customer in order to make him/her weaker and weaker and easier to be manipulated…the customer is considered a person to be slaved by them and one of the most important thing is that they teach you to manage the changes in life…

The teach you a very individualistic kind of life in which everything is black or white and the main aim is to become a practitioner of the method…at the end of the day the aim of the practitioner is to get more customers and from those customers some potential practitioner…I remember that my girlfriend she was speaking as a sales person with her customers and I was shocked by the way in which she was defending her assumptions…well…I’m a sales person as well but that was just rubbish and she was talking with despise about the people who didn’t believe the Grinberg Method and so forth…

After one year of classes she came one day in our flat and she told me that she wanted to break up and when she was speaking I could see the way in which she was breathing and acting it was completely faked and I could see that she was playing a really nice script with which she could have won an AWARD!!!
She then left me and I almost never seen her again cos I was so shocked and sad than I didn0t know the way in which I could behave in order to have her back…

She left me in may 2009 and since then I started a big research about this method and I also open up a facebook page about this matter to share experiences about the method…

Well…I’d like to know if you know something more about these people…if u send me ur e-mail we could talk privately…

Bye

pacio

Guys, you might want to research a technique called 'cold reading'.

[www.skepdic.com]

Here is a google search. You can see in sidebar adverts that one can learn this
in order to do magic tricks.

[www.google.com]

Long before this method was termed 'cold reading' it was in use. Based on what I have read of the career of the 18th Century careerist named Giacomo Cagliostro, it appears, he used a form of this method.

And...remember, it is very easy these days to pre-research any person who comes in for a 'treatment' or 'session' and learn all about them based on what they have published on the Internet. In the old days, you had to bribe servants or over hear
conversations in tavernas and cafes. Now, you can learn all about someone before he or she even arrives, just by seeing if they have put anything on Facebook or Twitter or elsewhere.

Its a method of asking leading questions and picking up information from an individuals non verbal cues.

A person who is clever at the technique of cold reading, can give the impression of having a paranormal ability to read your mind or be a medical intuitive, when all they are doing is using a skilled technique by which to draw forth information from YOU.

Fortune tellers use this. It is possible some devices such as the enneagram are not
special at all, and owe their alleged powers to the users application of 'cold reading.'

In some cases, very sincere persons may learn to apply cold reading, not even knowing they are doing so.

But if huge sums of money are charged and people are breaking up from their partners and families, this sounds like a very much more intense matter.

Hi,

l came across this post by chance. The Grinberg Method and "cult" together in one place seems so wrong, I decided to reply to this message.
I am 48 years old, successful professional, happily married, and healthy. The Grinberg Method has been a part of my life for the last 12 years, and I consider it to be central to my well being. The trainers that I had and still have are totally focused on my health, well being and aims, and have not the least of intention to control me in any way. Overcoming a serious medical condition and complicated operation I had a while ago was made quicker and with much more energy than I (and the doctors) expected as a direct result of intensive treatment by Grinberg Method trainers.

All in all, the method's approach and techniques are straight forward, and in my experience, desisively effective. And in the context of this forum, it is absolutely no cult, sect or new religion.

One persons report

[www.vice.com]

Quote

I saw a flyer advertising a free trial session of Grinberg Therapy, which was described using phrases such as “energy flow” and “holistic healing.” Intrigued, I looked for more information on the Internet. According to a brief entry on German Wikipedia, the Grinberg Method is an “esoteric pseudo-medicinal practice” created by an Israeli health practitioner named Avi Grinberg.

Quote

The Grinberg Method, it turns out, is based in reflexology. I wish I had known this in advance, so I could have been better prepared. (Helpful hint: wear clean socks.) Sandra sat me on a massage table, naked feet forward, and proceeded to ask me the standard opening questions of psychotherapy. Instead of meticulously taking notes, she responded to my answers by squeezing my toes and kneading my feet. This was weird, but not entirely unpleasant.

“Why did you come here today?” she began.

I didn’t want to give the obvious answer, because it was free, so I went with, “I have some issues with managing anger.”

“What makes you angry?”

“Oh, I don’t know... anything.... everything. All those self-satisfied parents pushing their million-dollar strollers around, for instance. Their bourgeois sense of entitlement! Do they really need to further over-populate the world just to pass on their precious genetic material? Fuck them!”

“And you’d like to feel less angry?” she asked.

“Not really,” I admitted. “Actually, I’m sort of on a health kick right now. I’m trying to cut down on drugs and alcohol. The only relaxation activity I have left is listening to insanely aggressive music and being consumed by rage.” I went on to explain to her that I considered myself reasonably sane and not in particular need of psychiatric help, and beside the occasional debilitating nightmare, the panic attacks, and of course the unrelenting pain between my shoulder blades that just fucking killed all the time, I was actually pretty healthy and stress-free.

“Hmm,” she said. “Well, let’s look at that pain between the shoulder blades.” She had me lay on my stomach, and the Grinberging began in earnest.

The Grinberg Method, as far as my experience goes, is basically a combination of back-rub and therapy session. It’s a pretty good combination, to tell the truth. Sandra asked me questions about my life, my anxieties, and my childhood, all the while paying attention to the physical reactions of my body. At one point I got aggravated, thinking: here I am trying to relax, and she keeps asking me about my relationship with my mom! But then she stopped abruptly, and asked me to take note of how I was holding my shoulders. I have to admit, the chronic pain between the shoulder blades began to make a lot more sense.

I left the office feeling a lot better, physically and mentally, than when I had arrived. In fact, I felt good enough to sign up for four more Grinberg sessions. These happened weekly, and were pretty similar to the first one, although the focus shifted to breathing exercises of the sort you learn to do in yoga classes. As it turns out, these exercises feel a lot less goofy when done in a clinical, pseudo-medicinal environment than when done in front of a bunch of middle-aged ladies in leotards.

Quote

But meanwhile, some other unsettling events transpired. Attempting to research the subject a bit further, I found that the fairly negative Wikipedia entry I’d seen had now been mysteriously removed.