In the late 70s I was involved in psychic psychotherapy called the Fischer-Hoffman technique a.k.a. Psycho-Spiritual Integration (PSI) and later renamed the Quadrinity Process. I became a facilitator and worked directly with Dr. Ernest Pecci, a psychic psychiatrist that specialized in past-life regression and eventually had his license suspended by BMQA.

In doing research, and the wealth of information on this site, I now realize this was a cult. I sometimes wonder how much I was affected by the teachings and if some of those experiences are still with me today. Does it make me more susceptible to other group's mind-control techniques?

A lot of these mavericks busted loose during the 60s and 70s when common sense was unfashionable, even in academic circles, and fantasy over-rode fact checking. Those were the years when Carlos Castaneda wrote a novel submitted it as his Ph.D dissertation and earned a Ph.D from UCLA. His work has since been exposed as bogus. It was a good time to start a group.

I suggest that you write down as much as you can remember what the methods were. (Writing will help you stabilize your grasp on reality.)--What methods were used for trance induction, group process, peer pressure. Were boundaries honored or violated. Read the material on thought reform and see if Lifton's guidelines apply.

Therapeutic communities can be quite sticky. Problems develop when someone tries to combine the role of therapist and guru. Its tempting to become magic Den Daddy to the group.

Next, do some research on trance induction and thought control

An exit counselor who has special experience working with people in groups like yours would be best.

Ive noticed that having credentials to practice medicine or psychotherapy is not, by itself enough to make someone a professional in the true sense of the word.

Professionalism is an attitude, and a value system, as well as having the right training and credentials. It is possible to be a psychiatrist and NOT be a professional. A lot of these characters flourished during the 60s and 70s, and some started cults, a few of which continue to this day. If you look on the Large Groups collection of threads, you'll find material on a discreet cult called Jacumba or Royal Way, that started in the 60s when a psychiatrist had some sort of enlightenment experience and then formed a group around himself.

To be a professional, you need the following values and attitudes

An adult atmosphere is fostered. A true profession does not encourage people to regress--especially when they are supposed to be students. New information cannot be properly evaluated when you're regressed because regression de-activates the adult layers of mind that support critical thinking.

Conservatism--in the sense that your prime directive is, above all, do no harm. Any new therapies must be carefully tested and researched, and not offered to patients until you've estabilished whether the benefits are likely to outweigh the risks.

altruism--genuine desire to help others, not serve your own ego

You take care of your need for ego-gratification in your private life--you never, ever use patients or students for self aggrandizement

Never let your problems become your patient's problems

You welcome accountability by being on good terms with your colleagues, by asking their advice in puzzling cases, pursuing continuing education and accepting the ethical guidelines of your profession

In short, to be a professional means submitting your ego to a standard of ethics, being part of a community of practitioners, and by submitting your ideas to testing and academic review before trying them on patients.

A professional seeks to belong to a peer group--not become the center of a personality cult.

If a psychiatrist refuses to function in this manner, he or she is not a professional, even if the person graduated from Harvard and has Fullbright and Guggenheim honors.

Thank you, Corboy, for your information and excellent advice. In searching the net I found information about his continued use of this technique. During the 4-month process, he solicits certain members to become facilitators and teachers. Patients are often transformed into employees (they get a percentage of the enrollment fees) and trainers. At least that's how it worked back in the 70s. He's associated with such people as Helen Kubler (sp?) Ross and other experts on death and dying. It's worrisome that he's still doing this work.

If you want to get information about a group, do not content yourself with Google. You can find some helpful stuff quite often if you go further and search the various Google groups and listserves.

One trend I noted in the listserve material is that Hoffman Quadrinity has been marketed to troubled families. If it is not based on tested and researched protocols that meet current standards of care as defined by professional family therapists and is indeed, just another money maker--thats bad news.

Here are some things from the listserve:

A list of groups NOT recommended by a German watchdog agency:

[www.google.com]


A comment by a person who claimed to note similarities between Landmark Forum and Quadrinity:

[www.google.com]

Well I see he keeps changing the name. They start out with the short version, it was a weekend course but it looks as though it has changed to seven days, from there they recruit to the four month, expensive process. Dr. Pecci worked with Dr. Hoffman to develop this psycho-spiritual integration nonsense in the 60s. Hoffman died and Pecci singularly took it over. He told me that BMQA suspended his license for a year after prescribing a colonic irrigation to a child with an IQ of 46. He claimed it would increase the child's IQ!

I see adverts for the Quadrinity Process in New Age catalogues like Common Ground--CG comes out quarterly in the Northern Cal/Bay Area. They have some good stuff but quite a few dodgy franchises advertise there as well.

That's something to consider--a group may start out OK or even harmlessly eccentric, but may, with a change of 'ownership' mutate into something problematic. And frequent name changes are a common sign of turmoil.

Well established businesses with lots of happy customers keep thier names--they'd LOSE business if they changed names.

Why do cults need to rewrite history?
Follow the money. Caveat emptor.
January 22, 2020

Cults rewrite history in the interests of their marketing plan, but when they avoid uncomfortable facts and stray far from the truth, I say, “enough.” Reading the online biographies of Bob Hoffman, the founder of the Hoffman Process, or the Quadrinity Process, I was stunned. They are awash in lies, factual inaccuracies, fabrications or, in the best case, distortions.

A core premise of all spiritual work is that a human being has to be honest with themselves, including their faults and distortions of truth. This equally applies to the healer.

My jumping off point was when I Googled Volker Kohrn of the Australian branch of the Hoffman Institute, and came across a piece called 50 YEARS LATER, BOB HOFFMAN’S DREAM LIVES ON. To begin, the writer claims that the renowned Enneagram teacher Claudio Naranjo helped Hoffman formulate his “world famous” process. Naranjo did in fact help Hoffman, but not in the ways described. The writer also says that Naranjo was “Harvard educated.” He was not. His medical education and his psychiatric internship were at the University of Chile. Naranjo was a Guggenheim Fellow at Harvard, a very high honor indeed and worthy of note, but it does not include matriculation and graduation from the University.

The writer claims that Naranjo coined the word “Quadrinity” to point to four aspects of our human nature, emphasizing the oft neglected emotional and spiritual sides. Wrong. It was the incredibly talented polymath Julius Brandstatter who came up with the word.

The writer also claims that Naranjo also helped Hofman formulate the 8 day Process. Wrong. Naranjo was already doing a 3 day version of the Process with his SAT groups and Bob realized that if he could craft a shorter process, it would be more marketable. He followed Naranjo’s lead, but Claudio had no hand in formulating what is now known as the Process. Again Julius Brandstatter along with his lovely professionally trained wife Miriam were Hoffman’s main consultants. How do I know this? Hoffman himself told me when I was an observer at one of the initial 8 day processes in the Santa Cruz mountains. Miriam herself recounted the experience in great detail when I visited her at her home in Mountain View, California in the last years of her life. I had conversations with as many people who contributed to Hoffman’s Process as I could when researching my paper, The Ontological Odd Couple.

I stand by my presentation of the history of the Process. The writer for the Hoffman Institute International is batting three for three. I would be less critical of the Process if the current practitioners at least did their homework.

But I beg the question.

The current version of the Hoffman Process is an intense, choreographed emotional experience. It promises an experience of complete freedom and unconditional love in a few days, and costs a great deal of money. It’s a hard sell. The task is more difficult when you learn that the Process was channelled from a dead psychiatrist through a bespoke tailor from Oakland California who had absolutely no professional credentials.

The Process is not psychotherapy, but it does explicitly and purposefully dig into the psychological roots of emotional conditioning. In my view undertaking this exploration outside the clear guidelines of professional therapy can be very risky.

The Hoffman Institute needs to highlight Naranjo’s involvement as it lends credibility to their product. And to that end they’ve invented a dubious resume.

Caveat emptor.

I have other writing about the Hoffman Process. It’s definitely not promotional. Google:“Bob Hoffman and the Quadrinity Process.”