Hi There,
My sister and her husband have both attended the 'Choices Seminars' founded by Thelma Box.

[www.choicesseminars.com]

My sister has volunteered as a coach at the seminars too, and has even paid for friends of hers to do the seminars ($2500 each!). She has not stopped talking about how great the seminars are ever since she first went, and has been trying to convince me to go too, offering to pay for me to attend.
I have been trying to do some research about Choices, because my sister says she can't tell me anything about it, i just have to 'wait and see' by attending.

Choices is listed on Wikipedia as a Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) organisation.
[en.wikipedia.org]

Someone on a forum on this website (http://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?4,1931,page=2) mention they used techniques used by another LGAT called 'Lifespring' or 'Legacy', similar to 'Landmark Forum', Lifespring has actually been sued for mentally harming people - [en.wikipedia.org]

Please can someone tell me, what happens on the 5 day Choices Seminar? I am rather concerned, because I have Bipolar Affective Disorder which has been rather hard to stabilise (only diagnosed less than 2 years ago), and I have heard of certain vulnerable people (maybe people like myself?) Having psychotic episodes during or after attending similar programs- in fact, a recent case in Sydney Australia, occurred where a woman with no prior history of mental illness attended a program called 'Turning Point' & became psychotic and jumped to her death a few days later.
[www.smh.com.au]

If anyone has any information at all about Choices please post on here, anything will be useful. I can see my Sister & her husband are doing well, and there may be benefits in it for me, but I feel like I can't make an informed decision with the veil of secrecy surrounding it.

Many Thanks,

Pinky

Hi Pinky. I took a quick read on this thread.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Speaking only for myself, just from the information given on that thread, as a devout introvert, I would stay away.

There may be no amount of information that will assist you to feel 100% at ease in facing down both your sister and her husband and refusing to attend this thing.

If your sister has a history of dominating you and running guilt trips, that may be what is spooking you, and if she and her husband have both been through an LGAT, that will just be worse.

For some people there is just no way to feel comfortable when saying no to them.

Courage means doing what you know to be the right thing, even when you feel scared.

Fight and flight response is body based, and no amount of information can make it go away. You may have to face them down despite feeling scared.

You dont owe them any explanation. Anything you say, any hint of vulnerablity gets twisted into yet another reason to do an LGAT. If you keep talking, they have an opening.

Being polite does not work when someone is proslytizing for an LGAT. You have to know what is right for you.

The way I see it, you are going to have pain either way.

You're either going to have pain when you face your sister and brother in law and say 'No, I will not attend Choices' they may try to guilt trip you or threaten to cut you off.

You may have to accept that they will be out of your life. But..you wont have to go through Choices. (If you go through Choices and have a horrible time, your sister may dump you anyway.)

Or, you will avoid immediate pain of confrontation with your sister by giving in and doing Choices Seminar, but doing that seminary may bring you very much MORE pain in the form of serious stress, and whatever after effects kick in after the seminar.

As mentioned above, if you do the seminar and have a horrible time and regret doing it, your sister and brother in law may dump you anyway.

I doubt that the Choices people will stick around to help you if you get stressed out afterwards.

If you are unsure, you can choose not to visit your sister and brother in law at all.

If you do visit, make sure to have your own transportation, make certain your cell phone works, and very important, do not stay at their place. Go to a motel where you have control over your own routines.

You can even arrange to book your plane ticket so that if necessary, you can cut the visit short and return home early if things get too bad.

That way you can preserve your personal agency and autonomy--and make a far more powerful set of choices than anything you'd be doing in that seminar.

Dont let your sister pay for you to attend.

Doesnt matter how well off she and her husband are. For all you know, they may be getting special treatment, because they are deep pockets donors.

If you let her pay for you to attend, you're giving power over to your sister and that is no context in which to to achieve actual personal empowerment.

Dont let her pay for you to visit her either--its very hard to assert yourself if someone else is paying your expenses.

I would agree with corboy. Going to Choices will put yourself in a very vulnerable position.