This was on another group and I found it interesting. Any thoughts from anyone in regards to this form of therapy that has been illiegalized in some states?

Is this form of therapy used in MKP? If this form of therapy is used in MKP do they have fully licenced and trained facilitators involved during the session? Do they continue to monitor the person for adverse side effects of the therapy?

If so I would like to hear from anyone that has been involved in regards to how they found the experience and was it helpful to them or the person using this type of therapy?

Has anyone talked to someone that has had negative experience with this type of therapy?

Has anyone talked with someone that has had positive experiences with this type of therapy?

Quote

Re: Question, did any of you have to imitate being born?
Did any of you have to imitate being born, ex. (Like that you were a baby pushing through a birth canal??

Rebirth' therapy banned
Under the new law, therapists who use the rebirthing technique will face misdemeanor criminal charges on a first offense. Repeat offenders will be charged with a felony.

AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION OPPOSES "RE-BIRTHING" TREATMENT
Psychiatrists Warn Coercive Therapy Can Be Fatal

Washington, DC --There is no scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of coercive holding therapies, or so-called "re-birthing techniques," said the American Psychiatric Association in a position statement on Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). The position statement was approved by the APA Board of Trustees in late June.

Re-birthing techniques have been used in some cases. Strong clinical evidence suggests that coercive therapy is not therapeutic and can even be fatal, the APA said.

Coercion therapy involves wrapping a person tightly in a blanket or other material for extended periods in an effort to simulate rebirth.

"Re-birthing techniques have no place in psychiatric treatment," says Paul S. Appelbaum, M.D., APA president. "These extreme methods pose serious risk and should not be used under any circumstances."

Ginah, I will try to find the article on some forum where it was being discussed about a man who died during carpet work. I do not know if it was a "re-birth" or not.

My memory tells me he was suffocated, but I am not sure of that. I read this a long time ago.

the problem with alot of these non-mainstream educational or transformational processes is that there is no standardization. Try to find out the difference between attachment therapy, breathwork, rebirthing, and birth re-enactment. I believe what the APA is denouncing is attachment therapy which is the restraint and coercion of children with reactive attachment disorder. This may or not be the same as a psychodrama revolving around the birth process. Who knows, because there is no standardization within the naming of these processes much less within the practice of them. Medicine, psychiatry and psychology are far from being free from bias and anectdotalism, but at least the FDA can have some control over the distribution of unproven medical treatments, who oversees the delivery of anecdotally successful educational or transformational experiences?

Quote
ginah
This was on another group and I found it interesting. Any thoughts from anyone in regards to this form of therapy that has been illiegalized in some states?

Is this form of therapy used in MKP? If this form of therapy is used in MKP do they have fully licenced and trained facilitators involved during the session? Do they continue to monitor the person for adverse side effects of the therapy?

If so I would like to hear from anyone that has been involved in regards to how they found the experience and was it helpful to them or the person using this type of therapy?

Has anyone talked to someone that has had negative experience with this type of therapy?

Has anyone talked with someone that has had positive experiences with this type of therapy?

Quote

Re: Question, did any of you have to imitate being born?
Did any of you have to imitate being born, ex. (Like that you were a baby pushing through a birth canal??

Rebirth' therapy banned
Under the new law, therapists who use the rebirthing technique will face misdemeanor criminal charges on a first offense. Repeat offenders will be charged with a felony.

AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION OPPOSES "RE-BIRTHING" TREATMENT
Psychiatrists Warn Coercive Therapy Can Be Fatal

Washington, DC --There is no scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of coercive holding therapies, or so-called "re-birthing techniques," said the American Psychiatric Association in a position statement on Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). The position statement was approved by the APA Board of Trustees in late June.

Re-birthing techniques have been used in some cases. Strong clinical evidence suggests that coercive therapy is not therapeutic and can even be fatal, the APA said.

Coercion therapy involves wrapping a person tightly in a blanket or other material for extended periods in an effort to simulate rebirth.

"Re-birthing techniques have no place in psychiatric treatment," says Paul S. Appelbaum, M.D., APA president. "These extreme methods pose serious risk and should not be used under any circumstances."

Quote
feldspar
the problem with alot of these non-mainstream educational or transformational processes is that there is no standardization. Try to find out the difference between attachment therapy, breathwork, rebirthing, and birth re-enactment. I believe what the APA is denouncing is attachment therapy which is the restraint and coercion of children with reactive attachment disorder. This may or not be the same as a psychodrama revolving around the birth process. Who knows, because there is no standardization within the naming of these processes much less within the practice of them. Medicine, psychiatry and psychology are far from being free from bias and anectdotalism, but at least the FDA can have some control over the distribution of unproven medical treatments, who oversees the delivery of anecdotally successful educational or transformational experiences?

I have done some research on this and from what I can really tell those who use these types of techniques such as "breathwork", "rebirthing" etc do not use the techniques of wrapping a person in a blanket etc. They involve differing breathing techniques.

As well, and maybe I just need to search some more, I have not found any licenced trained therapist, counselors, psychologist that use this technique.

“Rebirthing is breathwork. In a rebirthing session the rebirthee focuses on maintaining a connection between inhale and exhale, breathing as fully as possible for an hour or more. No one is wrapped in a blanket and forced to fight their way out.

Their are "new age" groups that use the techniques of wrapping a person in a blanket. I will continue searching and see if their are any true licenced therapist that feel this form of therapy with anyone of any age is helpful.

I was not asking about the "other" forms of rebirthing and what they mean. I was asking about the technique of wrapping a person in a blanket (child or adult) and forcing them to "fight their way out". Is this the general idea of the technique that MKP uses, why, who has done so, positive or negative benefits etc.

As well, do they use these techniques on boys during the boys to men weekend?

[i:062477bd0f]The rebirthing process starts with the man who is to be reborn being
told to take off all his clothes. So that he won't feel out of
place being the only man there naked, another man often will take
off all his clothes to stand there to "support" the naked man. A
womb is created. This consists of a blanket with other men holding
down and kneeling on the edges. The naked man is told to get under
the blanket. All four sides of the blanket are held down by several
men. The man under the blanket is then told to crawl under the
blanket to one end of the blanket which will be the opening of the
womb. As the man crawls and tries to get out from under the
blanket, the men kneeling and holding on to the edge of the blanket
are instructed to make it difficult for the man under the blanket to
simulate the birthing process. They push against the movement of
the man making his progress difficult.

When the naked man emerges from the womb he must go down the birth
canal. This consists of men on their hands and knees lined up in a
row. The naked man crawls through the tunnel made by the bodies of
these men. The men who are the birth canal are again instructed to
make the progress of the naked man difficult, more "authentic" they
would say. They push against him and try to make him struggle
simulating birth.

At the end of the birth canal, there is a warrior who represents the
doctor. He is encouraging the naked man to come out. There is also
a warrior who represents a nurse. When the naked man finally makes
it all the way out, they rub baby powder on his rear end and wrap
him in a blanket. Then the "doctor" and "nurse" bring the man to
warriors represent his mother and father. They say to
the "parents," you have a son. The "parents" hug and kiss him all
over. They then hold him and present him to everyone. At that
time all of the men who were helping being the womb and birth canal,
line up and walk by the "parents" and "baby" and say, "what a
beautiful son."

When this is over, a senior leader will come and speak to
the "reborn" man and say that his real parents were bad and that
they didn't love him. He is now reborn into the warrior community.
The warriors are now his family, his parents and that they will love
him. The warriors will give him the love his real parents never
gave him.

The "baby" and "parents" then can go off by themselves for some more
hugging and cuddling, if he wants. At the end the man is allowed to
sit by himself so that he can absorb the "love" that he got from the
warriors. One man is assigned to bring him water and something to
drink and make him comfortable by sitting on pillows and wrapping
him in a blanket.

I have seen this process also performed in an I group, but since
there were less men there to help, they only did the blanket part
and skipped the baby powder and some other things.

One thing that I want to point out that is a common thread in MKP is
the part where they say your family was bad and didn't love you and
that you can now find "real love" from MKP. My carpet work process
was for me to kill my father. After I "killed" him, the senior
leader said that my father was bad and didn't love me and that I
could find "real love" from MKP. At that point, I was totally
physically and mentally exhausted, not to mention hungry and tired,
and would have believed anything. After the leader said that, all
the men gathered in a circle around me and smiled. The leader made
me turn and look at each of them while he said, this is where you
will find real love. We will love you now. Then they approached me
and hugged me and held me, one by one. I was hugged by dozens of
men who also said that they loved me. I began to cry.[/i:062477bd0f]

This was copied from a post on a Yahoo Chat Forum. The man who wrote this was in MKP for 3 years before he got out.

On the subject of "rebirthing"

I have read of LGAT's using the blanket technique. I do not believe a valuable expereince can be obtaoned by force or coercion.

On the other hand I have experienced a rebirth while "on the couch". The therapist was using a guided imagery technique with me. A techinique we had used before. In a deep relaxed state on prior occasion I had found deeply buried emotions and memories and was able to process them to help me reorient towrds a happier healthier, less conflicted state. On the day of the rebirth, the rebirth experience was not sought or guided. It just happened. After the event I had an emotional clearing and discovered within myself a path to follow that I follw to this day 20 years later. Before therapy Iwas an unhappy professional. After the therapy I dedicated my life work to education, which as a medical educator I practice today.

The emotional clarity, the sensation of conflict can be embedded in the deep conscious from birth. I have discussed thiese expereinces with clinical and academic psychologits. All agree the event for me was real and enlightening.

Can this be packaged in a weekend seminar to a group of 30 people. I doubt it. Everyone's faith and spirit journey is unique. Can an LGAT weekend be part of that journey. I believe yes. As they say in the literature, it is not for everyone.

DonR, I understand your rebirthing experience was good, and I think I understand why it was good. However, the circumstances around your experience and what I wrote about are completely different.

It appears you were with a professional therapist that you had been seeing for a while. Someone who knew your background, someone you trusted, and had formed a bond with.

This is not what I posted. This was an experience on a NWTA weekend. Where one is disoriented, has not ever met these people before, has no long term bond with. These are not trained therapists. The men doing this might be construction workers, engineers, accountants, etc. They are following a script written for them by someone. They do not have any insight into a person's background. They have no skills to help this man work thru any "dangerous" backlash experiences. The man is sent home the next day, with no follow up as to how he is doing.

Inexperienced strangers doing intense therapeutic work on someone they have no deep background information on.

I do not know how long you had seen your therapist before this happened, but imagine if you went to him/her, and on the first visit, with no knowledge of where you are coming from, they wanted to conduct this "rebirthing" on.

I am positively sure that someone will yell at me for this, but here goes. I did a search for public records in regards to irs etc forms. This was not easy and has taken me a very long time to do. MKP is not very open about their money situation. I have gotten my information from PUBLIC records, and legal for me to read and tell to others.

Most places did not have any forms that I could find. As well, these are all non profit groups, which I don't know if the taxation rate etc is any different or what the benefits they get are. I really wish that someone who understood this stuff would look at it all.

Some groups claimed they did not have to file taxes as they "made under the amount" legally necessary to file. Most of the ones I looked at did not make much sence to me. Though for sure I am not a # person or tax person and it seems a bit confusing to me. They had TONS of money, but made claims that I do not understand how they got away with. One of the groups that I found showed some numbers and stuff that I did not really understand. IE: Gross receipts from admissions, merchandise sold or services performed $2,173,950.00 I could not really tell if this was an amount that they profited? or what. If I look at the total revenue on another it reads $2,002,028.32 Remember, they seem to do these separately. Like, they are not all taxed on one form so that amount above is not all of MKP. Each group (area) seems to do their own. So, from what I could tell, this was just the MKP profits from one group in California and they had several groups.

One MKPers name I have seen several places. He seems to be so so high up and from this one MKP group his earned income from them for the year was over $80,000.00. I do not know how much time the man "worked" for MKP as this was on the MKP forms and not his personal "taxes". So as far as I know he has some other "job" as well, or makes money from more than one MKP group, or not.

Yes, I have heard it said that this is not much money for a person to live on. But I can tell you that it is far far far more than I will ever pretend to make, and it sure as he** would make my life much easier if I made any where near that amount of money a year. Well, if I made that much money just ONCE.

I don't know, the numbers kind of get confused in my mind, but this really seems like an awful lot of money from one or two MKP group areas for them to be hollering at us that "they are not all about the money".

Thoughts? Ideas? Do you think I am reading these forms incorrectly?

Just a little hello. The thread has been a little quiet lately. Hope everyone is doing OK.

Quote
ginah
Self-help for women? It’s a scream

At the centre, we were instructed first in personal-safety guidelines. We were never to leave our group and had to be accompanied by a staff member on trips to the loo. If we were suicidal, we must tell someone. If someone tried to commit suicide, an ambulance would be called. Self-harm and violence against others were off-limits. Wounds had to be covered, to prevent the spread of HIV. These guidelines seemed unnecessary. Only when the night’s first ritual was over did I see that they weren’t.

Why the concern about HIV? I guess the women were as naked as happens in MKP. But what was the problem with sexually transmitted infections et al?