Hi-

I'm new to the forum and I joined because the recent James Arthur Ray deaths stirred up alot in me in
relation to my involvement in and susequent leaving of a Core Energetics Training program.

I was involved in "core" for just shy of three years. The first two years I mostly went to weekend or week long workshops. I got hooked. So the next step was to take the 4 year "Training". Well I didn't even last a year. I saw lots of stuff that was Mega-Creepy, that I am still trying to come to terms with.

It's a long story. And at this point still very hard to talk about.

I got out because I had bad feelings about it and thought it was culty- with a charasmatic therapist guru that has the answers. Lots of weird exercises that had disturbing effects. Everyone began to speak in a sort of psychobabble lingo. No one questioned the validity of the exercises or the purpose. Lots of cathartic acting out of all sorts of feelings that really lead no where. So many people just keep coming back with no real world results.

I feel so unarticulate. But I want to get the word out that I would consider Core Energetics suspect.
Some involved with the program have made a Reality Television series that they are hoping to get on TV soon.
They belive they are changing the world and want to get the word out to the masses.

By the way...Core Energetics is a marriage of Bioenergetics & The Pathwork- so it's a mish mash of body oriented psychotherapy and channelled teachings of the pathwork.

'"Core" is relatively small and has mostly flown under the radar. But I think it needs to e looked at. They charge big bucks and some of the main therapists have no credentials , (other than their own CCEP- Certified Core Energetic Practitioner)and are engaging in dangerous psychological practices.

Anyway thanks for letting me get this out. The past few months have been tough making sense of all I saw and experienced.

Thanks for participating on the forum. The James Ray stuff has rocked me as well.

Would you be willing to share more details about Core Energetics? I just heard the name recently, and I'm curious about it.

Found this link [www.goodtherapy.org] which states that Core Energetics involves "such actions as kicking, punching, holding positions that cause muscles to vibrate and energy to flow, exaggerating postures, making sounds or facial expressions, and connecting statements to movements." Sounds to me like a lot of extreme catharsis, something I'm wary as to the value of therapeutically, let alone the dangers of in terms of cultish groups.

First. Here is the website of the Therapist/Teacher/Director & GROUP I was involved with. This way you can check it out and decide for yourself what you think of it.

Ann Bradney of the Radical Aliveness Core Energetics Institute of Southern California

www.annbradney.com.

I think...after having been involved for 3 years...that it is at the worst Cultish and at best Snake Oil or a bucket with lots of holes.

Several things bothered me and went up as red flags as I was in the intensive 'Training" program.

First the Therapist/Teacher/Director does not appear to have any- what I would at this point call- legitimate credentials. Her only stated credential is CCEP=Certified Core Energetic Practitioner. She does not appear to have any credential in psychology or social work. In one session a man said that he went to see a psychiatrist that diagnosed him with bipolor. He said he didn't agree with the diagnosis and wanted another opinion. He asked the Therapist/Teacher/Director if she knew of any medical doctors/psychiatrists that he could consult with. She said that she did not know of any doctors/psychiatrists. That concerned me because if you are having these intensive therapy GROUPS where you are attempting to get people to break down their defenses and loose control...well what if someone goes too far and has a breakdown or snaps or gets psychologically disoriented and needs treatment. That safety net is not there. There are no back ups.

Another thing about the Therapist/Teacher/Director is the issue of dual relationships. If you were in the Training Program you were required to have 20 therapy sessions with a Core therapist. Most of the people in the training had her as their individual therapist. One person in the training, who is also a private client of the Teacher/Therapist/Director, who is also in the entertainment bussiness decided that he wanted to make meaninful films with his life. He decided that the most meaningful film he could make would be about his Therapist/Teacher and the Core Energetics GROUP experience. So now there is a bussiness relationship between the Therapist/Teacher/Star of the film and the Client/student/producer of the film. Other people from the training are also involved in the film. I thought that dynamic really made a truly theraputic enviornment difficult at best.

There were never adequete discussions about the validity of the theories and ideas that make up core energetics.
I came to have real questions about the validity of the theories, most of which came from Willem Reich and his work on Character Structures. The rest of the basis for Core comes from the channelled teachings of The Pathwork. You can't really question channelled teachings- you almost have to either believe them or not.

The methodologies really seem to lead no where. I'd say just for me they lead no where- but I saw with my own two eyes that people involved 3-10 years were getting nowhere- comming back again and again with- if not with the same issues than with different issues. Infact what really bothered me is that soon outside problems and concerns in people's life's took a backseat to issues that were self generated within the GROUP.

The GROUPS involved lots of catharsis. I'd say the primary goal is to get people into their feelings, their Aliveness. To get people to loose control. Conflict was encouraged, like in 1960's encounter groups. There was lots of heavy breathing, breathwork exercises that lead to more catharsis and acting out. There was lots of dance and movement and some touching and massage and sensuality exercises. There was alot of regression into infantile or childlike states where the therapist & GROUPwould then coddle you making you feel like you were getting now what you didn't get as a helpless child. There were activities that were borrowed from other Cult like or questionable groups: dynamic meditation from Rajneesh/Osho, Kundalini Yoga and David Deida sexual/relational type exercises. Heck...one night we even played Core Energetics Charades.

People started to use jargon and our thinking got structured to fit the beliefs of the teachings.

A man and a woman in the GROUP, both married to people outside the group, began having an affair. A few people, and I was one of them, expressed concern about this affair given the fact that we are in a therapy GROUP/Training. What about boundaries and honesty. We were then made to be the bad ones for "judging."

It all came to a screaching halt for me when the accumulation of these red flags caused me to begin to question the GROUP and the Teacher/Therapist/Director. When I expressed that I felt unhappy with the GROUP I was told it was me, not the GROUP, and that I needed to pay 125 dollars fro 45 minute phone sessions with the Therapist/Teacher/Director to deal with my issues. I never got a chance to state the concerns I had because at that point I felt I had given enough of my cash away and I was not going to be told it was my problem when clearly something was very rotten in Denmark or Santa Monica.

Leaving was tuff and very painful. I got the full on Love Bomb while involved and then the full on Crash Dump when I left. While I was involved the Teacher/Therapist/Director told me over and over and over again how amazing and wonderful and spectacular I was. That I was a Leader. That I was going to be a great therapist one day. That I could lead groups. That she could not imagine the training with out me. When I decided to leave, she said I was just too slow for the group. They were an advanced group moving quickly through deep stuff and perhaps I just wasn't up to speed. The other GROUP members cut me off. I emailed one woman that I thought I had genuinely formed a bond with to tell her that I would miss her. Nothing. She never replied.

I left the GROUP in June and I am still having nightmares. It sucks that I need therapy to deal with my therapy.

There is more so much more- but I think I've said enough.

I have capitolized GROUP for two reasons 1) the film/reality tv show is titled GROUP and 2) The GROUP became this big thing.

Dear Luci,

Thank you for sharing your experience. I had a similar experience with a group here in New York. I think your assessment of "at worst cult" at best "snake oil" is really accurate. I left a year ago myself, and I think this time of year is a little anxiety inducing for me, and also fills me with a great sense of freedom and happiness. I had a dream last night in which I was in one room at a party with all my friends, and in the next room the "group" was meeting. I couldn't leave the party without walking through the group room and I didn't want to be confronted by the group. The dream was in fact, a re-living of what I did a year ago. On the night of the group meeting, I disabled my phone number, and had a group of girlfriends over to celebrate my freedom! It was great, but I carried some guilt about never saying proper goodbyes to people that I really cared about, even if it was in a bad situation.

Since I avoided the Crash Dump with my group I have had these kinds of anxiety dreams about it. Something in me tells me that I wasn't honest or brave enough to face the group when I left, but I believe that something is the collective voice of the group and its leader. No one should have to subject themselves to that kind of abuse.

I have spent a year away from therapy and actually went on anti-depressants for anxiety. I sometimes forget to credit this event and the left over feelings that I have, with some of my anxiety. I came back here to remind myself of what I have been through, and to give respect to my process of separating.

Here are some old threads with some material that you may find illuminating.

An earlier article on Pathwork that was on this message board

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]

Note: if a therapist has no credentials, there's no place where someone can go for arbitration if something goes wrong.

Reading Material on Psychotherapy Issues

[forum.culteducation.com]

Fiduciary Issues

[forum.culteducation.com]

[forum.culteducation.com]

Confidentiality
[forum.culteducation.com]

Therapist Anonymity

[forum.culteducation.com]

Considerations for Professionals Who Serve
Non-Traditional Healing Projects

[forum.culteducation.com]

In 1982, a paper was published by Maurice Temerlin. It is worth finding a copy. Though published nearly 30 years ago, it is worth a peek

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Here is a quotation of the abstract (capsule description of the article)

Quote

Abstract

In 1982, the first and only discussion of psychotherapy cults appeared in the literature. Temerlin and Temerlin (1982) studied five "bizarre" groups which were formed when five practitioners of psychotherapy simultaneously served as friends, lovers, relatives, employers, colleagues, and teachers, all to patients who were themselves mental health professionals. In choosing the term "psychotherapy cult," the authors have noted similarities of the groups they reviewed to some religious cults, citing the three definitions of the "cult" in Webster's 1966 Third New International Dictionary: (1) a system for the cure of disease based on the dogma, tenets or principles set forth by its promulgator to the exclusion of scientific experience or demonstration, (2) great or excessive dedication to some person, idea or organization, (3) a religion or mystic regarded as mysterious or unorthodox.

The psychotherapy cults studied by Temerlin and Temerlin varied from 15 to 75 mental health professionals held together by their idealization of a shared therapist and the activities which they conducted jointly: workshops, seminars, courses, businesses, professional ventures, and social life. As patients became more involved in the social and personal life of their therapists, they gradually withdrew from all friends and family, becoming increasingly dependent on the therapist and their new "siblings." Upon joining the group, many patients felt a sense of being loved and belongingness. The authors described the "cognitive pathology" of idiosyncratic group jargon which served to maintain an illusion of knowledge, sophistication, and personal growth, while removing all ambivalence and uncertainty.

The authors concluded that psychotherapy cult membership is an iatrogenically determined negative effect of psychotherapy. Of the former cult members they interviewed, most had perceived themselves as deteriorating or at an impasse, or had experienced disillusionment with their therapists; however, they were unable to terminate unilaterally because of a pathological symbiosis with the group.

This paper focuses on a now defunct school of psychotherapy which had both much in common with these psychotherapy cults and several contrasting qualities. First, the school was officially led by a junta of psychotherapists, in a deliberate attempt to avoid any taint of a personality cult. Second, the group of patients and therapists was far larger than any referred to in the original study. Third, most patients were not mental health professionals. Fourth, liberal usage was made of many novel techniques identified with the California psychotherapy scene.

PMID: 6096906 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE

A highly informative article here giving case studies of a variety of now defunct groups. Lengthy and needs to be pondered.

But this small quotation is worth our attention:

Quote

....were formed when leaders deviated from an ethically based, fee-for-service, confidential relationship with clients and brought clients together to form cohesive, psychologically incestuous groups. Leaders were idolized rather than transferences studied and understood.

Instead of personal autonomy being encouraged, patients were led into submissive, obedient, dependent relationships with their therapists. Their thinking eventually resembled what Hoffer saw in the "True Believers" (1951) and what Lifton (1961) termed "totalistic."

That is, the clients were induced to accept uncritically their therapists' theories,

[www.icsahome.com]

Finally, Wendy Plump published an essay in last Sunday's magazine supplement to the New York Times describing the effects of having an affair and of discovering ones spouse has had an affair. Ms Plump wrote, stating she had been on both sides of the situation.

Her insight is--people in affairs do indeed judge themselves. (Those who are not utterly and irredemably self centered)

Quote

You will hear yourself saying you cheated because your needs weren’t being met. The spark was gone. You were bored in your marriage. Your lover understands you better. One or another version of this excuse will cross your lips like some dark, knee-jerk Hallmark-card sentiment.

I’m not saying these feelings aren’t legitimate, just that they don’t legitimize what you’re doing. If you believed they did, your stomach wouldn’t drop on your way out the door to your lover’s. You wouldn’t feel the need to shower before climbing into the marital bed after a liaison. You wouldn’t feel like a train had struck you in the back when your son asked why you forgot his lacrosse game the other day.

When you miss a family function because of work, you get over it. When you miss a family function because you were in a hotel room with your lover, you feel breathless with misery.

The great sex, by the way, is a given. When you have an affair you already know you will have passionate sex — the urgency, newness and illicit nature of the affair practically guarantee that.

What you don’t know, or perhaps what you don’t allow yourself to think about, is that your life will become an unbearable mix of yearning and regret because of it. It will be difficult if not impossible to be in any one place with contentment.

This is no way for an adult to live. When you’re with your lover, you’ll be working on your alibi and feeling loathsome. When you’re with your spouse, you’ll be dying to return to your love nest.

Wendy Plump, New York Times, December 9, 2010

But here is another thing Wendy Plump tells us:

Quote

When you are at home, everything in your life will look just a little bit out of register — the furniture, the food in your refrigerator, your children, your dog — because you’ve detached yourself from your normal point of reference, and it now belongs to a reality you’ve abandoned.

Pay close attention to this. Sounds a bit like the disorientation many people report
when they've been through a trauma. Or when they have exposed themselves or been exposed to a very intrusive guru or workshop. These feelings of disorientation can be easily labeled as indications that you're breaking through bonds of conventional thinking and on the way to becoming more evolved or enlightened or liberated.

And if you are feeling guilty as hell for violating your own standards after having been conned to by a charismatic leader--its tempting to believe that old fashioned shame is a signal of enlightenment, not that youve done wrong and need to make amends.

Quote

What each of them says to me now -- Max, Diane, Mary and the others that I interviewed -- is that by this time they had lost, or at least submerged, their ability to sort out what was acceptable and what wasn't.

"One of the things you have to remember is that this is not just a random group of people,'' Diane points out. "Almost everyone got into it because they sought out counseling, and most of the people sought counseling because their families were dysfunctional. These were not people whose lives had been great and then suddenly they lost their job. The self-esteem has been eroded, belief systems were always a little bit shaky, norms are a little bit shaky. For me, I always had feelings of needing a family, wanting a family. So you find your way into counseling and what seems like a family, a wonderful family."

All of which makes people in therapeutic communities like this one particularly vulnerable to what the cult literature calls "thought reform" -- the subtle and gradual remaking of a group's understanding of the world. John Winer, a lawyer who specializes in psychological malpractice, puts it this way: "If the patient is being encouraged to act like a child, they really are like a child -- a child with an abusive parent. Most of the patients that have been abused by therapists had been abused as children. They've lost the ability to recognize abusive situations. They're sitting ducks."

from 'The Group' by Daska Slater

[www.culteducation.com]

Hi -

I posted about a year and a half ago about my experience with Radical Aliveness/Core Energetics.
I recently found out that the movie documentary did not make it to television but will be online soon.
The website is www.sutty.com and right now there are two trailers up.

I'd love some feedbackas to what people think of this.

It really stirred me up watching.

thanks.

I know this is old but thank you especially Luci for being so honest. I started the radical aliveness work this past January. I have been seeing a few red flags which is how I came across this thread. Again thank you, I don't have to wait to see anymore red flags. I did learn alot about myself through the program but I can see how now that they've built me up they will try to knock me down so I become dependent on them. I am getting out while the going is good and it's all because of your honesty Luci. I can see what the future will hold if I stay. Thank you so very much. I hope you get to see this post.