I thank for all the support and information I get here.

I now know Gratitude Training is same thing as Lifespring Training, no matter what Jo Englesson and Francine Raye and Ray Blanchard say.

How do they do it?

People who help with minds, like Psychiatrist and Therapist go to school and get papers. They are approved in some way to help and give processes.

How do Gratitude Training and their trainers and coaches and staff say they help people with their minds and emotions, and have no legit training?

How do they get off with this?

Okay, let me try this again. Here's my guess, (if I am allowed to post this), and it's only a guess:

They HAVE accessed materials dealing with psychological research. Toward the end of the last seminar that I took at L.E., the seminar leader started talking about the next seminar in the series,  saying that it would deal with "brain science." She told us that we would all experience an "amygdala hijack."

There are certain practices that mental health professionals are aware of, but DO NOT use, because they have been determined to be potentially harmful, and have no therapeutic value ~ similar to the way a doctor would not prescribe Schedule 1 drugs, such as LSD.

The psychologist Phillip Zimbardo conducted the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, which he ended early because he decided it was unethical. The Milgram Experiment is another example. Both of these experiments deal with the way that normal adults respond to perceived authority, (it's scary). Reports of these experiments are readily accessible to the public, along with much other literature about unsavory psychological experiments, such as learned helplessness in animals.

Professionals will not use these tactics, constrained as they are by a code of ethics. LGATS are NOT beholden to these ethics, however, and have no regulatory board. They have you sign a form that acknowledges that they are NOT mental health professionals. I have often speculated that this was an end-run around malpractice suits.


[en.m.wikipedia.org]

[www.simplypsychology.org]

Trying to answer. Can I post this???

There are certain techniques that mental health professionals are aware of, but DO NOT use, because they have been determined to be potentially harmful, and have no therapeutic value ~ similar to the way a doctor would not prescribe Schedule 1 drugs, such as LSD.

There have been experiments that deal with the way that normal adults respond to perceived authority, (it's scary).  Reports of these experiments are readily accessible to the public, along with much other literature about unsavory psychological experiments, such as learned helplessness in animals.

Professionals will not use these tactics, constrained as they are by a code of ethics. LGATS are NOT beholden to these ethics, however, and have no regulatory board. They have you sign a form that acknowledges that they are NOT mental health professionals.  I have often speculated that this was an end-run around malpractice suits.

(Sorry about the double post).

They can practice psychiatry and therapy but if they no call it by name they are free to do this with no regulation?

How is this?

What about people who are harmed and who die?

No answer?!? No responsibility?!?

Why can they do this? Why they teach and talk like psychiatric doctor and we have nothing we can do?

People are getting away with this stuff because the world is not wise to their methods. We are doing something, we are educating ourselves.

Freda_Last,

As to how they get by with it, I will try to follow some of the logic of how they get around things legally, (this is only a layman's guess) :

1) Although there are laws against deceptive advertising, they don't publicly advertise, per se. Instead, they train participants to do their advertising. In Landmark,  these participants, (many who sat at phone banks for hours calling people), are in the "Assisting Program," and were not even allowed to refer to themselves as "volunteers."

When all advertising is just "word of mouth," given by non-employees, this gives them the good old "plausible deniability," as they figure that they cannot be held responsible for what non-employees say.   This is in spite of the fact that the LGAT has spent numerous hours training them what, (and what not), to say.

2) In Landmark,  they repeated over and over, ad nauseum, that all participants are responsible for their own well-being. This is in the written waiver that the participants sign before taking the forum, and is also repeated verbally on countless occasions. Once again, they are removing themselves from any liability.

They then turn around and use tactics to make people more submissive, as outlined in my last post on this thread. People are constantly reminded that they have agreed that they are responsible for their own well-being, and pressured to "keep their word," no matter what. Nobody wants to be a whiner.  The way it felt to me, there was something of a "boot camp" mentality. You believe that you are making yourself "tougher."

3) "It never happened." They flat-out lie. They are aware that anything they say, in a conversation between two people ~ with no witnesses ~ will come down to your word against theirs, if you should ever be seated on a witness stand.

They get away with it because people of the cult don't break away and when they do they don't have the will or the means to stand up for what is right. Make no mistake... fraud is fraud and crimes are crimes. You cannot sign these away. These people who go by "coaches" or "mentors" are in actuality counselors. And bad ones at that .

They enter your life far deeper than a traditional counselor would.

"LIFE COACHING" is a huge scam. These are the bottom feeders of these cults and the far out fringe of New Age. They cannot even manage their own lives.

IN NA OR AA you may have a sponsor. You might even have a bad one. but these people are not being paid!! The people who volunteer for these for profit cults are representing the cults and need to be held accountable.

One would think legitimate psychologists should have put up some form of "push back" because it is their business that is being stolen.

"First, do no harm."

People in the helping professions have that in their code of ethics. LGATS don't. I will paste a link about that:

[en.m.wikipedia.org]

Although some of the LGATS may have psychiatric consultants, they do state that they are NOT mental health professionals, (so do not have to adhere to their code of conduct). Here, we are talking about the staff, such as forum leaders, etc, but also other staff members who had no more qualification than Joe Blow on the street.

From what I observed, it seemed that other participants, including my recruiter, were also involved in making observations and adding their two cents as to what my "issues" were. These people were often even less qualified than the staff members.

I believe that I recall my recruiter saying that the reason she thought Landmark was so great was because they would go places that a therapist would not touch with a ten-foot pole. That they do. They will also use tactics that a mental health professional would not, because of the caveat to first do no harm.

This is all done WITHOUT informed consent, and without the knowledge that these tactics even exist, on the part of the participant in question. And they cover their proverbial @sses with the constant reminders that we are responsible for our own well-being.

Given all of that, in my humble opinion, the best thing that one can really do for their own well-being is to stay away from these people. They do a great deal of harm. As to the accountability that they are constantly preaching, they take none at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2017 06:15PM by kdag.