Here's the post to which I was referring. Note the typical Landmark response.
Ellen
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forums.delphiforums.com]
From: xformed 6/5/2002 11:17 pm
To: Jelly Beanz (AFLCOMMUNITY) (3 of 82)
1101.3 in reply to 1101.1 On Monday (session 7 of the creativity seminar), a woman told about her uncle sexually molesting her when she was young. The seminar leader reframed it into what happened and story. There is no rape or molestation in the what happened domain, there is only bodies rubbing together. In some cultures this is perfectly fine.
Now I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the philosophy of radical constructivism. But in this case the woman's thoughts, feelings, self-esteem issues, etc are merely discounted as a"story". And I think that in the way this seminar is being presented that a "story" is implied as an error in cognitive thinking.
I don't think this woman is getting anything resolved. This isn't the place/method for it. I expressed my reservations about the interaction with the seminar leader after the evening was over and said that the woman's feelings about the rape were not being addressed. The seminar leader said this was ontology not psychology. I said that this dealt with human behavior which sure as heck by definition was psychology. I then asked her to explain the difference and was told that this wasn't supposed to deal with the woman's feelings.
I then suggested that the woman probably needed therapy. I was told that this was better than therapy and how people who had been 10-20 years in therapy had been fixed by this. I said that they probably had bad therapists. Then I was told I was using a winning formula.
I mentioned that in the form we filled out for the Forum, it said that it would not address issues that were best handled by professionals. I said that childhood sexual abuse is probably out of bounds.
I am disappointed that the use of the term "story" has a negative implication that people's thoughts, feelings, etc are invalid and a cognitive error. I also do not like the woman being told that in some cultures "bodies rubbing together" (i.e. rape) is OK which definitely implies the woman has a cognitive thinking error by being upset by the incident.