A story has now just broken on [www.cultnews.com] about Landmark Education and the IRS. It seems high-ranking staffers at IRS in Seattle became involved with Landmark through taking the Forum and then started recruiting their subordinates. IRS employees were told "the government will pay for it." What do you think of taxpayer money being used to pay for Landmark Forum seminars? What do you think of employees of any company being pushed to take large group awareness training from some company like Landmark or some other "human potential" seminar business?

Something about having IRS officers learn a new language, such as, stop running a racket and pay what we think you owe, is creepy. Having to pay them with my tax dollars to send them to LF should be illegal. - Hope

If this is true, it could create a spiritual and legal quagmire/nightmare. First, various reports in the RR.com database indicate that LGATs such as Landmark Forum can high-pressure, indoctrination experiences.

Many former participants report theyve found such experiences unpleasant.

Some participants have had stress reactions and have needed psychotherapy to cope with this. Not enough LGATs pre-screen to determine whether someone is likely to benefit or be hurt by participating, and they do not take care to ensure care and follow up for persons have have been hurt.

I am not a mental health professional, but am a somewhat educated lay person with some personal experience in these matters. My take is that persons who have suffered from abusive personal relationships and especially persons who are susceptible to dissociative reactions and trance when put under stress might risk adverse reactions to an LGAT --and many of us have this type of personal history.

Still others would have valid reason to wish to avoid LGAT participation because this type of indoctrination runs counter to their own, self chosen spiritual practices.

The tough question is, how the IRS (and other companies) will deal with employees who have valid reason to abstain from participating in Landmark. How do they get excused? Provide a note from their psychotherapist? Most of us prefer to keep this confidential. In my case, Id supply a note from the Zen priest who advises me on practice, and this would oblige me to reveal I am a Buddhist. In my part of the country, this is not a problem but in other parts of the country where Buddhists are a distinct minority, this would be a problem.

And there is the problem of creating 'a hostile workplace environment.' The employees who do not participate risk finding themselves marginalized at work because they will not share the jargon or the 'group trance' that results from participating in the group.

Corboy,

You make some very good points. As far as screening, Landmark does have an "informed consent", so to speak, for people intent on taking the Forum. It's more to cover Landmark's butt, but it also could come off as looking as if Landmark people care. There is no information given as to why Landmark Forum might be so stressful, yet they want to know if you are well enough to sustain their program. If you fill out the forms and say you are not, then you are guaranteed multiple phone calls from Landmark volunteers who will bend over backwards to convince you that you are indeed well enough to do the Forum. It is precisely the people who are apprehenisve or state they have an illness, that Landmark targets, as they did with me. After I read their consent form, I called to get my deposit back. It was then that the volunteers insisted that I would get a lot out of LF based on the symptoms I was gave them. After going through LF and crashing into a deep depression about three days afterwards, I mustered up enough strength to call and complain. I got a full refund, but it only covered part of the therapist's fees that I ended up incurring.

During the Forum and afterwards, talking with other attendees, I noted that LF considers physical illness to be one's "racket" it's a crutch they use to keep them from being responsible for themselves. How could this possibly be helpful to someone?

During my closing night, Tuesday, the night we were supposed to bring guests, the LF leader does a little skit on the idea of choice - we make choices and we don't have to give reasons. Perhaps, IRS employees should simply say, I choose not to take LF, which is what LF states we should all be doing.

You did Landmark, and 'been there', so your report is especially valuable.

You dont have to reply if you dont wish, but--how long did it take for you to recover from the adverse effects of participating in Landmark? Was anything you did or your therapist did especially helpful in aiding your recovery?

Hi Corboy,

You are absolutely correct about Landmark not being suitable for those who have suffered abuse, and that is abuse of any kind - verbal, emotional, physical. According to my therapist, about the only suitable candidate would be a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder, as LF would give them reason to step back and look at themselves, but even then, if it's something that's been going on a long time, the body's chemistry will have changed and will maintain the disorder.

I'm still recovering, but part of the problem is, the doctor I went to for about 1-1/2 years basically used Landmark "technology" on me as part of therapy - but at the time, I did not know that's what he was doing. He mentioned LF at my second visit, and didn't mention it again until a year later, when he was adamant about me going, even offering to pay for it, which made me feel very uncomfortable. He did not use their terminology - like rackets or winning formula, but he defined my condition by Landmark's technology - my physical condition was my "racket" (was keeping me from doing what I wanted to do in life) and my "winning formula" was my way of plugging along, playing this martyr so that I would look good, even though I was suffering. There was a woman at LF who was raped and afraid of life. The LF people said that was an event and her life was the "story" about the event - in other words - get over it. My doctor basically said the same thing. Pretty unbelievable.

What is unbelievable is I fell for it (there are a lot of details I cannot put here), which is where I think Landmark is dangerous. People who are codependent (excellent info on this is at [www.drirene.com]) will hook onto anything. What I did not realize was happening was a pattern of self-bashing that when I finally got to LF became worse. I had many discussions with volunteers about my doctor and they repeatedly asked "what I was getting out of making him wrong." This is nuts. But they have a way of making you think you just have not been getting it all along, and that there is something wrong with how you think, and then you feel bad and stupid - it's thought control.

My doc is a narcissist, if not a sociopath (more details I cannot give). THESE kinds of people like LF because they are relieved of responsibility for hurting others. If the person they are hurting complains, the LF person will tell them to stop running a racket. Or, if the person that is being hurt is no longer useful to the LF-trained person, they dump them. In psychology, this is called narcissistic supply (also on the drirene site AND indirectly in an excerpt from the book Wolf in Sheeps Clothing on the Rick Ross site.

I'm still working things through with the therapist, and am actually considering going to a psychiatrist to get an antidepressant, because LF and this doc have affected my thinking. It would be nice to be able to just stop thinking everything is my fault, but it's been very difficult. Never thought I would believe in brainwashing, but I think for someone like me who was vulnerable at tht time, that exactly what happened.

I'm happy to keep corresponding on this.

Hope

Dear Hope, it is appalling that you were referred to LF by a psychotherapist. The whole point of being a psychotherapist is to function as a professional on behalf of the client's best interests. The therapist should never, ever have a hidden agenda of recruiting/evangelizing for a belief system that has never been approved for use in psychotherapy.

There is a remarkable article on Rick's website entitled 'The Group'. If you type the title into the search slot, you should be able to pull it up. It may creep you out if you are still very raw from what you have been through, so you may want to flag it for further reading. The article describes a group of therapists who were in a cultic relationship to an under-the-radar guru. They referred their patients to him, and used his advice to guide the psychotherapy they did. This character was not a mental health professional. Several clients were quite wounded and sued. This happened in California.

If you want to understand the nature of boundary issues in the provider/client relationship I can recommend two books. One is quite readable and meant for the educated layman. The second is quite technical and was written by a psychiatrist. I am not a mental health professional, but had my perspective somewhat scrambled by a messy, borderline cultic relationship with a spiritual director. I did a lot of reading to try to give myself concepts and a vocabulary to cope with what was going on.

1) At Personal Risk by Petersen--excellent.

2) Keeping Boundaries: Maintaining Safety and Integrity in the Psychotherapeutic Relationship Epstein

If you like the authors, you might consider writing to them to tell them what was done to you. Your situation is the kind that should be covered in the Continuing Education/Ethics courses that all therapists are required to take, so as to maintain their credentials. And mental health professionals should be made to understand that if they allow themselves to become recruiters for venal outfits like LF or some other type of guru, the've ceased to be psychotherapists.

My therapist follows a spiritual path and recommended that I learn to meditate, but he never in any way tried to get me involved with his spiritual community. I found one on my own.

Hi Corboy,

At this point, nothing creeps me out, and I'm trying to read everything I can, so thank you very, very much for the recommendations.

I need to clarify something. The doctor I saw was a naturopathic physician, with premed training and a doctoral degree from a naturopathic university. He was not altogether truthful about the content of his training, now is his university and the American Assoc. of Naturopathic Physicians. That is another story. I believe in mind-body medicine, the power of meditation, the body's ability to heal itself, however, I also know that unskilled therapists can do more damage than good. This guy was definitely a wolf in sheep's clothing (also on this site, an excerpt by George Simon's book). It took me months of therapy to realize how much into Landmark Education this guy was - even after going to LF myself I could not see why they were defending him. The volunteers probably know him!!

Landmark and gurus of all types have the potential to do great damage because they simply ignore what the field of psychology knows about how the mind works. I'm planning on submitting my story to this site, but I've also started working with a group dedicated to enacting legislation (The Health Freedom Act), that would require all nontraditional "health" practitioners to provide a patient bill of rights, noting the background and education of the practitioner, and how to handle a complaint. Rhode Island passed it. The director was interested in my experience with Landmark but we did not go into detail yet. I've referred him to this site. He is at [www.naturalhealth.org.] Landmark seems to think they can "disappear" headaches and other health problems, like depression, so - is that practicing medicine without a license :) ?

Getting back to the origins of this link, will the IRS make their employees disappear illness so they don't miss work? What an unbelievably horrible idea to have them attend LF.

I appreciate your correspondence,
Hope

Dear Hope, your story would be valuable, precisely because you illustrate the problems that arise when a health care provider elicits trust, then uses the provider patient relationship as a 'point of recruitment' to serve a covert agenda that is NOT in the patient's best interests.

The problem is when a provider has bought into a cult or cultic relationship and does sincerely believe that recruiting serves the patient's best interests. It is still wrong.

THat is why I would like to see this covered in ethics training that is part of the continuing education requirments for all professionals: recognition that if someone is your patient or client, the sanctity of their spiritual lives must never, ever be intruded on. The person sought out a relationship with you, for a specific service(italics) not to be recruited into your belief system.
Your belief system may enable you to function as physician or a therapist, but the belief system is NOT the same as the service you provide, and should be kept separate. If you cant keep the distinction in mind, you should not hang out a shingle to practice as a professional.

But, the issues are murky. Thats why this needs to be addressed in ethics training and the CE credentialling.

Corboy, It's especially murky when it comes to "holistic medicine." While I know my doctor had classes in ethics, there are many folks out there professing to be spiritual guides, gurus, healers, energy healers, bodyworkers, etc. and God only knows what their training has been. You know there are no CE courses for them. Another huge problem is they are all, under the guise of mind-body medicine, practicing psychotherapy without being analyzed themselves, and without a license. My doctor had me reading a lot of Alan Watts, an author I got a kick out of, and I've noticed a lot of alternative medicine people are into Alan Watts. Werner Erhardt, the founder of EST, and Alan were good friends. I recognized a lot of what I read in Alan Watts' books in my Landmark Forum weekend. So I can see referrals to Landmark increasing among the alternative crowd.

I attended something called "The Prophets" conference back in 5/01, which had Huston Smith, Ram Dass, Oriah Mountain Dreamer - all these big names in spiritual healing - and it was well attended by psychiatrists and psychologists, all who were too eager to step up to the mike and boast about their experiences with patients with psychadelic drugs and philosophical counselling. It's a scary thought to think what goes on their sessions and that they could be turning their clients on to Landmark, LSD, etc.

My current REAL therapist mentioned that more and more studies are coming out on the problems of psychological damage of people attending Landmark. I haven't read anything myself yet. But I'm going to discuss the idea that they are practicing psychology without a license with the consumer advocate I've been in contact with.

Take care, and feel free to email me.
Hope