I know that several folks contributing to this board have formal training in sciences and disciplines that deal with the human mind. I envy their knowledge. I have tried to learn about things like multiple personality and bi-polar disorders, manic episodes etc. The whole study of the human mind seem so complex and beyond my understanding. I do know from personal observation that Impact trainings at all levels aggravate in trainees things like agressiveness, agitation, anxiety, belligerence, rage and restlessness. Abstainance from activity in Impact processes has the effect of moderating and diminishing these undesireable things. To me this is a clear cause and effect relationship. Impact Trainings, whatever their apparent short term positive effects, have a long term negative effect when the euphoria of the training room wears off. Impact Trainings are clearly unsafe, carry huge risks of mental harm, are expensive, unregulated and without redeeming merit. They carry many of the qualities of narcotics in that they are addictive and difficult to break away from. I recommend leaving this training alone. The risk to the human mind is just too great, and the advertized benefit over time fails materialize. Follow the money. Those that receive the money are the only beneficiaries, long term and even then they loose because their souls are corrupted by their deceptive and coercive methods. The human mind is too beautiful to manipulate and disfigure with Large Group Awareness Trainings of any kind. Only highly trained mental professionals should be treating mental illnesses and even lesser mental/emotional issues that many Impact Trainees bring to the training room.

That's my lay experience and observation.

My significant other is LMT 3 and trying to get me to jump on board. I know very few people who have done impact but have heard lots of mixed things, which is what lead me here. I know ANY movement has its adherents as well as detractors, but at this point nothing about Impact motivates me to the tune of $500 and a weekend of my precious time. My sig other was drawn there by a previous sig other, who up to this point has been nothing but irrational and hateful toward me and isn't exactly a shining ambassador for the movement. I am on my own journey of discovery and don't feel the need to pay someone to help me realize myself. Do I feel that therapists do wonders? They can. Do I think some people may need the large group mentality? Maybe. Is Impact a cult? That is an answer I am seeking here, but to what end? Many people have no clue on how to get in touch with their emotions and their spirit. I think that is what makes them vulnerable to someone like Hans, as these individuals are opening themselves up for the first time in their lives. The power of an organization like Impact is that it seems to validate the members (after they pay their dues and put in their volunteer time) by allowing them to embrace complete ethical relativism. The concept of the "everything is perfect, in that moment" and the idea that we "think every situation into existence" grants a very shining endorsement of whatever the adherent chooses to embrace at that moment, with no judgment of the merit of that act. It is a teflon-kind of responsibility that allows any behavior to be accepted, no matter how society may view it or who may be hurt in the process. That is a HEADY thing to be handing around and grants a liberty of thought and action that many repressed and non-introspective people have never before had. But is it not a liberty that they earned on their own, through the tough wrestling of morality and in searching their own hearts, but granted by Hans and company for a price, forever linking them to Impact. The Impact folk seem to have a "type," even visible in photographs of the groups. Mormons seem to look a lot alike, too, so perhaps those who flock together shop together...lol. But beyond that, the staff-bearing crystal-wearing crowd needs something in which to channel their spiritual energy. Man has needed props for the religious pageantry since the dawn of time and Impact is no different in that regard. I do wonder if Hans and Sally make a hefty mark-up on the the shiny baubles the sell at these meetings.

Hell, we all need validation. Some people are willing to pay handsomely for it, bypassing the monumental changes they profess to seek in favor of a place where they can be embraced and accepted.

>> My significant other is LMT 3 and trying to get me to jump on board.<<

What's missing from the rest of your post is the realization that this relationship is doomed. Your sigother will choose LMT 3 over you, you will be cast off as being in darkness, unless he/she bails soon; and chances are will get involved only with other LMT3ers from now on, regardless of prohibitions about sexual involvement there.

I hope it all works out for you, but my advice is to run away, far away, from this relationship as quickly as possible.

It is a black hole that will suck your time and money if you get pulled in. And a sigother is the greatest pull of all there, one which Impact knows it must put pressure on and use to gain new recruits.

---Ed



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2009 04:13PM by Impacted.

Here is smalll quotatin from a form issued by a very typical LGAT. The entire thing can be read by accessing the URL.

[groups.google.com];

Note that they refer to bipolar:

Quote

While it is ultimately your choice, OUR ADVISORS STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU SHOULD NOT PARTICIPATE in the Program if you:

(a) have a personal or family history of bi-polar affective disorder (manic-depressive disorder), schizophrenia, acute or chronic
depression or other psychotic disorder, whether or not you or they are being or have ever been treated or hospitalized;


(b) are taking, have taken or been prescribed to take within the previous twelve months anti-anxiety drugs (such as Librium,
Ativan, Klonapin, Xanax, Dormicum or others); anti-depressants (such as Elavil, Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Cipram, Prothiaden or others); anti-psychotics (such as Thorazine, Haldol,
Stelazine, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Dogmatil or others); any medication to treat bi-polar disorders (such as Lithium, Gabapentin or Depakote)

However, this disclaimer did not prevent the boss of a man with bipolar from pressuring him to do this group whose form quoted above advises persons with bipolar not to do it. THe entire discussion though it relates to a different LGAT illustrates the damage done to marital relationships as well as people's jobs, when someone in a position of authority abuses their power to pressure vulnerable employees to go through these programs.

[forum.culteducation.com]



Hopeful Soul wrote

Quote

. I have tried to learn about things like multiple personality and bi-polar disorders, manic episodes etc. The whole study of the human mind seem so complex and beyond my understanding. I do know from personal observation that Impact trainings at all levels aggravate in trainees things like agressiveness, agitation, anxiety, belligerence, rage and restlessness. Abstainance from activity in Impact processes has the effect of moderating and diminishing these undesireable things. To me this is a clear cause and effect relationship. Impact Trainings, whatever their apparent short term positive effects, have a long term negative effect when the euphoria of the training room wears off. Impact Trainings are clearly unsafe, carry huge risks of mental harm, are expensive, unregulated and without redeeming merit. They carry many of the qualities of narcotics in that they are addictive and difficult to break away from.

If you want to learn more about bipolar, there are some authors who have provided insider descriptions of what it is like to live with the condition.

Kate Jamison is one.

And a new and compelling description is given in a newly published memoir by Marya Hornbacher, entitled Madness: A Bipolar Life.

What is amazing about Hornbacher's description was how she reported her using hectic social scenes as a way to enhance her own manic episodes. She had one two year manic episode and part of how she kept it going was to hang out for those two years in San Francisco during the Dot Com Boom. She had money, and raced around with other rich young people in the technology and arts scene who lived lives of perpetual motion. Someone who was manic could fit right in. Later in that phase Hornbacher hung out with eccentric artists who worked like maniacs in school and then partied and drank all night. She surfed not only on her own manic biochemistry, but found people just like her.

Some years ago, I had an e-mail conversation with a person who had bipolar. My informant told me she worked in Silicon Valley and fit right in with job settings full of other bipolar people. She said she was convinced that revolutions and economic booms may often be ignited by persons with bipolar.

Yet another informant told me she was convinced that lots of persons who start LGATs may have the condition as well--they thrive on staying up all night.

the other thing I learned reading Hornbacher was that she often had amnesia after coming down from manic episodes. She was unable to learn from mistakes she'd made when riding high. Its like having a fiendishly clever dope dealer inside your own bloodstream.

****If you read Hornbacher's book, you do need to keep in mind that she has the most severe form of bipolar--ultra rapid cycling Bipolar 1.

So if you or others reading this thread have bipolar, by all means learn from Hornbachers account but dont panic. You may have a much less severe form of the condition. And you may well have had fewer episodes and have a very much more treatable form.

Hornbacher wrote that book precisely because she now wishes she had better understood when younger that the more manic breaks she went through the worse her condition would progress. So she wrote her book to assist readers to see the consequences for her so that they could use her story to make a better informed decision for themselves.

The other thing to keep in mind when reading Hornbacher's book is that she apparently got her first symptoms when only 4 years old, back in the 1970s when no one dreamed that young children could have such a condition. It also seems to have run in her family.

What Hornbacher regrets tis that she not only had bipolar (and, too often, it had her) for over twenty years before her condition was correctly diagnosed, but that for years after diagnosis she continued to ignore recommendations from her prescribing psychiatrist which resulted in several more manic episodes.

This said, Hornbacher tells us in her facts list at the back of the book that according to one set of statistics about 2% of the US population may have some varient of the condition and that on the average, people suffer the conditoin for 10 years before being correctly diagnosed.

She also lists the things her prescribing psychiatrist told her she had to do to reduce the frequency of manic episodes. According to her health care provider, bipolar is a true medical physical condition in which the brains circadian (day night/sleep wake cycle) is unusually subject to disruption. Its like having a disordered thermostat that generates rapid fluctuations in tempreture.

*Get seven to eight hours of sleep each night. Every night.

*Avoid caffeine

*Avoid stress. Dont try to do everthing at once.

*Stop using alcohol and other recreational drugs. Alcohol cancels out
the effects of the psych medications and aggravates mood swings

* Take the medications

Flying through time zones is hazardous. Years ago on the Craigslist health forum one person told his that he or she had their first bipolar swing when young, as a result of taking a plane flight from the US to Australia. Imagine having that happen when you are thousands of miles from home.

A young person who unknowlingly has inherited genetic loading for bipolar may get involved with an LGAT and then flip out as a result of the combined stress and having sleep disrupted due to the late hours or assigned 'homework' that keeps them up past their bedtime.

For this reason alone, participating in an LGAT that disrupts sleep would be a dangerous thing for anyone to do if they are genetically susceptible to bipolar.

Note: Bipolar is not the same as Borderline Disorder. The two are often confused.

Bipolar is a disorder of the circadian rhythms. Often its onset is seasonal, is made worse by disruption in sleep and by any sort of stress. Quite a few people with bipolar report that they are vulnerable to manic swings at a particular time of year.

Borderline is caused by serious disruptions in parenting when a child is between ages 0 and 18 months. What triggers borderline freakouts is fear of abandonment.

It is possible for both bipolar and borderline personality disorder to occur in the same person --if say you inherit biochemical loading for bipolar, and your care as a baby is disrupted by your mother having bipolar and her being incapacitated by depression and unable to ensure age appropriate trust when you are between ages 0 and 18 months.


bipolar is genetic

borderline is brought about by disordered parent child relationships.

Both are treatable if the person has insight into their condition, concern for the impact on other persons and is honest enough to recognize where he or she does possess agency and humble enough to recognize where he or she needs to request help.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2009 11:50PM by corboy.

corboy,

You have hit the nail on the head for me. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is something I had never heard of, but it fits the issue I am dealing with in someone. Fear of abandonment and a disorderd parent child relationship are clear factors here. The fit is much clearer to BPD than bi-polar in that the mental and emotional instability/mood swings are shorter term, 24-72 hours. You have my profound gratitude for your last post here. Even though I am a layman when it comes to psychology, I see a close fit to BPD that I will persue.

I can now begin to understand how Impact Trainings has aggravated definite BPD symptoms of this person. The first critical step in solving any problem is to define and undertand the problem. This is an AH! moment for me. Thanks again.

Impact is a cult with steep life ramifications the higher up you go. I ought to know, I was involved in level III for a year. I have read everything here and am glad to hear it from the other side of the fence, no matter how difficult it is to extract oneself from that cultish mentality of recruiting and our 'family' interests. The people at the top don't like to hear this, but they are not all motivated out of light and love that they preach.

>>but they are not all motivated out of light and love that they preach.<<

:)

Here is the understatement of the forum award of the day!!

--Ed

Enrollment in Quest has declined further to the point that there is no advertized waiting list to get into the 11 Feb. 2009 class. Is it the economy, or is there a possibility that potential trainees are doing their homework and checking out the the ample information out there on the undesireable side effects and mental health safety risks posed by Impact Trainings and all LGATs? I recommend that Impact Trainings pull their product from the market just as Merck voluntarily pulled Vioxx from the marked in 2004. Merk paid out $4.85 billion to settle lawsuits over the use of Vioxx. The side effects of Vioxx, which seemed to give increased risk of cardiovascular events, outweighed the benefits of reduced pain from rheumatioid arthritis. Vioxx is no longer available in the U.S. Oh, that Impact were no longer available in the U.S. The much touted benefits of Impact Training could never outweigh the increased risk of mental damage done by the Impact PROCESS. I say that Impact has done more damage to folks than Vioxx ever did; it's just that no government regulatory agency is chartered to step in and protect the public from LGATs. The courts should be able to bring justice in the end. So--Impact--Just voluntarily withdraw your product from the market. The demand is declining anyway. The same thing happened to Postum, when folks stopped drinking it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2009 10:26AM by Hopeful Soul.

Maybe it's their awful yellow billboard that's scaring people away. Saw it on the way home from visiting a cousin tonight.

Looks like Sally designed it based on her colors of abundance lecture.

and what happened to the hotel and restaurant three story (taller than the Draper temple) training center they were building last year? Maybe they don't have a waitlist because they're putting in 300 a month now?!?!

:)

--Ed