MITT Today
Posted by:
ccarr
()
Date: October 26, 2006 06:43AM
Is anyone on this post currently involved with MITT in Marina Del Rey? Or do you know someone who is? If so, what's the experience been like? I notcied there were a lot of posts in 2003 / 2004 and none recently.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
happyguy
()
Date: June 09, 2008 02:47AM
Trust me, MITT is alive and well on Fiji Way. I have recently had the misfortune to be coerced by my place of employment to take thier 5 day "training". There is no way out of it. If you know of any tips you could give me, I'd really appreciate it. I don't want to come out of this thing damaged.
Thanks alot.
Thanks alot.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
nettie
()
Date: June 10, 2008 02:21AM
Just say "no - I choose not to do that training".
An employer cannot force their workforce to parttake in such a training as MITT or whatever LGAT they try to promote.
The bad part of it is that you may have to quit your job.
But please investigate here on rickross and other places. I have never heard of MITT before but my suspicion is that it is an offspring of landmark or scientology or an offspring off an offspring.
Keep cool and just delay your participation if neccessary. Act as you may go in the future but not right now. Then if the employer forces you you should contact a lawyer to see if they can do that. It shouldn't be the case.
An employer cannot force their workforce to parttake in such a training as MITT or whatever LGAT they try to promote.
The bad part of it is that you may have to quit your job.
But please investigate here on rickross and other places. I have never heard of MITT before but my suspicion is that it is an offspring of landmark or scientology or an offspring off an offspring.
Keep cool and just delay your participation if neccessary. Act as you may go in the future but not right now. Then if the employer forces you you should contact a lawyer to see if they can do that. It shouldn't be the case.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
nocultsforme1
()
Date: August 29, 2009 04:37AM
Happyguy - did you go to the training? I was coerced into it as well...
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
righttofight
()
Date: March 07, 2010 10:16PM
This is a sick organization run by a whacked out fat Dutch woman who use to be a hairdresser. If you are coerced then document it. Send a certified letter to your employer. When they fire you have a wrongful termination suit.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
NoMinorChords
()
Date: December 28, 2012 06:35AM
I just saw this thread after posting elsewhere on the site. My apologies for reposting, but I think it's relevant to the discussion.
I was a longtime subscriber to The Skeptical Inquirer, am a current subscriber to Scientific American, and have a T-shirt with the Carl Sagan quote, "I don't want to believe - I want to know." I am <allergic> to New Age Woo Woo. Nonetheless, I took the MITT Basic, Advanced workshops (both 5-day) and 4-month Leadership Programs and consider them to be useful.
The course is, philosophically, based on existentialism, with a dollop of Zen, and a dash of Napoleon Hill positivism (the part I found least appealing). It is a series of immersive psychological games designed to elicit strong emotional responses from participants that, in theory, lead to insights about dysfunctional patterns they have been subconsciously following. These insights are intended to illuminate more productive patterns that are available. This is not terribly esoteric stuff - words like honesty, integrity, commitment, leadership, and connection are the catch-phrases. Sometimes it doesn't work, but the overwhelming majority of the people I did the workshops with found them to be valuable.
I dispute the idea that it is a 'cult' because the classic cult pattern is to separate adherents from their families and the rest of society - us vs. them. By contrast, my MITT coach (a volunteer who consults with you several times a week you if you do the more long-term Leadership program) encouraged me to strengthen ties with those close to me and to build bridges with estranged family members and friends.
The best thing I got out of the course was clarity: I am a great deal more certain now about my true goals and far more willing to take personal responsibility in accomplishing them. Is there a way to objectively measure "success" in MITT? It's difficult because it's hard to parse what might have happened anyway. I will say that a host of positive results occurred while I was doing the training, both professionally and personally. Subjectively, I feel that much of it was a direct result of the interpersonal tools I learned or improved upon from the workshops, but I acknowledge that anecdotes are not evidence.
BTW, MITT is almost entirely secular in its approach. People do mention the "G" word, but no more than they do in normal speech.
Is it perfect? Absolutely not. It's made and run by humans and we know what screwups they can be. The expense - $500/for the Basic 5-day course, more if you go on - may be too much for someone struggling to get by. It may also be inadvisable for anyone with severe self-worth issues. (They do try to screen for that - one of a number of responsible practices I observed). Nonetheless, I saw some remarkable transformations, particularly among shy or unassertive people who came into their own, again the opposite of what you would expect of a cult that, I imagine, would be seeking mindless automatons over independent thinkers.
As for the employees who feel coerced to take the course - that is a perversion of the idea of personal empowerment and if someone was fired for not taking it they, indeed, have reason to sue.
I was a longtime subscriber to The Skeptical Inquirer, am a current subscriber to Scientific American, and have a T-shirt with the Carl Sagan quote, "I don't want to believe - I want to know." I am <allergic> to New Age Woo Woo. Nonetheless, I took the MITT Basic, Advanced workshops (both 5-day) and 4-month Leadership Programs and consider them to be useful.
The course is, philosophically, based on existentialism, with a dollop of Zen, and a dash of Napoleon Hill positivism (the part I found least appealing). It is a series of immersive psychological games designed to elicit strong emotional responses from participants that, in theory, lead to insights about dysfunctional patterns they have been subconsciously following. These insights are intended to illuminate more productive patterns that are available. This is not terribly esoteric stuff - words like honesty, integrity, commitment, leadership, and connection are the catch-phrases. Sometimes it doesn't work, but the overwhelming majority of the people I did the workshops with found them to be valuable.
I dispute the idea that it is a 'cult' because the classic cult pattern is to separate adherents from their families and the rest of society - us vs. them. By contrast, my MITT coach (a volunteer who consults with you several times a week you if you do the more long-term Leadership program) encouraged me to strengthen ties with those close to me and to build bridges with estranged family members and friends.
The best thing I got out of the course was clarity: I am a great deal more certain now about my true goals and far more willing to take personal responsibility in accomplishing them. Is there a way to objectively measure "success" in MITT? It's difficult because it's hard to parse what might have happened anyway. I will say that a host of positive results occurred while I was doing the training, both professionally and personally. Subjectively, I feel that much of it was a direct result of the interpersonal tools I learned or improved upon from the workshops, but I acknowledge that anecdotes are not evidence.
BTW, MITT is almost entirely secular in its approach. People do mention the "G" word, but no more than they do in normal speech.
Is it perfect? Absolutely not. It's made and run by humans and we know what screwups they can be. The expense - $500/for the Basic 5-day course, more if you go on - may be too much for someone struggling to get by. It may also be inadvisable for anyone with severe self-worth issues. (They do try to screen for that - one of a number of responsible practices I observed). Nonetheless, I saw some remarkable transformations, particularly among shy or unassertive people who came into their own, again the opposite of what you would expect of a cult that, I imagine, would be seeking mindless automatons over independent thinkers.
As for the employees who feel coerced to take the course - that is a perversion of the idea of personal empowerment and if someone was fired for not taking it they, indeed, have reason to sue.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
rrmoderator
()
Date: December 28, 2012 07:35AM
NoMinorChords:
It seems that you have come here exclusively to defend Lifespring, which is a company with a sordid history of bad press, complaints and lawsuits.
See [www.culteducation.com]
Lifespring made very serious mistakes. But the Ross Institute has not identified Lifespring as a "cult", so that is a false argument.
Lifespring is an LGAT (large group awareness training) that downloads a philosophy as cure all. Other LGATs such as Landmark Education (former known as EST), Sterling Institute of Relationships, NXIVM and the Mankind Project have similar histories of complaints and bad press.
See [www.culteducation.com]
LGATs seem to have serious inherent problems that produce casualties.
See [www.culteducation.com]
This research paper was written by a Ph.D. psychologist that attended Lifespring and he breaks down the problems in the training fairly well.
13 liabilities of encounter groups, some of which are similar to characteristics of most current mass marathon psychotherapy training sessions [aka LGATs]:
They lack adequate participant-selection criteria.
They lack reliable norms, supervision, and adequate training for leaders.
They lack clearly defined responsibility.
They sometimes foster pseudoauthenticity and pseudoreality.
They sometimes foster inappropriate patterns of relationships.
They sometimes ignore the necessity and utility of ego defenses.
They sometimes teach the covert value of total exposure instead of valuing personal differences.
They sometimes foster impulsive personality styles and behavioral strategies.
They sometimes devalue critical thinking in favor of "experiencing" without self-analysis or reflection.
They sometimes ignore stated goals, misrepresent their actual techniques, and obfuscate their real agenda.
They sometimes focus too much on structural self-awareness techniques and misplace the goal of democratic education; as a result participants may learn more about themselves and less about group process.
They pay inadequate attention to decisions regarding time limitations. This may lead to increased pressure on some participants to unconsciously "fabricate" a cure.
They fail to adequately consider the "psychonoxious" or deleterious effects of group participation (or] adverse countertransference reactions.
The groups were determined to be dangerous when:
Leaders had rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group. and when they should change.
Leaders had no sense of differential diagnosis and assessment skills, valued cathartic emotional breakthroughs as the ultimate therapeutic experience, and sadistically pressed to create or force a breakthrough in every participant.
Leaders had an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.
Leaders were true believers and sealed their doctrine off from discomforting data or disquieting results and tended to discount a poor result by, "blaming the victim."
Also see [www.culteducation.com]
This research by a sociologist identifies coercive persuasion techniques often used by LGATs.
The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:
The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance
The use of an organized peer group
Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity
The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified
Robert Lifton labeled the extraordinarily high degree of social control characteristic of organizations that operate reform programs as their totalistic quality (Lifton 1961). This concept refers to the mobilization of the entirety of the person's social, and often physical, environment in support of the manipulative effort. Lifton identified eight themes or properties of reform environments that contribute to their totalistic quality:
Control of communication
Emotional and behavioral manipulation
Demands for absolute conformity to behavior prescriptions derived from the ideology
Obsessive demands for confession
Agreement that the ideology is faultless
Manipulation of language in which cliches substitute for analytic thought
Reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of doctrine
Classification of those not sharing the ideology as inferior and not worthy of respect
Given the very troubled history of LGATs like Lifespring I would not recommend that anyone become involved in such training. There are far safer alternatives such as continuing education at an accredited college, counseling from a licensed therapist, support groups that focus on certain issues available through local referral networks (e.g. social services) and talking to knowledgeable and trusted friend.
It seems that you have come here exclusively to defend Lifespring, which is a company with a sordid history of bad press, complaints and lawsuits.
See [www.culteducation.com]
Lifespring made very serious mistakes. But the Ross Institute has not identified Lifespring as a "cult", so that is a false argument.
Lifespring is an LGAT (large group awareness training) that downloads a philosophy as cure all. Other LGATs such as Landmark Education (former known as EST), Sterling Institute of Relationships, NXIVM and the Mankind Project have similar histories of complaints and bad press.
See [www.culteducation.com]
LGATs seem to have serious inherent problems that produce casualties.
See [www.culteducation.com]
This research paper was written by a Ph.D. psychologist that attended Lifespring and he breaks down the problems in the training fairly well.
13 liabilities of encounter groups, some of which are similar to characteristics of most current mass marathon psychotherapy training sessions [aka LGATs]:
They lack adequate participant-selection criteria.
They lack reliable norms, supervision, and adequate training for leaders.
They lack clearly defined responsibility.
They sometimes foster pseudoauthenticity and pseudoreality.
They sometimes foster inappropriate patterns of relationships.
They sometimes ignore the necessity and utility of ego defenses.
They sometimes teach the covert value of total exposure instead of valuing personal differences.
They sometimes foster impulsive personality styles and behavioral strategies.
They sometimes devalue critical thinking in favor of "experiencing" without self-analysis or reflection.
They sometimes ignore stated goals, misrepresent their actual techniques, and obfuscate their real agenda.
They sometimes focus too much on structural self-awareness techniques and misplace the goal of democratic education; as a result participants may learn more about themselves and less about group process.
They pay inadequate attention to decisions regarding time limitations. This may lead to increased pressure on some participants to unconsciously "fabricate" a cure.
They fail to adequately consider the "psychonoxious" or deleterious effects of group participation (or] adverse countertransference reactions.
The groups were determined to be dangerous when:
Leaders had rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group. and when they should change.
Leaders had no sense of differential diagnosis and assessment skills, valued cathartic emotional breakthroughs as the ultimate therapeutic experience, and sadistically pressed to create or force a breakthrough in every participant.
Leaders had an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.
Leaders were true believers and sealed their doctrine off from discomforting data or disquieting results and tended to discount a poor result by, "blaming the victim."
Also see [www.culteducation.com]
This research by a sociologist identifies coercive persuasion techniques often used by LGATs.
The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:
The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance
The use of an organized peer group
Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity
The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified
Robert Lifton labeled the extraordinarily high degree of social control characteristic of organizations that operate reform programs as their totalistic quality (Lifton 1961). This concept refers to the mobilization of the entirety of the person's social, and often physical, environment in support of the manipulative effort. Lifton identified eight themes or properties of reform environments that contribute to their totalistic quality:
Control of communication
Emotional and behavioral manipulation
Demands for absolute conformity to behavior prescriptions derived from the ideology
Obsessive demands for confession
Agreement that the ideology is faultless
Manipulation of language in which cliches substitute for analytic thought
Reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of doctrine
Classification of those not sharing the ideology as inferior and not worthy of respect
Given the very troubled history of LGATs like Lifespring I would not recommend that anyone become involved in such training. There are far safer alternatives such as continuing education at an accredited college, counseling from a licensed therapist, support groups that focus on certain issues available through local referral networks (e.g. social services) and talking to knowledgeable and trusted friend.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
righttofight
()
Date: December 29, 2012 11:34PM
Hey No Minor Chords,
I took this training 10 years ago. At the time it ruined my life. Lawsuit against my ex for getting me into this, restraining orders against a felon they encouraged to attack me, destroy my cars, thrown out of the MITT owner's office because I confronted her for being duplicitous and interfering in my personal life.
You have no idea how destructive these trainings are.
Your cute phrases "dollop of Zen", "dash of Napolean Hill" are both moronic and sad. The trainings masquerade themselves behind popular beliefs and goals, but it's the way they transmit these goals that you realize it comes at a higher price. It's all about the money. They use the hidden psychological techniques the moderator just described to force compliance.
Those 500 dollars courses are just the warmup. As they suck you into higher levels, the complicity becomes more direct and rigid. It's all about the money. The tighter they can get you to bind to their direction the easier and faster they can turn you into one of their sales reps to recruit.
If you're smart enough to follow Sagan and read Scientific American, then you should be smart enough to see through this game. On the other hand: know who falls victim to this con game? People who want to believe. My ex was super gullible and lacked critical thinking. She was a plump prize for MITT. She would show up to their Legacy events in the middle of the San Bernardino forest to volunteer with a 100 degree fever, deserting her baby children - all for fat mama Dutch hairdressing woman that owned this sad enterprise. I saw people who could not afford their next month's rent, put all their money into these trainings because this woman who owned MITT would be out in the hotel lobby berating them, telling them "they were losers" unless they jumped into the next level with every last dime they had.
The leaders are not even professionally trained psychologists. One guy who led the Master level or whatever their 2nd level is - Advance I think it is - he was an electrical engineer turned guru. Just fast smiling guy with a good microphone voice and not afraid to call you out.
They set up childish rules under the guise of getting your lazy ass in shape "for your new life". When it's actually an indoctrination mechanism to weed out the ones who will keep the others from complying. I kept getting called out. I also progressed up the training if you can call it progress. I was actually trying to appease my ex who wanted me to advance. But when I got to the Legacy level or highest level, which by the way - anyone can get there if they bring enough heads to registration day - I had to wear a suit and sit straight and not chew gum. Like I was 14 years old in Sunday school. One day I walked out and went surfing. I immediatley saw, having lost relatives in Europe to the Nazis and having studied college level social psychology - this training was a pattern for cult indoctrination. The day I bailed out, these Legacy people quickly turned on me. Called me names, worked on my ex to separate us. Then the bad stuff started to happen. One guy who was in the Legacy group with me was a sociopath with a felony prison record and they used him like a champion hero and encouraged him to go after me. He did. Destroyed 2 cars. Created about $5,000 of damage. That's the MITT Legacy grad. And a year later I got a restraining order against him. I sued my ex, the other Legacy grad for the money she stole from me to pay for the training. She didn't even use her own money. Talk about Napolean Hill - hahaha - more like like "think about using someone else's money and grow rich".
I was going to find a way to go after the owner but life is too short to waste time in court. Better off informing poor suckers like you to get out while you still have your brains. Learn from other's mistakes.
I took this training 10 years ago. At the time it ruined my life. Lawsuit against my ex for getting me into this, restraining orders against a felon they encouraged to attack me, destroy my cars, thrown out of the MITT owner's office because I confronted her for being duplicitous and interfering in my personal life.
You have no idea how destructive these trainings are.
Your cute phrases "dollop of Zen", "dash of Napolean Hill" are both moronic and sad. The trainings masquerade themselves behind popular beliefs and goals, but it's the way they transmit these goals that you realize it comes at a higher price. It's all about the money. They use the hidden psychological techniques the moderator just described to force compliance.
Those 500 dollars courses are just the warmup. As they suck you into higher levels, the complicity becomes more direct and rigid. It's all about the money. The tighter they can get you to bind to their direction the easier and faster they can turn you into one of their sales reps to recruit.
If you're smart enough to follow Sagan and read Scientific American, then you should be smart enough to see through this game. On the other hand: know who falls victim to this con game? People who want to believe. My ex was super gullible and lacked critical thinking. She was a plump prize for MITT. She would show up to their Legacy events in the middle of the San Bernardino forest to volunteer with a 100 degree fever, deserting her baby children - all for fat mama Dutch hairdressing woman that owned this sad enterprise. I saw people who could not afford their next month's rent, put all their money into these trainings because this woman who owned MITT would be out in the hotel lobby berating them, telling them "they were losers" unless they jumped into the next level with every last dime they had.
The leaders are not even professionally trained psychologists. One guy who led the Master level or whatever their 2nd level is - Advance I think it is - he was an electrical engineer turned guru. Just fast smiling guy with a good microphone voice and not afraid to call you out.
They set up childish rules under the guise of getting your lazy ass in shape "for your new life". When it's actually an indoctrination mechanism to weed out the ones who will keep the others from complying. I kept getting called out. I also progressed up the training if you can call it progress. I was actually trying to appease my ex who wanted me to advance. But when I got to the Legacy level or highest level, which by the way - anyone can get there if they bring enough heads to registration day - I had to wear a suit and sit straight and not chew gum. Like I was 14 years old in Sunday school. One day I walked out and went surfing. I immediatley saw, having lost relatives in Europe to the Nazis and having studied college level social psychology - this training was a pattern for cult indoctrination. The day I bailed out, these Legacy people quickly turned on me. Called me names, worked on my ex to separate us. Then the bad stuff started to happen. One guy who was in the Legacy group with me was a sociopath with a felony prison record and they used him like a champion hero and encouraged him to go after me. He did. Destroyed 2 cars. Created about $5,000 of damage. That's the MITT Legacy grad. And a year later I got a restraining order against him. I sued my ex, the other Legacy grad for the money she stole from me to pay for the training. She didn't even use her own money. Talk about Napolean Hill - hahaha - more like like "think about using someone else's money and grow rich".
I was going to find a way to go after the owner but life is too short to waste time in court. Better off informing poor suckers like you to get out while you still have your brains. Learn from other's mistakes.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
NoMinorChords
()
Date: December 30, 2012 04:01AM
Dear Righttofight--
That's a pretty grotesque experience - I can understand why you're both pissed off and wary. All I can say is that was not my experience.
That's a pretty grotesque experience - I can understand why you're both pissed off and wary. All I can say is that was not my experience.
Re: MITT Today
Posted by:
rrmoderator
()
Date: December 30, 2012 07:22AM
NoMinorChords:
"All I can say is that was not my experience."?
Not much of a defense. But that is all you can say given the sordid, troubled and well-documented history of Lifespring.
Whatever your experience was the historical facts concerning Lifespring are easily accessible for anyone interested to read.
Again see [www.culteducation.com]
Many people were badly hurt by Lifepring training.
The research by Philip Cushman is very interesting. He attended the training. Read what he experienced. Cushman is a Ph.D. psychologist. He breaks down Lifespring training day by day. See [www.culteducation.com] Cushman then summarizes his findings. See [www.culteducation.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2012 07:23AM by rrmoderator.
"All I can say is that was not my experience."?
Not much of a defense. But that is all you can say given the sordid, troubled and well-documented history of Lifespring.
Whatever your experience was the historical facts concerning Lifespring are easily accessible for anyone interested to read.
Again see [www.culteducation.com]
Many people were badly hurt by Lifepring training.
The research by Philip Cushman is very interesting. He attended the training. Read what he experienced. Cushman is a Ph.D. psychologist. He breaks down Lifespring training day by day. See [www.culteducation.com] Cushman then summarizes his findings. See [www.culteducation.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2012 07:23AM by rrmoderator.
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