another good link, and a copy of a document.

[www.apologeticsindex.org]

Large Group Awareness Trainings. These are "encounter groups" often marketed to businesses as ways of enhancing communication among managers and/or other employees, fostering "group spirit," promoting spiritual development, etcetera. These seminars and programs are part psychotherapy, part spirituality, and part business.

Most of these training programs are highly structered, high-pressure affairs, with little time for participants to evaluate what is being taught. Most are designed to induce intense emotional experiences in which people are persuaded to confront themselves, their beliefs, and their experiences. The idea is that in having people think and feel outside their normal frame of reference, they will gain insight into the things that hold them back, and be more open to change.

Many of these workshops promote New Age concepts. These concepts incompatible with orthodox, Biblical Christianity. In some countries, employees can legally refuse to take part in such seminars, or take legal action against companies that make attendance mandatory.

Large Group Awareness Training programs are sometimes referred to as "corporate cults." This is due in part to cultic tactics (e.g. sensory overload, hypnosis, control of time or location, intense peer pressure, etc.), and because in some people, participation has lead to radical changes in personality, behavior, beliefs and perception similar to those seen among members of destructive cults.

Some observers and scientific researchers have also associated some LGATs with at least the potential to cause psychological distress to some participants. Some compare the trainings to thought reform programs, or "brainwashing," and to "cults."

The implied, if not explicit, religious nature of many of these trainings and the potential for psychological damage in some trainings have resulted in lawsuits against some trainings and employers who have sponsored them.
Michael Langone, Large Group Awareness Trainings

Came across this post in searching web. It took me to a post on another topic, and thread. But is relavent, and thought it worthy of being posted here

So here it is.


Toni
Senior Member


Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 337

Posted: 12-10-2004 03:40 PM Post subject: r.e. attorneys

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are attorneys specialized with cult issues.

You could probably receive referrals for such from either Rick Ross, www.factnet.org, AFF - www.csj.org , freedomofmind.com , or some of the other cult education websites.

There is a history of some fairly substantical settlements for psychological damage, and financial abuse, from cultic groups. There are some articles about such elsewhere on the rickross website. Still, nothing material compensates for the rape of someone's spririt, the existential crises, the splitting of families and loved ones, nor the lost years spent in a false pursuit of enlightenment.

Unfortunately, the law suits hold water only when something as dramatic as Cousin's situation. The rest of the walking wounded are just that, the walking wounded who believe they've been 'saved' or 'liberated' by their soul being taken by the cult.

Yes, Cousin, others of us like yourself, have seen firsthand the damage done by such groups. In our ways also strive to bring the matter to the fore.

As mentioned by another poster, please take care of your family member first. Then yes, many folks on this board would be thrilled to support you in gaining media attention.

How about a surgeon general's warning "attending this LGAT may cause irreperable damage to your psyche"

We can dream of such warnings, right?

If your going to consider attending going to Klemmer & Associates seminars.

Please dig, and read as much material as you can find. Read all of what you find thoroughly. Klemmer & associates is a Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) program.

Do thorough searches for information on LGAT's. Use additional key words like "Psychological" and other key words that will help you find the most information you can find that is available.

I made a huge mistake prior to getting sucked into the Klemmer philosphy by not researching this stuff thoroughly on my own.

I did a quick search with inputting "Klemmer & Associates" and "Brian Klemmer" which gave me a net result of only the positive information on the web as I was deciding on paying and going to the first seminar.

Unfortunately, I did not dig deep enough to find such sites as this one. Nor the wealth of informational sites to help me make a informed decision on going to Klemmer seminars. Which hooked me by the emotionally powerful aspects that propelled me into a two year process of going through all Klemmers seminars and having this philosphy destroy my life as I applied it. At the core there are some very fundamentally contradictiing belief systems between my own, and Klemmers company belief systems.

New Age is not my thing. Never has been, and never will be. The core beliefs involved here are why Klemmer failed for me. I also see it is why it fails for many others in LGAT's like Klemmer.

I don't nescessarily agree with this guys premise at the beginning. There are also a few aspects that I feel he is off base on. But this is an excellent document to read, and to use in making an informed decision on attending any LGAT program.

If I would have used this documents suggestions on what to look for, and check into.

I believe I would have avoided Klemmer & Associates like the plague.

Here is the link. Please go there and read. Especially if your considering going to Klemmers seminars.

[perso.orange.fr]

Every single one of us have internal safeguards that protect us from harm.

If it is possible for you to listen to a sermon that was given in a church and listen to the principles given it it.

I understand there are some who are opposed to Christianity. Asking you to watch this sermon that I have placed a link for you to listen to it.

I hope you will listen to this sermon. Not to promote Christianity to you. But to illustrate where I failed to safeguard myself from such a destructive philosphy that is Klemmers phliosphy taught in seminars.

I took a shortcut in my life when I went through Klemmers seminars. I am paying heavy prices for that shortcut in the huge destruction this mindset created in my life.

I am looking back hindsight and see very clearly where I failed to pay attention prior to attending Klemmers seminars.

I paved over my internal rumble strips as I bought into Klemmers philosphy that is promoted in their seminars. (Listen to message on link to understand what I am saying here.)

Remember, by no means am I promoting Christianity in my asking you to listen to this message. If you can seperate out the religion from what is shared in this message. You will find some very valuable information in helping guide you in making a choice around LGAT's like Klemmer.

Here is link: Enjoy. It really clarified for me where I failed to pay attention to my internal emotional safeguards as I chose to attend all Klemmers seminars.

[www.easthill.org]

Quote
Rswinters
I paved over my internal rumble strips as I bought into Klemmers philosphy that is promoted in their seminars.

Nice metaphor. What were some of your internal rumble strips?

Quote
question lady

Quote
Rswinters
I paved over my internal rumble strips as I bought into Klemmers philosphy that is promoted in their seminars.

Nice metaphor. What were some of your internal rumble strips?

Read this document thoroughly, and pay careful attention to the questions that are laid out in this document. Pay close attention to the ones that should be kept in view when deciding on attending an LGAT seminar such as Klemmer & Associaties seminars.

Also listen to the message that I have linked here also. Within the the scope of the document linked, and this message linked here also.

As a person reads, and listens to the core aspects in both of these.

You will discover the "Rumble Strips" that I chose to ignore in my life.

I want to be careful on imposing my beliefs on everyone here.

So, read and listen with a mindset to come to your own conclusions. I failed to do the research and critically analyze Large Group Awareness Training within my own life as I chose to go through all of Klemmers seminars.

I do not want to be the one who gives short cuts here either.

So, read and listen. Do a thorough analysis of LGAT's as you have been doing.

I don't want to tell you what to believe, or not believe.

I want to give resources for you to come to your own conclusions.

I will share about my own experience and where I failed to listen to safeguards within myself.

What you choose will be up to you. My desire is to make sure that all aspects are shared about Klemmer.

Not just the positive that has been manipulated so well in hiding the negative.

Thanks

Excellent document with good questons to ask.

[perso.orange.fr]

Message discussing the aspect of needing to listen to our "Internal Rumble strips" and avoiding shortcuts with quick fixes in life.

[www.easthill.org]

Read, and listen back to back...

See what develops in regards to LGAT's philosphical standpoints that have been shared on this website.

Let critical thinking be your guide.

Enjoy.

Here is more good info on Large Group Awareness Training. Klemmer & Associates is one. So here is more info to read about this type of organization.

another good article. Here is link, and copied document below.

[www.culthelp.info]

Mass Marathon Trainings ...
An excerpt from "The Politics of Transformation: Recruitment - Indoctrination Processes In a Mass Marathon Psychology Organization"

By PHILIP CUSHMAN

Mass marathon trainings are usually based on the belief that it is a universal truth that all human beings will have problems in life until they develop deep cathartic psychological insight, experience completely their every feeling, and live only in the present moment (see Brewer, 1975; Bry, 1976; Rhinehart, 1976). According to this ideology all defenses are bad and must be destroyed. They shape their group exercises in order to uncover and intensify the participants' underlying conflicts and deficits. Everyone must be exposed to these exercises; there are no exceptions. When all defenses are destroyed, they claim there is literally no limit to what each individual can accomplish.

Yet there is research that contradicts this universal claim. Applebaum (1976) reported on the results of the Psychotherapy Research Project of the Henninger Foundation, which attempted to better understand the effects of psychological insight in the treatment of patients who had ego-function difficulties and severe characterological problems. After insight-oriented treatment. a substantial number of patients were found to have changed forthe worse. The data confirmed that the "screened-off aspects of one's self" are hidden for a reason; for some types of people the conflicts that necessitated the screening off should remain hidden. Psychology, Applebaum argued, has

to recognize the factors which impinge upon whether, when, how much, and what kind of insight a particular person in particular circumstances should be helped to achieve. We need to know . . . the patient's capacities in order to design the best amount, kind, and timing of insight.(1976, pp. 205-206)

The data demonstrated Applebaum's contention that differential diagnosis and a differential treatment plan is crucial in effective psychotherapy. This conclusion challenges the universal and absolutist claims of insightoriented mass marathon groups. Applebaum warned that

Until we give up the pipe dream of insight as a universal good or a universal bad, we and our patients will, at times, be injured by its dangerous edge. (1976. p. 206)

Just as Applebaum criticized those who considered the indiscriminate use of insight a universal therapeutic panaceas so too did Hampden-Turner (1976) attack those who treat human growth like a consumer product, indiscriminately applying certain techniques to every customer who appears with a blank check. He vigorously disagreed with the ethics of the pop supermarket, the idea that you can purchase a "peak" here and a "high" there, and go psycho-shopping for prepackaged experiences . . . . In fact human growth is not like a product at all, and we vitiate it utterly by pandering to the consumer ethos. (1976, p. 3)

His critique focused particularly upon the highly structured, authoritarian, insight-oriented marathon workshops. Some aspects of humanistic psychology, he argued, seem to have almost forgotten that our most precious human values are achieved by indirection as opposed to the means ends rationality of industrial production. . . I seriously question any high that has been programmed in advance.(1976, pp. 1-2)

He voiced his disagreement with psychological ideologies that discount or deny the significance of the sociohistorical and economic realities of the situation in which the client lives. These ideologies instead argue for the grandiose delusion of the ultimate limitlessness of the individual. To the organizations that teach this ideology he posed a provoking question:

If we are not aware of what the economy does to us, are we self aware at all? Any genuine search for truth must remind us of the things we cannot change. (1576, P. 3)

In this way Hampden-Turner raised an issue that Sampson (1981) expanded upon. Sampson criticized cognitive psychology (the single most prominent aspect of the ideology of many mass marathon organizations) for its "subjectivist reduction." By this he meant the regressive tendency to discount the nonsubjective world by considering it to be either a hallucination or subject to the total control of the individual. According to some mass marathon organizations, human fetuses choose their parents, female victims choose to be raped, and Vietnamese children chose to be bombed. The regressive aspects of this ideology seem to be readily apparent.

Sampson demonstrated how a regressive psychological doctrine can impact on political activity. He argued that an ideology both accurately expresses the "zeitgeist" of the era and may also inaccurately distort the facts in order to serve the ruling elite. He explained how cognitivism as an ideology serves the status quo of power and privilege in American society by teaching individuals to reinterpret their internal response to a painful experience rather than to work at rearranging the external situation so that it could better facilitate personal and communal well being.

Humanistic psychology owes much to Lewin's "laboratory movement, " which originally developed the encounter-group format at the Bethel Institute. Mass marathon psychotherapy organizations claim that they are within the legitimate tradition of this movement. They claim that their training techniques, which include severe milieu control and a rigid ideology, are taken directly from the encounter movement of years past. And yet Gottschalk and Pattison's (1969) study of the history of T-groups and the laboratory movement appears to refute that claim. They found that the laboratory movement was originally an attempt to encourage democracy within community action groups. It was composed of three types of groups: T-groups, task-oriented groups dedicated to teaching about group process, and intervention labs whose goals were action-oriented community improvement programs. The authors found that the original unified effort diverged into an increasing number of activities, each with different philosophical foundations and agendas. The shift in the 1950s to "individual growth. . . . self knowledge, to actualization and maturation" (1969, p. 4) was a clear deviation from the founding philosophy.

They reported that T-group participants sometimes complained of the hidden. agendas, group norms, and covert values of charismatic group leaders and their loyal followers.

They found that the trainer and various group members are calling upon them to stop certain ways of behaving, talking, thinking, and feeling, and that different ways of behaving are being prescribed. (p. 12)

Also the T-group was found to consciously evoke dramatic reactions in the participants, which often involved an exaggeration of impulsive traits and personality styles.

Gottschalk and Pattison isolated 13 liabilities of encounter groups, some of which are similar to characteristics of most current mass marathon psychotherapy training sessions:

1. They lack adequate participant-selection criteria.

2. They lack reliable norms, supervision, and adequate training for leaders.

3. They lack clearly defined responsibility.

4. They sometimes foster pseudoauthenticity and pseudoreality.

5. They sometimes foster inappropriate patterns of relationships.

6. They sometimes ignore the necessity and utility of ego defenses.

7. They sometimes teach the covert value of total exposure instead of valuing personal differences.

8. They sometimes foster impulsive personality styles and behavioral strategies.

9. They sometimes devalue critical thinking in favor of "experiencing" without self analysis or reflection.

10. They sometimes ignore stated goals, misrepresent their actual techniques, and obfuscate their real agenda.

11. 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.

12. They pay inadequate attention to decisions regarding time limitations. This may lead to increased pressure on some participants to unconsciously "fabricate" a cure.

13. They fail to adequately consider the "psychonoxious" or deleterious effects of group participation (or] adverse countertransference reactions. (1969, p. 13)

As a result, participants and leaders may unconsciously distort their feelings and responses when reporting to researchers about the group or recruiting for future groups. This might result in a deceptive "oversell" that could undermine informed consent and lead to unrealistic regressive expectations in new recruits, the specific type of problems that have been found to lead to psychological casualties (see Yalom & Lieberman, 1972, below). Since these liabilities are so similar to the techniques used in some mass marathon trainings, they may also cause psychological damage in that setting as well.

In a significant study with far-reaching consequences for the study of mass marathon trainings, Yalom and Lieberman (1972) observed in 209 undergraduate subjects the negative effects of participation in an encounter group. Over the course of 10 weeks, 18 groups met for 30 hours; there were also 150 fifty control subjects who did not attend any group.

Each group was run by a leader who was chosen because he was an excellent representative of one of 10 ideological schools of encounter (T-groups, Gestalt, Rogerian-marathon, psychodrama, psychoanalytic, Transactional Analysis, sensory awareness, Synanon, personal growth, black-white encounter, and leaderless). Each was given complete freedom.

Yalom and Lieberman's primary interest was in assessing the types and causes of psychiatric "casualties." The operational definition of a casualty was "an enduring, significant, negative outcome which . . . was caused by . . . participation in the group" (1972, p. 223). There is little doubt that the careful, conservative manner in which the study was conducted tended to minimize negative results and reduce the risk to subjects (1972, p. 228). The authors developed a system for identifying subjects who were harmed. Their definition of this subsample and their means of locating it were characteristically conservative. Subjects were included in the casualty subsample only when they had experienced "enduring" negative change and as a direct result of . . . [their] experience in the encounter group became more psychologically distressed and/or employed more maladaptive mechanisms of defense.(1972. p. 228)

Also, the experience must have been proven to be the responsible element in the psychological decompensation. For example, one subject committed suicide during the study and was not counted as a casualty because the suicide could have been caused from past encounter group experiences.

In a startling finding, Yalom and Lieberman reported that 9.4% of the subjects met their stringent criteria and were therefore identified as casualties. The authors viewed this as a serious challenge to the entire movement.

The authors also determined that it was neither the psychological traits of the subjects (i.e., predispositional factors) nor the ideology of the leaders (i.e., doctrinal factors) that determined the casualty rate. Instead, surprisingly, it was the style of leadership that was primary. Leaders who were aggressive, stimulating, intrusive, confrontive, challenging, personally revealing, and authoritarian were the leaders who caused the casualties.

Specifically these leaders often unilaterally structured the group's events. Their focus was on the individual rather than group process. They provided a comprehensive intellectual framework with which to understand one's self and one's world. They exercised firm control and were "ready, willing and able" to take over for participants and guide them to "enlightenment" (1972, p. 236). They were People who were charismatic leaders: they had a universal message to deliver# a fool-proof technique to use, and a cause to recruit for. They were uninhibited in their attempts to convert all the participants in their group. These characteristics are clearly duplicated by many mass marathon trainers. The findings corroborated Gottschalk and Pattison's 1969 conclusions and again call into question many tactics used by mass marathon organizations.

Of the categories that caused casualties, "rejection" was the most damaging. "Failure to achieve unrealistic goals" was the second most dangerous category. Each of these subjects reported being pressed for a breakthrough without being able to deliver. "Leader attack"-"group attack" tied for third. The fact that participants were restrained from leaving, that they had "no place to hide," was thought to be a crucial element. "Group pressure to experience and express feelings" also caused casualties. When subjects couldn't comply, they felt a "sense of hollowness" which led to a "deficient or empty self-image" (1972, p. 243).

Interestingly, many subjects who demographically resembled the casualty subsample didn't have negative experiences. Yalom and Lieberman found that they had more realistic expectations for the experience, they were not lonely or depressed, they remained uninvolved (i,e. . they did not enter into a public confessional and therefore maintained their objectivity and their "observing ego"), they dropped out of the group, they depended on a positive self-concept when they were negatively criticized by the group, or they used an outside reference group to bolster their own beliefs when in conflict with a group norm.

The authors suggested that a questionnaire that detects unrealistic expectations would be a helpful counterindicator when attempting to predict which potential participants would be at risk. In summary, Yalom and Lieberman stressed that casualties were caused by the style and techniques of the leader, and by recruitment and selection practices.

The groups were determined to be dangerous when:

1. Leaders had rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group. and when they should change.

2. 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.

3. Leaders had an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.

4. 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."

Yalom and Lieberman concluded by again emphasizing the crucial importance of informed consent. "Our best means of prevention," they maintained, remains the type of group the subject enters, and our best means for prevention is self-selection. If responsible public education can teach prospective encounter group members about what they can expect in terms of process, risks, and profits from a certain type of group, then and only then can they make an informed decision ;bout membership. (p. 253)

It is instructive to note that many mass marathon organizations are conducting their trainings in the exact manner found by Yalom and Lieberman to cause the greatest number of psychiatric casualties.

In my last post. This paragraph stood out for me. The participants who have gone to LGAT seminars and have gained good results in their lives. I believe this paragraph explains why.

For the rest of the participants, and this includes me in this part. This paragraph did not exist in my life. I have also seen this not existing in many others attending Klemmer seminars as I went through seminars.

This paragraph says much. It is a good explanation of why some are not affected negatively, and others are affected very negatively.

I fall under the affected very negatively...

="Rswinters"]Interestingly, many subjects who demographically resembled the casualty subsample didn't have negative experiences. Yalom and Lieberman found that they had more realistic expectations for the experience, they were not lonely or depressed, they remained uninvolved (i,e. . they did not enter into a public confessional and therefore maintained their objectivity and their "observing ego"), they dropped out of the group, they depended on a positive self-concept when they were negatively criticized by the group, or they used an outside reference group to bolster their own beliefs when in conflict with a group norm.
[/quote]