boonetahoe:
See [
forum.culteducation.com]
Posts may be edited within 30 minutes.
You often come across very badly on this message board, as if you are trying to intimidate people.
As you should know LGATs have a deeply troubled history of personal injury lawsuits, complaints and bad press.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
Note the many groups listed within the category "Human Potential," which includes Impact, Landmark Education, Sterling Institute of Relationship, Lifespring, Asiaworks, NXIVM, etc.
There are inherent problems/liabilities within the basic structure and dynamics of LGATs.
See [
www.culteducation.com]
These liabilities are cited within the above linked research paper in what can be seen as 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.
These 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."
Many past participants of LGATs and their critics have compared the "training" received to "coercive persuasion."
See [
www.culteducation.com]
The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:
1. The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance
2. The use of an organized peer group
3. Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity
4. The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified
IMO--if people have problems and require counseling/therapy, it is far safer to seek help through licensed professionals responsible to a state board, as opposed to someone that does not have such credentials.
There are also support groups that focus on grief, divorce, obsessive/compulsive behavior and other issues facilitated by professionals in most communities.
Additionally there are accredited programs available at colleges and universities providing continuing education that can assist people in developing their effectiveness, management skills and potential.
LGATs and "life coaches" are essentially an unregulated industry functioning in an area of assistance that typically requires specific credentials and professional licensing, such as therapy or group therapy provided by clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, marriage and relationship counseling provided by a licensed marriage and family therapist, or education provided by an accredited institution.
The promise of a seeming "quick fix" or "breakthrough" may be appealing, but a more cautious approach with a credible professional at a locally accessible and established institution, counseling center, hospital etc. is a much safer and potentially less risky approach.
Many of the LGATs expect participants to sign liability waivers, either giving up some if not all rights to sue the company, if something goes wrong and a personal injury occurs.
Credible helping professionals don't require such waivers and remain accountable for their work, not only legally, but to licensing boards and professional associations.
It should also be noted that no LGAT, that I am aware of, has ever done a research study to measure long-term objective results from its programs, such as a higher grade point average achieved by students that participated, lower divorce rate amongst its graduates, less need for professional counseling, higher sustained income, etc., which has subsequently been submitted for peer-review and then published by a credible journal.
Why not?
Many LGATs easily have the resources to fund such a study, but instead rely upon anecdotal stories, testimonials and opinion polls, which measure subjective results instead, e.g. what participants "experience" or feel about their programs.
I have received complaints about LGAT participants being taken directly from an LGAT to a hospital for treatment after a breakdown. Some have spent months, even years recovering.
I have also received complaints of family estrangements, business failures, divorces attributed directly to LGAT involvement.
And LGATs remain one of the most consistently complained about categories of groups listed at the Ross Institute Web site.
I would not recommend an LGAT to anyone under any circumstances.
They are much better and safer alternatives.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2007 09:50PM by rrmoderator.