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Boone,

Is there any reason why you think you should have ANY credibility when posting in this forum? You have been consistently dishonest and deceptive...

You lost me. I'm not sure what the glaring dishonesty is supposed to be.

I wonder if you're not "straining at a gnat" here.

In any case, I'll tell you about the anecdotal evidence I witnessed regarding the effectiveness of the Harmony Institute training (which I guessed was probably broader-based and more scientific than your data.) Of course this assumes that your data consists of blogging back and forth with LGAT-critics on this board and maybe talking to ten or twenty of your friends.

In short, when the Bergers were invited to leave Harmony Institute, several of us conducted ad hoc phone surveys of many (probably numbering over one hundred) of old graduates of the training (mostly grads who we hadn't seen for a while) and asked them about their experience since that time. The majority responded that their training experience had been positive and that it was a positive influence in their lives up to that date. Since then, on occassion, similar telephone calling and mailing has yielded similar results.

Of course, this is anecdotal, undocumented and dependent on my memory, but I believe that it represents a consistent pattern we'd find among graduates of all LGAT trainings: the vast majority of people would cite positive changes in their lives.

The quality of my data probably has a lot to do with being directly involved with a training that has regular contact with its graduates. If there was a big fall-off in the perception of value from graduates, we'd know about it. On the contrary, most claim that these trainings profoundly change their lives in an enduring way. Likewise, Landmark Forum seems to derive similar responses from vastly more scientific studies than mine:

[www.harrisinteractive.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2007 07:42AM by rrmoderator.

boonetahoe:

Yes.

Thanks for making the point again that LGATs apparently can only offer anecdotal and subjective evidence regarding the results supposedly acheived through their programs.

Apparently, LGATs are unable to offer anything else.

The phone polling you mentioned and the Harris poll Landmark funded are good examples to support this point.

What such opinion polls demonstrate is that LGATs are good at convincing participants that they have received a good result, which is a point that LGAT critics would agree with, i.e. that LGATs are adept at manipulating the feelings and thinking of participants.

But as your link demonstrates, Landmark, despite the many millions it takes in each year, has never completed a study, peer reviewed and published in a credible journal, which focused on objective long-term measurable results amongst its graduates, such as sustained increased income, a higher grade point average, lower divorce rate and/or a decreased need for professional counseling.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2007 07:55AM by rrmoderator.

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boonetahoe

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Boone,

Is there any reason why you think you should have ANY credibility when posting in this forum? You have been consistently dishonest and deceptive...

You lost me. I'm not sure what the glaring dishonesty is supposed to be.

I wonder if you're not "straining at a gnat" here.

In any case, I'll tell you about the anecdotal evidence I witnessed regarding the effectiveness of the Harmony Institute training (which I guessed was probably broader-based and more scientific than your data.) Of course this assumes that your data consists of blogging back and forth with LGAT-critics on this board and maybe talking to ten or twenty of your friends.

Based on your description it seems evident that you have not conducted any broad based studies or collected any scientific data, which is a clear contradiction from what you stated earlier (For the record the term scientific study can not accurately be applied to any study that yields anecdotal evidence). I've spent enough time outlining incidences of dishonesty on your part that it makes no sense to rehash it all again. While some people may believe (at least for a time) that they have had a positive experience in an LGAT there has been no research conducted to yield any objective positive results. Your Landmark reference is misplaced and useless for this reason.

There are mountains of documents detailing problems with LGATs. The fact that you have ignored this says a great deal about your character. I blog on this site because it seems to make a difference to some people but your assumption that nothing exists beyond undocumented web assertions speaks to your ignorance and arrogance. The only objective and documented results of LGATs are overwhelmingly negative. How many legally documented claims of damages against Landmark, Lifespring and many others does it take? Are you saying that the courts are not objective? I suppose you may be able to make that case in isolated incidences but when virtually every case goes against the LGAT I don't see how this theory can hold.

Why do you systematically ignore evidence?

I'm realitivly new to this, been following for a few months but just signed up last night...interesting/intelligent ping pong diologue here... we all have our opinions/stories...I am on here because I have had personal loss of a relationship that was so specialI waited a ligetime for, and have had to see a man I love deeply lose himself...because he is vulnerable...and have countless friends that have had similar experiences...that is my story... but get real..the proof is in the pudding...all one has to do is read the massive number of blogs re these LGATS...and the story is always the same..over and over...people's lives are destroyed or at least seriously set back and serious money spent...that could have been spent so much more effectively on professional/accredited/regulated/educated help...any organization that is so controversial it is the target for numerous lawsiuts(for accusations as extreme as death/suicide)....has been investigated by the government...several times...has been the subject on shows such a '60 minutes'...have had to shut down and reopen under new names...often...like, get real...or 'markets' itself by word of mouth instead of the out in the open usual manner...hellooo!...anyone who has had the displeasure of being involved in a lawsuit learns first hand that our legal system is not what we think it is...it is a matter of who can best make a case for interpetation of the law...justice is a verb in our courts..not a noun...people are duped and worse everyday in this country in the name of making a buck...all they have to do is operate in the 'gray area' of the law...judt because they have not been shut down doesn't make them innocent...ask OJ Simpson...case closed

So what can we do?..be diligent in warning others...lobby...wait for the 'slip up'...go to the top...over and over as many times as it takes...because lives are at stake here...grass roots is what has made the greatness in this country in spite of the problems...this is not AA...not a proven/successful program/organization that has been dedicated to truly help people...has never changed its name...never been controversial...and isn't interested in your pocketbook...you are just as valued if you are penniless and you are if you are a CEO of a Fortune 500

Well said aware

It's probably appropriate to note that these blogs are a self-selected population. In other words, the reason that there are a "massive number of [negative] blogs about these LGATs" is that this is the place (the only place I know of) where one comes if one wants to criticize an LGAT. At the same time, it's a very inhospitable environment for those who value their LGAT experience. In short, very few (of the many) people who have transformed their lives in a positive way through an LGAT post on this site. While, very many people like yourself, who feel they have been wronged by a training company DO post here and do so with considerable vehemence and frequency.

For example, I've never seen a post on this forum from a graduate (or a friend of a graduate) of Great Life Foundation that was critical of the training. All the critics ("the peanut gallery" I like to call them) are graduates or disaffected friends and family of graduates from entirely different trainings.

So, considering that the "proof" (that would be in the pudding, as you said) is a group of self-selected critics of other trainings, I'm not sure that such proof can be taken very far. For example, I could send out one email and trigger an avalanche of one hundred-plus positive posts that would bury this thread in supportive, pro-training statements (assuming that they weren't censored by the moderator.) But, that wouldn't amount to "proof" either (since they would be an equally self-selected population.)

In short, as Rick Ross has pointed out numerous times, there isn't any kind of peer-reviewed, scientific study that establishes that LGATs work or don't work. There are many surveys and the like (the only ones I've seen have been favorable to these trainings,) but surveys are of marginal analytical value.

So, the pudding may have to remain proof-less for the time being.

bonnetahoe:

You came here to defend LGATs and that is your agenda. It's doubtful that anyone or anything would or could convince you otherwise.

You are a "true believer."

For many LGAT believers, their programs and the results they supposedly produce are accepted as a matter of faith, much like faith healing claims that have never been proven through objective medical records.

LGAT participants have in this sense a quasi-religious experience, through which they become "true believers" and then offer their testimonies.

Your response regarding criticism and complaints about LGATs is fairly typical.

That is, somehow attempt to discredit or blame those that criticize and/or complain and generally refuse to recognize the inherent problems and deeply troubled history of LGATs, which is demonstrated through their bad press, persistent complaints, related personal injuries and lawsuits.

There is ample research, which you have chosen to ignore, that has already been posted here.

Once again...

See [www.culteducation.com]

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.

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 LGATs have been called "cult-like" or even labeled as "cults" largely because of coercive persuasion techniques they frequently employ during thier programs.

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

The study by a clinical psychologist (Philip Cushman) would be one research example of what's wrong with LGATs and the damage they often cause participants and their families.

Here are some additional examples:

See [www.culteducation.com]

This includes a listing of reports related to Landmark Education and psychosis.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This is the beginning of the analysis by Cushman followed by his summary regarding the liabilities and danger signs related to LGATs.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Here a forensic psychiatrist (John Hochman) evaluates an LGAT called Executive Success Programs/NXIVM.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Here a clinical psychologist (Paul Martin) evaluates the same program.

Also see [www.culteducation.com]

Here Martin compares Executive Success Programs/NXIVM to "thought reform" commonly called "brainwashing."

Three NXIVM students sought psychiatric treatment directly related to their seminar experience, one was hospitalized. One woman walked out of NXIVM intensive and committed suicide.

See [www.culteducation.com]

The suicide note found by authorities said, "I attended a course called Executive Success Programs. I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain was killed/turned off. I still have feeling in my external skin, but my internal organs are rotting. Please contact my parents ... if you find me or this note. I am sorry life, I didn't know I was already dead. May we persist into the future."

I receive complaints about LGATs constantly, and some of those complaints have included people that have been hospitalized. That is, they were taken from the program to the hospital.

I have also received many complaints from families and concerned friends about the negative changes and impact wrought by LGAT programs.

My professional experience regarding LGATs began in the early 1980s and I have received hundreds of complaints.

THANK YOU...and Boonetahoe?...that..is why it is called 'Mind Control'...if you were aware that you were being controlled...they couldn't control your thoughts/actions...why do you feel a need to defend if you feel so strongly?...I'll answer it for you..because somewhere, at some level, YOUR mind knows something is rotten in Denmark, or as my boyfriend texed me the first 2 nights of basic as he left the group to go to his room "THIS IS BULLSHIT!"...that...was his..HIS...highly intelligent unfucked mind talking clearly...so why did he go back for day 3??...because he was unemployed for the first time in his life(why he was recruited by anothe AA friend, he was promised this would help him get a job by improving his thinking skills) and they told him to get his much needed $500 bucks back he had to attend all three days...and, in his own words, "I was the last one to 'crack"..crack, in his own words...so they tehn took his LAST $2500!!!!!!!!! an unemployed man!!...and...that was in May...he has falled deeply ionto depression and has not done a single damned thing to get a job...a highly talented man...and...they convinced him to stop, COLD TURKEY his antidepressents...a man in recovery..thank GOD he has stayed sober..so far..but they sure as hell kept him busy making lots on money for M3!...and he doesn't know why he can't get his shit together...so forget about how sad I am to be facing Christmas without the love of my life, my best friend...and he, without his...the reason I am on here is because I'm trying to figure out how to help yank him out
..and btw, besides the hundreds of pages I could print out with nothing but negative blogs/articles/interviews/reports on there LGATS.., notive there no favorable ones??...my closest 8 friends, all very intelligent/successful/charismatic/good people have either been to one of these 'programs'...from est taught by ole Werner in the flesh to Landmark...from CA to Texas, or have has someone thye love get mind fucked by them...they all have the exact same story to tell as all do on these blogs...and all, when asked "Why had I never known?"...had the same answer "Because it wasa time oin my life I'd just as soon forget"

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aware
THANK YOU...and Boonetahoe?...that..is why it is called 'Mind Control'...if you were aware that you were being controlled...they couldn't control your thoughts/actions...why do you feel a need to defend if you feel so strongly?...I'll answer it for you..because somewhere, at some level, YOUR mind knows something is rotten in Denmark, or as my boyfriend texed me the first 2 nights of basic as he left the group to go to his room "THIS IS BULLSHIT!"...that...was his..HIS...highly intelligent unfucked mind talking clearly...so why did he go back for day 3??...because he was unemployed for the first time in his life(why he was recruited by anothe AA friend, he was promised this would help him get a job by improving his thinking skills) and they told him to get his much needed $500 bucks back he had to attend all three days...and, in his own words, "I was the last one to 'crack"..crack, in his own words...so they tehn took his LAST $2500!!!!!!!!! an unemployed man!!...and...that was in May...he has falled deeply ionto depression and has not done a single damned thing to get a job...a highly talented man...and...they convinced him to stop, COLD TURKEY his antidepressents...a man in recovery..thank GOD he has stayed sober..so far..but they sure as hell kept him busy making lots on money for M3!...and he doesn't know why he can't get his shit together...so forget about how sad I am to be facing Christmas without the love of my life, my best friend...and he, without his...the reason I am on here is because I'm trying to figure out how to help yank him out
..and btw, besides the hundreds of pages I could print out with nothing but negative blogs/articles/interviews/reports on there LGATS.., notive there no favorable ones??...my closest 8 friends, all very intelligent/successful/charismatic/good people have either been to one of these 'programs'...from est taught by ole Werner in the flesh to Landmark...from CA to Texas, or have has someone thye love get mind fucked by them...they all have the exact same story to tell as all do on these blogs...and all, when asked "Why had I never known?"...had the same answer "Because it wasa time oin my life I'd just as soon forget"

I have no idea what training "M3" is, but I'm afraid to say anything else because you seem so outrageously angry.

At the same time, please remember that this is a thread about the Great Life Foundation and I don't believe that your particular criticisms apply. (And, it could easily be said that you're "off topic" of this thread.) Of this I am certain: the Great Life Foundation didn't take your boyfriends last $2500 and didn't convince him to discontinue using his antidepressants (because no responsible trainer would do that IMO,) and didn't brainwash him into ending your relationship. If that's actually what happened, it didn't happen through this training.

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boonetahoe
For example, I've never seen a post on this forum from a graduate (or a friend of a graduate) of Great Life Foundation that was critical of the training. All the critics ("the peanut gallery" I like to call them) are graduates or disaffected friends and family of graduates from entirely different trainings.

Do you include Harmony grads in the set of people qualified to post about Great Life or does the name change negate the fact that the processes and trainers were essentially identical at the time of the start up? Also, I was trained by JJ who now works at Great Life, and I know a number of the con man owners...

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boonetahoe
In short, as Rick Ross has pointed out numerous times, there isn't any kind of peer-reviewed, scientific study that establishes that LGATs work or don't work. There are many surveys and the like (the only ones I've seen have been favorable to these trainings,) but surveys are of marginal analytical value.

So, the pudding may have to remain proof-less for the time being.

There are a large number of court documented LGAT damages (mistreatment of the mentally ill, wrongful death,...,etc). Obvioulsy LGAT's don't work in a big way for at least a few people. Is there any evidence that they do any good?