A group of people, 6 couples, having extreme marital problems, are meeting with a "therapist" in a seminar setting. During the in orientation phase, the following instructions and actions are taken.

1. Stating the cause of the problem - that these people would all rather be right than happy.

2. Committment to the therapist with vows to "follow the instructions of the therapist" even though they do not know what is in store for them. Stand up if committing.

3. Questions for more info are replied to with a stock answer "I don't answer questions in here."

4. Each person is 100% responsible for relationship problems.

Next session - Use of intimiation, humiliation, guilt, over-simplification of participant's statements about their experiences, about their feelings. Accusations of being liars and not committed since they did not answer appropriately. Humiliation until agreement is made that they are not being "real."

Threats of physical abuse. Dismissal of traditional therapy where life experiences would be explored because the therapist "can tell you in 3 minutes what happened."

Use of non-professional assistants in seminars who have important role in dealing with participants.

Good Grief! Sounds like a mini Landmark Forum! What credentials does this so called therapist have?

Anybody wanna take any bets on how many of these marriages will survive this therapy?

There ought to be a law or some professional organization among therapists that would prohibit such abuse.

3 pm (depending on where you live). I'm not mentioning names, but he's a popular television shrink who has all the answers from abuse to weight problems, and millions of people hang on his every word.

You mean the guy whose first name begins with "P"? My Mother hangs on his every word! Thinks he's great. I don't have the time or incination to watch TV, so I hear about this swell guy second-hand from Mom.

No wonder she thought Landmark was so good for me. Eeeek!

:eek:

Hope,
What you have described is an extreme use of a therapy called Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy, (REBT). It is a type of therapy that broadly comes in under the banner of Congnitive Behavioural Therapy, (CBT).

The most basic assumption of this therapy is that we, (the client prior to treatment), condition ourselves to feel disturbed. We are not conditioned to be disturbed from external sources. Extending this further means that we are totally responsible for everything in our life - sounds familiar eh...

REBT uses techniques including:
*Confrontation through questioning the client
* Rational Emotive Imagary - imagine the worst thing that could happen to you - sounds very familiar
* Using Shame Attacking Exercises
* Role Play
* Exposure therapy - doing something repetitively
* In Vivo Desensitisation - flooding clients minds with images they perceive as highly dangerous until they realise the danger is largely imagined. - remember this one
* Rewards and penalties
* Assertiveness training.

Before everyone reading gets alarmed by this, these techniques are professionally recognised by Mental Health Workers. Used ethically and with the clients full consent, many people benefit from changing undesired behaviours.

The big problem is ethics. All psychological processes are up for grabs by inscruplous practicioners. Is the practitioner or group, guiding the client towards the client's perceived desired behaviours or towards the desired behaviours of the practitioner or group?

Now back to In Vivo Desensitisation - this looks remarkably like the "Fear Exercise" in Landmark Forum on a Saturday Night. What? A psychological technique being used by Landmark when they state they are not about psychology - interesting...

Funny too that some of the terms used by LE like "Rackets" & "Game" form part of the terminology for another psychological technique called Transactional Analysis...

Something nobel can also be used against people.

So what is Dr Phil doing? Something quite interesting...
He's down in Australia too but at 1:00pm

Is there a link or are we just seeing parallels?
Oz

Did you know he is a Landmark Grad?

iI is inevitable that noted people in the public eye are involved in LGAT's and cults. It is to the advantage of the cult to have referals from prominent people in society. Look at Scientology and leading actors.

From the many pro LE sites on the net, there are doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists singing the praised of LE. So how can this be?

The health professional is a human being with their own desires and needs. When one enters LE they immediately see familar territiory. As I mentioned in my earlier posting in this thread, LE uses various recognised therapys including Transactional Analysis, (TA) and Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy, (REBT). The health professional immediately can pick this up and says, "I know this, I have studied this or I have practiced this..."

The difference in the health professionals practice or study is that the therapy hopefully has been used ethically and after diagnosis of the client/patient's problem. The ethical practice also involves full disclosure of the process including agreed desired outcomes with the client.

LE does not and cannot diagnose attendees problems. It can only make assumptions. The assumption is that people are machines and all people need this process to liberate themselves to create endless possibilities. LE also does not practice full disclosure. They dangle the "get it" carrot. You won't "get it" unless you go through this mysterious undisclosed process.

So, the health professional recognises the process and feels safe. But somehow, the violation of ethics, including these points:
*LE practicing psychology without a licence,
*non diagnosis of attendee's problems,
*non disclosure of the theraputic process
does not raise a red flag in the mind of the health professional. Why is this?
Maybe, because the health professional is human and has been hooked by the sophisticated thought reform tactics of LE with everyonelse. His or her hook is much stronger than for others because the processes used are familiar and so are easily justifiable.

Let me further explain:
If a person through their life is naturally self centred and then they do Landmark Forum, the self centredness is re-enforced by the psychological process and the philosophy which tells the person that you are a creator of everything in their life.

If a mental health professional has studied TA and REBT, and then sees it practiced on others and on oneself in LE, the notion that this is okay and Landmark is fine is re-enforced, regardless of the violation of ethical practice.

So, Dr P may well be under Landmark thought reform if he is practicing extreme versions of therapy on TV in the style and manner of Landmark. He is probably a Landmark hero.
Oz

Actually my understanding is that Dr. Phil is a Lifespring grad.

He started this LGAT in Texas based on the Lifespring model.

[www.gopathways.org]

Although he now claims to be involved with Pathways only as a consultant, he was the seminar leader for a time. I'm sure he still gets paid too.

I actually spoke with someone who attended Dr. Phil's LGAT. From what he said it was very close to the Lifespring model. He also shared with me that he became suicidal during the LGAT, and finally called his therapist from his hotel room and left the course early. Even still, he had a hard time afterwards with believing he was somehow "above" or more open than people who had not gone.