Has anybody had any dealings with New Era Trainings in Concord CA?

Please see previous posts , New era is formerly known as Accelerate and iImpact they are run by John Hanley senior Mr. LifeSpring himself. I have been thru the training ....stay away.


See links below for past posts, please feel free to ask any questions ill be happy to answer them.


[forum.culteducation.com]

[forum.culteducation.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2008 05:32AM by jtaylormade.

LOL Well my wife and I have both been to new era and I honestly think everyone should take the class.

I started off with "its not my thing" and "hell no" but my wife requested that I go to a guest event and hear what it is about. If you pay in full and take the first 5 day course, get nothing out of it you get all your money back minus 49 dollars and some time. Keep in mind that 90% of americans spend 50 dollars in the first round of booze. I know I do. Or one night out to dinner.

This was one of the best thingI have ever done for myself. Was it hard? hell yah. If it were an easy training than it would not benefit. I have watched 3 sessions of about 50 people each. not one person asked for a refund. No I do not work for them. I am an enterprise security engineer for a hospital. It is about making things happen in your life anyway. Everyone has an excuse of why they cant go. usually "dont have the money" "dont have the time". All I have to say is, yes you do. you are not willing to make the time and money. Do you need that latte every morning? Do you really need that cable or dish? There are ways, find them.

It is about being different. Whats so wrong with being different? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. No it is not a cult. There is no kool aid. I love how most of the people that post about it have no idea wth they are talking about because they have not been through the trainings. Yes Jim was my trainer also. I thought he was really nice. Direct to the point. Does not sugar coat it. I am willing to bet the ones that have been through the training and are ill over it can not handle that. Or were not willing to be different. This is not a quick fix. There is work to it. They dont do it for you. And BTW it was WAY better then any marriage counsoler I have been to. I have never heard of a cult giving back to the cumminity like we do. Our class is working with the salvation army rehabilitation program by rebuilding the inside of a condo. We raised the money by donations and are doing the work. If you have any questions about the training I am more than willing to repost. Hope everyone has an awsome day!!

To whom it may concern:

Mass marathon training is very controversial.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Psychologist Philip Cushman researched the subject and 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.

Cushman found that such trainings could "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 participants of mass marathon trainings say that they use coercive persuasion techniques.

Sociologist Rihard Offshee and professor at Stanford University found that "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."

For more details see [www.culteducation.com]

Mass marathon training or large group awareness training (LGAT) generates more serious complaints than any other subject/topic at this message board.

Beware.

STAY AWAY!!!

A lot of Thought Reform goes on in the first two part Jim is good cop Lynn is bad cop. The last part is more rigorous Thought Reform + Group Think...if you snap out of it all you gonna be dealing with some cognitive dissonance to get your mind back. Critical thinking is unacceptable. Grey ares of life are overlooked, everything is simplified to "BLACK" or "RED". They sell you the idea that justifications are made by the self righteous, but they make justifications for those who leave saying the person was not willing to own up to their experience, or they didn't "Show up" to begin with etc...when you see a different "possibility" it suggested away as "selling your self short" or "not setting yourself up to win". GRHHHHHHHH!!! Save your time and money (spend it well), see a licensed therapist, get frank and honest feedback from trusted friends, love ones, coworkers, bosses etc...if you feel you need to look at your unconscious behavior!!!

Here's some food for thought below

Intruding into the Workplace
An excerpt from the book Cults In Our Midst
by Dr. Margaret Singer
[caic.org.au]

LGAT Wiki
[en.wikipedia.org]

Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training: A Longitudinal Study of Psychosocial Effects
[en.wikipedia.org]

Mind Control Made Easy Video
[lgattruth.wordpress.com]

if you do decide to take this "training," do your research, dont believe everything they tell you. but the thing that bothered me is that is its their way or "quit making up your own version!"

I know someone involved. What information do you have?

Don't you think the "recruiting" component is odd? What other "training" anywhere requires this as a basis for "graduation?" I find this odd.

Quote
jtaylormade
Please see previous posts , New era is formerly known as Accelerate and iImpact they are run by John Hanley senior Mr. LifeSpring himself. I have been thru the training ....stay away.


See links below for past posts, please feel free to ask any questions ill be happy to answer them.


[forum.culteducation.com]

[forum.culteducation.com]

The above claim, that New Era is run by John Hanley (Sr. OR Jr.) is categorically false.
The company is owned and run by Jim and Lynne, who are the trainers, as well as two additional associates, neither of whom are members of the Hanley family, and both of whom have been through the trainings themselves.

New Era did used to be Accelerate and iImpact. The company was originally called iImpact and changed directions to Accelerate a couple of years ago, and Accelerate was guided towards enrollment through businesses such that companies sent its employees to the trainings more than anything else. Because Lynne and Jim didn't like how this was going -- people who were there did not truly want to be there, only went because they were forced by their bosses -- they switched back to the more personal way of iImpact, but changed the name to New Era due to one of the previous company owners stepping back.

I personally am a graduate of all three levels of the trainings. I finished the third level in 2004, when the company was called iImpact.
Currently, I am in a doctorate program for psychology.
Nearly all of my family has participated in the trainings.
I have recently started revisiting the building and seen more of what the trainings do.
Also, I do not work for them in any capacity.

I could spend a lot of time pontificating about what I and the people around me have gained from these trainings, but that does not seem effective (though I am more than happy to elaborate if anyone is curious or skeptical).

My main points are that:
1) Lynne and Jim are not making buckets of money off of these trainings -- it may seem like a lot of money, but there are expenses involved in the running of a business, and, unlike many other companies (including Lifespring) that do these same 'trainings', they do not have 200+ people in the first level of the trainings -- that many people is undesirable, and they choose to keep it smaller because otherwise some of the power is lost
2) There are a lot of black and white dichotomies presented in the trainings, but they are there to make a point, to make an strong statement...in life, they recognize that shades of grey come into play -- but buying into people's excuses for why their lives aren't what they want them to be does not help anyone...a therapist makes these same points, but via a different modality (recall, please , that I will soon be a licensed psychologist, so this is not pontification)
3) New Era Trainings is distinct from a cult in the most obvious way because no one is telling them to cut out the rest of the people in their lives -- if anything, they support people having better relationships with everyone in their lives; the apparent obsession with the trainings can be alikened to when someone first starts dating someone new and exciting and want to talk about it and be with this person a lot more

I am truly happy to answer ANY questions (or challenges) to my statements and opinions -- from anyone.