But they say they have a money back guaruntee? click below

neweratrainings refund page

I have done my research. Jime Hellam has been associated with iImpact, Personal Dynamics Leadertrain Accelerate Trainings The Negotiation Lab and Asia Works. If you research all of these you will find horror stories. Jim Hellam is second only to John Jr and is considered a business partner. He has done these trainings internationally and

[www.lifespringnow.com]

view item #4.


If you google his name

[translate.google.com]

This translation indicates that he is a mastertrainer for lifespring and also this as well

[translate.google.com]

I find it very difficult to believe that someone who is NOT affiliated with John Hanley would have his name associated with him in several countries and languages.

Can someone please explain, how this man is NOT affiliated with John Hanley, because the info I am seeing is quite the contrary.

Also please explain if he is so great at what he does and such a good businessman, why does the name of his company change so much? You would think that a great businessman who understands excellence would understand the importance of branding.

The link that was posted would not work. What they told us at the time was that the refund request had to be in writing within 24 hours of the session ending. Of course this was all verbal, plus the basic document we signed, but does that really hold up in court?

Yes, Jim Hellam is business partners with John Hanley Sr. and Jr. This is the link to their current business also based in the Bay Area:

[www.leadertrain.com]

Hey All,
I just wanted to say that I'm currently going through the 3rd stage of the training also known as ACT. Personally I've had a good experience with New Era and the training that they offer.

There have been some individuals that have stated that they see the group as attempting to take over one's life and cut off ties to family and friends. From my perspective the group has the intention of empowering the individual to whatever means they see fit.

For myself, my family is THE reason I went, primarily to work on my communication with them and I have gotten so much out of it. I typically have had the surface level conversations that people have in the elevators. We would talk about the weather and other rather mundane topics. However now there seems to be a new breath of life when I talk to my family members. I now talk to my parents about their childhood, what their hopes and dreams are as well as their fears. (Just to let you know, none of my family members have gone through the training.)

I have had many other discoveries along the way, but my communication with my family has been my biggest breakthrough.

It's interesting because I too looked at this board prior to attending the training and was really scared about attending. Now that I'm on the other side of the fence I can say that I picked up some tools along the way that will definitely see my life in a new light....and a good one at that.

CheekyMonkey:

You seem to here as an apologist.

People posting here have serious criticism regarding the group "New Era" and have linked it to other large group awareness training (LGAT).

See [www.culteducation.com]

This link covers the serious problems with LGATs or mass marathon training.

There are serious complaints about New Era similar to the warnings through the above linked research paper by a clinical psychologist.

I want to be clear- I do support New Era trainings.

People fear what they do not know. I, too looked at this forum prior to my New Era training and I had my reservations. I have not been to therapy and I did compare my experience with friends who have been in therapy or are currently in therapy. And we shared our BREAKTHROUGHS and they were the best moments I have ever had with my dear friends because we were finally totally honest and we let down our guards and defenses. I know what I say to people come straight from my heart and it is truthful. I am a happier person, I feel free, I am at peace with myself, I am leaving the pain from my past behind me and I am looking forward to a future that I chose, I am living a better quality of life with taking are of my health, my family and friends and at work. I am able to handle stress and resolve things in a calm and peaceful manner, I can accept myself for me- I do not have to be perfect and I appreciate all the family and friends who have been so supportive through out my life. I am speaking from what I know and experienced and it's not based on massive research on large group training or mass marathon training.

1. I know I am smart enough to recognize brain washing and cult like recruiting activity. I am part of new era training of my own choosing. I am aware of what the trainings asks of individuals and there is free choice to continue into the ACT program or to stop after 2 parts. People can come and go and what they make of the ACT program is up to them. If you're mad about the program cuz you quit for whatever reason, then check in with yourself and see where the anger is truely coming from.

2. People are more confident coming out of the training and they get energized to live life to the fullest- whatever that may look like for them. It may not last a lifetime for everyone but it's a good wake up call to take control of your life and not let your life tick away without any meaning.

3. Family , friendship and relationships are a big part of the experience. I have never wanted to hug and kiss my parents so badly as after the training. I have learned how relate to my family and how to be closer to them. I can hug with much more emotions and feelings. I am not afraid to express my feelings, ask for help, to be vulnerable and I am not afraid to defend what I know to be right. I am making better connections with all the people around me and I can do this without worrying that they will judge me. I am sincere and it comes through.

4. Recruitment- I knew what was expected for the training and the center to continue. Yes, I want to have everyone I know to take this training. There is value in the training for everyone. Everyone will have their own experience and breakthroughs. I do belive that New Era do take care in screening people on their registration form and prep calls. If people are not honest and do not disclose everything or take the time to read the registration paperwork, how can you hold New Era responsible. Even trained and experienced therapist are lied to and are manipulated into giving the wrong treatment. New Era does not claim to be a substitute for professional therapy.

5. There will always different points of view on New Era and that is what this forum and blogging is all about. Letting all perspectives to be heard from and for others to make an informed decision. I just have to say my side and to share it with those out there. I know I am becoming a better person, living a better quality of life, building stronger relationships and havin FUN in my life because I went through the New Era training. Would I have found it through therapy or group therapy - I really can't say. I know I am going to live life to the fullest, I am going to be a loving mother, an inspirational grandmother and the best kick-ass great-grandmother of all times.

Girljustwanttohavefun:

Most people would prefer a professional licensed and board certified therapist, counselor or clinical psychologist with proper training and accountability over an LGAT mass marathon training program.

Clinical psychologist and researcher Philip Cushman explains why in his paper about "Mass Marathon Training."

See [www.culteducation.com]

Mass Marathon Trainings

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

Published by St. Martin's Press 1993
By Philip Cushman, Ph.D.

Mass marathon training is 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 for the 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 insight oriented 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 training's, 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 training's, 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 foolproof 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 about membership. (p. 253)

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

Note: For a day-by-day breakdown overview of the training process see Philip Cushman's "Description of the Behavioral Structure of the Training."

Girljustwanttohavefun:

Many people say that LGATs "brainwash" participants through coercive persuasion techniques.

To better understand how coercive persuasion works read this paper by Stanford University Professor Richard Ofshe.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Ofshe states, "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"

Ofshe goes on to relate the themes or criteria described by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton that define "thought reform" programs.

"Robert Lifton labeled the extraordinarily high degree of social control characteristic of organizations that operate reform programs as their totalistic quality (Lifton 1961). This concept refers to the mobilization of the entirety of the person's social, and often physical, environment in support of the manipulative effort. Lifton identified eight themes or properties of reform environments that contribute to their totalistic quality:

1. Control of communication

2. Emotional and behavioral manipulation

3. Demands for absolute conformity to behavior prescriptions derived from the ideology

4. Obsessive demands for confession

5. Agreement that the ideology is faultless

6. Manipulation of language in which cliches substitute for analytic thought

7. Reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of doctrine

8. Classification of those not sharing the ideology as inferior and not worthy of respect"

To better understand Lifton read this excerpted chapter from his book "Thought Reform and Psychology of Totalism."

See [www.culteducation.com]

Many people often confuse other forms of persuasion such as education, advertising, propaganda and indoctrination with thought reform, failing to make distinctions.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This simple chart by psychologist Margaret Singer makes the distinctions between various forms of persuasion.

I first heard about new era trainings from a friend and I went straight to the internet to find some more info. I came here to this site and found a good amount of feedback describing the negative aspects of the training. I brought this up to my friend, and she asked me to trust her and try it for myself. I did.

I can only speak to my personal experience of this training. First I'll cover the tangibles that materialized in my life after completing this training. After the first week of the training, I reunited with my ex-girlfriend from college and we're together to this day. This romantic relationship has been the most honest, trusting and passionate relationship I've ever had. I now either call or see each member of my family at least once a week. I have lost 5 pounds and decreased my body fat by 5-10% (I haven't measured in a while). I finally pursued my dream of starting my own business and I'm in my second round of prototyping for my anchor product. I volunteer one Saturday a month with various community efforts around the Bay Area. I have transformed my fraternity into a thriving community focused organization as their alumni advisor. I learned to read sheet music and I'm excited to learn to play the drums within the year.

Aside from the tangible results I've produced for myself in my life, I feel happy. I've replaced my overly critical and depressing outlook with positivity and ambition to change everything that isn't working for me. I've expanded my circle (the circle outside of which you could really care less) to include family, friends, acquaintances and people I meet for the first time. Moral of the story for me is that I feel in control and accountable for what's going on in my life. If something works, it's because I make it work. If it doesn't, I caused that as well. Nothing happens to me anymore, I make things happen.

Don't get me wrong, this training didn't "give" me a new perspective. I didn't drink the Kool-Aid and all of the sudden have a "revelation" on life. This training provided me with a forum to assess my strengths and weaknesses in a way that allowed me to recognize and change the conscious and unconscious tendencies that were leading me down a frustrated, self-critical, and increasingly unhappy path in my life.

When I first heard this sort of feedback about this training from other people I thought, "Good point. I'll take a look for myself and make the changes." I tried. It didn't work. My same old perspective on the challenges I was facing when trying to change certain aspects of myself got the best of me. It was like I was a giraffe with my eyes closed thinking really hard about being a lion. I was still a giraffe, my actions proved it.

Back to the reviews on this site. I can totally understand why some people might have had a negative experience during the training. It's not easy. There were certain points during the training where I felt the exact same way. After I completing the training, I realized that any objection I had during the training was not about the training itself, so much as the barriers I had developed for myself in my life. The training is designed to elicit your natural response to the situations that you face in your everyday life. For me, that meant I got angry, frustrated, and gave up. If I had stopped the training at that point, I'm sure that is how I would have felt about the training as a whole. Taking this back to the giraffe analogy, as a giraffe that thought I was a lion, I wasn't very happy when someone called me a giraffe.

There are certain valid points made in different reviews herein that I have considered carefully.

1. Recruitment. Yes, this is a component of the VOLUNTARY third part of the training. This part of the training is not for everyone, and many people struggle with this component for that reason. The first two parts of the training are inward focused. The third part is focused outward. I could see how someone might struggle with recruitment if their focus was still inward. I know that this training had a positive effect on my life. The recruitment piece taught me how to care enough about other people to want them to experience the same thing. It also taught me a ton about personal resiliency and attitude. Moreover, I won't argue that it's a great business model. That doesn't make it a cult does it? My fraternity is heavily invested in recruitment and I wouldn't consider a fraternity a cult. Would you?

2. Group Thought Reform. How can someone control your mind if you don't let them? For me, the structure of the training gave me a new perspective. One doesn't necessarily have to agree with feedback from the trainers or even other participants, its just an opportunity to see things in a new light. Is that bad?

3. I completely agree that if you should confide in your family, friends, coworkers, therapist, etc. Why not open that circle up and look for feedback through this training as well?

My point is this: New Era Trainings in Concord helped me to help myself in a way that I wasn't even aware was possible before. I would recommend this workshop to anyone who has personal, professional, financial, family, or relationship (etc., this list could go wherever you take it) goals for yourself that for one reason or another aren't yet present in your life.

I welcome anyone with questions to respond to this comment and I'd be happy to talk to you in more depth about anything regarding this training.