Hi Corboy,

It has come to my attention that in Sydney, Australia there is a least one Life Coaching Traning Organisation that is using the LGAT psychological model to indoctrinate patricipants.

[b:69ffc4f15d]Some background to the Industry:[/b:69ffc4f15d][/color:69ffc4f15d]
Life Coaching is a profession that started in the USA over 10 years ago.

The distinction that Life Coaches make with Counsellors or psychologists is that Life Coaching is not concerned with the past or how the client has arrived at their current situation. Rather, the intial interview provides the space for the client with the help of the Life Coach to explore options and develop goals. The goals are project managed, creating milestones etc. The Life Coach contacts the client each week for a period of usually 3 months to provide support, celebrate milestone achievements and encourage when milstones are not met. It's like having a sports coach for various aspects of your life.

Business Coaching has a similar model. The International Coach Federation www.coachfederation.org

is a loose association of Life and Business Coaches that provides self regulated accreditation for the industry. Anyone dealing with a Life Coach or Training Org may need to check with ICF first though I am not endorsing them.

[b:69ffc4f15d]The Catch:[/b:69ffc4f15d][/color:69ffc4f15d]
HOWEVER - the industry is not regulated so anyone can hang a shingle up and call themselves a Life Coach and any organisation can claim to be a Life Coach Training Org.

[b:69ffc4f15d]Life Coaching and LGATs[/b:69ffc4f15d][/color:69ffc4f15d]
A student friend of mine arrived in class one monday 4 weeks ago enraged. Her business partner and herself were invited by a business colleague to enroll in a Friday evening to Sunday Night training course to learn to be business coaches.

The Organisation in Sydney is Called "Success and You" www.successandyou.com.au and run by Peter Cona who also is the LGAT Trainer.

She was concerned with the techniques used and recognised them to be highly powerful psychological processes. I passed to her the following documents:
Dr Margaret T Singer - 6 Conditions for Thought Reform - short check
list to determine brainwashing
www.dike.de/SINUSsekteninfo/lec/psycho/singerne.htm

The Battle for Your Mind - Dick Sutphen
www.ctyme.com/bwash/bwash.htm

She stated that evey technique mentioned by Margaret Singer and Dick Sutpen was used. The format contained long days and nights.

The participants all experienced the euthoria as she also did even though she rejected the content. I did notice she was far more assertive too. all her group wanted to sign up for the next course.

I would be interested to know if other people in Australia, USA or other countries have noted that LGATs are being used by some inscrupulous Life Coaching Orgs.

If anyone is interested in learning to be a Life Coach, please check the Organisation offering the training thoroughly.

Oz

A legitimate Life Coach should resemble a gas station:

You get fuel for the journey, get your car fixed, and can check a road map in case you think you've got lost.

But the people at the gas station are there to help you reach YOUR chosen destination. They should not trick you into abandoning your plan to follow their plan, nor should they trick you into pitching your tent in the gas station's parking lot, and calling that your vacation!

The thing with LGATs is, they trick you into camping in the gas station parking lot and convince you its as good or better than seeing Yellowstone, Yosemite--Sherborne Forest.

Life Coaching seems to spin off in some very legitimate ways from career counseling and brief, problem oriented psychotherapy. If LC stays within certain parameters it can be legitimate and helpful. But if it strays beyond these parameters, it is easily corrupted.

IMO, Life Coaching is legit only if

1) It is made clear that LC is suitable for essentially healthy persons, who have clear cut goals and need to know what resources or skills they need to reach those goes.

There must never be 'bait-and-switch'

*The Life Coaching process should serve the stated goals of the client, not subtly recruit or indoctrinate clients into abandoning their goals to serve the covert goals of the group or its leader.*

**It would be a good sign if the Life Coach encourages clients to write out his or her goals and then check and re-check the goals throughout the process.

If the client is tricked into abandoning his or her goal to follow the agenda of the group, the LC process is no longer coaching but indoctrination and is an existing LGAT, or something in the early stages of becoming an LGAT.

2) The Life Coach or career counselor aims to have only short term contact with the client/customer and is eager to foster the client's autonomy and be part of his or her continuing education, not monopolize the process.

3) The 'here-and-now' approach is only suitable for very clear cut goals (eg how to transition from one type of job to another), and only if a person is essentially healthy. A really ethical Life Coach will know how to refer you to a psychotherapist if it turns out you need one, and will have a list of qualified therapists available if referrals are needed.

4)**It should therefore be a big red flag if a Life Coach tries to keep you attending course after course. That would subvert your autonomy and signal that the Life Coach's intentions are not in your best interest.

Above all, there should be no hidden agendas, such as fronting for an existing LGAT or using Life Coaching to test one's hypnotic skills or room arrangment experiments on an unsuspecting group.

There are zillions of these "Life Coaches" out there now. Its a new trend, and new cash cow, and they are using every technique in the book to sucker people.

Old wine in a new bottle.

Coz

Maybe that should be bad wine in a new bottle. :D

Ever since my experiences I have questioned if any such life coach is really necessary.

Really, I think all these LGATs are the WORST America has to offer as a "product." Truly, it's capitalism at its most seedy. They totally abused our laws of religious freedom and freedom of speech.

I was never for censorship, but their needs to be a law for freedom of thought. These companies take so much away from us, far beyond just money and time.

Yep, they fit into my definition of evil.

One of my Landmarkian friends (sad now that it's not just one) has done some research about the reality TV show "Starting Over."

This show, where six women live together in a house in Chicago, uses Landmark techniques to encourage participants to break through old habits and thought patterns. Someone high up in the show -a producer or developer- went through Landmark. The "life coach" on the show is a Landmark graduate.

One of the participants who was afraid of heights was taken to a high dive at a local pool. The other participants and coach cheered for her to jump. She dallied for an hour and the other people started to leave when she called them back and jumped.

[www.startingovertv.com]

This friend is also exploring life coaching programs. One in Colorado is apparently run by a Landmark graduate-there is some connection to that and the person running the Chicago reality show. It uses "Fearless Living"
by Rhonda Britten as a teaching text.

The other in North Carolina/New Orleans uses an out-of-print book as its key text.

Thanks for the Landmark/Life coaching connections made on the board...I just thought it was something else she became interested in but the progression makes sense.

This is an old thread but I thought I'd add my piece, that my partner was "referred" to Landmark through his Life Coach.

I never liked this woman for a lot of reasons. I thought the whole concept of Life Coach seemed very fishy and smelled like a scam, but I tried not to get in the way of it.

I don't know whether she knew my ex's history of psychological problems, or that he was on medication, or that he has insomnia, all these things that should have Xed him off the list to take part in The Forum based on their own corrupt and evil waiver.

I think this woman is irresponsible and out to make a buck. My ex, just today, told me I'm wrong, that she really does care about him, and that he's paying her less than all her other clients, and she's "committed to my happiness."

Landmark jargon, of course.

Man, when some people drink the Kool Aid . . . they really drink the Kool Aid.