When I was having second thoughts about attending the Forum, the Landmark representatives guaranteed "breakthroughs." They were very clear when they distinguished these breakthroughs from mere insight. I told them I wasn't going to waste my time and $ with the Forum if their definition of breakthrough was the same as my definition of insight. They insisted the breakthroughs would be so clear that I would know the difference. Yet, in the end, while discussing my history with a rep, she called it a breakthrough and was congratulating me. That's when I started requesting a refund. What I was discussing wasn't even insight, just rehashing old history to see where the Landmark people would take it to effect their breakthrough.

Has anyone out there had a "breakthrough" because of Landmark? I would like to hear about it. I'm wondering if people having these breakthroughs have ever been in therapy before or if Landmark is the first time anyone ever asked them to look at themselves. If there was a breakthrough, what did you do afterwards? What happened? What steps did you take to maintain progress?

I have taken the Forum (1995) and the Advanced Course (1999). I have not taken any of the many seminars (a seminar is free with each of these classes). I have a very healthy skepticism about Landmark Education. Groupthink and hard sales pitches do not float my boat.

Nonetheless, I did have a "breakthrough" as a direct result of the work I did in the Forum. My oldest sibling and I had been estranged for a couple of years. She was adopting a second child (and I missed my nephew dearly). I had tried a lot of approaches to rebuilding the relationship, all of which met with unqualified failure. It is possible that this breakthrough would have occurred anyway. Whatever - I was just glad it happened at all.

Using the vocabulary and the paradigm proposed in the Forum, I was able to examine by relationship with my sister, put to bed old hurts and re-establish an ongoing relationship with her. She has not changed. I have not changed. What has changed is how I think about her and therefor how I interact with her.

This was a HUGE and very important experience for me. Although I feel a lot of the "technology" taught in the Forum is hooie, the fact of the matter is that it was what worked in this context.

I had been in therapy before the Forum and continued afterword. I have maintained progress in this breakthrough by continuing to utilize the vocabulary and the paradigm when I consider my relationship with my sister. This is a silent, introspective process.

I did not have a breakthrough as a result of the Advanced course, but found the experience rewarding and enlightening from this standpoint: I enjoy people; I enjoy observing and participating in stimulating, intellectual and emotional conversation and self-examination.

I am reviewing the Forum in January and am taking the Communications course in February. I am at a cross-roads in my career and feel that intense scrutiny of my life can not hurt and may help (as it did with my relationship with my sister).


I do not expect a breakthrough or a transformation (in Forum-speak). I expect to spend intense, uninterrupted time examining my life and my self and sorting through the issues. I do this anyway, but its always inside of the way that I am used to thinking (with an occassional self-help book and personal or therapeutic insight tossed in). Hour for hour, Landmark is dirt cheap "therapy," with the added benefit that I can witness others doing the same thing with their lives and perhaps benefit from their experiences and public dialogues. I would be SO MUCH MORE receptive to Landmark's message if they would stop trying a) to get me to get others involved and b) to sign up for MORE MORE MORE. But I can look beyond and through that to get what's helpful for me.

Some folks condemn the Forum. Some folks spend their lives living in and around Landmark Education. I'm neither - its just another tool in my toolbox.

Thanks for posting a reply so quickly. But if I may ask, what did you say that was so different from other approaches you took with your sister? Was the breakthrough really different from insight? Was this the first time you acknowledged your responsibility in the estrangement? I get the feeling you know the underlying themes in your relationship with your sister that led to estrangement. Did you actually say "I'm inventing the possibility...." or that you had been running a racket on her? If you would rather not answer here, I understand.

I used Landmark jargon on a sister I have a very special relationship with and she wanted to know what was wrong with me. :)

What is so special about Landmark that you would want to pay, albeit a reduced fee, and sit through another long weekend in January? Have you seen their new web page?

If the long hours were really filled with quality material, it would be one thing, but it's not. Neither was the Seminar Series. It was poorly executed repeats of major Forum themes.

I'm also wondering if the leader makes the Forum because I've heard such extremes in descriptions of experiences. My leader was offensive, abusive, and such an actor, turning on the tears on cue, that I couldn't take much of what he said seriously. He could also be quite funny, especially after being particularly abusive and all I could think of was "narcissistic sociopath". He was predictable so not a lot of people shared. Even though I couldn't explain how I was being manipulated at the time, I knew I was being manipulated. When I deduct time spent selling Landmark Education, and the staged emotional stuff, it wasn't worth the $350.

So - I can't say that I found the Forum to me so special or unique - I liken it to a different perspective. For example - if I were taking a photograph of a well-known historical marker, such as the Washington Monument, the actual finished end product would look different depending upon a wide variety of factors: what type of camera, what type of lense, what type of film, where I was standing when I took the photo (was I looking down or up at the monument, what was in the background), what type of day (weather-wise), what time of day, whether there were folks in the picture (and who they were, i.e. family, versus a group of school children, versus a group of WWII vets). Depending on all these (and other factors), the photo would look very differnet and would spark different emotions (or not) and perhaps compel a desire to visit the monument, repel such a visit or evoke memories of a visit there, etc.

The monument doesn't change - it's still the same height, shape and consistency. It's the viewer's persepective that changes and therefor the viewer's experience of the monument (thru the photo) that changes.

I think you can call a breakthrough an insight. You can call it a revelation or a realization. And if one is able to translate a breakthrough or insight or revelation or realization into a desired and desireable change in one's life, great. The change may only be inside of one's head (as in the case of "reconciling" with someone who's been dead for 20 years).

To me, the problem with Landmark is that they say - using the camera analogy a bit further - is that in order to get the best (or maybe the only) worthwhile picture, you must use the Forum camera, with the Forum lense, with the Forum film, at the Forum focul length and F-stop and you must stand on the corner where the Forum stands and as you are taking the picture and developing the picture and holding the finished pisture in your hand, you should simultaneously be selling the camera, film and picture to everybody who walks by . . . Whatever.

Their perspective and methodology doesn't bother me, however, because no photographer could convince me that their way was the only way. On the other hand, I don't mind trying out someone else's camera to determine if I'd like to have or borrow one similar - or change film, flash, focul length or lighting..

So - I did "know" what the root of the estrangement was and I did know that I was partly responsible. When my sister became a single mother by choice by birthing my nephew and subsequently did an international adoption, she suddenly became the poster-woman for singlemotherhood by choice. Since I was single, I was the perfect recipient for books, newspaper clippings, "helpful" tips about how my unused ovaries would rot if I didn't hurry up and have a child and insights about how I would die an embittered old childless woman (after having lived a life without true meaning). Nice. It was an endless barrage and although I told her on more than one occasion to tone it down or knock it off, she cut off contact after I simply said that all conversations about my reproductive organs and my fitness and ability to adopt internationally were unwelcome until such time that I was married.

So I got in touch with my "racket" - my fixed way of being (angry, annoyed, hassled) coupled with my persistent complaint (my sister is a bossy know it all who won't stop shoving this crap down my throat and doesn't respect my view that I don't want to be a single parent by choice). I also got in touch with my "already listening" for my sister: before she said a word she was a bossy, know it all... yadi yadi yada). I can't remember the rest of the jargon - but using the paradigm that was offered I realized that whatever I called "it" (racket, routine, history, deal), I was losing out on being with my sister and my nephews.

The breakthrough was "creating the possibility" that my relationship with my sister could be healthy, dynamic, loving etc. and that this possibility was not contingent on her changing her behavior or my changing my perspective. You could call it - getting over it, ignoring what's offensive, understanding and forgiveness - but the difference for me was that by "creating the possibility" I was not always bracing for Ms. bossy know it all and I was able to enjoy other aspects of our relationship and her personality without constantly judging her or regurgitating past offensive remarks in my mind.

Could I have figured this out on my own? Absolutely. Had I? No. How much longer would it have taken me? Who knows.

I am just not that hung up on (or a fan of) the Forum jargon (Did you see the parody on Six Feet Under?) so I only used it inside the dialogue I had with myself in my own head - there's no magic in the words. I think most folks would react the same way your sister did to the jargon - it makes the speaker sound like a half-bake (it still drives me nuts!). I was so aggravated by the circular double-speak I left the Forum Friday night and didn't return until after noon the next day. I just figured - what the hell?

Nonetheless, I ultimately found value in the concepts. I am renewing the Forum for the same reasons I re-read a book - except that its live and interactive - and I may get somthing out of it.

I think most people are looking for the ANSWER to the QUESTION. Others are looking for the QUESTION. I like watching, listening and learning about a wide variety of subject matters - including other people, myself and how people interact with each other (maybe I missed my calling).

I do think the Forum leader matters a great deal - an arrogant, sadistic egomaniac who incessantly used the annoying jargon would significantly detract from the positive aspects of the experience. Just like I hoped for a good history, English or math teacher, I hope the leader in January is a plus not a minus. If not - I can deal.

No matter what camera is offered or who the King or Queen photographer is, it's still up to me to listen analytically and apply selectively what is taught so that I like my own photograph. Afterall, I'm the one who has to live with it. Like most things - you get out of something what you put into it - although you say it wasn't worth 350 bucks, it sounds like you actually got a lot out of it (just not what the Forum was packaging).

Katydid,

Excellent analogy with the camera. A big part of my letdown was the fact there was nothing new and what was offered was information I had discussed with the representative several times before I attended the Forum. Much of what the Forum offered, I learned in yoga. But the other thing the reps had no business doing was playing doctor. With several people, they labeled illness a "racket", including mine. Your last statement about me getting a lot out of LF surprised me.

Got a long distance call . .. will continue later

Hope

Katydid,

I totally can understand looking at a persistent complaint from a different angle, and even being able to reconcile a conflict with a person who has passed on. From your posts, however, my issue with LE concerns THEIR attitude that they have THE answer. For the most part, I spoke many times with a particular rep who was adamant in distinguishing insight from breakthrough, going so far as to GUARANTEE breakthroughs. Regrding my persistent physical complaints, they GUARANTEED a breakthrough. When she couldn't explain it well enough, I gave HER examples, such as, would a breakthrough in this health problem mean accepting it, trying to find a career that would not be disrupted by it, perhaps start landscape painting as a source of employment instead of a 9-5? Accepting the fact that it's in my head, like my naturopath insisted? Let go of being in control and therefore noncompliant, as I was labeled after getting sick on the meds prescribed? (All the ways I had tried looking at this). Then I asked if, in doing these things, I was not trusting my gut, then wouldn't that be inauthentic? Her answer was, to all of this, either "no" or "we guarantee a breakthrough". Pretty confident in a world where there are no guarantees. So I figured it must be something REALLY different.

In the end, the seminar leaders and volunteers did NOT distinguish between insight and breakthrough. When I called the rep back after the Forum, no one bothered to say she left the company nor did they forward my letter to another rep or supervisor. LF gave me the run-around, stood me up at scheduled phone appointments, never heard my concerns, just sent me a check.

A few months ago, I was diagnosed with a malabsorption disorder, that I've probably had since a severe case of appendicitis when I was 12. It has affected many systems due to a low level of malnourishment it caused and it is something easily missed by std medicine, but something that naturopaths specialize in. The naturopath disregarded diagnostic symptoms because he was too focused on using his Landmark technology on me (without telling me, he didn't use their jargon until the week he left the country). After diagnosis, it took about two weeks to cure the problem and it was a like an entire new world opened up. It's one of those situations where you don't know what you had till it's gone. Both LF and ND had reframed physical symptoms as rackets. Due to their inability to think outside the box, they decided that since doctors could not find the problem, it must be in my head. Deep down I knew this was not the case, but when it was all I heard, and this really became intense with the ND and LF, I started to give in to it - maybe they were right - which was very depressing because it then seemed hopeless - there was something there I just couldn't see and I was going to continue with these symptoms as a result. Giving in was a result of LF and the ND, but my gut kept insisting this was not all in my mind.


And herein lies the problem I think for people who have a negative experience with Landmark. They offer a one-size-fits-all "therapy" program, which many times opens up wounds or even tries to create wounds, that LE is not equipped to handle. Most professionals are trained to know when they need to refer a client elsewhere, yet the arrogance of LF and this ND, who was going through all Landmark had to offer while I was his patient, prevented any of the reps or this ND from taking responsibility. They were all convinced they had the answer. And, like they did with others, blamed the client for not getting it.

LE is probably a great thing for work related issues, people in ruts or repetitive bad relationships, maybe, but as they claim, is not a sub for therapy, which my leader went to great lengths to mock. It is one thing to suggest that perhaps a recurring physical condition is psychosomatic, but to insist it is is another. Scientists now have solid evidence that conditions like irritable bowel syndrome is not "all in the mind" but actually in the gut. Wheat intolerance can cause symptoms that mimic depression, and antidepressants can worsen the condition. My ND suggested they didn't work because I didn't want them to. LE calls depression a racket. I think the risks vs benefit ratio needs to be considered, and the only way to do that is to get out more info.

I whole heartedly agree with your Herein lies the problem summary re: LF. It's OUR way or the WRONG way (not even the highway since they are loathe to lose a dissident). I have a serious physical problem and fully expect that I would be told that my eight-inch surgical scar pain and the scientifically measurable bilateral nerve compression is a "racket." Hooie. Actually yesterday a friend of sister's called (he's a HUGE Landmark guy) to see how I was feeling. He suggested that I could "disappear" my physical pain by "being with it." I was like - okey-dokey artichokey.

However, real as it is, I suspect that I do "run rackets" around the extraordinary physical pain that I have and am looking forward to re-visiting the paradigm so that I can become more aware of the panoply of "rackets" I run. Again - I could call them guilt trips, PLOM (Poor little ole me), helplessness (or needless independence - i.e. won't let anyone help me). Whatever, awareness creates room for change.

I 100% understand why you would be pissed off at and disappointed in LF. In my view, the promises are largely empty - but knowing that (which I figured out pretty early on) I'm okay with that. To me, attendance is no different for me than attending any other class on human development, communication and the like.

Your last post is further confirmation for the proposition that you got a lot out of your LF experience, just not what they were packaging. Of coure, I wouldn't know you if I were sitting next to you at Starbuck's, but your posts reflect someone who is strong, intellectully independent, analytical, who takes responsibility for her own well-being, stands up for herself and is committed to making available all of your experience with LF to others who may attend in the future so that they can hear a different viewpoint. So how much of what is reflected in your posts was already there before LF? Who knows - but your experience with LF has propelled you into a position where you can, in LF jargon: "Create the possibility" of being "fully expressed" concerning your LF experience (without regard to whether you "look good or bad" or someone is "making you right or wrong") by "speaking your commitment" to "integrity" in full disclosure and thereby be "cause in the matter" of other human beings making informed "choices" (not reasoned decisions)!!!!

("Cause in the matter" may be from the advanced course).
Have you read any of the many parodies of LF available on the web?

I also think that your concerns about the uniformed consumer walking into a hornet's nest are well-founded - Not everyone is emotionally healthy enough to listen selectively and implement judiciously the material LF teaches. Ultimately, though isn't everyone individually responsible for their own decision to attend a course like LF? People make even less informed choices (like having a kid, having an affair, taking or quitting a new job) everyday.

Anyway, it would be fascinating to hear what (if anything) you would get out of LF if you renewed it with the self-confidence you seem to have that you own viewpoint is 100% right-on.

By the way, have you every studied anythng about cognitive-behavioral therapy?

Katydid,

I'm sorry to hear you live with pain. If I find anything in my travels that might be of help, I'll be sure to pass it on. Your Landmark friend's comments about your pain are just an example of LE arrogance. While I've heard that LE is based on Zen concepts, the basis of Zen is love and compassion, not personal gain, be it financial or egotistical.

My other problem is that I went to LF in a state of desperation. Relatively speaking, I thougt by then I was well enough physically to attend, because I was eating better. Their "informed consent" scared me off and I tried to get answers from them about how tough it would be physically and emotionally. They insisted I would not have a problem, called me weekly for over a month and witnessed my mood swings, yet made their guarantees. I made a choice based on info they gave me.

I recently read a book called The Second Brain, by Michael Gershon, MD, who is a researcher at Columbia Med School. The book is about the enteric (gut) nervous system. In a nutshell, research started in the late 1800s about the gut functioning like a brain all by itself has continued to make great strides. Since the 1980s, it's known that conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (Crohn's, diverticulosis, etc.) are NOT a manifestation of psych disorders, but that anxiety and depression are likely manifestations of gut disorders when the two conditions are present. 95% of the serotonin in the body is produced in the gut, and certain receptors can be adversely affected by antidepressants, worsening gut symptoms and causing depression. Turns out these are not true "side effects" or negative reactions. Much of this research has been published. The modus operandi of medicine that if they don't find a therapy that works, it's all in the mind, is just not valid, and medicine is notoriously 15 yrs behind the research in many fields (for instance, acute back pain is now known to respond very well to ice, rather than heat, yet docs still prescribe heat for back injuries). There is a lot of resistance still to the gut research, yet drug companies are using the research because they lose $ every time a patient stops taking their Rx because of side effects. They realize this is a normal reaction in the gut. The 5-HTP my doc had me on is an SSRI, like Paxil. It did exactly what it was supposed to do to my gut - cause anorexia. Yet when I said it might be the cause of the anorexia, doc said he never heard of that, that this only happens in obese people (he was making these claims up). My doc wasn't interested in the research (I know now, didn't know this then) because he was more into using LE technology on me as he believed my conditions were in my head.

LF, and this doc I went to, operate on the outdated medical model that conditions are in your head - very closed-minded - and that they are right, but you're not wrong, and it's all meaningless anyway (talk about not taking responsibility!!) so they're not wrong either. Having studied both eastern philosophy and some psychoneuroimmunology, and having been in cognitive therapy, I'm familiar with the thought-body connection. Behaviorally, I benefitted from cognitive Tx a long time ago and went back to it after the whole LF\doctor ordeal because I felt like there were no more answers and that I was really gullible, stupid, yet somehow I MUST be resisting some deep stuck memory or emotion and that I would have these physical problems all my life, so how else could I reframe it all?

LE does not present reframing with compassion nor with much detail. My leader used an accusing tone which is not helpful. What I got from the headache-disappearing-act was that physical ailments are in your mind. Get into the pain (there is a childbirthing method, the opposite of Lamaze, can't think of the name - Rogers?- where you get into the pain) and it will disappear. This is oversimplification of lessons on having attachments, that avoidance or hatred is still attachment, and Sufis walking on hot coals who have developed mind skills that allow them to do this. Well - they didn't learn it overnight and by having someone tell them to get over it. To a neophyte, it takes time to learn how to reframe one's thinking about embedded conditions. And, again, I remember the I-can't-win-here feeling I got from LE and the feeling of having been had.

My doc didn't feel it was necessary to tell me he was using LE technology - I realized it after having the relationship ended terribly, and only after attending Forum did it dawn on me that he had run a very long Forum on me - complete with physical deprivation. He was cunning enough to throw in some alternative medicine so it looked like he was trying to address mind, body and spirit. It's very difficult yet to separate him from Landmark, but I trust that at some point I will. Neither LE or doc were willing to have a dialogue when asked questions, and even claimed they didn't get messages, said to call at a given time but then weren't available. But, as LF says, humans don't have integrity and it's all meaningless. When my doc was speaking with my yoga instructor about doing a workshop on meditation at her studio, after plagarizing Alan Watts for an hour (boy if I knew now what I didn't know then!!), he said he "couldn't care less what people do with the information he presents." No compassion. It's about performance. I considered if compassion did not matter, but it does. If there is no compassion, they will not care what happens to participants and patients. If it's about performance, it will be about moving onto the next bit of narcissistic supply and not the wellbeing of the person who is paying for expertise.

At this pt, a full year after Forum, I have yet to see a benefit, other than the ability to help others, and perhaps start my own website on following one's gut. That, however, also falls into one door closes and another one opens, which is pre-Landmark:) I guess going to LE helped understand my doctor's dynamics and to see how close-minded he was as he was claiming to be open - it's real yin-yang, no?

I'm enjoying the correspondence, Katydid.

Hope

Hope:

I'm enjoying the correspondence, too and will write in detail this weekend.

Since I had a fairly serious nervous breakdown that was due in part to the Forum (and a Forum-oriented therapist), and Landmark says that breakdowns are breakthroughs ... well, I guess I got what they promise, huh?

- Boz