Insight vs Breakthrough from doing Landmark Forum
Date: January 16, 2003 09:47PM
Thank you Corboy and Pauly. This is very useful info for me. My doctor, a naturopath, though we spent about 2 yrs together, spent very little time on talking about the actual trauma. In fact, once I reluctantly stated what had happened, he decided to visit the scene of the crime. With his schedule, it was postponed a couple times, so I had 3 months to "look forward" to it. Then it was rather anticlimatic - nothing really came up. But, we had NO follow up. My physical and emotional health did not change, so I began to feel like a failure. This is when the doctor asked me to work for him and I thought maybe if I heard him speak enough, I would "get it."
I had been too sick to go to Landmark the yr prior, so it was a full yr later that I went. Having had it drilled into my head that I was solely responsible for having the physical conditions as a result of being totally responsible for my reaction to trauma at age 17, I sat in LF and saw one person after another blasted for "blaming" others for their job woes, relationship problems, etc. I didn't get up and speak, but did talk a lot with the volunteers.
The use of alleged "zen" by both doctor and Landmark is further confusing. My doc used the example of the Tibetan monk whose village residents were slaughtered yet he forgave his murderers. After 911, the doc used this example to ask what the US did to bring on the attacks. The doc, probably being a sociopath with a contempt for weakness, turned the concept of forgiveness into a responsibility issue. By the time I got to Landmark, it was pretty much impressed on me that ALL my health problems were my fault, and even all the things I liked about myself were shallow attempts to look good. What a suprise that that was the first topic at Landmark - that people only act to look good.
The topic of being present came up in Landmark as well as with the doc (mindful meditation), however, with the doc, in an effort to apply this principle, I used it as a method of suppression for a while, ignoring the confusion I was starting to feel under his care. I saw other participants do "unreasonable" things - like quit their jobs and move to Colorado with no place to live - because they were no longer going to listent to those voices that are always present. People were going to work and telling their bossses about "their rackets" and taking "responsibility" and then coming back panicked the info wasn't received very well. And then the Landmark people would ask with an air of accusation, "why should they respond the way you wanted them to?"
In all his supposed wisdom, the doc missed two major physiological problems because he was so focused on his own agenda. Landmark apparently works on the same principle - that health problems are a matter of some underlying "story" that we haven't taken responsibility for, so we suffer the consequences. Funny how a nutritionist basically cured my "underlying story" in about 2 weeks.
He took no responsibility, Landmark at least paid me a refund but did not want to discuss anything with me, yet both preach about personal responsibility for EVERYTHING. I think both this doctor and Landmark have figured out a convenient and lucrative way to gain narcissistic supply.