Maybe I should contact Senator Xenophon about MJB SEMINARS as they have really indoctrinated some of my family and friends and now there is a complete breakdown in communications with them due to them being so brainwashed by the ideas of the group.
Thousands of dollars are being spent on Seminars and "Education" that is draining much needed income needed to support for the family of one of them.
Work obligations have been neglected due to "homework" commitments demanded by MJB.

It is rather sad to see normally intelligent people going so far out of their way to follow a person MItch J Behan who is using Cognitive Psychotherapy in a most unethical way on unsuspecting and uninformed people who think they are doing Self Improvement Seminars that will ""Transform their life in 48 hours"

It is a mish mash of Quantum Physics/Quantum mechanics pseudo science gobbeldygook to impress, and Dr Demartini/EST/Scientology/Landmark methodology that traps people in a situation where the Seminar facilitator takes control of everything(toilet breaks, permission to speak etc) and they do not realise what is being done to them.

The hissy fit thrown by these people when they finally realised they could not get me to attend any Seminars was phenomenal.
Normal close family relationships are broken and I have been told that all communication is to cease.

There has definately been a "Transformation" in their lives in 48 hours as per the promises on the internet site for MJB.
It is impossible to get them to even consider that the MJB doctrines may be flawed in some way.

They are definately exhibiting symptoms of TRANSFERRANCE as other MJB devotees clearly display on the Facebook page "Mitch and Mills".
All the MJB devotees rave about how wonderful Mitch Behan is.
This is why Ethical, Qualified, Clinical Psychotherapists are advised against building social relationships, having friendships, or employing patients that they are treating with Psychotherapy.
To allow TANSFERRANCE to occur with patients is taking advantage of the patient and the trust that is built up in therapist/patient relationships.
This is UNETHICAL.

HOWEVER there is no indication of MItch J Behan or any of his staff being suitably Professionally Qualified to administer Cognitive Psychology.
YET they are using these Psychotherapy techniques against unsuspecting uninformed members of the public in a most unprofessional and unethical way.
I have been assured by one Prophet Teacher Student "graduate" that they are now qualified to run Relationships and You Seminars (where psychotherapy techniques are used on participants).

Cognitive Psychotherapy should only be used with a multidisciplinary team available to support the patient.
A Psychiatric hospital or a very supportive therapist who has contacts with appropriate interactive support systems for the patient is needed to ensure the therapy is suited to the patients individual needs.
Therapy can take from 1-5 years.

Mitch Behan runs short term intensive Seminars over long hours daily, and there is no warning to participants that Psychotherapy techniques will be used.

I've read through some of the inquiriy's submissions and findings and I think you'll find Senator Xenophon will be interested in MJB. I don't recall seeing the, mentioned in any of the text, but I wasn't particularly looking for them at the time. Get in contact with his office and see what he says.

I did the MJB seminar on Relationships and You. I nearly didn't because of this site and what I read on it. I am glad that I went with my heart and completed it because if I didn't I would have missed out on one of the most amazingly wonderful experiences of my life.

I finally feel at peace with myself and love myself for who I am... something I have never been able to do in my lifetime.

Until you do MJB and stick it out properly.. don't knock it. Mitch and Emilia are wonderful people who have been through hell in their lives too. As for not having qualifications .. I've been to qualified people and they have never been able to help me like Mitch has.

sarina286:

Your post reads like an ad for this company and its products.

"Don't knock it, until you've done it and stuck it out until the end"?

Hardly.

You don't have to drive drunk or smoke ciggarettes to know its not a good thing.

Research matters. And anyone considering buying a product, such a s a training seminar, can do a background check before laying out their cash and participating in something that might be potentially unsafe.

Large group awareness training (LGAT) or "mass marathon training" like MJB has a deeply troubled history that should cause anyone concern. LGATs like Landmark Education/EST, Lifespring and Sterling Institute of Relatiionship have been the subject of critical news reports. Personal injury lawsuits have also been filed against LGATs by former participants that claimed they were hurt by the training.

A paper written by a psychologist illustrates some of the inherent problems frequently observed within LGATs.

See [www.culteducation.com]

13 liabilities that can observed within most LGATs or mass marathon psychotherapy training sessions:

They lack adequate participant-selection criteria.

They lack reliable norms, supervision, and adequate training for leaders.

They lack clearly defined responsibility.

They sometimes foster pseudoauthenticity and pseudoreality.

They sometimes foster inappropriate patterns of relationships.

They sometimes ignore the necessity and utility of ego defenses.

They sometimes teach the covert value of total exposure instead of valuing personal differences.

They sometimes foster impulsive personality styles and behavioral strategies.

They sometimes devalue critical thinking in favor of "experiencing" without self-analysis or reflection.

They sometimes ignore stated goals, misrepresent their actual techniques, and obfuscate their real agenda.

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.

They pay inadequate attention to decisions regarding time limitations. This may lead to increased pressure on some participants to unconsciously "fabricate" a cure.

They fail to adequately consider the "psychonoxious" or deleterious effects of group participation (or] adverse countertransference reactions.

The groups were determined to be dangerous when:

Leaders had rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group. and when they should change.

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.

Leaders had an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.

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 LGATs seems to rely upon what can be seen as "coercive persuasion".

See [www.culteducation.com]

The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:

The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance

The use of an organized peer group

Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity

The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified

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:

Control of communication

Emotional and behavioral manipulation

Demands for absolute conformity to behavior prescriptions derived from the ideology

Obsessive demands for confession

Agreement that the ideology is faultless

Manipulation of language in which cliches substitute for analytic thought

Reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of doctrine

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

The results of LGATs are subjective. That is, people feel they have received benefits, but there has never been a peer reviewed published study in a credible academic journal, which has demonstrated objective scientifically measurable results and/or benefits over a period of years following such training. Objective results might include a lower divorce rate, improved grades in school, increased income, lowered need for professional counseling or prescribed medication for stress and anxiety amongst past participants.

Before just jumping in upon the advice of a friend, family member or co-worker pitching such training, it is important to do the research on LGATs generally and the LGAT specifically being promoted.

There are meaningful and less risky alternatives to LGATs, such as counseling provided by a licensed professional (e.g. marriage and family therapist), continuing education at an accredited college or university, job training, business school or mentoring by a business professional, support groups for particular problems and/or pastoral counseling for those attached to a church.

Most LGATs have little if any meaningful accountability, unlike the aforementioned resouces, which are typically licensed, regulated and/or accredited. In fact many LGATs expect participants to sign some sort of waiver, essentially relinquishing the right to claim a personal injury or have a personal injury trial in court before a jury.

Being expected to sign such a waiver should be a warning flag in my opinion.

To whom it may concern:

This thread is about "Landmark Education", not MJB.

Please stay on topic.

Hi

I'm just interested to hear if there are still efforts to raise awareness of lgats in South Africa and what I can do to assist.

Hi Dopamine Link.

It is up to you - you can inform people. If you want you can have them watch my videos on YT. I have had these up for years and landmark has not shut me up/down.

However the problem with LGATs is that there are so many. Landmark is the originator of many of them.

Do what you can.

//Lars

Thanks for the advice Lars. Check out my most recent post (I've only made about 4 in total) explaining the link between bipolar disorder and the manufactured highs of lgats. It's pretty interesting.

DL