Hello,

I just recently attended the Landmark Forum last weekend and I was wondering if I could get some help with understanding why I feel so disquieted about what I heard and experienced there. There are times when my mind reacts badly to what I've learned and other times when I'm able to explain my life in Landmark terms. Would any ex-Landmarkians be willing to speak to me through a phone call? I'm living in the US so it shouldn't be a problem to reach any US ex-Landmarkians through a phone call. I would like to discuss the concepts and terminology used in the forum and how they are different from the way life actually works.

Thank you all for your time,
SilverNugget

silvernugget:

There are some excellent articles that explain such mass marathon training.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This article was written by a psychologist that attended such training.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This article was written by a sociologist. It explains coercive persuasion techniques, which are often employed by groups selling such training.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This is a directory of professionals familiar with cult-like groups that employ coercive persuasion techniques. One of these counselors might be helpful in sorting out the effects of such training.

Thank you for the links, rrmoderator. Does anyone happen to have any forum links describing how Psychology is used incorrectly/irresponsibly by the Landmark presenters? I'm looking for explanations on why "blaming the victim" is wrong or the "that's just your story" approach is incorrect either.

It's hard to distance myself sometimes from the effects of the training when I read testimonies from Landmarkians about how great their lives and relationships are now. I'm wonder if I just don't "get it" and then I wonder if anything is wrong with me. I feel like I understand parts of what the forum taught like re-examining the past but I feel like even that practice is somehow perverted in some way by the forum's philosophy. Any help would be greatly appreciated, folks. Thank you.

Stuff to read here.

[www.google.com]

And, the right place to go and get info from what others have written is here on the LGAT thread.

Feeling good or 'high' means nothing and it proves nothing.

Cocaine, speed, can make people feel high.

So can certain kinds of group situations.

So can being kept short of sleep.

Only way to learn more is sit down and read what is has been written here. The message board is searchable. Go to upper right corner, select 'all dates' and then put whatever topic you want into the search slot and you'll get plenty.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Finally, to preserve anonymity/privacy, telephone conversations are best avoided.

Persons can be contacted by sending a PM (private message) through this website.

No one is obligated to reply to PMs and many prefer never to disclose their above ground identities.

Much support has been given precisely because anonymity is preserved.

If you are in the Dallas area, my husband and I facilitate a monthly support group for people recovering from cults or other thought reform environments. You can check out our website or message me for more info.

Why is blaming the victim wrong? Common sense, human decency and empathy perhaps? I've not done Landmark Forum but am familiar with this type of idea or rhetoric from "new age" thinking in general.

I once skimmed a book called "Spiritual Bypassing" by Robert Masters, most of the book refers to the error of thinking everything should be love-light-and-bliss (which is what I understood "spiritual bypassing" to mean), however a few little sentences somewhere in the middle of this book was the only time I have ever seen victim-blaming identified as a form of spiritual bypassing.

That is, when someone is talking about a painful situation, and the immediate response is "what did you do to contribute to/create this situation?" This author says that to jump right to "responsibility" is spiritual bypassing; maybe there are actions you can take to change your own situation but first you have to acknowledge that the other person really was abusive!

Something dangerous happens in my view when you combine a philosophy that is claimed to apply to ALL people, with positive testimonials. People who don't get those amazing results end up questioning, like you did, "is there something I'm not getting here?" and gurus of such approaches will be all too happy to reinforce that idea.

I also am suspicious that - what you describe as victim-blaming, I am not familiar with the actual practices of Landmark but I have some idea - has strayed far, far from any origin it might have had in cognitive or other therapies, where the beliefs you hold about a life experience are said to influence the impact it has on you.....into something twisted for the organization's own ends, that is, that it generates the psychological breakdowns they are looking for in order to implement thought reform.

I have noticed a sort of paranoia about "victimhood" in personal growth circles....like, you can't acknowledge that something really bad and painful happened to a person and they were truly powerless to do anything about it...no! because if you did that then they would get stuck in blame forever and never do anything to improve their own situation! Which I don't understand at all. I don't see how minimizing the effect of a trauma on a person even contributes to overcoming it, let alone being required to overcome it! It seems to me you have to tell the truth exactly about your experience. This really happened, and this is how it felt. No more, no less.

I also think one of the errors these groups/programs make is attributing all suffering to the individual, and refusing to acknowledge real, tangible limitations. Again, there often are actions the individual can take to change their situation, but it doesn't make sense to view the individual as an isolated entity, separate from their environment and society.

David Smail's website [www.davidsmail.info], his writing style is academic (then again so is mine.... :)) but worth the effort to understand. This page is a good summary [www.davidsmail.info]

Quote: "What ‘clinical experience’ teaches, in my view, is that we are as individuals not freely-choosing originators of action, but rather the hosts of influences which impinge upon us or flow through us. There is no faculty of pure ‘will power’ upon which we can call in times of trouble, and what we are able to do about adverse circumstances will depend upon the powers that are or have been available to us in the outside world. The almost irresistible feeling of free choice and moral independence that subjectively accompanies our everyday activity is an illusion that stems from our singular embodiment (that is to say, we can only be directly aware of what is happening physically and psychologically inside us, and so we accord it undue causal prominence). This illusion is endlessly exploited by those who benefit most from it. Individual blame, for example, finds a ready reception in the tender conscience cocked and primed to receive it."

I also recommend Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Bright-Sided" [www.barbaraehrenreich.com]