Hi,

I recently broke up with my fiance due to his involvement with MKP and his running of circles that are without good boundaries, run by people who know enough to be dangerous and are not trained as therapists yet do processes and take people "deep"...lots of inter-gender, singles, couples touchy feely stuff going on, over-hugging and lots of bullshit narcissistic, self-indulgent activities. I was hurt in a circle only to be dismissed.

It seems that some the i-group and e-circle goers are addicted to the negative side of "doing their work" and that they all feed off each other in such a silly and ridiculous way. They do rituals and the same processes - as if they are trained, educated professionals. Well, I did not fit in and questioned the bullshit and had to end a long relationship over this...my other choice would have been to shut up and drink the koolaid!

Anybody else go through this?

realperson

MKP? Mankind Project? If so, here is a direct link to an active forum on this group here:

[forum.culteducation.com]

If this is not the group could you be more specific so we can help?

Quote
realperson
Hi,

I recently broke up with my fiance due to his involvement with MKP and his running of circles that are without good boundaries, run by people who know enough to be dangerous and are not trained as therapists yet do processes and take people "deep"...lots of inter-gender, singles, couples touchy feely stuff going on, over-hugging and lots of bullshit narcissistic, self-indulgent activities. I was hurt in a circle only to be dismissed.

It seems that some the i-group and e-circle goers are addicted to the negative side of "doing their work" and that they all feed off each other in such a silly and ridiculous way. They do rituals and the same processes - as if they are trained, educated professionals. Well, I did not fit in and questioned the bullshit and had to end a long relationship over this...my other choice would have been to shut up and drink the koolaid!

Anybody else go through this?

realperson

Dear realperson,

I know absolutely nothing about MKP, but I have seen a LOT of this kind of b.s. in the cult I was in as far as the pretensions leading to a false estimation of where effective help exists. Within the cult it was an exclusionary worldview that in retrospect had us all swirling down the drain even as we thought we were world beaters.

Outside of the cult in my experience there was many folks whose false estimation of their competence led to folks lining up behind several different avenues of supposed help. I'm still sorting things out and openly desire to keep learning. But everything I've heard of so far seems to point to the fact that competent, skilled exit counselors are rare, but a good place to get help if folks can find them.

There is a huge article archive on this site also:

[www.culteducation.com]

which covers therapy, cult apologists, specific groups and sources of help:

[www.culteducation.com]


This next page is a mine of information very helpful for those coming from a cult situation and attempting to deal with the great part of their lives that still has some links to cult involvement.
I come from a cult family myself--none of my family are out or ever look likely to be out--it is a difficult but not impossible situation to negotiate. Becoming your own independent person takes courage, time and patience and not many are willing to make the effort, but despite the resulting shunning/ostracism, it is worth it.
I read your story. My opinion, for what its worth, is that you have done the most difficult bit and your desire to keep learning will help you immensely.

[www.culteducation.com]


Legal-type matters:

[www.culteducation.com]


There is an huge amount of helpful resources on this site.
Good luck



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2010 05:50PM by Stoic.

That is a lot of information Stoic and it seems very clear, concise, and thorough. Even a quick overview seems to confirm most of my experience too.

I will enjoy looking it over more completely as my computer share will allow. FYI, it will take some time I'm certain.

Thank you.

About twenty years ago, I took a couple of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) classes.

The trouble with these courses was they used principles from psychology but the persons running the classes were not always trained as therapists would be.

If a student had problems, he or she would be informed 'You are projecting your shadow issues', that is to say having transferance issues.

But it was never acknowledged that a CPE supervisor was capable of projecting his or her issues onto others.

So we were told about transferance (the student projecting shadow issues onto others) but it was never as clearly acknowledged that a supervisor (powerholder) was just as capable of the same thing, namely counter transferance.

Through the seminary grapevine (person to person information sharing) we learned which supervisors had a history of being bullies and which ones did not.

Because, I am sorry to say, some were.

Two, students having trouble on ordination track were sometimes not told directly by ordination committee that they might not have what it took to be ministers.

And, too often such committees did not have the guts to tell some persons they needed psychotherapy.

Instead, too often, ordination committees were rumored to follow a process in which troubled students were told to take a year of CPE.

So there could be the risk that very troubled persons might be in ones CPE class.

More than once I heard of some persons who would wait to be last when giving final evaluations and then rip each person in class to shreds and then scoot out the door.

The problem is, one had to take CPE at a particular time in order to stay on schedule to be ordained. If you didnt get a good evaluation from the CPE supervisor, which often depended on input from classmates, you might be held back for a year or more and accumulate additional student loans that had to be paid off later on.

So, to be very blunt, I am going to state that on too many occasions, one had to take CPE under duress, as it were.

And due to the tight scheduling many ordination candidates were under in which they had to take a particular CPE unit and do well in it, they could not simply leave if their supervisor or classmates turned out to be abusive.

To add to the messiness, the students were simultaneously co-workers yet also evaluated your performance, blurring job roles.

Supervisors had to undergo a very lengthy training process which was reported to have many qualities of a bullying process. Once one got through it, and became a supervisor, one became part of a tight and priviliged group.

Very often I would be told 'Oh this doenst happen any more. The bad stuff was in the old days.'

Well, from my vantage point, I saw it was still going on twenty years ago, and they were saying things had been changed for the better.

I can only hope this is now the case.

Half baked pseudoscience theories and untested methods of group work were cycled through CPE.

With rare exceptions, the supervisors were not trained and licensed in accredited training programs for psychotherapists. They knew just enough about psychotherapy to be clumsy at it.

Am speaking in roughly general terms.

But again, this was Clinical Pastoral Education.

At our hospital, interns had the rare privilige of being able to make notes in patient charts.

Today, I shudder knowing this could have exposed us to being summoned to testify in a deposition. No one said a thing about these issues.

Anyone who has to take CPE had better ask whether they will get legal counsel from the hospital's attorney if later subpoenaed to testify in a deposition. One can arrange to have the seminary fieldwork office make this inquiry--in fact the field office at your seminary should do exactly that.

An additional obstacle to reform for CPE is that by the time a student has finished a unit, he or she is usually exhausted and eager to get out and to complete the next step of the ordination process.

It is sobering to face that our priests, ministers and rabbis may risk incurring abuse as part of the training they receive to be healers.

If you are a member of a congregation, ask them what they went through in CPE. You just may need to go looking for some Kleenex or give a hug.

And then, even if not officially ordinated, you too will become in that moment, a healer.

I've been considering your sharing since I read it yesterday Corboy, what a shame that ministers were taught in such a substandard fashion.

I'm not certain of what was going on behind the scenes that led to this situation or what it indicates in the big picture.

But I feel certain that some of our ordained ministers shy away from clinical psychology after such teaching. And in terms of the educational experiences in this particular ordination process I feel confident to say that the organization (which denomination and/or group doesn't seem too important right now to me.) was certainly lacking in it's perspective on how this stuff might help people.

But in general, what I want to say the most right now and will capitalize for emphasis................

MINISTERS SHOULD NOT NEED TO BE HEALED FROM THEIR EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES!

Thank you, jeffsjo

MINISTERS SHOULD NOT NEED TO BE HEALED FROM THEIR EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES

And I will tell you that persons who are not part of the seminary grapevine, and thus lack access to the work of mouth warning system by which those in the loop can be warned away from abusive CPE supervisors--persons not in the seminary grapevine are vulnerable.

Someone who suffered years of supervisor training from a well known abusive CPE supervisor said that the persons currently students were Catholic nuns who were not taking coursework at local seminaries--they were not part of social networks that know the person and could warn away.

Two, many Buddhist lay persons and monastics are now taking chaplaincy courses that involve taking CPE and that means they are not part of the seminary network and cannot get warnings about who is a good supervisor and whom to stay away from.

And I have to note that even when a supervisor has a good reputation, he or she might be stuck with one or more troubled students in CPE who generate an injurious atmosphere and the supervisor is unable to control the situation and the troubled student or students are allowed to make the others feel like shit.

I left my two units feeling so messed up that for years I could not smell hospital odors without feeling a mixture of rage and depression and self loathing.

An acquaintance told me that someone she knew was suicidal after going through CPE.

And here is the real mind blower:

One actually pays to take CPE units and in return works in the facility as a student chaplain. (Unless your denominiation has funds to pay your cost for you.)

I had the opportunity to quit and I could have quit. I regret not doing so. Instead, I let them con me into thinking I would be a wimp if I walked out in the middle of it.

That is what I regret.

People are floored when they learn I was actually paying to participate in CPE and get treated this way.

Frankly, I was amazed, too.

And just watch, if you try to talk to most CPE supervisors about abuse dynamics in CPE, unless you meet a rare honest one, most will give you the stereotyped reply, 'Oh things are different now.' They make it seem the problem was just a few out of control men who were bullies and who are now either retired or who have mended their ways.

Uh uh.

A bit of advice a very wise person told me was, this: in parts of the country where you have a high concentration of seminaries and that means many many ordination candidates who need to take CPE on schedule that means lots of desperate students who have to take CPE and the supervisors of CPE programs in that area know they have lots of students who cannot afford to quit and will have not trouble filling slots.

In areas where you have very few seminaries but a lot of CPE programs which need students, the supervisors have an incentive to treat the students well and get and maintain a good reputation to ensure their pregrams will get good reviews.

Its like restaurants. If you have lots of hungry people and just one restaurant, you can cook bad tasting food and still fill seats.

If you have lots of competing restaurants and relatively few customers and those customers have access to information (Zagat, Yelp, the seminary grapevine) giving info on who has great food, and who leaves people feeling fucked up and in need of therapy--in that competitve atmosphere the good restaurants fill the seats and the
roach coaches do not.

Again the problems in CPE are

*One is usually required to take CPE, so one does so in a manner of speaking, under duress. By contrast, one can decide whether one wants to seek therapy and can
pick and choose and walk away from therapists if the relationship doesnt fit quite right

* Students taking CPE are under time pressure on their ordination track. They have to get a good review from the supervisor, so even if treated badly by a supervisor or even if a troubled student is generating toxic group dynamics and the supervisor fails to control this, the student has to stay on the good side of both the group and supervisor in order to get a good enough review to contine to the next step in the ordination process

* Too often supervisors know a few bits and pieces of psychobabble and group work but dont have the full on training that real therapists and certified group therapists must have.

*There is a language by which to describe when the CPE student is in the wrong but no comparable terminolgy that acknowleges that CPE supervisors are just as humanly capable of counter transferance fuck ups.

*CPE supervisors and supervisor-trainees cover for each other, unless in rare instances you find one who is willing to buck the entire system and raise hell.

*By the time students finish the CPE unit or year and leave, they are often so tired
and so busy with the next step in their lives that they do not have the energy to do
any expose work.

At most the field office at your seminary may say 'It has been X number of years since any of our students have been in Y CPE program.'

They will not, for reasons of liability, say Y program is abusive. All you can do is listen in code and if it has been years since your seminary has sent its students to Y CPE program, you take that as a signal to stay away.

Even then, remember, you might have a good supervisor but if one or more of the CPE students is very troubled, and the supervisor cannot keep people steady, you may be in for a tough time.

And occasionally a person on hospital staff who is a CPE supervisor in training may turn out to be a creep.

My advice to anyone taking CPE is make very sure to keep in touch with your friends, and if necessary join a 12 step group such as Alanon or Codependents anonymous so you can check your perceptions against those persons not in the CPE unit and get needed validation on whether what you are witnessing or going through is indeed OK or
genuinely abusive.

Again, it was a good couple of years before I could smell hospital odor and not feel rage, depression and self loathing.

And I later learned that one of the people whom I had had difficulties with had had a bad track record other areas as well.

It was not just me.

So, again, if you are ever in a hospital and visited by a chaplain, ask em how CPE is going for them.

If you are part of a congregation, ask your rabbi or minister/pastor what CPE was like for them, and was it tough or a good experience?

You might wind up helping your healer and let me tell you so very many rabbis and ministers and priests are suffering burnout these days that asking that kind of question and offering THEM a shoulder to cry on is one of the best ways you can care for someone and give them real love, real humanity.

Few ever imagine the price paid by healers in training.

The few who may spurn your offer may be too afraid of the vulnerablity of breaking down and weeping in front of another human being.

but maybe your offer, even if not taken, will still plant a seed that may bloom in the future.

Note: Clinical Pastoral Education is non denominational.

For many years it was chiefly taught by and for clergy in the Protestant denominations and then for a good many years, has been part of the ordination process at many Roman Catholic seminaries.

With the shortage of Roman Catholic priests, many nuns, sisters, deacons and lay persons are being trained in chaplaincy and they are taking CPE.

Many persons in rabbinical training are taking CPE though it can still be lonesome being Jewish and in CPE.

THe most recent change is more and more Buddhists are taking chaplaincy training.

I can only hope things have changed.

Over twenty years ago, when I went through all this, the internet was not available and this would have made it very much harder for CPE survivors to find each other, share
and compare sitautions and then provide group support.

I can only hope that now with the advent of the web, it may become easier for justice seeking to take hold.

Am sad to admit that over twenty years ago, I was on my seminary campus, and in walking around a corner, ran into a classmate who was currently in a CPE program run by a well regarded and much loved CPE supervisor.

She was crying her eyes out, looked like a wreck and yelled at me, 'Supervisor X' is not who people think he is!'

Supervisor X happened to be a friend of mine. But because he was a friend, I chose to take CPE with another supervisor so as to avoid conflict of interest.

I froze. At some level, a level I just did not want to believe, I sensed this woman was
telling a terrible truth. But because I was friends with Supervisor X, I just didnt want to
believe it, so I froze.

Many years later, I found out that X had lost control of the CPE group my classmate was in and its dynamics had turned abusive. He was involved with some activities that were currently drawing heavy media attention and it appears he let his own attention get distracted.

The issues that come up and in some cases are acted out in CPE groups are just as intense as what can come up in psychotherapy.

But because CPE units are usually in hospitals and jails with roles (patient, inmate, chaplain, staff) boundaries are structurally built into the relationships. So in CPE there is little incentive to give fine grained detailed training on psychological boundaries and how these must be created and maintained interpersonally--training which is required if one is a therapist.

Likewise, I saw very little attention given in CPE training to issues of power differential or the reality that powerholdres, such as CPE supervisors are capable of countertransferance--projecting their unconscious material onto patients or students.

A students failings are closely examined and there is a terminology. But there is no comparable and equivalent scrutiny given to CPE supervisor slips--unless you luck into a very rare unit with a supervisor who has the training and humility to submit to scrutiny.

But, that moment with my classmate was one in which I too was part of a collusive cover up. I didnt want to face that a CPE supervisor who was my friend was capable of fucking up.

So I clammed up and failed to respond and listen to my classmate--failed to hear the cry of one who was oppressed and needed the first line remedy for oppression--accompanyment and to be heard so she could bear full witness.

Thats part of what drives me to write here today.