I should add that, during my whole time in Spectrum, the Coopers were not in therapy. When questioned about this one, of many, double standards Terry Cooper replied, "I live with Jenner".

The self styled psychotherapy guru and known cult leader Derek Gale has taken sex therapy workshops at Spectrum!

I am beginning to wish that I wasn't using my real name in this forum, it makes me feel vulnerable. I don't know to whom I am talking, but hey ho.

Many people attended Spectrum's Basic, intermediate and advanced sexuality workshops - you could even find something useful in them. Not all the content of them is dodgy and the participants aren't dodgy, what is dodgy is the dripping of how good Spectrum is and how good the leaders are in a "tell" rather than a "show" way. The power of a group is harnessed and the power of the group process is attributed to Spectrum rather than to the power of sharing in a group, which you'll get in any therapy or AA group. I don't think it is particularly good form to flame someone on the basis that they attended a workshop.

It does take some sort of narcissistic drive to set up a psychotherapy centre and healthy narcissism isn't necessarily a bad thing. But narcissism isn't healthy when phrases "the most professional people I have ever known" and "the best" are bandied about. It is also unhealthy when the institution isolates itself, doesn't join in with conferences or keep up to date with contemporary research because it considers itself too special and different to do that.

I think the problems we have are that the pyramid we talked about is very difficult to prove. We notice it when we are there, but what is our evidence? There is the lack of all-round training but I don't think we'll get them on that one because it's acknowledged in the profession that some trainings are specialised to one school whereas others are integrative. They now profess to be formative psychologists - Stanly Keleman's theory. Are there UKCP guidelines or directives that all courses should have an integrative/eclectic grounding. I think this is poor but they would defend it. What are the claims that Spectrum make about its training today? If these claims are not followed through then there is a chance that they may be investigated on this count.

Have we proof that Spectrum encourage long term dependency? What does the UKCP would say about an institution which seems to encourage long-term dependency and prolonged infantilisation of clients? I think this is a complex area and would be hard to prove.

I may send something off to those responsible for accrediting Spectrum but I think everything is difficult to prove.

I remember last time they were accredited, when I was in full positive transference mode, the accreditors wanted to witness a workshop. This was problematic for Spectrum because all their workshops are for closed confidential groups who work with personal material. So they manufactured a workshop to be witnessed. It was Maggie explaining some Stanley Keleman theory, to some very keen trainees (including me) brought in especially to be witnessed by the accreditors. After the workshop the accreditors are in the room alone with the trainees. They asked some pertinent questions. We defended Spectrum to the hilt and said how special and unique and marvellous the training was. We were in positive transference and if they had not re-accredited Spectrum, wouldn't the training we'd had be null and void and wouldn't it dash our hopes of UKCP registration? So even if you weren't in the throws of pos trans like me, it would be in your interests to defend it. Then Maggie came in again to resume the workshop and when the accreditors left, Maggie said, well this is fascinating stuff but we needn't go on as they've gone now! If you look at this scenario from the point of view of the accreditors, there isn't that much for them to get their teeth into.

I am not going to participate in this forum any longer because I don't know who I'm talking to and because I've noticed since I have I have been thinking about Spectrum again. It took me about three years to stop doing that so I don't want to start again. I am going to concentrate on the healthy professional support networks I am in now and get on with my job.

Are you sure? My experience of Spectrum is that they very rarely use outsiders on trainings, certainly not on their sexuality "trainings".

Hi
I agree with everything you've said in your post Phillipa. You've been brave and consistent and I only regret that circumstances prevent me going public at this time. I undertake to say nothing that I can't defend in a public forum however.

There are concrete concerns to take to UKCP and I know that others have. As you say, whether they seem profound to UKCP is another matter; I don't believe that it is our responsibility to prove anything however; if the concerns are genuine that is a matter for the relevant ethics and standards officers. Yet another matter is whether UKCP have the will to deal with organisations which act autonomously without the therapy community; seeming to ignore codes of ethics and best practice.

As you say, neither of us has information on Spectrum's current practice and theory. Perhaps someone who has might post? Disaffected or positive.
This would give the forum a chance to post some questions.

I see this forum as a way to explore, by thinking and discussion, what those of us who have experienced Spectrum, saw as a disabling and therapeutically unproductive culture within the organisation. The permanence of the individual's identified pathology and the impossibility of working this through because of the operation of dual roles and transference reinforcing boundary disturbances. I think these should be matters of concern for the profession. I also accept that organisations can change. Your anecdote doesn't hold out much hope though and with Spectrum up for re-accreditation let's hope that current adjudicators are more vigilant.

It's not my intention to defame Spectrum with anecdotes. However it's in the stories, as therapists know, that the pathology of the organisation can emerge. I hear and recognise your fear of "vulnerability". Any one who's been on the end of a Spectrum "encounter" will.

One important element that you write about is the "specialness" of the leaders in the eyes of the accolytes. Has Terry Cooper or Jenner Roth ever completed a psychotherapy training? Yet the core staff revere them. This is highly reminiscent of Weber's ideas of "charismatic leadership". That is, where the personal charisma of the leader is the basis of the organisational loyalty. Sound like anything else?

I hope that you'll reconsider your decision to dis-engage. Perhaps writing and thinking in this forum, with others of a serious intent, might produce some working through and exclusion of Spectrum from the psychic space they can occupy in the wounded leaver. That is certainly my hope. However, they have acted in a way which makes it impossible for me to move on just yet.

If you decide to stop posting; thank you so much for your insight and courage. It was invaluable to me to find an answering voice when I began.

Derek Gale is a known psychotherapy cult leader who has recently been associated with the leading psychotherapy academic Prof Windy Dryden;

[www.thes.co.uk]

We have extensive evidence from ex client sources that Gale attended a sex therapy workshop at Spectrum and then enforced his version of their teachings on his group.

He subjected his group to mixed sex partial nudity, breast manipulation and unmediated use of pornography.

Clients that were visibly distressed by this abuse were shouted at and told that they had had a 'wonderfully painful experience' that they did not have the emotional strength to appreciate it.

To a lay reader your descriptions of the regime at Spectrum seem remarkably similar to the descriptions of life at the Center For Feeling Therapy in California as detailed by Marybeth F. Ayella in her book Insane Therapy - Portrait of a Psychotherapy Cult.

It would be absolutely inappropriate for me to comment on either Mr. Gale or Mr. Dryden as I have no experience of either of them as practitioners.
I haven't seen the practices you describe in Spectrum mixed sexuality groups, or heard of them. Some of what I have heard of and experienced in the single gender sexuality groups now seems dubious in the light of current good practice. For instance, mutual genitalia examination, viewing sexually explicit films; though these originated from U.S. West Coast institutes and wouldn't conform to anyone's definition of pornography. It was disturbing though to be told that we were breaking the law in watching them. Still, it was all part of Spectrum's "brave new world".

Thanks for the book title, I'll look it out.

Thank you MediaB.

You have helped clarify and identify a very distinct process in Mr Gale's abuse of his clients.

Hypotheses:

He attends a workshop at Spectrum. Gets drummed into him how amazing and special they are.

He has to go one better. His workshops are mixed sex.

He doesn't use educational films from America, he gets his clients to bring in their own porn collections so that everybody can discuss how they reflect upon their sexualities.

It is again the confessional control process.

The use of pornography is evidenced by witnesses.