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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) refers to training offered by
some groups in what some call the human potential movement. By using LGAT
techniques, these providers claim to (among other things) increase
self-awareness and bring about preferred personal changes in individuals'
lives.[1] Michael Langone has referred to Large Group Awareness Training as new
age trainings[2] and Philip Cushman referred to them as mass marathon trainings
[3]
Large Group Awareness Training programs often involve more than two hundred
people at a time.[citation needed] Though early definitions cited LGATs as
featuring unusually long durations, more recent texts describe the trainings as
lasting from a few hours to a few days. About a million Americans have attended
LGAT seminars.[4]
Definitions of LGAT
DuMerton described Large Group Awareness Training as "teaching simple, but
often overlooked wisdom, which takes place over the period of a few days, in
which individuals receive intense, emotionally-focused instruction." [4]
Rubinstein compared Large Group Awareness Training to certain principles of
cognitive therapy, such as the idea that people can change their lives by
interpreting the way they view external circumstances.[5] And in Consumer
Research: Postcards from the edge, when discussing behavioral and economic
studies, the authors contrasted the "enclosed locations" used with Large Group
Awareness Trainings with the "relatively open" environment of a "variety
store".[6]
The Handbook of Group Psychotherapy described Large Group Awareness Training as
focusing on "philosophical, psychological and ethical issues", as related to a
desire to increase personal effectiveness in people's lives.[7]
Psychologist Dennis Coon's textbook, Psychology: A Journey, defined the term
"LGAT" as referring to: "programs that claim to increase self-awareness and
facilitate constructive personal change."[1] Coon further defines Large Group
Awareness Training in his book Introduction to Psychology.[8]
Academic analyses, studies
"Large Group Awareness Training", a 1982 peer-reviewed article published in
Annual Review of Psychology, sought to summarize literature on the subject of
LGATs and to examine their efficacy and their relationship with more standard
psychology. This article became one of the first[citation needed] academic
works to analyze and describe large group awareness training from a
psychological perspective. Influenced by the work of humanistic psychologists
such as Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May and often considered part of
the human potential movement, LGAT's are[citation needed] commercial trainings
that took many techniques from encounter groups.[citation needed] Existing
alongside but "outside the domains of academic psychology or psychiatry. Their
measure of performance was consumer satisfaction and formal research was seldom
pursued."[citation needed]
The article describes an est training, and discusses the literature on the
testimony of est graduates. It notes minor changes on psychological tests after
the training and mentions anecdotal reports of psychiatric casualties among est
trainees. The article considers how est compares to more standard psychotherapy
techniques such as behavior therapy, group and existential psychotherapy before
concluding with a call for "objective and rigorous research" and stating that
unknown variables might have accounted for some of the positive accounts.
Psychologists advised borderline or psychotic patients not to participate.[14]
Psychological factors cited by academics include emotional "flooding",
catharsis, universality (identification with others), the instillation of hope,
identification and what Sartre called "uncontested authorship."[14]
In 1989 researchers from the University of Connecticut received the "National
Consultants to Management Award" from the American Psychological Association,
for their study: Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training.[15] The study
concluded that participation in the LGAT studied had very little impact on
participants.
Psychologist Chris Mathe has written in the interests of consumer-protection,
encouraging potential attendees of LGATs to discuss such trainings with any
current therapist or counselor, to examine the principles underlying the
program, and to determine pre-screening methods, the training of facilitators,
the full cost of the training and of any suggested follow-up care.[16]
[edit] LGAT techniques
Finkelstein's 1982 article provides a detailed description of the structure and
techniques of an Erhard Seminars Training event, noting an authoritarian
demeanor of the trainer, physical strains of a long schedule on the
participants and the similarity of many techniques to those used in some group
therapy and encounter groups.[14] The academic textbook, Handbook of Group
Psychotherapy regards Large Group Awareness Training organizations as "less
open to leader differences", because they follow a "detailed written plan" that
does not vary from one training to the next.[7]
Specific techniques used in Large Group Awareness Trainings may include:
LGATs utilize such techniques during long sessions, sometimes called a marathon
session when lasting for eight hours or more.[19]
In his book Life 102, LGAT participant and former trainer Peter McWilliams
describes the basic technique of marathon trainings as pressure/release and
asserts that advertising uses pressure/release "all the time", as do "good cop/
bad cop" police-interrogations and revival meetings. By spending approximately
half the time making a person feel bad and then suddenly reversing the feeling
through effusive praise, the programs cause participants to experience a
stress-reaction and an "endorphin high." McWilliams gives examples of various
LGAT activities called processes with names such as "love bomb," "lifeboat",
"cocktail party" and "cradling" which take place over many hours and days,
physically exhausting the participants to make them more susceptible to the
trainer's message, whether in the participants' best interests or not.[20]
Although extremely critical of some LGATs, McWilliams found positive value in
others, asserting that they varied not in technique but in the application of
technique.[20]
[edit] Evaluations of LGATs
Finkelstein noted the many difficulties in evaluating LGATs, from proponents'
explicit rejection of certain study models to difficulty in establishing a
rigorous control group.[14] In some cases, organizations under study have
partially funded research into themselves.[21]
Not all professional researchers view LGATs favorably. Researchers such as
psychologist Philip Cushman,[22] for example, found that the program he studied
"consists of a pre-meditated attack on the self". A 1983 study on Lifespring
[23] found that "although participants often experience a heightened sense of
well-being as a consequence of the training, the phenomenon is essentially
pathological", meaning that, in the program they studied, "the training
systematically undermines ego functioning and promotes regression to the extent
that reality testing is significantly impaired". Lieberman's 1987 study,[21]
funded partially by Lifespring, noted that 5 out of a sample of 289
participants experienced "stress reactions" including one "transitory psychotic
episode". He commented: "Whether [these five] would have experienced such
stress under other conditions cannot be answered. The clinical evidence,
however, is that the reactions were directly attributable to the large group
awareness training."
In Coon's psychology textbook, Introduction to Psychology, the author
references many other studies, which postulate that many of the "claimed
benefits" of Large Group Awareness Training actually take the form of "a kind
of therapy placebo effect".[8] DuMerton writes that "... there is a lack of
scientific evidence to quantify the longer-term positive outcomes and changes
objectively ..."[4] Jarvis described Large Group Awareness Training as
"educationally dubious" in the 2002 book The Theory & Practice of Teaching.[24]
Tapper mentions that "some [unspecified] large group-awareness training and
psychotherapy groups" exemplify non-religious "cults".[25] Benjamin criticizes
LGAT groups for their high prices and spiritual subtleties.[26] In an academic
research-paper on "Choices", a type of LGAT, researchers credited LGAT programs
with having had perhaps a million American attendees, many of whom gave
positive testimonials of "healing effects" and "positive outcomes in their
lives".[4]
[edit] LGATs in comparison with cults
[edit] Dawson
Lorne Dawson stated in his book on cults and new religious movements that both
cults and Large Group Awareness Training use similar thought-reform techniques.
[27]
[edit] Singer
The American Psychological Association bureaucracy commissioned and
subsequently decided not to endorse[28] and strongly criticized[29] a report by
the APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and
Control, in which the so-called "anti-cult" psychologist Margaret Singer
included large group awareness trainings as one example of what she called
"coercive persuasion". The APA characterized Singer's hypotheses as "uninformed
speculations based on skewed data"[29] and stated that the report "lacked
scientific rigor and an evenhanded critical approach to carry the imprimatur of
the APA." The APA also claimed that "the specific methods by which Drs. Singer
and Benson have arrived at their conclusions have also been rejected by all
serious scholars in the field."[30] Singer sued the APA, and lost on June 17,
1994[31] After the APA spurned the report, Singer remained in good standing in
the psychological research community.[32] She reworked much of the report
material into the book Cults in our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday
Lives (1995, second edition: 2003), which she co-authored with Janja Lalich.
Singer and Lalich claimed "large group awareness trainings" tend to last at
least four days and usually five. The book mentions Erhard Seminars Training
and its derivatives such as the Forum, "Lifespring, Actualizations, MSIA/
Insight and PSI Seminars.[33]
In her book, Singer differentiated between the usage of the terms cult and
Large Group Awareness Training.[33] Singer also writes that employees taking
part in a company-wide Large Group Awareness Training program not only
complained about attempted religious conversion, but also objected to the
specific techniques used.[17]
[edit] Langone
An article in Cult Observer by Michael Langone Ph.D. analysed Large Group
Awareness Training.[2] Langone noted comparisons between Large Group Awareness
Training and "brainwashing" and "cults", and posited that many LGAT groups have
an implied or even explicit religious nature.[2] Langone concluded by stating
that he knew of no specific academic research which showed that Large Group
Awareness Trainings have positive behavioral effects.[2] Langone cited a study
which showed no difference between the Large Group Awareness Training
test-subjects and the control group.[2][34]
[edit] ICSA
The International Cultic Studies Association has grouped some Large Group
Awareness Training organizations together with research about them.[35]