Here is an excerpt from Melbourne psychologist
Louise Samways' book
Dangerous Persuaders: An expose of personal development courses and cults, and how they operate (1994: Penguin Books Australia Ltd), color emphasis mine:
[Incidentally, this book can be downloaded in its entirety from
THIS PAGE (PayPal donation appreciated, but not required).]
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Many people who attend a personal development group say it was a wonderful experience that changed their lives for the better; others say it had no real effect except to empty their wallet. I fully accept that the psychological techniques they use are so powerful they can cause dramatic shifts in beliefs and attitudes within hours, and that sometimes this can be an improvement for the participants. My concerns are that people attending maverick courses are not adequately screened before attending, do not participate with informed consent about the possible dangers, the group or leader has no accountability for their actions and leaders are inappropriately or inadequately trained for what they are doing. This makes the outcome for the participants totally unpredictable, and puts them at great risk. It is not acceptable to say the risk of damage to some people is justified by the dubious possibility of benefits to others.
There are much safer, kinder and more respectful ways of helping people change and reassess their beliefs, values and priorities than implanting ideas from an external source while deliberately inhibiting their ability to think clearly and critically.
The personal development courses I consider dangerous are groups run by organisations or individuals who have either non-existent or inappropriate qualifications for what they are doing and effectively are accountable to no one.
The courses I worry about particularly are those attempting dramatic changes in short periods of time, such as Landmark Education, EST, Forum, Money and You and Hoffman Process, for they are misusing the psychological techniques allied to hypnosis in order to make the behavioural changes. At present in Australia there is an epidemic of personal development courses led by unqualified people. In every one I have observed or have been told about there has been consistent misuse of hypnosis -- sometimes by people who had no idea what they were doing was in fact hypnosis. More worrying still is the number of groups using regression hypnosis techniques, which even fully trained professionals are extremely cautious about employing. The misuse of regressional hypnosis is particularly apparent in 'rebirthing'.
Regressional hypnosis is a technique by which a person can be taken back in time to various ages, in order to recall events that consciously may have been either partially or fully repressed. These are generally extremely unhappy experiences, such as sexual abuse in childhood or veterans' war experiences.
(Note: The whole issue of repressed memory is a mine field of misunderstanding of the nature of memory. Memory is NOT a video tape of what happened. Rather it is more like a self directed movie that can easily be changed, particularly by somebody perceived to have greater authority eg a "counsellor" or parent. Memories are especially vulnerable to distortion, manipulation, or creating complete fabrications in psychological states of high or low arousal eg hypnosis. Manipulating memories about relationships is a common technique used in abusive organisations to alienate recruits from their families).Regressional hypnosis is only used therapeutically by psychiatrists or psychologists under strict safeguards and with extreme caution.
It is not necessarily beneficial for someone to remember very traumatic events consciously, and doing so in fact can cause them to become quite psychotic. During rebirthing (also known as 'breath of life'), people with no formal training in psychology act as 'rebirthers'; they use breathing techniques to induce trance-like states in their subjects and expose emotional issues and memories they claim are blocking the subjects' full potential.
During rebirthing sessions there is often a great deal of anguished crying, screaming, pounding of pillows or self to 'release the blocks'. People with asthma can be at particular risk with rebirthing as they can develop powerful delusions that they do not need medication even as they turn blue from lack of oxygen!
Increasingly personal development courses are being subsidised indirectly by governments through allowing community houses and schools to be used as venues. The co-ordinators of these facilities are often not in a position to vet the people offering courses adequately, especially as many untrained course 'facilitators' are excellent con men and women. Teachers of such courses are often called 'leaders', 'trainers' or 'facilitators'.
A person with excellent training as a yoga teacher would be an ideal choice for leading a yoga course. However many people are now dabbling in areas they don't fully understand. They are running courses involving psychological techniques without any appropriate background or training.
The first rule in running any personal development course should be for the leader to know their limitations and do no harm. Just because someone appears to be the kindest, most caring, loveliest person you -- the potential customer -- have ever met does not mean he or she can do no harm. Sadly, such people can and they do.
I am seeing more and more people who have attended personal development courses run by naturopaths, yoga teachers, meditation teachers, GPs, dentists and physiotherapists, as well as people calling themselves masters or gurus. The attendees are in serious psychological crises directly due to the ignorant abuse of extremely powerful psychological techniques. Just as I am not appropriately qualified to run an aerobics class, an ex-PE teacher or a physiotherapist is not qualified to run a psychotherapy group.
