I would get SPECIFICS about this "youth transition day program". I would get SPECIFICS about if they would ever cut off communication or hold him captive in any way or how they do punitive measures or any of their 'structure'.
And anything CONFRONTATIONAL... big fat no-no!!! The point here is he needs to learn to be a free person again not a damn captive puppet who isn't done being stepforded.
I do find it odd that he "chose out" of the seminar for "not crying enough". That kind of just stinks of LGAT bullshit, considering the entire point is to cause an emotional breakdown... no?
Also, JNZmom, the emotional 'high' you get from a seminar is a pathological effect. Its just like the euphoria you get after any stressful/traumatic event is over and you feel better when you're not being hurt anymore.
I strongly suggest you read up about just how these things manipulate and screw with people's heads...
http://perso.orange.fr/eldon.braun/awar ... hology.htm <- is a good write up done by trained professionals (yanno, actual psychologists!) that can help shed some light on what they did to you and others and how it is done.
I'll go ahead and paste the conclusion here...
CONCLUSION
We have argued that while many participants experienced a sense of enhanced well-being as a consequence of the training, these experiences were essentially pathological. First, ego functions were systematically undermined and regression was promoted by environmental structuring, infantilizing of participants and repeated emphasis on submission and surrender. Second, the ideational or interpretive framework provided in the training was also based upon regressive modes of reasoning--the use of all-or-nothing categories, absolutist logic and magical thinking, all of which are consistent with the egocentric thinking of young children. Third, the content of the training stimulated early narcissistic conflicts and defenses, which accounts for the elation and sense of heightened well-being achieved by many participants. The devaluation of objective constraints upon a person's action promoted grandiose fantasies of unlimited power. A corollary to this devaluation of the external world wits that interactions with others lacked substance. People appeared to be interchangeable so that ephemeral, indiscriminate emotional contacts were experienced as profound and meaningful. Identification with Lifespring necessitated considerable idealization so that any threat to this experience was aggressively defended against.
Our methods had an effect on our experience of the training and on our conclusions. The Lifespring Basic training, which demands full participation and rejects the legitimacy of observation, provided a particular challenge to the participant-observation method. In the Lifespring milieu any evidence of observation became evidence for the need for further "growth," for getting away from analysis or "intellectual trips." Lack of full emotional involvement in the training thus set the authors apart from the-group and led us to experience the training differently from the rest of the participants. As a result, we are not qualified to speak from the point of view of the "average participant." We did not, to use Lifespring's words, "got the training."
However, as parficipant-observers, we did share some of the group's subjective experiences, particularly the extraordinary pressure to conform. In this instance, the context of participant-observation, which as Rabinow (1977) says is dictated by "observation and externality," provided us with the opportunity to note the lengths to which the trainer was willing to go in attempting to achieve the required submission and commitment which we have described In this paper. Thus participant-observation, although a research strategy not. suited to fully integrating the researcher into the Lifespring Basic Training, did prove to be invaluable for developing insight into the processes of that training.
We have not addressed the normative implications of the training nor the extent to which participants are prepared by our culture to respond positively to Lifespring. The ideational content of the training would he less persuasive, perhaps, if beliefs concerning the autonomy and power of the individual were not deeply embedded in the prevailing ideology of American society. Growth organizations seem to be capitalizing upon the erosion of traditional means of supporting these beliefs and of anchoring individual identity. A deeper understanding of this phenomenon would require an analysis of the sociohistorical context out of which it emerged and from which it has gained its legitimacy.
IOW, its bullshit and basically just filled you full of nonsense. You didn't really face any issues you just got given a lovebomb after being broken down.
Or in the words of so many, they blew sunshine up your ass.
