Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Hyde Schools => Topic started by: Ursus on February 03, 2009, 03:53:16 PM
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HYDE
SCHOOLS
January 20, 2009
Dear HAPA Parents,
The Hoffman Quadrinity Process comes to Hyde-Bath August 10-17, 2009! (http://http://www.hapaonline.org/joegauldandthefoundation)
Hyde joins the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) at Harvard as the only educational institutions to annually offer this world renowned program.
This initial program will be open to Hyde administrators and Hyde and HAPA parents. It provides participants with a powerful opportunity to address one's deepest self, spirit and capacity to love. And as KSG at Harvard has proven, personal growth and leadership training go hand in hand.
While participants in the first program will only include administrators of the five Hyde Schools together with Hyde and HAPA parents, future annual programs will be open to all members of the Hyde community. There is a very natural bond between the Hyde and Hoffman Processes.
Presently, 9 Hyde administrators (including me) and at least 20 Hyde or HAPA parents are graduates of this program and we all feel we experienced a personal transformation. The program was recently evaluated by professors at the University of California, and given measurements related to personal growth when compared to a control group a year after the experience, the personal progress of participants was uniformly outstanding.
The Hoffman Quadrinity Process was founded by Bob Hoffman in 1967. Today the Hoffman Institute has organizations in 14 countries, with over 80,000 graduates. The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) at Harvard offers the Hoffman process to its graduate students, which include diplomats, politicians, UN peacekeepers, bank directors, etc. around the world. Their evaluations indicate their 8 day Hoffman experience was the highlight of their year at Harvard.
How is it possible that Hyde parents and teachers will be able to share the identical peak Harvard experience of these world leaders???
It is best explained by Leadership Guru Warren Bennis, chairman of the KSG advisory board (also a HAPA parent): "Here is the deal: learning to be a leader is virtually the same process as becoming an integrated and healthy person…What that means is that when we talk about 'growing leaders' we're inevitably involved in personal stuff, personal transformation."
The Hyde-Hoffman project will more deeply address our "emotional dispositions" in order to help us re-center our lives on our spirit and our deeper capacity to love. The personal growth we experience will ultimately strengthen Hyde's focus on unique potential, character and family.
I went to Hoffman as Joe, and returned as Joey, my true childhood spirit. I shed my family emotional dispositions like anger, frustration, "my way or the highway" and yet found an even deeper love and appreciation for my parents. As expressed by another Hyde administrator: "I feel very in touch with my authentic self; I'm aware of patterns that used to keep me paralyzed and no longer have that power."
We encourage you to visit the Hoffman Institute website (http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org (http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org)) to learn more about the process.
If you are interested in participating in our first Hyde-Hoffman process, please contact me as soon as possible ([email protected] or 207-443-7114) as space will be limited. The critical qualities for success are the desire for personal growth and the willingness to look deeply into oneself. It is a very individualized program.
Warm Regards Joey,
[signature]
Joe Gauld The Hyde Foundation
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While participants in the first program will only include administrators of the five Hyde Schools together with Hyde and HAPA parents, future annual programs will be open to all members of the Hyde community. There is a very natural bond between the Hyde and Hoffman Processes.
No kidding. It's called est. You can also throw more than a little Lifespring in there too, since current Hoffman USA branch president and international BOD member Charles 'Raz' Ingrasci used to be Director of Corporate Affairs for Lifespring, as well as working with est's Werner Erhard. As described elsewhere (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=24677) on this forum, HAPA currently also carries the imprint of the Mankind Project, at the very least, and that evolved out of Sterling Seminars, which, in turn, evolved out of est.
From Wikipedia's entry on Lifespring (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespring):
Lifespring was founded in 1974 by John Hanley Sr., after working at an organization called Mind Dynamics with Werner Erhard, the founder of est. Lifespring concentrates on how people experience each other, whereas est concentrates on changing the way people experience themselves.[5] However, there are many similarities between the two, as well as with Scientology[1][6].
The former Director for Corporate Affairs of Lifespring, Charles "Raz" Ingrasci, [7] also worked with Werner Erhard, promoting an est mission to the USSR and the Hunger Project. Ingrasci is now President of the Hoffman Institute[8] which offers programs such as the Hoffman Quadrinity Process which some regard as similar to Lifespring[9].
Though John Hanley denied that Lifespring was a duplicate of Erhard Seminars Training, Melton and Lewis described the similarities between the two as "striking", in their 1992 work, Perspectives on the New Age[6]. Melton and Lewis point out that both Werner Erhard and John Hanley had previously worked at Mind Dynamics. They then went on to cite specific examples of techniques utilized by both Lifespring and EST, stating that both used "authoritarian trainers who enforce numerous rules", both groups require applause after a member's "share" in front of the group, both deemphasized ratiocination, in favor of "feeling and action"[6]. The authors also pointed out that graduates of both Lifespring and EST were "fiercely loyal", and recruited heavily for their respective groups, reducing marketing expenses to virtually zero[6].
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:rofl: Hyde-Hoffman project?
The Hyde-Hoffman project will more deeply address our "emotional dispositions" in order to help us re-center our lives on our spirit and our deeper capacity to love. The personal growth we experience will ultimately strengthen Hyde's focus on unique potential, character and family.
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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 (http://http://www.louisesamways.com.au/dangerouspersuaders.html) (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.
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Presently, 9 Hyde administrators (including me) and at least 20 Hyde or HAPA parents are graduates of this program and we all feel we experienced a personal transformation.
Does anyone have any idea when Joe underwent his Hoffman Process? Might it bear some relation, time-wise, to the evolution of the moniker "Joey?"
At any rate, here is something first posted (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=22009&start=120#p321725) by "Founding Father" two and a half months ago in another thread. At the time, I hadn't recognized the terminology yet. For starters, highlighted portion in red comes straight out of The Hoffman Process:
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Founder's Findings #18: U Po Roadblock No. 5 (http://http://www.hyde.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=204&id=KGzhlKXDxG0%3D)
12/23/2008
5. You need to fully let go of your parents in order to run your own life.
I find very few parents today who have fully let go of their own parents; to the extent you haven't let go of your own parents, you are still a child, and a child cannot raise a child.
When you go to college, and particularly when you graduate, you have great opportunities to move beyond your parents and take the primary responsibility for your own life. The key is to find and accept challenges where success depends upon some unrealized potential within yourself. Regardless of the outcome, you will find that just your courage to bet upon your unknown self will give you the confidence to begin to move beyond your parents.
Don't let a misguided sense of loyalty to your parents deter you from fully letting go of them. Which will give your parents greater fulfillment, to have raised: 1. a loving child who remains dependent upon them in life, or, 2. an independent adult who becomes master of his/her own destiny? No matter what they may say, the former etches in their hearts their failure, and the latter, their success as parents.
As you experience life, you need to honestly express those thoughts and feelings to your parents that you felt unable to express as a child. But do so with no expectation of their responses. You were doing this to express and understand your deeper self, and to learn from their responses. You will then know how to improve on your own growing experience with your own children.
One of the most important and most difficult growth challenges is to identify the unproductive emotional dispositions (the negative love syndrome) that you developed in your childhood and then, share them with your parents in a letter, preferably that you would read to them. But again, expect nothing in their responses. You are doing this primarily for yourself and ultimately for your own children. But at the same time, you are at least giving your parents the opportunity to understand how deeply you and your life have been affected by these family dysfunctions. No matter how much it may hurt them, they love you, and you owe them the truth.
Our commitment to the truth measures the depth of our spirituality. If we can't be honest with our own parents, what does that say about the depth of love in our family of origin?
- Joseph Gauld
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I find very few parents today who have fully let go of their own parents
Ha. How much of Hyde is about Joey's unresolved feelings about his stepfather?
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I guess this doesnt apply to Gauld's OWN kids. Theyre still sucking off the teat, and selling Daddy's snake oil for their keep.
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:guesswho:
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Here are a couple of posts I came across in one of the Google Groups, from May 2003, describing some of what people considering the Hoffman Quadrinity Process might be in for. It's clearly a week-long LGAT, maybe even worse than the Landmark Forum.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.angs ... b8ab9fd355 (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.angst/browse_thread/thread/7d00dcadf389e20c/d41567b8ab9fd355?hl=en&utoken=oubShywAAACTnCqklRWq8c83e7ZGRHnmQ3J-GhI2fqND_kY1Ay5bynQu0MaCpGfJCCLTfV-plik#d41567b8ab9fd355)
That reminds me of something I have been meaning to pass along to you. In the Yalom textbook on group psychotherapy he has quite a few paragraphs on est and the forum. His view is that works by placebo effect and some sort of effort justification fallacy. You spent the dough and by golly you are going to get something out of it.
I don't recall that approach being put forward either overtly or subliminally,
and in any case the money becomes the least of your sacrifices after...
..(such as using fatigue and sustenance deprivation) to get their message across.
But it probably accounts for why nobody stood up on the last day and took the
refund offer.
Did I ever post about the Hoffman Quadrinity camp? Now those guys had the
deprivation thing all worked out, and for a whole week. Apparently the last
night is musical bunks, or so my friend says. I only lasted one session and
scarpered. She got her brains shagged out, or at least that's what I assume
happened to them.
They read you the constitution in the first session:
You will surrender your tobacco, coffee or alcohol supplies forthwith. Show us your meds. For the next week you will not smoke, meditate, pray, have sex, masturbate, exercise, do yoga; and you will not consume any substance which we did not give you. You must surrender all communications devices. You may not make phone calls unless it's an emergency. You will not speak to other particiapnts except when we say so.
That reduced a few to tears. Then we did a rebirthing pantomime with a total negative spin to the point of suggesting you were conceived by rape, which took care of about 2/3 of the group. Then came the gestalt stuff where we had to beat the fuck out of our parents with a cricket bat.
Their contention of course was that all our angst is unresolved hatred of our parents, and they will teach us to forgive. They prove this scientifically with a lengthy questionnaire where you tick all your negative traits and experiences, then do the same for your parents and your parents parents. Simple aritmetic proves a correlation. I couldn't believe nobody pointed out how bogus this all was, but maybe they couldn't believe I didn't point it out either.
This, incidentally, is how performance hypnotists operate. Nobody is going to stand in front of an audience of paying believers and TV cameras and say "no I won't bark like a dog, you're a tool and this is a sham". It's much safer to bark like a dog.
So I split at bedtime on day 1. They tried very hard tp pursuade me to stay and to find out who I was writing for. A week later they refunded half my money.
Of course I cannot tell you this, I signed a confidentiality agreement.
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Hey that sounds like Hyde. I have heard the "effort justification fallacy" from a number of former ... students, but I never knew there was a name for it. You spend all that time and effort coping with the system , it must mean something. And yeah it did, just not what they told you it was. Any number of experiences will strengthen your character. Ask Elie Wiesel. "To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all."
NHB
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Placebo effect -- no. A placebo means its harmless. But a placebo is dangerous when real medicine is required. Moreover, Hyde
produces a few problems of its own.
As for Hyde's supporters:
Effort justification fallacy -- yes. In my case it wore off after a year -- little effort invested.
Not mentioned: ownership bias: The famous pen and chocolate experiment of Kahneman and Twersky. You assign the same value to going to public school, going to private school, and going to Hyde. You are indifferent between these choices. But once you decide in favor of one, you assign a greater value to it than to the alternatives. You wouldn't do it differently.
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Hey that sounds like Hyde. I have heard the "effort justification fallacy" from a number of former ... students, but I never knew there was a name for it. You spend all that time and effort coping with the system , it must mean something. And yeah it did, just not what they told you it was. Any number of experiences will strengthen your character. Ask Elie Wiesel. "To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all."
Effort justification fallacy -- yes. In my case it wore off after a year -- little effort invested.
Not mentioned: ownership bias: The famous pen and chocolate experiment of Kahneman and Twersky. You assign the same value to going to public school, going to private school, and going to Hyde. You are indifferent between these choices. But once you decide in favor of one, you assign a greater value to it than to the alternatives. You wouldn't do it differently.
I have to wonder if there is such a thing as "Expense Justification Fallacy," that is...the pricier the brainwash, the more effective it is. This would certainly hold greater sway with the parents, who are actually paying the Hyde School "tuition" bill.
Speaking of expense justification fallacies and the like, I think the going rate for participation in a Hoffman Quadrinity Process is about 5 grand (at least in Australia, probably in the same price range here). Will that make people more likely to think in positive terms, when contemplating their "renewal?"
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I see this effort justification fallacy as a largely unconscious defense against admitting that you've been had, whether you're a parent or a student claiming it's all been worth it.
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I see this effort justification fallacy as a largely unconscious defense against admitting that you've been had, whether you're a parent or a student claiming it's all been worth it.
some were fooled, some were damaged, some were destroyed
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but none of them, absolutely none of them, weighed four hundred and fifty pounds
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Below is an old "newsletter" of sorts put out by the Lifespring people in which the Hoffman Process is mentioned.
Superficially, it might very well appear as though this newsletter contains a veritable smorgasbord of newage experiential or transformational programs and organizations focused on self-improvement, all for the benefit of the reader. In fact, ALL of these entries are either sanctioned direct descendants or unauthorized offspring of Lifespring and/or est (which are themselves also related, given their common origin).
Remember the Mankind Project (former HAPA chair was involved)? That course "Understanding Yourself and Others" (UYO) (offered by Global Relationship Center below) was one of MKP's key philosophical foundations (background of this course as well as MKP is est plus some other stuff). Mankind Project still gives the (slightly altered) course, which currently goes by the name of "Taking It Lightly."
This document was posted in an alt.fan.landmark Google Group. Color emphasis mine.
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Transformational UP-date: August 15 (http://http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.landmark/browse_thread/thread/82c73160d83ab962/a1af0374c175ee97?hl=en&q=quadrinity#a1af0374c175ee97)
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 10:09:22 -0400
From: Maria Strong <[email protected]>
Subject: Transformational UP-date: August 15 edition
TRANSFORMATIONAL NEWS UPDATE
for graduates of educational and experiential trainings
The August 15, 2000 edition
So much for the "dog days of August" .... Lots of personal development / transformational courses in several cities around the country are taking place this week and this month!
THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY:
"No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently."
- - Agnes De Mille, famous American choreographer
"Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame."
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WASHINGTON, DC METROPOLITAN AREA
"JOY OF CHOICE" COURSE
A one-evening course on decision-making offered by the Global Relationship Center of Washington, DC. Tuesday, September 12 at 7:00 pm
The Global Relationship Center of Washington, DC announces a new one-evening event, the JOY OF CHOICE course. Have you ever made a decision NOT to do something and then afterwards regretted it? Do you see that saying "I'd like to think it over!" can be one way to hide our fears from ourselves and other people? The JOY OF CHOICE course offers tools and decision-making skills which will allow you to improve the quality of your future decisions.
Tuition is $75. The September 12 JOY OF CHOICE course will be held at the Ramada Inn in Rockville, Maryland (near Congressional Plaza and the Twinbrook metro station). Call Judy Ordway at 301-776-4570 or Sue Holland at 301-625-8458, or via e-mail at either [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected]).
"UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF AND OTHERS" COURSE (UYO)
A weekend experience where you invest in you, your goals and your relationships. Offered by the Global Relationship Center of Washington, DC September 22-24, 2000
The "Understanding Yourself and Others" is an experiential course which focuses on you and your particular goals and desires. Some students come with specific goals and others don't; this course serves both types of students. UYO is not a "cookie cutter" course for the masses. UYO is designed to help you become more aware of the ways in which others act and react. With a greater awareness and understanding of those around you, you will interact more effectively. You will also discover your personal motivations and determine where your actions may be preventing you from obtaining what you truly want in life! The course is led by two certified instructors (one man, one woman) who create a safe environment for you and your classmates to explore. Over 80,000 people have completed UYO around the world.
Mark your calendars for the September 22-24 UYO (Friday evening, all-day Saturday and Sunday), with a graduation event on Monday evening, September 25. Tuition is $495. For questions or more information about Global's local activities, call Judy Ordway at 301-776-4570 or Sue Holland at 301-625-8458, or via e-mail at either [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected]).
NATIONAL SPIRITUAL SCIENCE CENTER
Workshop and Lecture Highlights for Summer 2000
Several graduates of the local Lifespring, WorldWorks and/or Optimum Living trainings are leading workshops offered through the National Spiritual Science Center. Call the NSSC at 202.723.4510 to register for these workshops and/or to obtain more information. All the workshops take place at NSSC located at 1325 Fern Street in Northwest Washington DC.
(1) Friday, August 18, 7 PM, Free
"Imaginal Education - Philosophy of Teaching and Basic Discussion Methods", Led by Ms. Susan Craver
(2) Friday, August 25, 7 PM, Free
"Creativity: Discovering Your Creative Purpose", led by Ms. Alicia McGraw
(3) August 26, 3:30 - 7 PM, Saturday, Free
"Meditation and Breathing Techniques", led by Zuri Nia
THE HOFFMAN QUADRINITY PROCESS
The Hoffman Process is designed to heal and transform negative, self-defeating patterns and bring about a powerful realignment and integration of the four fundamental dimensions of our being - the Quadrinity of intellect, emotions, body, and spirit. Participants speak of new-found energy by overcoming depression, anger and grief, better communication skills, and a deeper spiritual connection. The Process is an 8-day residential program aimed at resolving issues around self-esteem, relationships and other core issues of life. The next Process in this area will be held September 15-22 in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Call (703) 941-4817 or (email) http://www.quadrinity.com (http://www.quadrinity.com) for more information on courses in other cities.
LANDMARK EDUCATION
In Landmark Education's three-day "Landmark Forum" (its first-level course), participants examine the basis of their identities and their personalities, as well as their formulas for living, relating and achieving success. The course is conducted as an inquiry, a guided dialogue between the instructor and the participants into what is possible in their lives, a dialogue that gets at the heart of what it is to be human. The next Forum courses in the Washington DC area will be offered on August 18-22 and September 22-26. Tuition is $350. Call (703) 823-2255 for local information, or visit http://www.landmark-education.com (http://www.landmark-education.com) for more information on courses in other cities.
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NORTH CAROLINA
The Legacy Center in Chapel Hill offers a full range of transformational trainings (including The Basic, The Advanced, the Leadership Program) as well as a series of weekly seminars. The Advanced Course starts this week, August 16-20 (all-day each day), with the Post Training/Guest Event on August 24. The five-part "Communicating with Impact" seminar series starts Tuesday evening, August 22. The eight-part "Living Your Legacy" seminar series starts Wednesday evening, September 6. The "Legacy Leadership for Teens" training will take place on September 8-10 and 24. The next Basic workshop will be September 20-24 (weekday evenings, all day on the weekend), with advanced living interviews on the 25th and 26th (to be scheduled by student), and the post training/guest event evening on September 28.
For more information, call the Legacy Center at (919) 933 1699, or visit its website at http://www.thelegacycenter.com (http://www.thelegacycenter.com).
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CALIFORNIA
ORANGE COUNTY
Orange County WorldWorks offers its second-level course, The Experience, on August 23-27 (all-day each day), with the Post / Guest Event evening on Monday, August 28. Its next first-level course, The Introduction, will be held September 13-17 (weekday evenings, all-day on the weekend). The trainings are held in the Irvine/Newport area. WorldWorks has been providing transformational trainings since 1998. Contact Lisa Kalmin at (949) 916-1585 or [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected]).
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NEW YORK CITY
TRANSFORM INC.: The BASIC RETURNS to NYC in OCTOBER
A group of NYC 'Springers are taking action to bring the trainings back to New York! Transform, Inc. is holding the five-day Basic Training on OCTOBER 11-15, 2000 in the New York City area. This course is three weekday evenings (Wednesday-Friday) plus all-day on the weekend (note: the October workshop is the rescheduled date, so mark your calendars). Transform Inc. is committed to coaching people having breakthroughs concerning issues in their lives so that they may experience renewed purpose and passions in their jobs, careers, and relationships. To participate, support, enroll or inquire about this course, contact Ben Aronson at (tel) 732 521 2885 (email) [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected]).
THE MILLENNIUM WORLD PEACE SUMMIT
"The Summit of Emerging Visionaries: Consciousness & Spirituality - the Key to Global Transformation," a special program on Saturday, August 26. The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders presents "The Summit of Emerging Visionaries: Consciousness & Spirituality - the Key to Global Transformation" on August 26, 2000. The Summit of Emerging Visionaries is a unique one-day, action-oriented program for a new generation of leaders seeking to facilitate Real change in their respective local and global communities. The program will explore the nexus between personal and global transformation. Participants will gain a greater understanding of how to: speak and act from the heart; empower one's self and others to embrace their own inner wisdom; inspire the best in one's self and others. Participants will have an opportunity to meet with pre-eminent leaders from The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. The August 26 program is open to individuals aged 16-32; attendance is limited to 30. The RSVP deadline was August 8; cost was $50 (contact Laurent Labourmene at http://www.millenniumpeacesummit.org (http://www.millenniumpeacesummit.org).
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TEXAS
LifespringUSA
LifespringUSA, founded by John Hanley, Sr., Ph.D., offers experiential and interactive adult education workshops which encourage people's ongoing participation and learning in life. The company currently offers three trainings in the Dallas area. The Lifespring Adventure is now being offered for free (a $695 value), and the next one will be held on August 26-27, at the Harvey Hotel in Plano, Texas. The four-day Lifespring Challenge offers an interactive coaching environment which is custom-tailored to you and for your living your commitment, and about discovering what it takes to accomplish unprecedented, spectacular results in your life (tuition is $1,395, and graduates of prior Challenge courses or Lifespring Advanced Courses can take the course for free). The Lifespring Quest is about developing skill and competency in the areas of integrity and compassion (a 3½ day course, tuition is $1,395). For more details, contact LifespringUSA at (972) 412 4252 (ask for Connie), or visit its website at http://www.LifespringUSA.com (http://www.LifespringUSA.com).
Millennium3 Education
Millennium3 Education is a Dallas, Texas-based company which offers adult and teenage educational workshops designed to enhance personal effectiveness. Unlike many courses, their students don't spend long hours taking notes, or trying to get the right answer. They actively participate in exercises that allow them to experience their own learning and discovery. The next Basic Training is September 8-10 (all-day each day, tuition is $395), with the Advanced Course following on September 20-24 (all-day each day, tuition is $995). Millennium3 also offers a 90-day Leadership Program. In addition, the Masters Course returns to Dallas on September 15-17!! For more information on these and other workshops offered by Millennium3, contact them at (972) 934 9779, or visit http://www.millennium3education.com (http://www.millennium3education.com).
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DENVER
Angel Horse Communications offers its experiential workshop, "The Edge," on October 10-13, 2000 in Denver, Colorado. This course is now fully college accredited (to be applied to a business management degree) and is being marketed as an "Employee Retention Program" in the Rocky Mountain Education Center, which is Red Rocks Community College's higher education program. It is also being marketed to businesses and corporations as a personal effectiveness workshop. For more info, contact Cindy Duerksen at [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected])
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MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
Mexico City is "living la vida loca." MexWorks is offering transformational trainings in Mexico City, including its first-level course, "The Introduction," and its second-level course, "The Experience." The last Introduction had almost 200 students. To reserve your space now or ask for more information, contact MexWorks by e-mail at [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected])
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Sounds like the involvement of various former students with est and landmark fits right in. Maybe even approved or suggested?
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Sounds like the involvement of various former students with est and landmark fits right in. Maybe even approved or suggested?
It does not seem like they have a problem with Paul and Vanda being involved with Ramtha. There must be an association of kool-aide providers.
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This post and two that will follow, at some subsequent point, all come from one of Ken Ireland's blogs, BUDDHA, S.J. (http://http://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/) They were posted separately, but within minutes of one another, and -- to the best of my understanding -- represent re-posting of earlier material that all relates to Bob Hoffman and the Hoffman Process. Since the sequence of posts plus multiple dates of previous posting is potentially confusing, I took the liberty to summarize them as follows (descriptions and any errors therein as per me):
New Age Miracle or Fraud?
Introduction, Commentary, Critique; Mostly earlier material, revised June 2008
• The Ontological Odd Couple
Origins of the Fischer-Hoffman Psychic Therapy (now known as the Hoffman Quadrinity Process); July 2004, revised September 2006
• Science vs. Spooks
On marketing and the validity of "scientific" surveys; Mostly earlier material, may or may not have been revised June 2008
[/list]
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Sunday, June 29, 2008
New Age Miracle or Fraud? (http://http://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-age-miracle-or-fraud_29.html)
Google analytics tells me that more than 100 people a month have been reading my posts about the work of Bob Hoffman. To make the search easier, I am going to assemble them together, here on Buddha, S.J.
In the 70's California seemed awash in spiritual awakening. We imported Indian gurus, Tibetan tulku's, zen masters from Japan and Korea, plus there were a slew of home grown American hybrids, Werner Erhard's est, Scientology, psychic readers, Seth speaks, the Course in Miracles - the list goes on. The C changes of the 60's had left my generation with a yearning for religious experience that the faiths of our fathers, and mothers, did not satisfy.
Now more than 30 years later, I am trying to step back and assess the current state of our spiritual life. The pews of most mainline churches are, at best, sparsely filled. Here in California only the elderly and immigrants attend with any regularity. Whatever became of the New Ages born-again's? Perhaps they just faded into the culture supplying raw spiritual perspective, devoid of religious garb.
The most interesting innovation in that awakening, to my eyes, was the proposed marriage of spiritual practice and psychological work. If the workings of the mind could be assessed and treated in a scientific way, paying attention to the spiritual dimension, then, perhaps, years of spiritual training could be compressed. However, along with this promise came the drawback of distinguishing spiritual practice from psychological work. Are they really the same reality hiding under different masks? Meditation practitioners were suddenly getting professional degrees as therapists and old line therapists began a meditation practice, but do they know what's what?
A quicker Path is so appealing to the American psyche—no mumbo jumbo, precise/technical language, measurable results. There were promises made, results that you expected to create, or would appear, in your life. One teacher said that everyone who worked with him doubled their real income. Another promised harmonious and satisfying relationships. I actually heard the president of one human potential enterprise hustle a gay man with AIDS, promising that his fear of death would disappear after 6 days of working with him at the cost of several thousand dollars. 'Enlightenment,' though lacking a clear definition, is certainly a column on the spreadsheet.
Any exaggerated claim to entice you to put your money down is fraud, pure and simple, and as the price goes up, the insult becomes more egregious. When I paid somewhere around $300 to hear Werner Erhard say to me after two weekends of marathon sessions, "that's it, there's nothing to get, get it?" I didn't feel ripped off. I actually got it. If it had cost thousands, I might have been so resentful that I never would have been able to hear a thing.
Most of these short experiential workshops were not based on good science or professional practice, and, as a result, any scientific test for lasting effects is extremely difficult, if not impossible. What I have proposed for myself is a case study in the development and creation of the Quadrinity Process, then known as Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy, created by Bob Hoffman between 1968 and 1974. I do think that there is something of real value available in the experience that is created during the Process, but it is so overlaid with garbage science and the unsubstantiated trappings of the Spiritualist Church, that its value is at best obscured.
A quick anecdote about a scientific hoax might demonstrate part of my thesis. In 1972, when I was working with Hoffman in the first group he "took through" the 13 week Process, National Geographic published an article about the "discovery" of a Stone Age tribe in the Philippines called the "Tasady." Hoffman, with the enthusiasm of a latter day Jean Jacques Rousseau, was convinced that he had found the noble savage who proved that the natural condition of humankind was uninhibited love, the free exchange of emotional feelings, with no blockage from parental conditioning.
(http://http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6159/4000/320/Tasaday_working_hand_drill.0.jpg)
In Hoffman's defense, he was not the only person duped by this elaborate hoax created at the end of the Marcos regime. Roderic Gorney, M.D., Ph.D., writing about the Tasady in the Journal of American Academy of Psychoanalysis (1981), postulated "(1) that during the last ten thousand years the psychosocial identity and self-esteem of the human species have increasingly grown out of conditions of competition and low social synergy, leading to the conflict, terrorism, and war that now jeopardize us, and (2) that there is on the human agenda a current shift toward greater cooperation and high social synergy…" There is not one shred of evidence that this group was really "pre-clothing, pre-fire-making, pre-anything cave-dwelling family unchanged since prehistoric times, who had no words for War or Anger, never fought among themselves & burst into tears if you brought up the subject of death." Their cave (pictured above) was only 8 miles from the nearest village, an easy trek for a steady steam of celebrities eager to connect with their pristine roots.
Bad science and the complete disrespect for professional practice went hand in hand with the naive conjecture that was the origin of the "Fischer-Hoffman Psychic Therapy." That it was eventually rooted in the scientifically tested techniques of psychotherapy is entirely the work of Naranjo and other mental health professionals who worked with Hoffman.
My case study traces the development and creation of the Quadrinity Process, between 1968 and 1974, when it was know as the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy. After I examine Hoffman's version of his other worldly experience with Dr. Siegfried Fisher, I deconstruct the psychic therapy that Hoffman practiced in his Oakland tailor shop to sort out the borrowings from the Spiritualist Church. Then I detail Claudio Naranjo's major contribution, adding professional psychotherapy to the mix, but I also touch on the contributions of Miriam and Julius Brandstatter, Ernie Pecci, and Ron Kayne.
I freely admit to having a stake in this conversation. I began a meditation practice in the early 70's that continues to this day. I also explored every new offering that I found interesting. I began this exploration with Claudio Naranjo in 1972 and worked in his group until he took a sabbatical from teaching in 1976. I also knew Hoffman and offered a version of the Process for almost three years in the late 70's with mixed results.
I began this paper when the current owners of the intellectual property developed by Hoffman began to rewrite their copy, recasting Hoffman and his Process, editing out the contributions of many people who worked hard and selflessly to create a really effective tool for insight and growth.
Posted by tellall at 1:38 PM
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Here is the second one; this one is long.
If anyone reading this has actually undergone the Hoffman Process at any point in their life, I'd be very interested in hearing their input.
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Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Ontological Odd Couple (http://http://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/2008/06/ontological-odd-couple.html)
and the Origins of the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy
July 31, 2004
Revised September 16, 2006[/list]
Introduction
Success has many fathers and mothers.
When creating an historical account, you have to start at the beginning and get it right. Some facts, times, and dates can be accurately reconstructed from documents, letters, transcripts and personal calendars, if you are lucky enough to have them, but the messy parts of bringing something new into the world are, for the most part, buried and lost.
The original Process, the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy (FHPT), was created by Bob Hoffman and the people he gathered around him between 1968 and 1973, most notably Claudio Naranjo.* It had to fight for a marginal existence, competing with other offerings in the world of human potential that were then beginning to appear in California. Though the firm hand of Hoffman was always present during this period, he sought input from many sources (who sometimes did not even know that Hoffman was talking to others about the same issue). But he attributed final changes to his spirit guide, Dr. Fisher, which, I will argue, was part of the story he created to make a plausible claim that a tailor from Oakland could be the source of a complete psychological treatment.
It is ironic that the marketing efforts required to breathe life and cash into a new offering also distort the original vision. Reshaping history creates the impression that the Process came full blown from a pure source, and the people who do the difficult work of bringing something new into a world are elevated far beyond who they really are. Unrealistic expectations become a false standard to evaluate personal experience and it becomes more difficult to use one's own inspiration to gain self-knowledge and liberation.
No course of psychotherapy can produce real changes in people if it remains only theory. It changes. It reaches into areas that its creators cannot predict. If promises and expectations cannot be fulfilled, they have to be modified or eliminated. However, this evolution is distinct from marketing. Sadly, in our culture, promoting a brand name, writing persuasive copy, will prevail and in the process the contributions of many talented people are cut and lost. When these contributions are marginalized and their value neglected (or, in the worst scenario, attributed to others), the world itself loses something of its humanity and love.
What follows is just an inclusive footnote to the revised story.
*Naranjo is best known as the person who introduced and developed the Enneagram as a tool for self analysis and spiritual development.
My Purpose and Sources
I propose to outline the early development of the FHPT from the basement 'reading' room in Hoffman's clothing store on 15th Street in Oakland to the SAT group process that is the foundation of today's Quadrinity Process. I will not cover any of the subsequent additions and deletions since the creation of the seven-day format. My interest is to examine the 13-week process, the exercises and mind trips (now called 'visualizations') that remain the framework of the HQP, to see if this yields an insight into how a very simple insight became a course with sequential series of scripted emotional 'events' and a recognized 'product' in the human potential market place.
The primary source of information about the early development of the FHPT is my own experience. In 1972-73, I was in the first SAT group that Naranjo used to create a group process to accomplish "a loving divorce from mother and father" that Hoffman promised. Later in the spring of 1973, I was one of approximately 55 people Hoffman invited to be in his first 13-week group that he himself "took through" the Process in Tolman Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. The following year I was trained as an FHPT therapist and group leader which became my primary work for several years. I lead the 13-week processes for PSI and later, I worked privately with smaller groups for another three years.
Another primary source is Hoffman himself and my conversations with him from 1972 until his death in 1997. Our friendship was at times rewarding and at other times strained and painful. While he was alive I did not talk about the personal qualities and idiosyncrasies that gave me some insight into inner workings, puzzles and deep-seated sources of the unhappiness of the complex man. Extremely concerned about his public image, he imagined that he had to present himself to world as straight, a guy who had "his act together." Most people who were at all close to him, certainly those who worked with him closely, knew that Hoffman was gay, but he never publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. In this day of liberation and acceptance, however, his deception, his closeted life, cannot be overlooked. A good case could be argued that the process itself grew out of his conflict about being a man who loved men, his difficulty forming and nurturing close relationships, his creativity and sensitivity, and perhaps some of his inner doubts about the worth of his work.
I do not know all the people who contributed to the development of Hoffman's work. They are legion. I have not included hearsay material from people with whom I did not work or with whom I didn't have focused conversations. Many disappeared after working with Hoffman and making a significant contribution to the Process, such as Dr. Ernest Pecci, M.D., a psychiatrist who founded PSI, The Center for Psycho-Spiritual Integration, to present the 13-week Process. I trained as a therapist under Pecci and worked with him for more than two years in the 70's. Pecci's psychotherapeutic model was heavily influenced by New Age spirituality. My last personal contact with Pecci was a phone call about 1977 when he warned me that Hoffman was going to sue everyone that he, Pecci, had trained unless we ceased to offer the Fischer-Hoffman Psychic therapy to the public. (Nearly everyone who was offering some version of the FHPT ceased under Hoffman's threat of legal action, with the exception of one or two practitioners who had split with Hoffman before PSI, substantially altering or modifying it. He was also not successful in shutting down the Anti-Fisher Hoffman Process that was offered in the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh's ashrams in Pune and Antelope).
Some key people are dead, among them Julius Brandstatter, the man who coined the word 'Quadrinity' to reflect the four aspects of being human— physical, intellectual, spiritual and emotional. I met Julius and his wife Miriam when they returned from Israel in the 70's; their work with Hoffman continued through the re-casting of the Process into the current seven-and-a- half-day format. In the opinion of most observers, their contribution was never fully acknowledged by Hoffman. I had several long conversations with Miriam in 2006. It was she who created the organization and flow for Hoffman's early sessions. Hoffman would call Miriam in Israel and tell her what he presented that week with SAT, and later in Tolman Hall. Miriam, a well-trained psychotherapist, then returned what she had presented in Israel, as an orderly, effective outline which Hoffman filed and used for the next Process.
The most important person in this story was dead before Hoffman had the powerful experience that gave birth to the Process. In the first years, Dr. Siegfried Fisher assumed the status of legend and myth in the story of the Process as Hoffman's guide. His name was removed from the original title when his widow threatened to file suit. She claimed that there was no personal friendship between the two men and that her husband's professional reputation was threatened by Hoffman's claims. I will briefly examine both claims below.
Many of the people with whom I had extensive conversations became estranged from Hoffman, among them Ilene Cummings and Stanley Stefancic, who both served as Executive Director of the Institute after Hoffman's return from Mexico. Besides long and thoughtful discussions about the origins of the Process and the contributions of various players, Stefancic showed me several documents, lists of the unique terms and phrases that were intended as teaching tools in the HQP (e.g. "negative love," "giving to get," "illogical logic, nonsensical sense"), as well as descriptions of several elements in the Processes, (including the bitter sweet chocolate ritual, and spirit guide and sanctuary mind trip), that Hoffman and his lawyers prepared when he was considering lawsuits against those he considered pirates. (I have used quotes around words and phrases that Hoffman habitually used to describe either his methodology or the concepts that were the underpinning of his spiritual worldview.)
Other people were constant friends and supporters from their first meeting with Hoffman until he died. Although I know these people and have had conversations with them, I have not used anything they told me in my presentation. Cynthia Merchant, personal assistant to Hoffman and a Hoffman Quadrinity Teacher, worked as the editor of the lengthy transcripts of Hoffman's presentations that became the core of today's Process. Ron Kayne, early supporter, by Hoffman's admission, created the "guide and sanctuary mind trip," as well being the ghost writer for Hoffman's book, Getting Divorced from Mother and Dad and the first version of the Negative Love Syndrome.
When I became serious about uncovering and documenting the origins of the FHPS, I interviewed several of the members of Naranjo's first SAT group who had worked individually with Hoffman. Ron Deziel gave me important information about the bare bones of Hoffman's initial work heavily laced in psychic practice borrowed from the Spiritualist Church.
While some of what I will present is not easily reconciled with the proposed image of an inspired "intuitive," or kindly and wise Jewish grandfather, I feel it vital to record another version of Hoffman's inspiration and preserve it in a small corner of universe, and especially to note in some detail Claudio Naranjo's contribution. It is a dangerous thing to allow a story of real creation and inspiration to become too sanitized. The contributions of this highly talented man who was present at a certain moment and responded wholeheartedly to Hoffman's questions and requests without concern for his own personal gain and enrichment cannot be neglected.
The Inspiration
I heard Hoffman describe the inspiration for the Fischer-Hoffman Psychic Therapy many times. The rather bare outline of this otherworldly encounter never varied. In the middle of a night in 1967, the figure of a recently departed friend, the psychiatrist Siegfried Fischer, appeared at the foot of his bed and revealed to him the missing link in psychoanalytic therapy: the concept of negative love, the stream of negative behaviors unconsciously passed from one generation to the next. Then Fischer's spirit being took Hoffman through his own psychic therapy, uncovering the roots of his own inherited patterns of behavior and liberating him with a new understanding that reached into the depths of his emotional being. Hoffman said that he was able to forgive his parents for all the negativity he had experienced growing up. He knew that "everyone is guilty and no one to blame." Fischer disappeared with the promise to return and assist Hoffman to complete some of his own unfinished work, his karma, and that Hoffman could help "move on." Hoffman said he heard the phrase "doors will open" when he asked Fisher how he, a tailor, would enter the world of professional psychotherapy and present this insight as the missing piece, an antidote to the endless cycle of analysis.
Who was Siegfried Fischer? Hoffman claimed that Fischer was an acquaintance, a friend of his wife's family, a Viennese-trained psychiatrist who had escaped from Austria before Hitler's invasion, making his way to San Francisco. I confirmed the basic outline of the Fischer story from the public record. Siegfried Fischer did emigrate in the 40's and practiced psychotherapy at Langley Porter; he wrote Principles of general psychopathology: an interpretation of the theoretical foundations of psychopathological concepts, (New York, Philosophical Library, 1950).
Hoffman presented a scenario of convivial after-dinner conversations with Fischer. They chatted and argued about the existence of the psychic realm, life after death, and questions about the efficacy of psychotherapy. I can't overemphasize the Spiritualist Church's doctrine: "truth" spoken by disembodied spirits to spirits inhabiting human bodies, satisfying karmic obligations. Fischer was the scientific materialist and believed none of it. The telling had the feel of an apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil, psychotherapy vs. a psychic tailor, the psychic declaring victory after death.
After hearing this part of story, with slight variations, innumerable times, I, and several other participants, began to feel that Hoffman had an ax to grind with the enterprise of psycho-analysis, that he had probably had a failed experience in therapy himself. I began to suspect that he had been Fischer's patient and quit, still in transference. I asked Hoffman if he had been Fischer's patient and he said yes, that he and his wife had seen Fischer for family therapy with their son Michael. Nothing about any friendship. I am convinced that Hoffman created a good yarn, a myth, and lied about his personal friendship with Fisher to present himself as a reliable source.
Fischer's widow maintained that he was never a personal friend of Hoffman or Hoffman's wife. When Hoffman continued to use her husband's name, Fischer's heirs filed a lawsuit against Hoffman. Hoffman acceded to the demands of the Fischer family, and changed the name of the FHPT to the Quadrinity Process. However, he still claimed, both in private conversation and group presentations, a personal friendship with Fischer and that Fischer was his spirit guide. [He asked me if I had had any psychic contact with Fischer. His criterion for authentic contact was a vision of Fischer as a real life persona, complete with grey hair, glasses, and white coat. Hoffman told me that he was fairly certain that Naranjo had experienced Dr. Fischer as a spiritual entity, but my vision was less certain.]
Hoffman claimed that Fischer guided him as he began to work with people who started to come to him for psychic readings. From my conversations with several people who did psychic therapy with Hoffman in the "reading room" of his 15th Street shop, Hoffman's initial work contained the following elements. After some discussion of the problems that were plaguing a person's life (and legendary "forceful" persuasion), and making lists of his or her parents' negative traits, Hoffman instructed clients to write an emotionally-charged autobiography of their life from birth till puberty. Then he began to direct the "prosecution" of Mother and Dad for programming a defenseless child with negative emotional traits. An "anger letter" to his or her parents capped the prosecution which provided some release as well as giving Hoffman an opportunity to evaluate the depth of the client's emotional state.
Then Hoffman "psychically read" the emotional history the client's parents, living or dead, describing events without prior knowledge, often including times and places, that explained and cemented difficult emotional traits into their emotional make up. This was the parents' "defense": to see that negative love was passed from one generation to the next. This is the concept of "negative love": that his or her parents had unwillingly "adopted" these negative traits themselves, driven by their own emotional history and therefore could not be blamed. These deep, psychically verifiable, understandings led to the experience of forgiveness and compassion for one's parents. "Everyone is guilty and no one to blame."
And finally, through the mediation of Dr. Fischer and their personal spirit guide, the client got "Closure" by cutting the psychic ties to his or her parents. In a "mind trip," the client yanked out the umbilical cord that connected his or her emotional child to their parents and allowed them to grow up to their chronological age. As an emotional adult, the client could for the first time experience unconditional love for their parents. The tools for breaking the habit of negative behaviors, now just phantom symptoms of imagined hurt, were repetition of positive traits, a process called "recycling," and avoidance of negative behaviors by "putting your awareness on your awareness" using rudimentary self awareness exercises. There were also tapes of sessions with Hoffman and written negative trait lists and positive alternatives for reinforcement.
The original elements of the Process, according to Ernie Pecci, were the prosecution of Mother and then the defense of Mother, the prosecution of Father and the defense of Father plus the "Closure."
One other piece was introduced into the FHPS before Naranjo took on creating the group process with Hoffman. The imagined conversation between the client's emotional child and the emotional child of the parent came from Transactional Analysis. Hoffman's no longer read his patients psychically to uncover his or her own parents' emotional history. Hoffman found facilitators trained in transactional analysis, and adapted an existing technique, a path that he was to follow many times throughout the creation of the Process. If Fischer had really communicated to Hoffman, "doors will open," perhaps he knew that Hoffman would not hesitate to break down doors if he found them stuck.
The Development of the Group Process
When I arrived in Berkeley in 1972, I was a 28-year-old Jesuit seminarian. I also knew that I needed psychological help—my own spiritual practice had opened up as many blank spaces as it had satisfied—and I was at a loss for any real solutions. I had been in therapy but the result only put me in a huge dilemma: I knew I was gay but denied it; I wanted to experience intimacy in my life, and I wanted to have a spiritual life. My vow of celibacy presented a definite obstacle to intimacy. I had come to Berkeley to work with a Jesuit priest named Bob Ochs who was a student of Naranjo. I had heard that Naranjo was about to begin to "introduce" his group to the work of a man he considered a modern shaman, a tailor from Oakland who was psychically guided by a deceased Viennese psychiatrist, a man who was able to introduce people to the core of psychological understanding in a very swift and complete way. This was a real "Hail Mary," but would a Jesuit lead me down a dead end?
At our group's first meeting with Bob Hoffman, he wore very expensive clothes—a race-track sport coat and tie. Standing behind Rosalyn Schaffer, Naranjo's representative, he appeared uncomfortable. When he began to speak, it was soon obvious that he was not educated in any psychological discipline, but he dominated the room, alternatively talking then yelling in a kind of dumbed-down jargon filled with what became known as "Hoffmanisms." The paradoxical definition of "negative love was illogical logical and nonsensical sense," and if we didn't understand that, we were just playing dumb out of negative love; if we thought he was too well dressed, it was negative transference and an indication that we didn't love ourselves. I was trapped, but I had just moved all the way from New York and had nowhere else to turn so I sat and took notes.
This was the very beginning of the creation of the group Process. It is very clear from Hoffman's written notes in Stefancic's possession that Hoffman credited Claudio Naranjo for transforming the FHPT into a group process. It is also clear from every interaction between them that I witnessed over more than 20 years, that Naranjo always regarded Hoffman as a modern day shaman, just as he was introduced on that September evening. Naranjo would from time to time poke fun and try to deflate Hoffman, but he also respected the kernel of Hoffman's insight.
Not only did Naranjo shape the group process, he also gave Hoffman a measuring stick to evaluate the effect that the FHPS had on participants. Lacking psychological training, Hoffman needed Naranjo's validation, but at the same time he never trusted the techniques that Naranjo introduced to yield insight. He felt that psychotherapy was at base a misguided enterprise and any kind of self observation was, at best, far too slow and, at worst, a head game. His style was to evaluate and attack people, then point to their emotional reactions as example of negative programming, almost always violating the boundaries of professional behavior.
Naranjo was usually absent from Hoffman's group interactions and, I suspect, just let Hoffman conduct himself in any way he chose. But Naranjo did craft the interactive exercises for most of the sessions. I will discuss two exercises in some detail, the "bitch session" and the "child/intellect confrontation." They highlight Naranjo's major contribution to the Process and laid the groundwork for the experiential HQP that is now produced worldwide.
Hoffman instructed us to list our parents' negative traits. He defined a negative trait as any behavior that was "giving to get," "buying love," "withholding love." This warped economy of love thwarted the free exchange of affection to satisfy our innate desire to love and be loved. (Naranjo examines Hoffman's view in "The End of Patriarchy"). As we listed our parents' negative traits, Hoffman insisted that we had adopted them, every one of them, even if we had rebelled against them as children and they occurred as negative reactive behavior. He insisted that this was the sum total of what we knew about love, that our emotional life was infantile, and that we gave emotional love in the vain hope of having it returned, deprived of our birthright to give and receive love freely. This simple model became the foil that Hoffman used to reflect our behavior back to us, a rudimentary self-observation: the memory of past behaviors in relation to our parents revealed how we conducted our emotional life. Our list of negative traits became his confrontational tool. In the SAT group, Claudio also used dyads and other tools of self-observation, notably the study of the enneagram, meditation, and methods adopted from Gestalt, but Hoffman again thought those techniques cumbersome and slow.
We were then instructed to take the list of negative traits and recall scenes from our childhood, before puberty, where we had experienced these traits exhibited by our parents, and write down our reactions. Our emotional autobiography was to be as emotional as possible; we were not to censor ourselves as we wrote. (The Emotional Autobiography is no longer used— Hoffman told me that it was not necessary but I suspect that it took too much time for the compressed version).
That first Fall there were at least five weeks dedicated to this prosecution of Mother. It was mid-October when we began the bitch session. I mention this because it was the first time I noticed Hoffman's urge to move the process ahead while it appeared to me that Claudio was testing psychological methodology as applied to the FHPT. My observation was of course obscured by the fact that I was a participant with enormous transference already underway. Subsequent events confirmed my initial impression.
The bitch session, which replaced the "anger letter," was an experiential expression of anger, directed at a parent, using explicit language, physical motion, beating pillows, and screaming. It was first conducted with the group members observing the person on the "hot seat" and then providing feedback about the depth and expression of the anger. (A personal note here: this experience was for me one of the major breakthroughs in my entire adult life. It took weeks for me to really allow myself to express my own anger, but when I finally did touch the depth of my rage at my mother, it altered the course of my life. It was as if a huge veil had been lifted and I had to admit that I was an angry person. But more important, I recognized that I had a range of feelings that I'd struggled to avoid all my life, that I had constructed my life to avoid these feelings. At that moment I became solidly engaged in the exploration of myself to achieve some degree of resolution and freedom.)
The introduction of the "bitch session" was important to Hoffman. It was his first experience of psychological work allowing a person to experience the level of emotional release that he had been unable to achieve with his "anger letter." It also, in my view, pointed to a rapid way to induce the level of feeling and emotion that is the hallmark of the current version of the HQP. Later Pecci introduced another technique for inducing very early infantile feelings, the "primal," an adaptation of Reichian body work, borrowing its name from the then-popular Primal Scream Therapy; it also continues to exist in some form in the current HQP.
The next of Naranjo's contributions that I would like to discuss is what is now known as the "Child/Intellect Bitch Session." This does not follow the chronological sequence because it actually occurred after Hoffman had begun to do his own work. While I worked in the first FHPT Process, I continued my participation in the SAT group. One night I took the hot seat when Naranjo himself was doing Gestalt therapy. In the FHPT, the client visualizes his or her self as composed of four parts, the physical self, the intellectual self, the spiritual self and the emotional self. The emotional self can assume whatever age where the client or patient feels some block or experiences some incident that remains unresolved. In a dream sequence that I began to act out, alternately taking the role of a stern mother and a vulnerable child, with Naranjo's coaching, I experienced myself at war with myself, perpetuating in a kind of stalemate, hiding from my sexual feelings and repressing them fearing my mother's disapproval. Anger and frustration surfaced, and the solution that I had crafted, the choice of the celibate religious life, began to look like just that, a solution I had crafted and not the vocation that I was trying to follow. As a follow up, it was suggested that I try to craft another kind of truce between the emotional child and the intellectual self, represented in the session as my disapproving mother. I was among the first of several people who used the persona of the child and intellect on the hot seat. Very soon Hoffman introduced an exercise where the emotional child and the adult intellect alternately expressed anger and frustration, eventually arriving at a kind of truce. This became know as the Child/Intellect Bitch Session and continues to exist in a different form in the HQP today.
In the middle of January, Hoffman and Naranjo decided to end their group experiment with SAT. Hoffman told us that he would take us to a place where we could stop the defense of father and that he would conduct his own 13-week group process in Tolman Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. (I later learned that he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and was going to retire to Mexico to either heal or die; that he had made the decision to entrust his group process to Pecci; and that the training in Tolman Hall was to introduce a pool of people to the group process who might be trained as therapists, or 'teachers' as we were called.)
The hallmark of the 13-week process was the order and the pace. The specific assignments for each week were due three days after the session; Hoffman reviewed them and his taped comments were back in your hands at the beginning of the next session. In every session Hoffman lectured, shouted, cajoled, confronted, intimidated, humiliated, bullied, abused us. He called us ass holes and negative love buyers. This behavior perhaps forced some people to examine themselves, but it far exceeded professional boundaries appropriate for therapist/teacher, student/patient relationship. Hoffman justified his behavior by claiming that his basic message was so simple that it was hard to grasp without his unyielding confrontation: human beings deserved a satisfying emotional life but were prevented from achieving that goal by their parenting, the adoption of the negative traits of their parents.
He conducted other portions of his course through "mind trips" and I will mention two of them, the parents' funeral and the birthday party, because together with the other exercises already mentioned, these fill out nearly every essential element (except "Vindictiveness," "Play Day," and "Dark Side") of present HQP. After the prosecution and defense of both parents, we were asked to close our eyes and imagine that we were awakened in the dead of night by a phone call: our parents had been involved in a car crash and were near death. We were asked to follow the course of events from the emergency room to the graveside. Bob told me that this "came through" as he was speaking. Furthermore he said that if we experienced a full range of emotion, we could actually set aside our anger towards our parents and begin to experience unconditional love for them. There was another mind trip when we were asked to visualize the birthday party that we never had, where we were celebrated and feted for who we were and not who we had to pretend to be in order to experience our parents' love. During the whole time I practiced the 13-week FHPT, I know that Hoffman struggled with achieving the high level of emotional experience he considered necessary to produce the emotional freedom he saw as the goal. Both remain today in the HQP as elaborately produced events, with music, props, food. When combined with suggested visual images, they can and do induce the powerful emotional states Hoffman sought. I suggest that Naranjo's early introduction of experiential exercises into Hoffman's basic framework made it possible for Hoffman to create the controlled emotional rollercoaster of the current HQP.
Conclusion
As the history of the process is being revised and cleaned up as a product of the human potential movement, I have tried to leave a footnote about the people who helped Hoffman in order that their important contributions are not neglected, attributed to others, or lost regardless of copyright.
I had also hoped to shed light on how an "inspired insight" makes itself known in the world, examining how a core insight into human nature could become a coherent, repeatable experience that would provide people an access to their own emotional life and deepen their awareness of their own spiritual lives. Frankly I do not know if any process is able to deliver this result in a sustainable way, but there is always the possibility that even a split second experience of unconditional love might be enough to alter centuries of abuse.
However, I am certain that I demonstrated that the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy and the subsequent Hoffman Quadrinity Process came into existence through the combined efforts of Bob Hoffman and Claudio Naranjo, that it required both men to bring it to life, that the HQP would not exist at all without the generous contribution of Claudio Naranjo. Hoffman borrowed widely and used anything that he thought might be useful. He relied on Naranjo more than anyone, but also others like Pecci, to fill out his vision and give it legitimacy.
Claudio Naranjo was constant in his friendship and support. I saw Naranjo demonstrate respect and love for Bob Hoffman from the time he provided him with a group that he could use to create the FHPT to his last meetings with Hoffman while he was dying from liver cancer in his Oakland home. Naranjo thought of Hoffman as a modern day shaman, a man who received an inspiration, an insight that broke into his life unexpectedly and that he wrestled with for the rest of his life. On the other hand, their relationship was not easy—Hoffman, untrained and impetuous, a tradesman by nature and choice, Naranjo, skilled and intellectual, a thorough professional—they were an ontological odd couple.
And finally, a personal evaluation, one that was also hard won.
In the last analysis, it is not difficult to create the circumstances for unique experiences that are extraordinary or yield real insights.
Teachers, real ones and charlatans, have been doing this for ages. Their bag of tricks include meditation and self-analysis, as well as trance and hypnotism, auto suggestion, even bullying as a way of barging through defense mechanisms. Despite his claims to the contrary, Hoffman made ample use of the more nasty tricks with complete impunity, always taking the higher ground. (He was, for example, never angry with anyone, but "righteously indignant.") But when it comes to actually seeing if his results were lasting, the evidence is scarce or relies very heavily on anecdotal evidence. Many people say that the experience was powerful, but if they made real changes in their lives, if they were happier and not living under another despotism, however benevolent, the majority of those I interviewed had found a sustainable spiritual practice and devoted themselves to it.
In my own experience of directing people in the Process, I cut as much as I could of the trappings of the spiritualist church. I found them fraudulent, or at best embarrassing and useless. I dropped Hoffman's inflated claims that the Process was all the therapy that anyone needed, that it was Freud's missing link. I introduced conversations that allowed clients to explore how their early emotional programming influences their lives here and now. But listening deeply to 40 individuals a year began to take too much of a personal toll for a meager income, and I stopped offering the Process when Hoffman threatened a lawsuit. I certainly had no stomach and no money to face off in court over his intellectual property.
I have not kept in touch with people that I worked with. But one person, a very articulate and bright African-American, and his Process were memorable. Early on in the prosecution of Father, the name Jim Jones kept coming up in our sessions—my client said that Jones was a remarkable psychic, a healer, a prophet, a seer. I had never heard of Jones and though the People's Temple was only a few blocks from where I lived in San Francisco, I felt no desire to "check him out." I just kept encouraging my client to examine any transference he might have to Jones. After a few more weeks and the "prosecution of father," I noticed that Jones's name was not coming up. I asked how he was feeling towards Jones. He replied that Jones was just another fraud preying on the black community. He left the Peoples' Temple before the exodus to Guyana and escaped the horrific aftermath.
Just that result is enough for me.
Posted by tellall at 1:35 PM
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Okay... Here's the third and final post of Ken Ireland's Buddha, S.J. (http://http://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/) blog entries from June 29, 2008. Note that he does not mention the Hoffman Process by name. I think that's 'cause he is concerned about getting sued. He did mention threat of similar nature from Bob Hoffman himself in the past. While Bob Hoffman is now deceased, this does perhaps provide "food for thought" re. the nature of the current administrators of the Hoffman Institute...
To the savvy reader, keep this in mind:
1.) These three posts were culled from previously posted material for the avowed express purpose of posting all Bob Hoffman and Hoffman Process material in one place.
2.) These three posts were all posted within minutes of one another on the same day.
NO other posts on Ken Ireland's blog "Buddha, S.J." within a month and a half of, before or after, the publication of these three posts.[/list]
I think it's pretty safe to assume that the following post specifically delves into particulars re. those "scientific studies" the Hoffman Institute displays so proudly, as proof of The Process's "efficacy," on their website...
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Sunday, June 29, 2008
Science vs. Spooks (http://http://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/2008/06/science-vs-spooks_29.html)
Skepticism, scientific research and the Nostradamus effect
In this odd corner of the world, California, some people are interested in the changing nature of mind, emotions, personality. In certain quarters, it is believed that the uniquely western contribution to "spiritual" efforts will be the addition of scientific investigation. Perhaps this is a new chapter of the old science vs religion debate; perhaps it is a new path to understanding. I have a slightly different take on some related questions which I'm calling, Science vs. Spooks. It has to do with the prejudice of those who sponsor the research. More precisely: who's buying and why and what does this have to do with science?
The Institute of Neotic Sciences was born from the odd mixture of new age personal growth techniques and a deeply powerful personal, transforming experience. The astronaut Edgar Mitchell on his voyage to Moon during the Apollo project, had what had to be a deep, profound kensho in the most unique of circumstances. This is the second hand version of the story I heard. He was doing a space walk to check things out before the capsule fired off on its return to earth. He was, and perhaps still is, a very technical kind of guy, a total professional, running down the check list transmitted to him from NASA command. There was a momentary lapse in the transmission just as the capsule emerged from the dark side of the moon. With nothing to do for 30 seconds or so, but his concentration still entirely focused, Edgar looked up as the earth rose above the moon's horizon, and the whole universe opened up for him. Yeah, POW. Wish I'd been there.
Mitchell returns to earth a changed man and starts off on a personal quest. I have never talked to him, and can't read his mind, but perhaps he wanted to try to figure what that experience was all about, and also, perhaps, ways for others to have that experience which might drastically alter the way we live on earth.
Enter Michael Murphy and Esalen, the new age, meditation, psycho-spiritual center. In the 70's, Esalen (which is located in one of the most beautiful settings California has to offer) was a kind of supermarket of meditation-altered-state-spiritual experience. Mitchell becomes a regular, and Esalen becomes a model for the Institute of Neotic Sciences. Some of the best minds in the West, highly trained professionals who were also seekers, along with a good dose of quacks and kooks, used it as their laboratory. It was an exciting time and place. I was among the second generation of seekers to sample the feast - mostly through Claudio Naranjo's SAT which was born during the first Arica training with Oscar Ischazo that 40 or so Esalen 'members' attended (that is a loose term, they were mostly just regular participants in Esalen workshops and seminars plus a few luminaries).
Sometime around the mid to late 70's, at least this is how I see it, three things began to happen: first there was a straight forward attempt to use standard tests, psychological and medical, to measure the effects of meditation. The work of the Institute of Noetic Sciences has been a leader in this area and its contribution impressive. The second objective is quite close to the first, standard psychological instruments began to be used to see if there were measurable changes in persons who did the various workshops and trainings: if people reported beneficial results, to see if they were real change that lasted, or if it was just a kind of workshop high.
And the third thing, and here I have to be very careful because what I have to say is just my judgment though based on real experience, the producers of the various trainings and workshops wanted to show positive scientific results as part of their marketing. Most were connected to the world of psychology, some professionals and some who had transformative experiences and wanted to present them to a larger audience. Of course, money was required to support these projects. If you would like to see who some of these people are, simply look at the associate faculty of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. It is an odd assortment of practitioners, luminaries and aspiring luminaries.
I worked on staff at two Easlen type human potential companies, and I watched scientific studies as they were undertaken in both companies. In a small way, I participated in the creation and execution of one.
Here's the scenario: The company finds the money to finance the study, just as drug companies do when they are testing their products. Then someone, in the case I know best it was a PhD psychologist on staff, shops around university graduate psychology departments for some professors willing to design and execute a study. There are the usual requirements to insure that the results are completely impartial and not stacked. Both what is to be measured, and what instruments will be designed for measurement and assessment of results are negotiated and agreed on. The size of the sample and a time table are set. A fee is paid. There is also a promise to have the results, if they are positive, published in a professional peer reviewed journal.
However, there are three areas where there was participation (and revision) skew the 'objective science' behind the 'result.' I was one of several people who pre-tested the instrument that was designed. The researchers were looking for the positive psychological results some people reported and determine if they were lasting. As a 'graduate' of the course, I was given a questionnaire that the researchers had designed to measure certain psychological results. But then, through the in house psychologist, there were 'adjustments' in what was measured (most I suspect, with an eye to using the results for marketing). Then the testing began. At some point, perhaps three months into the process, I heard that people in the company were calling participants to make sure that they completed their questionnaires. (I actually overheard some phone calls though I was not asked to make any). Though this is probably not completely unethical within the agreed upon conditions of impartiality, it seems to me that if I did not feel strongly enough to send my report back to the psychologists, that would effect the statistical evaluation. I did not heard any coercion in the phone calls other than to complete the questionnaire. There were however, other 'support' calls to graduates at specific intervals. Now if I got a support call, reinforcing my experience, and then, a few weeks later, another making sure I completed a questionnaire for the study, well, you get the picture.
And the final area of manipulation of the results is their publication. And this is the most flagrant. Although the researchers themselves wrote up the results of their study and submitted it to professional journals, perhaps even a presentation at some conference (I left the company before it was complete), there were interim reports: you know, "After six months, participants report more confident and loving conversations with their spouses and children." That first report, an assessment of the initial data, was written by the in-house psychologist and given to the president. The president claimed that there was just too much scientific jargon. In reality it was not the overwhelming positive result expected. I actually stood by his desk as he reworked every sentence, every word or phrase that seemed too guarded, and changed them, asking us as witnesses, "I don't think it should say that, this (his powerful punched phrase) says the same thing, doesn't it?" When I asked the psychologist himself about the revisions, he was pretty non-committal, "I suppose that could be said about X," and turned the conversation to his new home in the foothills.
There is nothing criminal or terribly important in this manipulation of scientific inquiry - the drug companies do it all the time and we pay for it - but it shows, I think, the limitations of scientific research in the real world.
What has this to do with our old friend Nostradamus? Did that phrase about the two giants collapsing or whatever, really 'foretell' the attack on the World Trade Center towers? I bet we could find some rich paranormal enthusiasts to fund a study that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a certain percentage of the American public, after hearing those sentences read to them in a scripted phone survey, will agree that Nostradamus did really predict 9/11. It is one way to defend against the terror of the unpredictable.
I remain skeptical.
Posted by tellall at 1:32 PM
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I see Joe has graduated from chewing on tennis balls, to beating pillows with a baseball bat.
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I see Joe has graduated from chewing on tennis balls, to beating pillows with a baseball bat.
not slapping students in the face these days? ................................. :twofinger:
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"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Light News · Spring/Summer 2009
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Meet Joey Gauld, Visionary Educator and Founder of the Hyde School
Teaching A New Way To Educate (http://http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/pdfs/ln_spring-summer_09.pdf)
- A Discussion with Joey Gauld, the Visionary Founder of the Hyde School -
by Ellie Weiser
The Hyde School was founded in 1966 by Joey Gauld, a former math teacher and school administrator who was interested in providing a better preparation for life based on the belief that each student is gifted with a unique potential, supported by a curriculum of character development and college placement.
The Hyde School approach to education has continued to develop and thrive under the leadership of Joey Gauld, who completed the Hoffman Process in 2007 at age 80.
Joey, a published author, consultant and a keynote speaker, recently spoke with Hoffman's Ellie Weiser about his life's work and the Hoffman / Hyde connection.
For more information on the Hyde School, please visit http://www.hyde.edu (http://www.hyde.edu).
ELLIE: In searching for a better way to educate American youth, you founded the Hyde Schools, of which there are now five. How did your vision for the Hyde Schools come to be?
JOEY: It came from a crisis of conscience I had at a New Year's Eve party in 1962, when I realized that as a teacher I was part of an educational system that was failing kids. At first I felt like my hands were tied, but I realized that if those kids weren't my responsibility, just whose were they? After reflecting I went back to the party knowing that my life was never going to be the same.
ELLIE: Changing the American educational system is an ambitious New Years resolution. Why couldn't you bring your changes to the existing system?
JOEY: After 16 years of teaching, I became a Headmaster. In my first year I realized that I was envisioning change that went beyond what the trustees of the school could accept. In order to make the kind of changes that were needed, I would have to start my own school. That's what led me to found the Hyde School.
ELLIE: How do Hyde Schools differ from traditional schools?
JOEY: Traditional schools focus on measurable academic achievement to the exclusion of other important values. They focus on what a student can do, while Hyde looks at who a student is. We approach every student knowing that he or she has a unique potential, and our job is to draw that potential out. The development of character prepares kids for life, which includes further academic achievement.
ELLIE: Why do you stress character as a core value at Hyde?
JOEY: After teaching for 16 years, I knew that preparing kids for life involved much more than getting them ready for college. I felt that if you could develop character you would prepare them for life, so I picked five words: courage, integrity, concern, curiosity and leadership. I didn't know whether you could actually develop those concepts in kids but I was confident that it would lead me to something that could.
ELLIE: While Hyde stresses character development above academic achievement, 98 percent of Hyde graduates go on to four-year colleges. What's the key to your success?
JOEY: We reach the deeper motivation in kids by having them address the deeper questions: 'who am I?' 'where am I going with my life?,' 'what do I need to do to get there?' Once you find a kid's deeper motivation, then you can talk about college and other things that traditional schools introduce.
ELLIE: Hyde Schools insist on parent involvement. Like the Hoffman Process, you attribute much to a person's early life conditioning.
JOEY: That's right. Getting to the deeper level of a kid's character and unique potential is largely dependent on how well you get to the parents. Initially that was a depressing realization because I understand kids, but the parents are a different story. So, in 1974 I said to the parents "we're going to help you raise your kids," and in so doing I began to focus on two things: parental growth and family issues.
ELLIE: Your theory is similar to Bob Hoffman's.
JOEY: Well, involving Hyde parents is what ultimately led me to learn more about Hoffman because the Institute had worked more extensively with delving into childhood patterns than we had.
ELLIE: You're changing the ways families approach education, but it sounds like it's not only the educational system that's struggling, but the families themselves.
JOEY: They're intertwined. Our society has never even considered the concept of parent and family education. Family support and parent training have gotten worse and over the years, and that's where our problem lies now. That's been my primary focus since 1974, and it's been hugely rewarding. My 1962 commitment was to all kids, and our family program gives me a chance to reach some kids I missed—parents!
ELLIE: Hyde Schools recognize that we can't run schools as we did in the past; that it's a different world.
JOEY: Society has changed immensely but we're still doing education the way we did in colonial days.
ELLIE: How did you learn of the Hoffman Process?
JOEY: Someone mentioned it to me, and when I read the Negative Love Syndrome I was fascinated by what Bob Hoffman had discovered, because it was very in keeping with what I discovered in my years at Hyde.
ELLIE: What inspired you to sign up?
JOEY: My daughter Gigi attended before I did. When she came back I saw big changes in her – she learned to appreciate and love herself. In 2007 I felt that I hadn't made much of a dent in changing American education, but I saw that there were still unrecognized attitudes in me that I needed to change. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." So on my 80th birthday I signed up for the Process.
ELLIE: What did you get from the Process?
JOEY: While there I was called by my childhood name, which is Joey. As an adult I've only been known as Joe, so being called Joey was jarring because Joey was a very impotent little kid. He was a dreamer that nobody listened to. The Process helped me know that I lived with attitudes of anger, impatience and frustration, which were re-triggered in my adult self because nobody listened to Joey.
ELLIE: Did you make friends with Joey through your work at the Process?
JOEY: At the end of the eight days I loved being Joey – I even insisted that everybody at home call me Joey! I've written an autobiography about my life and about Joey, because he was the one who founded those schools. Joe was the hard driver, but the Spirit, the dreamer, is Joey.
ELLIE: How did your Process experience change your relationships with your kids?
JOEY: I have three adult children. After the Process I experienced a beautiful new depth with each. My daughter Laurie put it well: "Dad, you thought you were open before, but after the Process you were less uptight and more serene – then you really opened." That was another one of the many gifts.
ELLIE: To date more than 40 Hyde parents, faculty and teachers have completed the Process. How has this much involvement changed the Hyde Schools?
JOEY: I call the Hoffman Process "Hyde Heavy" because in a school we can't go as deep as the Process does, though I attempt to in my seminars with parents. More Hyde parents need to understand themselves at the level that Process graduates do. As more people complete the Process, communication, commitment, authenticity – everything improves.
ELLIE: This August an unprecedented event will happen – the Hoffman Process will be presented at the Hyde School in Maine.
JOEY: Yes! The Process will come to our campus in Bath, where administrators, teachers and parents from both our boarding schools and public charter schools will participate.
ELLIE: What do you hope to accomplish by bringing the Process to Hyde?
JOEY: As a person goes through the Process and deals with the Negative Love Syndrome, what we at Hyde call, "unproductive emotional dispositions," they go through a profound personal transformation. Step one is having each person transform themselves. Step two is having these teachers, administrators and parents share what they've learned and help others as they've been helped. We also plan to implement some of the things we learn at the Process into our programs. For example, we'll give a list of attitudes to the kids and we'll have them check off their attitudes, the attitudes of their mother, and those of their father.
ELLIE: It's the start of pattern tracing.
JOEY: We want kids to know the difference between attitudes they have, and emotional dispositions. When they know the difference they'll see that something deeper happened in the home that they didn't cause, which helped shape their emotional dispositions. Kids need to understand what Bob Hoffman meant when he said “No one is to blame."
ELLIE: As of today there are two Hyde boarding schools and three Hyde charter schools. Where are they located and how do they differ?
JOEY: The charter schools are located in the inner cities of New Haven, CT, South Bronx, NY and Washington, DC. They go from grammar through high school grades and are college preparatory schools. The two private boarding schools are located in Bath, Maine and Woodstock, CT. They are high schools with college prep curriculums.
ELLIE: With the charter schools you've essentially gone into tough inner cities to transform the way schools are run.
JOEY: A charter school is a public school that operates like an independent school. You submit a charter describing the proposed school, and if the charter is accepted by the public authority, then you open and operate the school. It's funded the same way any public school is with the proviso that it must work. If the school's test scores aren't good, the school will be closed.
ELLIE: Are the Hyde charter schools in high-demand?
JOEY: We have to accept students by lottery because the demand is that high. Our Bronx school has a current waiting list of 400 kids. The need in inner cities for schools like ours is great.
ELLIE: Will you expand Hyde charter schools into other states?
JOEY: We're now creating a cluster of five charter schools in New York City, with classes beginning in 2010. We also expect to open a charter school in Orlando, Florida.
ELLIE: Do inner-city parents understand what the Hyde program is trying to accomplish?
JOEY: Yes! Yesterday I spoke with parents in the South Bronx. These people live in one of the poorest areas in New York City and there is a lot of dysfunction in their families. When I talk with any of our parents, I tell them about the Negative Love Syndrome and I explain that no one is to blame. I say, "It's a step in the right direction for you to realize that what's happening is not something you caused or even something that your parents caused. This is something that's been passed down. This is not you." A parent said to me afterwards with tears in his eyes, "Thanks for bringing us hope."
ELLIE: What's your vision for the future?
JOEY: I will continue to bring the understanding to our society that the biggest problem we have is an abundance of adverse childhood experiences that we as a whole haven't learned to deal with. With Raz's (Raz Ingrasci, Hoffman's CEO) support, I'm writing a book that I hope will finally make our society aware of how much of the imperfections we experience in life stem from the unaddressed negatives in our childhood -- negatives that Hoffman and Hyde are trying to address.
ELLIE: Joey, the work you do is extraordinary, and there are thousands of students and parents who've benefited from your vision all those years ago. Do you have any final words to share with the Hoffman community?
JOEY: I'm very grateful to Hoffman because it was at the Process that I learned that I was first and foremost a warm and compassionate person whose spirit was determined to create a better world for kids, and I still am! After 80 years it was Joey, the real me who finally emerged!
Hoffman Institute Foundation • 1299 Fourth St., Suite 304 • San Rafael, CA 94901 • 800-506-5253
fax 415-485-5539 • email: http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org (http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org)
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I am an former Hyde student from the early and mid-1970 -- the Joe and Ed period. I went through the Hoffman Process six years ago in Brisbane, Australia, and am quite shocked to hear that Hyde has any relationship at all with them. They are clearly the antithesis of each other. My experience with Hoffman was positive. It was rigorous, and deeply spiritual, but also enormously gentle and supportive. Confrontation, tantrums and shaming, which seems the core of Hyde, is completely the opposite of my experience. I would have to say that while the Hoffman Process was helpful in dealing with a difficult familial past, which Hyde greatly exacerbated, I did not have any major breakthroughs. However, I made some very strong relationships and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
I think the primary reason I am so surprised at the Hoffman-Hyde tie-up is the emphasis of Hoffman on internal spiritual guidance, which is necessarily non-judgmental. Hoffman believes that if you are not in touch with your own spirituality meaningful progress is not possible, and mistakes are endlessly repeated. Simply put, humans on their own do not have the capacity to recognize truth as it so frequently can be at odds with self will. We accept and view as real that which the self is willing to. Real progress comes from gently being guided to recognizing blocks and transcending them through understanding and forgiveness. The very notion that confrontation and shaming can result in anything but further confusion and damage is ridiculous.
I recognize that many people may be put off by the spiritual nature of Hoffman. It is a bit New Agey, but better that than "having your attitude rammed right down your throat" by people with no professional training and even less compassion.
Frederick W. Burnside
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I am an former Hyde student from the early and mid-1970 -- the Joe and Ed period. I went through the Hoffman Process six years ago in Brisbane, Australia, and am quite shocked to hear that Hyde has any relationship at all with them. They are clearly the antithesis of each other. My experience with Hoffman was positive. It was rigorous, and deeply spiritual, but also enormously gentle and supportive. Confrontation, tantrums and shaming, which seems the core of Hyde, is completely the opposite of my experience. I would have to say that while the Hoffman Process was helpful in dealing with a difficult familial past, which Hyde greatly exacerbated, I did not have any major breakthroughs. However, I made some very strong relationships and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
I think the primary reason I am so surprised at the Hoffman-Hyde tie-up is the emphasis of Hoffman on internal spiritual guidance, which is necessarily non-judgmental. Hoffman believes that if you are not in touch with your own spirituality meaningful progress is not possible, and mistakes are endlessly repeated. Simply put, humans on their own do not have the capacity to recognize truth as it so frequently can be at odds with self will. We accept and view as real that which the self is willing to. Real progress comes from gently being guided to recognizing blocks and transcending them through understanding and forgiveness. The very notion that confrontation and shaming can result in anything but further confusion and damage is ridiculous.
I recognize that many people may be put off by the spiritual nature of Hoffman. It is a bit New Agey, but better that than "having your attitude rammed right down your throat" by people with no professional training and even less compassion.
Frederick W. Burnside
Well... with all due respect, I'd have to disagree with you re. Hyde and the Hoffman Process being "the antithesis of each other." I'd venture that they're both cut from the same cloth, namely, they're both thought reform programs that utilize psychological tools and shortcuts derived from the Human Potential movement ... as a means of eliciting your inculcation.
Ya may well find fault with much of Joe's bombastic blustering, displays of temper, and capricious indulgence of personal excess. Granted, his style might seem very different from what you experienced with the Hoffman Process, but that doesn't mean that these aren't essentially pretty much the same thing. It's just a lot easier to recognize Joe's way for what it is. [Btw, your description of the A Negative Experience (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=21123) was most excellent!]
You probably gather I don't think much of the "spirituality" behind the Hoffman Process. Mind you, I'm sure that some folk are able to derive some spiritual truths out of such an "awareness training," just as I also think some folks are able to derive some spiritual truths out of a variety of other pursuits. Most of those latter do not involve methodologies which have been linked to - in some cases - long term psychological damage. For which, I might add, Hoffman does not seem to take any accountability for (sound familiar?).
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Hyde School isn't the only program in the troubled parent industry that has links to the Hoffman Institute. Another fornits poster alerted me to the following blurb about Dale Stohn, co-founder of Rocklyn Academy in Ontario, which appeared on a page describing / advertising her thermography clinic in the Winter '09 issue (http://http://www.dallacor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Winter-2009.pdf) (Vol. 3, No. 2) of the newage newsletter It's Your Life: Live it well (published by "Life Renewal and Reinvention Specialist" Marie Knapp of DallaCor (http://http://www.dallacor.com)).
Dale Stohn B.A., O.T.C., C.T.T. taught elementary school in Parry Sound and Toronto before becoming Canada's lead facilitator of the 8-day Emotional Growth Process at the Hoffman Institute Canada. This led her to a Psychotherapy Private Practice and then Co-Founder and Co-Facilitator of 5-Day Residential Emotional Growth Program for Teenagers in 1995. Since 1999, Dale has been Co-Founder and Dirctor of Canada's Only Ministry-Licensed, Therapeutic, Private Boarding School for Teenage Girls - the Rocklyn Academy. "This year Dale became a Clinical Thermographic Technician through the International Academy of Clinical Thermology."[/list]
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According to their wikipedia entry (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffman_Institute), as well as their website (http://http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/process/research-results/index.html), the Hoffman Institute undertook some "research studies" in order to evaluate the efficacy of their program.
Outside of the fact that these "studies" appear to be little more than ramped up "consumer satisfaction surveys" ... whose ultimate utility as marketing tools is more than obvious (see also the commentary (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=26801&p=359337#p330819) of former Hoffman facilitator Ken Ireland above), an interesting coincidence re. funding details in their "2003" study (ultimately published in Nov/Dec 2006) struck me recently.
First, here's the abstract:
Explore, Volume 2, Issue 6, Pages 498-508 (November 2006)
Positive Emotional Change: Mediating Effects of Forgiveness and Spirituality (http://http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2806%2900367-3/abstract)
Michael R. Levenson, PhD1 Corresponding Author, Carolyn M. Aldwin, PhD1, Loriena Yancura, PhD2
We evaluated the efficacy of an emotional education program that seeks to reduce the intergenerational transmission of negative interaction patterns by increasing forgiveness and spirituality. We examined both reduction of psychological symptoms and increase in positive psychological outcomes over the course of a year, as well as the mediators of this change. At baseline, the sample consisted of 99 participants and 47 waiting list controls. Comparisons of scores from baseline (Time 1) to one week after the Hoffman Quadrinity Process (Time 2) showed large declines in negative affect (depressive symptoms) and increases in both positive outcomes (mastery, empathy, emotional intelligence, life satisfaction, forgiveness, and spiritual experience) and health and well-being. Over the course of a year, most of these gains were sustained, in comparison with the control group. Further, increases in forgiveness and spirituality mediated the effect of program participation on depressive symptoms.
Key words: Emotional education, positive mental health, forgiveness, spirituality, emotional intelligence
1 Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
2 Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Hawai'i, Manoa, HI
Corresponding Author. Address: 203 Bates Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331.
This research was supported by grants from the Hoffman Institute, The Donner Canadian Foundation, and the Mental Insight Foundation. However, the investigators were independent researchers with no financial interest in the Hoffman Institute or its operation.
PII: S1550-8307(06)00367-3
doi:10.1016/j.explore.2006.08.002
© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.[/list]
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For those who would prefer to read the whole article:
Positive Emotional Change: Mediating Effects of Forgiveness and Spirituality
By Michael R. Levenson, PhD, Carolyn M. Aldwin, PhD, Loriena Yancura, PhD
EXPLORE, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp 498-508 (Nov. 2006)
LINK (http://http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/pdfs/explore-journal_article.pdf) to full article (pdf, 11pp)[/list]
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This research was supported by grants from the Hoffman Institute, The Donner Canadian Foundation, and the Mental Insight Foundation. However, the investigators were independent researchers with no financial interest in the Hoffman Institute or its operation.
Interesting that the Donner Canadian Foundation was a major funder of this study. This is the Canadian sibling/twin of the American William H. Donner Foundation. Apparently, William Donner left the United States for Canada in 1958 ... due to a dispute with the IRS regarding his taxes.
Some readers may recall that the William H. Donner Foundation contributed (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=21774&p=265544#p265544) $51,750 to Hyde Leadership Public Charter School of Washington, DC in 1999, and $275,000 to the Hyde boarding schools split into four payments during the years 2001-2005. The total contributions may well be more. I'm afraid I've been unable to find more recent data than 2005.