I think there was a very small percentage of people who benefited long term in that it changed their direction in life.
So you admit the encounter group methods used by programs only changes most people temporarily? Would you aslo admit that these confrontational techniques can cause harm in a number of people, especially when combined with other elements of program thought reform?
See. The issue with encounter groups and attack therapy is that it is only appropriate, if at all, for a very small number of people. Mostly those who have already established a strong core identity, who can stand up for themselves, and who can leave if it gets too much for them. None of these things apply in most programs where these encounter groups are central to the program (raps or group are normally a daily occurrence). I've personally seen a guy totally freak out in an LGAT and i've seen many utterly decimated by constant attacks in encounter groups -- to the point where they were basically dead inside and had no will of their own left to resist.
Sometimes the encounter groups were more moderate and it was just a circle of chairs discussing and attacking and just random stuff but if staff felt it necessary, if for some reason they thought you weren't "real" enough, or if you did something against the every changing, subjective and arbitrary rules, they would put you in the center of the room and that circle of chairs would become a 360 degree verbal firing squad. It would not stop until either the time ran out or they felt you were sufficiently changed or repentant or whatever the particular goal was. If you managed to outlast the time, they would bring you in the next day and the process would start all over again, meanwhile you would be on "bans" so you weren't allowed to talk to anybody or decompress (not that there was anybody you could trust to talk to anyway).
These techinques may not harm some people, but I have seriously doubts that they help anybody and I know from personal experience that they harm a lot of the kids that these programs claim to serve (aspergers, anxiety attacks, depression, etc). They're simply not appropriate and the "one size fits all" approach most programs do harm many kids (even if they "claim" to provide "individuals educational plans" or some bullshit like that). This isn't to imply that the techniques are appropriate for anybody, mind you, just that for some people they are more harmful than others.