Does Psychotherapy work?

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ex-l

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Does Psychotherapy work?

Post03 Mar 2012

Please allow me to define my terms. There is psychiatry, psychotherapy/counselling, and then there is the "Personal Growth Movement".

    Does it work and can it help post-cult experiences?

Psychiatry is a medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. It requires professional qualifications and many years of medical study and practise. It is mainly concerned with treating the chemistry of the brain, i.e. using drugs.

Psychotherapy/counselling can be a similar speciality, or it can be something one can "qualify" in via the mail or a weekend course, i.e. talking therapies based on the study of psychology, of which there are many different schools, or any old New Age nonsense.

The "Personal Growth Movement" requires no such qualifications or experience at all, only confidence, the ability to tell a good story ... and perhaps a 35,000 years old Lemurian warrior who fought the Atlanteans possessing your body to speak.

Each of the 3 broad categories have influences and effects ... perhaps the better questions to ask are,


Daphne Merkin wrote:To this day, I’m not sure that I am in possession of substantially greater self-knowledge than someone who has never been inside a therapist’s office. What I do know, aside from the fact that the unconscious plays strange tricks and that the past stalks the present in ways we can’t begin to imagine, is a certain language, a certain style of thinking that, in its capacity for reframing your life story, becomes — how should I put this? — addictive. Projection. Repression. Acting out. Defenses. Secondary compensation. Transference.

Therapy, as Freud himself made clear, is never about finding a cure for what ails you. Its aim [...] was always more modest.

Freud described it as an effort to convert “hysterical misery” into “common unhappiness,” which suggests a rather minimalist framework against which to judge progress. There is no absolute goal, no lifetime guarantee, no telling how much therapy is enough therapy, no foolproof way of knowing when you’ve gotten everything out of it that you can and would be better off spending your valuable time and hard-earned money on other pursuits.

All of which raises the question: What exactly is the point?

There is a lot of debate about how effective talking therapies are and even conflict between different schools of thought or "Brand Names", e.g American Journal of Psychiatry, Validity of Controlled Clinical Trials of Psychotherapy.

The Personal Growth Movement; e.g. est, Landmark Forum, NLP, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Silva Mind Control, Bryon Katie, PSI Seminars, Mind Dynamics, Lifespring, motivational speakers, executive coaches etc, has basically no science behind it and may depend on simple effects such as cultic group dynamics and "false confidences". It is often slickly marketed and concerned with wealth creation. Their businesses are often based on 'commission models' and financed by selling books, CDs, DVD etc.

There is little or no research done by the promoters of these programs to:

    a) test claims that might establish degrees of effectiveness in their methods
    b) establish clear criteria for what counts as a "success"
    c) keep records of "failures" or those who feel exploited or damaged by their programs
In the way professional medical therapists would.

Despite the lack of proof that these programs work the way their advocates claim, many participants do feel they benefit greatly from such programs. However, research has shown that the feelings of having benefited from participation do not correspond to beneficial changes in behavior.

The majority of Brahma Kumaris have no qualifications in psychology, therapy or even religion and yet they dabble with people's innermost being in areas that cross all three ... and, ultimately, the leadership makes their living out of it.

Their activities extend from one to one confessional/therapeutical chats, to Large Group Awareness Training type events. Over the last 40 years in the West, despite condemning non-BKs and the Mind, Body and Spirit market, they have adopted many of the skills and tools used in the Self Development Movement and marketed themselves as a New Age business. Despite calling themselves a "University" have produced no peer reviewed papers to prove what they are doing actually works (b.b. a couple followers or non-BK have produced one or two papers on subjects as heart rates but that is about all).

    So where does that leave individuals who have exited the BKWSU? Lost, confused, messed around with and vulnerable to further exploitation?

    Are there reliable avenues of finding help?


The Self Help industry ... like the slimming industry ... thrives on repeat business. The same people keep coming back to buy the next, newest and greatest book or fix. One might even argue it is addictive. Some people think that it is a business in which people holding the thinnest of credentials diagnose basically normal people with symptoms of inflated or invented maladies, so that they can sell remedies that have never been shown to work.

I am sorry but in this case I have no good recommendations I can make. Eat well, exercise well, rest well, do some good for others except for yourself. Yes, I think "feel good" therapies that get ex-BKs 'back into their bodies' are a good thing, e.g. simple massage, spa treatments etc. Unfortunately, there are very few therapists qualified in cult exiting but talking with others in similar situations to you own can be good.

Although most people just walk away from superficial cult encounters without any bad effects, anyone that has been deeply conditioned can have long-lasting problems.

Does anyone else have any suggestions to make?
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ex-l

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Re: Does Psychotherapy work?

Post03 Mar 2012

Please note, in the case of the Brahma Kumaris they don't claim to have a 35,000 years old Lemurian warrior who fought the Atlanteans possessing the body of their gurus to speak like JZ Knight (Ramtha) ...

They claim to have the Supreme Soul God of All Religions possessing the body of their spirit mediums/gurus to speak.

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