Posted on 10/10/2009 8:44:50 AM PDT by Saije
The young woman stood naked in her downtown office building, swaying next to an open window. Her final words were sudden and calm: ''I know I am going to jump.''
Rebekah Lawrence -- so modest and shy she often blushed around others -- burst into song and leaped out the window.
Lawrence died that day. But her mind had begun to show cracks a few days before, as she finished an intense self-help seminar called The Turning Point.
The course had pledged to change her life. Instead, some say, it led to her death.
Lawrence's death was not the first of its kind, nor the last. For nearly 40 years, the mental health community has kept a wary eye on the explosion of self-help groups around the world. But despite concerns they can push the fragile too hard, too fast, these groups operate unmonitored and unregulated, most run by people with no formal mental health training.
In the four years since Lawrence's fatal plunge, investigators for an inquest into her death have focused on a key issue: Was a course to blame for her psychosis and subsequent death? Or did her descent into madness begin earlier, triggered by an ungranted wish to have a child?
On Oct. 16, a coroner will release his findings, in a bid to explain how a bright 34-year-old woman with no history of mental illness could reach such a deadly turning point.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
People who are in sound mental condition do not end their lives. I have done intensive course in the past and while the situations can be intense in the end it is a matter of the person having problems.
You peons cannot be trusted to make your own decisions about anything. If we leave you to it you will jump out the window naked. Govt must regulate everything to protect you from yourself.
Humm . . . I smell the stench of yet another emerging regulatory agency.
My question is why do people who want children marry people who don’t want them then expect them to change their minds? I’ve seen it happens over and over and I just don’t understand why they do it? Children are something you need to talk about early on and if one wants something differnet than you do then it is time to move on because more than likely they won’t change their minds.
It would be plausible to suspect that this woman had some serious issue that led her to try an untested rump 'treatment' and in it found the proximal cause of her decision to jump.
OK. I'm no psychiatrist, but this sounds like a form of schizophrenia. I don't think any self-help class is going to put one so over the edge as to try using mind control on the family dog.
Or you could marry someone who not only talked about having children, but even chose baby names with you, only to do a complete 180 after you get married.
Turning Point, according to one ex-Scientologist, is the inheritor of the materials and methodology of the Erhard Seminars, known widely as EST. Also, it is of interest that Erhard may have “borrowed” key behavioral concepts from L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. So, in that sense, they are “sister” systems.
In either case, there really is a body of personal injury law revolving around these groups which suggests that yes indeed, certain practices can do harm to some, if not all, participants. For some, the brain is like an off-road vehicle that can handle almost anything. For others, it’s like one of those little putt-putts that can’t even handle a good bump in the road, let alone a dirt trail of the brutal kind fostered by these confrontational catharsis-for-money businesses. In law we call this the glass jaw or the eggshell victim scenario, where liability obtains even if an act that would not harm a robustly healthy person nevertheless harms a person with an unseen and as yet untriggered sensitivity.
Which gets us to the question of whether such courses merit regulation. It is a difficult problem. The constitutional considerations of free speech, free association, freedom of contract, etc., are paramount values to a free people, but they have to be weighed against the duty of the state to use the police power to protect the citizenry from palpable harm. This has never been an easy balance to achieve. Which is why much of the police power against such marginal activities comes in the form of civil personal injury suits rather than oppressive and overinclusive regulatory straightjackets.
My own position is that better education on the risk, kind of a truth-in-labeling approach, combined with the power of tort law to penalize proven bad behavior, would be the way to go. Ideally, it would be like those commercials where they tell you all the different ways a drug might harm or even kill a small population of users. Frankly, that kind of publicity is just what these groups need.
Folks who needlessly abbreviate (incorrectly) are often close to the brink.
Are there any tall buildings near you?
Come out of the closet yet?
Given your abnormal fixation on perfection in spelling and grammar you should be calling yourself "Arrogant ....sucker".
It would be more appropriate to your habits and repressed inclinations then your current sign-on.
Why are so many beautiful women more than a little nutty?
Still have queer fantasies about radio talk hosts?
Sorry. Here’s the short of it. Turning Point apparently uses some fairly brutal mind control techniques that really do hurt some people. These people seem fine until some big mental event occurs that pushes them over the edge, and that might be what happens at these “training sessions.” To protect basic freedoms, folks like Turning Point should not be over-regulated, but they should be held accountable when they do hurt someone. Suing them when someone does get hurt will make them more careful who they train and how they train them. And forcing them to tell prospective customers of the potential risks would be a good way to let people know what they’re getting into.
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