List of large-group awareness training organizations

The methods, courses and/or techniques of the organizations listed here have been identified with Large-group awareness training by reliable sources.

A

Actualizations (Stewart Emery)^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]
Alpha Seminars^[2]^{[need quotation to verify]}
Altru Center
Arica School (Oscar Ichazo)^[3]
Atlas Project^[6]
Avatar Course (Harry Palmer)^[7]^[8]
AsiaWorks
Ascension Leadership Academy

B

C

Call of the Shofar (founded by Simcha Frischling)^{[citation needed]}
Context International^[2]^[9] (previously Context Associated, founded by Randy Revell, who had worked with Mind Dynamics)
Contextuelles Coaching^[2]^[9] (Maria & Stephan Craemer)
Choices Personal Growth Seminar^[10]
Choice Center |url= https://choicecenter.com/%7C

D

Dimensional Mind Approach^[2]
Direct Centering (Gavin Barnes, aka Bayard Hora Associates, aka The Course, aka Naexus)^[3]^[8]

E

Erhard Seminars Training (est)^[1]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19] (Werner Erhard)
Exegesis^[19]

F

The Forum (Werner Erhard)^[1]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]

G

Gratitude Training

Giving Tree Global

H

Heartcore Leadership

I

Impact Training (Hans & Sally Berger)

Insight Seminars (John-Roger Hinkins)^[3]^[8] (Russell Bishop)

Inner Matrix Systems (Joey Klein)

Isha Foundation (Sadhguru)

K

L

Landmark Worldwide^[1]^[5]^[10] (formerly Landmark Education)
Leadership Dynamics (William Penn Patrick)^[20]
Life Dynamics^[2]
Lifespring (John Hanley)^[1]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[17]^[18]^[21]
Lifestream Seminars (James Roswell Quinn)^[2]
Life Training / Kairos Foundation / More to Life (W. R. Whitten and K. B. Brown)^[3]
Life Design Education (Daniel Paraszkay)^[1]^[8]

N

NXIVM (Keith Raniere)^[22]

O

ONE (Oury Engolz)^[3]
The Option Institute ^[23]

P

PSI Seminars

Q

R

Relationships^[1]
Rapport Leadership

S

Silva Method (formerly Silva Mind Control) (José Silva)^[3]
Sterling Institute of Relationship (Arthur Kasarjian)^[9]
Spring Ridge Academy
Source Point Training^[24]
Siddha Samadhi Yoga (Rishi Prabhakar)

T

Training In Power Academy

U

V

W

Werner Erhard and Associates^[1]^[3] (Werner Erhard)

X

Y

Z

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Fisher, Jeffrey D.; Silver; Chinsky; Goff; Klar (1990). Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training. Springer-Verlag. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-387-97320-3. Page. vii. – "The research reported in this volume was awarded the American Psychological Association, Division 13, National Consultants to Management Award, August 13, 1989.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Vahle, Neal; Connie Fillmore Bazzy (2002). The Unity Movement: Its Evolution and Spiritual Teachings. Templeton Foundation Press. pp. 399, 402, 403, 480. ISBN 1-890151-96-3.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Singer, Margaret; Janja Lalich (1995). Cults in Our Midst. Wiley. pp. 42–43. ISBN 0-7879-0051-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c Coon, Dennis (2004). Psychology: A Journey. Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 520, 528, 538. ISBN 0-534-63264-5. Large-group awareness training refers to programs that claim to increase self-awareness and facilitate constructive personal change. Lifespring, Actualizations, the Forum, and similar commercial programs are examples. Like the smaller groups that preceded them, large-group trainings combine psychological exercises, confrontation, new view-points, and group dynamics to promote personal change.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Coon, Dennis (2003). Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior. Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 648, 649, 655. ISBN 0-495-59913-1.
^ "Atlas Project".
^ Benjamin, Elliot (June 2005). "Spirituality and Cults" (PDF). Integral Science.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Singer, Margaret; Janja Lalich (1996). Crazy Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work?. Jossey-Bass. pp. 114. ISBN 0-7879-0278-0.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Langone, Michael (1998). "Large Group Awareness Trainings". Cult Observer. 15 (1). Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2007-10-24.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d DuMerton, C. (July 2004). Tragic Optimism and Choices: The Life Attitudes Scale with a First Nations Sample (PDF) (Master of Arts Thesis, Graduate Counseling Psychology Program, Peer Review by Paul Wong, Ph.D.; Jill Charlie, M.Ed.; Marvin McDonald, Ph.D.; Rod McCormack, Ph.D.). Trinity Western University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-11-09. Retrieved 2007-04-14. The researcher contends that the Choices seminar is a type of Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) program. LGAT was a name coined for personal development programs in which many people at one time receive intense, emotionally focussed instruction over a period of hours or days to help them begin to discover the full potential for their lives. Described as part psychotherapy, part spirituality, and part business (Langone, 1998), notable LGAT programs, which originated from the human potential movement of the 1950s and 1960s, include the Erhard Seminars Training (est), Landmark Forum, Lifespring and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). These simplistic, highly structured and lucrative methods have spawned hundreds of take-offs on the original seminars, each attempting to create their own unique version.
^ ^a ^b ^c Tindale, R. Scott (2001). Group Processes: Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology. Blackwell Publishing. p. 630. ISBN 1-4051-0653-0. EST, FORUM and LIFESPRING are all examples of LGATs, for members seek to improve their overall level of satisfaction and interpersonal relations by carrying out such experiential exercises as role-playing, group singing and chanting, and guided group interaction.
^ ^a ^b Pettijohn, Terry F.; Charles G Morris; Eliot Shimoff; Charles Catania (1988). Annotated Instructor's Edition, Psychology an Introduction, 6th Ed. Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-734500-3. A recent development has been the emergence of large-group awareness training. Erhard Seminar Training (EST) is one of the best known.
^ ^a ^b Finkelstein, P.; Wenegrat, B.; Yalom, I. (1982). "Large Group Awareness Training". Annual Review of Psychology. 33. Calvin Perry Stone: 515–539. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.002503. ISSN 0066-4308.
^ ^a ^b Lieberman, MA (April 1987). "Effects of Large Group Awareness Training on Participants' Psychiatric Status". American Journal of Psychiatry. 144 (4): 460–464. doi:10.1176/ajp.144.4.460. PMID 3565614.
^ ^a ^b Denison, Charles Wayne (1994). "Children of EST a Study of the Experience and Perceived Effects of a Large Group Awareness Training". University of Denver: Ph.D. Dissertation. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Smart, Paul (August 15, 2002). "The Sterling Men Of Woodstock: A Series (Part III) – The psychology of cults and secret societies". Woodstock Times. He held his first Large group Awareness Training session, for nearly 1,000 paying attendees, in San Francisco in 1971. By 1991, his "est" (Erhard Seminar Training) movement had hit some 700,000 converts by the time Erhard sold his "technology" to brother Harry Rosenberg in 1991 and moved out of the country facing bad press for both his movement and a soured personal life. Since then, Rosenberg turned est into The Forum.
^ ^a ^b Zeig, Jeffrey K. (1997). The Evolution of Psychotherapy: The Third Conference. Psychology Press. pp. 352, 357. ISBN 0-87630-813-2. Training or T-groups, sensitivity training, and encounter groups spread and were followed by commercially sold large group awareness training programs, such as est, Lifespring and other programs.
^ ^a ^b Burlingame, Gary M. (1994). Handbook of Group Psychotherapy: An Empirical and Clinical Synthesis. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 528, 532, 535, 539, 549, 550, 555, 556, 581, 583. ISBN 0-471-55592-4.
^ ^a ^b Curtis, Adam (2002). "The Century of the Self". pp. episode part 3 of 4.
^ Kilzer, Lou (July 18, 1999). "Desperate Measures Network of Behavior Modification Compounds Known as Teen Help Has Straightened Out Hundreds of Defiant Adolescents, But Its Methods Aren't For the Faint-hearted". Rocky Mountain News. E. W. Scripps Company. The first of the genre psychologists call "large group awareness training" was the Leadership Dynamics Institute...
^ Szalavitz, Maia (2006). Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids. Riverhead. pp. 134, 157–159. ISBN 1-59448-910-6.
^ Shea, Courtney (12 Mar 2019). "How Cults Target Women". Chatelaine. Toronto: Rogers Media. ISSN 0009-1995. Retrieved 17 Apr 2019. Many alleged cults, including Nxivm, are structured around a large-group awareness training (LGAT) model [...].
^ "Option Institute International Training & Learning Center".
^ "Source Point Training".
^ Jacobs, Alan (May 1, 1996). "Autocratic Power". Idea Journal. 1 (1). ISSN 1523-1712. or some version of large group awareness training or LGAT like est or one of its offshoots, such as Transformation Technologies, the Forum..

External links

Intruding into the Workplace, Margaret Singer, excerpted from Cults in Our Midst, (1995)

[evaluating-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Fisher, Jeffrey D.; Silver; Chinsky; Goff; Klar (1990). Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training. Springer-Verlag. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-387-97320-3. Page. vii. – "The research reported in this volume was awarded the American Psychological Association, Division 13, National Consultants to Management Award, August 13, 1989.

[vahle-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Vahle, Neal; Connie Fillmore Bazzy (2002). The Unity Movement: Its Evolution and Spiritual Teachings. Templeton Foundation Press. pp. 399, 402, 403, 480. ISBN 1-890151-96-3.

[SingerLalich1996-3] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Singer, Margaret; Janja Lalich (1995). Cults in Our Midst. Wiley. pp. 42–43. ISBN 0-7879-0051-6.

[denniscoon-4] Coon, Dennis (2004). Psychology: A Journey. Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 520, 528, 538. ISBN 0-534-63264-5. Large-group awareness training refers to programs that claim to increase self-awareness and facilitate constructive personal change. Lifespring, Actualizations, the Forum, and similar commercial programs are examples. Like the smaller groups that preceded them, large-group trainings combine psychological exercises, confrontation, new view-points, and group dynamics to promote personal change.

[coonintroduction-5] Coon, Dennis (2003). Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior. Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 648, 649, 655. ISBN 0-495-59913-1.

[6] "Atlas Project".

[7] Benjamin, Elliot (June 2005). "Spirituality and Cults" (PDF). Integral Science.

[crazytherapies-8] Singer, Margaret; Janja Lalich (1996). Crazy Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work?. Jossey-Bass. pp. 114. ISBN 0-7879-0278-0.

[langone-9] Langone, Michael (1998). "Large Group Awareness Trainings". Cult Observer. 15 (1). Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2007-10-24.

[dumerton-10] DuMerton, C. (July 2004). Tragic Optimism and Choices: The Life Attitudes Scale with a First Nations Sample (PDF) (Master of Arts Thesis, Graduate Counseling Psychology Program, Peer Review by Paul Wong, Ph.D.; Jill Charlie, M.Ed.; Marvin McDonald, Ph.D.; Rod McCormack, Ph.D.). Trinity Western University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-11-09. Retrieved 2007-04-14. The researcher contends that the Choices seminar is a type of Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) program. LGAT was a name coined for personal development programs in which many people at one time receive intense, emotionally focussed instruction over a period of hours or days to help them begin to discover the full potential for their lives. Described as part psychotherapy, part spirituality, and part business (Langone, 1998), notable LGAT programs, which originated from the human potential movement of the 1950s and 1960s, include the Erhard Seminars Training (est), Landmark Forum, Lifespring and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). These simplistic, highly structured and lucrative methods have spawned hundreds of take-offs on the original seminars, each attempting to create their own unique version.

[tindale-11] Tindale, R. Scott (2001). Group Processes: Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology. Blackwell Publishing. p. 630. ISBN 1-4051-0653-0. EST, FORUM and LIFESPRING are all examples of LGATs, for members seek to improve their overall level of satisfaction and interpersonal relations by carrying out such experiential exercises as role-playing, group singing and chanting, and guided group interaction.

[Pettijohn-12] Pettijohn, Terry F.; Charles G Morris; Eliot Shimoff; Charles Catania (1988). Annotated Instructor's Edition, Psychology an Introduction, 6th Ed. Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-734500-3. A recent development has been the emergence of large-group awareness training. Erhard Seminar Training (EST) is one of the best known.

[finkelstein-13] Finkelstein, P.; Wenegrat, B.; Yalom, I. (1982). "Large Group Awareness Training". Annual Review of Psychology. 33. Calvin Perry Stone: 515–539. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.002503. ISSN 0066-4308.

[lieberman-14] Lieberman, MA (April 1987). "Effects of Large Group Awareness Training on Participants' Psychiatric Status". American Journal of Psychiatry. 144 (4): 460–464. doi:10.1176/ajp.144.4.460. PMID 3565614.

[denison-15] Denison, Charles Wayne (1994). "Children of EST a Study of the Experience and Perceived Effects of a Large Group Awareness Training". University of Denver: Ph.D. Dissertation. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[smart-16] Smart, Paul (August 15, 2002). "The Sterling Men Of Woodstock: A Series (Part III) – The psychology of cults and secret societies". Woodstock Times. He held his first Large group Awareness Training session, for nearly 1,000 paying attendees, in San Francisco in 1971. By 1991, his "est" (Erhard Seminar Training) movement had hit some 700,000 converts by the time Erhard sold his "technology" to brother Harry Rosenberg in 1991 and moved out of the country facing bad press for both his movement and a soured personal life. Since then, Rosenberg turned est into The Forum.

[zeig-17] Zeig, Jeffrey K. (1997). The Evolution of Psychotherapy: The Third Conference. Psychology Press. pp. 352, 357. ISBN 0-87630-813-2. Training or T-groups, sensitivity training, and encounter groups spread and were followed by commercially sold large group awareness training programs, such as est, Lifespring and other programs.

[handbook-18] Burlingame, Gary M. (1994). Handbook of Group Psychotherapy: An Empirical and Clinical Synthesis. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 528, 532, 535, 539, 549, 550, 555, 556, 581, 583. ISBN 0-471-55592-4.

[curtis-19] Curtis, Adam (2002). "The Century of the Self". pp. episode part 3 of 4.

[20] Kilzer, Lou (July 18, 1999). "Desperate Measures Network of Behavior Modification Compounds Known as Teen Help Has Straightened Out Hundreds of Defiant Adolescents, But Its Methods Aren't For the Faint-hearted". Rocky Mountain News. E. W. Scripps Company. The first of the genre psychologists call "large group awareness training" was the Leadership Dynamics Institute...

[szalavitz-21] Szalavitz, Maia (2006). Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids. Riverhead. pp. 134, 157–159. ISBN 1-59448-910-6.

[22] Shea, Courtney (12 Mar 2019). "How Cults Target Women". Chatelaine. Toronto: Rogers Media. ISSN 0009-1995. Retrieved 17 Apr 2019. Many alleged cults, including Nxivm, are structured around a large-group awareness training (LGAT) model [...].

[23] "Option Institute International Training & Learning Center".

[24] "Source Point Training".

[25] Jacobs, Alan (May 1, 1996). "Autocratic Power". Idea Journal. 1 (1). ISSN 1523-1712. or some version of large group awareness training or LGAT like est or one of its offshoots, such as Transformation Technologies, the Forum..

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