I went through the Lifespring training, and I managed to get suckered into the second program, basically because someone paid for me. A friend of my mom told me about it at my mom's suggestion, though my mom didn't know much about it at the time. I had very
recently experienced an extremely traumatic breakup with a psycho-ex, so I was pretty vulnerable.The first program was okay. I think it helped me deal with some issues that troubled me because I had so many unresolved feelings after I left my ex. I screamed and cried a lot, and that was good for me then. I also saw a lot of people who were total recluses going in, and they seemed transformed by the end. They had opened up to other people, and I think that they experienced some good.
The kicker is that they "interview" you at the end, which really means that they harass you into signing up for the second program. That was an, um, interesting experience. It breaks you down and builds you back up again, like boot camp. It's cathartic in a way, if you have emotions to let out. At the end of the 2nd program, they do their best to get you into the third program. At this point I began to feel alienated from the whole thing. I remember that everyone went around saying whether they were going to keep going, and that I and the others who chose not to were met with significantly less approval from the group. I felt that a number of them had become rather fanatical about it, and that still bothers me.
I don't feel much different now, 2 years later, than I did then. The one big difference it made in my life was to convince me that I needed to tell a certain someone that I loved him as soon as possible. We're engaged now. :) Other than that, I would not choose to associate myself with Lifespring again, nor would I encourage anyone else to do so. It is considered a cult by the Cult Awareness Network, and the big leaders are pretty scary. Werner Ehrhardt, I believe, was the guy who did the est programs, which I understand were scarier than Lifespring. If you read up on him, I can virtually guarantee that you will not like what you read. sorsha@wam.umd.edu (Laurie Beth Brunner) Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
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