“Crazy” therapies : What are they? Do they work?

280 Pages·1996·4.22 MB·English

by  Margaret Thaler Singer, Janja Lalich

Copyright © 1996 by Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Singer, Margaret Thaler.
“Crazy” therapies : what are they?, do they work? / Margaret
Thaler Singer, Janja Lalich. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7879-0278-0 (alk. paper)
1. Psychotherapy—Popular works. 2. Psychotherapy patients—Abuse
of. 3. Psychiatric errors. 4. Consumer education. I. Lalich,
Janja. II. Title.
RC480.515.S56 1996
616.89T4—dc20 96-16107
CIP
HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FIRST EDITION
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1. What’s Wrong with This Picture? 1
2. Back to the Beginning: Regression,
Reparenting, and Rebirthing 23
3. Backwards and Forwards:
Past-Life/Future-Life Therapy 47
4. They’ve Got You Coming and Going: Entities
Therapists and the Channeling Connection 67
5. You Were Abducted by ETs—
That’s What the Matter Is 87
6. Cry, Laugh, Attack, Scream—
Cathart Your Brains Out 107
7. Therapeutic Seductions—
or Sexual Hanky-Panky 133
8. Alphabet Soup for the Mind and Soul:
NLP, FC, NOT, EMDR 167
9. How Did This Happen?
And What Can You Do? 197
Notes 217
Further Reading 247
The Authors 249
Index 253
Vll
To my parents, Margaret McDonough Thaler and Raymond Willard Thaler
To my husband, Jay
To my children, Sam and Martha
To my grandchildren, James and Nicholas
—Margaret Thaler Singer
To my mother, and to my Aunt Darlene,
both of whom always believed in me
—Janja Lalich
We also dedicate this book to all those who suffered a crazy therapy, and
especially to those who shared their experiences in the hope that others migjht not
fall prey to a similar fate.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the numerous friends and colleagues who helped
us gather material and locate sources, especially R. Christopher Bar­
den, J.D., Ph.D.; Priscilla Coates; Patricia Crossman, M.A.; Ford
Greene, Esq.; Alan Jacobs; Jesse Miller, Ph.D.; Bernard Rimland,
Ph.D.; Sidney L. Widens, Esq.; John D. Winer, Esq.; and Russell
Worral, O.D.
Our enduring gratitude goes to various reference librarians at the
University of California, Berkeley; the Oakland Public Library; the
Alameda Library; and the Graduate Theological Union in Berke­
ley for their patience, perseverance, and helpfulness.
We appreciate the encouraging words and kind but necessary
“fixings” of our editor extraordinaire, Alan Rinzler. His contribu­
tion to this book has been invaluable. And we heartily thank all
the staff at our publisher, Jossey-Bass, who’ve been among our great­
est fans, as well as a steadfast source of support and good cheer.
Most of all, we send barrels of thanks to Janja’s partner, Kim, for
all those sensational home-cooked meals, which helped get us
through these many months of research and writing.
Margaret warmly thanks her husband, Jay; son, Sam; daughter-
in-law, Marian; grandchildren, James and Nicholas; daughter,
Martha; and son-in-law, Richard—a cheerful and encouraging group
whom she loves dearly. Margaret also wants to acknowledge that
her entire career was made exciting and wonderful by her teachers
IX
Acknowledgments
and colleagues, too many to name here but cherished by her. Work-
ing with Janja on this and an earlier book has been a great experi-
ence and is warmly appreciated.
Margaret extends her gratitude to the thousands of people she
has met as a therapist, interviewer, and researcher during the fifty
years she has been a psychologist. By sharing their lives in very spe-
cial ways, those individuals allowed her to see how good therapy
helps people and how some therapy can go awry. Learning about
the experiences of so many was a great source of inspiration for this
book.
Janja would like to acknowledge the following people for being
there for her when life’s little (and sometimes big) turmoils and
traumas threatened to get in the way of working on this book:
Darlene Frank, Pam Guthrie, Mamy Hall, Felicia Phillips, Elizabeth
Swenson, and Polly Thomas—thank you forever. Janja also thanks
her two former therapists, Shelly Rosen and Betty Kalis, for being
so down-to-earth and helpful in the past; and she extends a giant
thank you to colleague, coauthor, and dear friend, Margaret, who
so generously shares her knowledge and makes writing books
together such a pleasure. Most especially, Janja thanks Kim for sur­
viving with her through yet another book.
July 1996 Margaret Thaler Singer
Berkeley, California
Janja Lalich
Alameda, California
Introduction
This book was written to help consumers become aware of the vast
array of psychotherapies being offered by a variety of practitioners
in the mental health marketplace today. The therapies range from
widely accepted, scientifically based treatments to traditional but
less scientifically researched methods to those that typically are the
creation of an individual and often have even less grounding in sci­
entific validation and professional acceptance. Our aim is to explore
primarily those that fall within the latter category.
The therapies described in this book have been and continue to
be controversial; we are by no means the only ones who question
and comment on these theories and techniques. We have selected
the term crazy to describe some of these therapies, using the word
as it is used in the vernacular, to refer to something as controver­
sial, nonstandard, or “far out,” and sometimes to depict fads or cur­
rent enthusiasms. Some of these therapies will fade from the scene;
others might be modified to meet the standards of the professional
community; yet others might be driven out by consumer complaints
and legal actions.
Our observations and investigations have led us to the conclu­
sion that consumers need to become far more inquisitive and far
more aware of their rights when selecting a form of psychotherapy
or psychological treatment. You have the right to ask, Is this ther­
apy accepted in the professional community? Is it based on science
XI
Introduction
and on rational thinking, or on the conjecture and proclamations
of the innovator? When dealing with innovative therapies, con-
sumers should be informed by the practitioners that the procedure is
still not accepted in the scientific community, or that it is sur­
rounded by controversy, with proponents and critics clashing about
the issues involved. In the final chapter of this book, we provide
readers with guidelines and suggestions for evaluating a therapy or a
therapist.
We have seen three types of results from these crazy therapies,
which fall on a continuum of helpful to harmful, including some­
times a combination thereof. The first outcome is the placebo effect.
Here, consumers think they’re being helped. They might feel bet­
ter even though there is no scientific reason or established clinical
practice to support the apparent positive results. Consequently, indi­
vidual clients may experience varied results from the same proce­
dure, with some believing they’ve been greatly helped and others
feeling no gain whatsoever.
The second outcome is loss. Consumers may end up wasting a
lot of time and money pursuing dead ends and false leads. In some
of these cases, clients may have fallen prey to unscrupulous,
exploitative therapists; in others, they may simply have gone along
with the enthusiasm of ill-trained, inexperienced, or faddish prac­
titioners who themselves are caught up in believing in the curative
abilities of a particular theory or treatment.
The third outcome is harm. Some consumers risk being
harmed—psychologically or otherwise—by some of the therapies
currently in vogue. Each year countless individuals throughout the
land turn over their innermost thoughts and feelings to a trusted
counselor, only to be exploited and abused by some of them. When
we go to a mental health professional or someone claiming to have
special knowledge, we don’t suspect the worst; rather, we hope for
the best. We go with open hearts and open minds. But here are
some of the outcomes we’ve seen:
Introduction xiii
• “Joseph” went to a therapist for help with his anxiety
and sleep problems. Dr. “P.” led Joseph to believe that
his problems were caused by his having been abducted
by extraterrestrials. Joseph became convinced of this
past occurrence and began to tell his “abduction” story
to all who would listen, including the part about hav-
ing skinny tubes inserted into his rectum while on the
alien spaceship. Joseph’s friends and coworkers tired of
his endless tales, and Joseph eventually lost his job for
inattention to his duties and lack of concentration.
• “Jennifer” was referred by her physician to Ms. “W.,” a
hypnotherapist, for treatment of stress-related
headaches. Using extensive trance sessions, Ms. W. led
Jennifer to believe that nearly four hundred human,
animal, and other-world entities had invaded her body
and were living and squabbling inside her. Prolonged
treatment led to Jennifer’s mental deterioration and
multiple suicide attempts.
• “Jake” saw an ad for a therapist-led warrior weekend
that boasted, “Find a new and healthy self. Never be
fearful or physically anxious again.” At the weekend,
Jake learned that he would have to do combat with
martial-arts black-belt experts. During the evening
combat session, Jake was permanently injured; he is
now facing emotional distress, prolonged physical ther­
apy, and job loss.
• Mr. and Mrs. “Johnson” went to therapy for typical
marital issues. Dr. “T.” was a believer in aggressive
methods of expressing feelings. Handing the couple
some plastic bats, Dr. T. instructed them to fight it out
as hard as they could. When the couple responded
Introduction
rather limply, Dr. T. sat on the sidelines yelling at
them, insulting them, and urging them to be more
forceful. The couple ended up bashing not only each
other but a great deal of furniture in Dr. T.’s office, as
well as taking a few swings at him. Afterwards, Mr. and
Mrs. Johnson felt silly and never went back, but the
following week they received a bill for $5,000 in
damages to Dr. T. and his office.
• “Carol,” a young professional, was seduced by her
licensed therapist, Dr. “K.,” who violated professional
ethical codes and state law. Even before the sexual liai­
son began, Dr. K. urged Carol to divorce her husband
and wait for Dr. K. As a result of this affair, Carol lost
custody of her children. Shortly thereafter, Dr. K. aban­
doned her. It was later learned that Dr. K. would fre­
quently convince his female patients to enter into a
relationship with him.
• “Shari” was told by a friend that the best thing that ever
happened to her was the counseling she received at the
“Rocky Mountain Road New Birth Center.” Feeling
troubled by her relationship with her teenage children,
Shari called the center for an intake appointment. At
the first session, Ms. “R.” told Shari that her problems
with her children would be solved by Shari reexperienc­
ing her own birth trauma and then growing up again
the right way (according to Ms. R.’s views). This would
happen at a weekend session, Ms. R. informed Shari. In
order to prepare, Shari was instructed to strip down to
her underpants, sit on Ms. R.’s lap, and suckle her
(rather suddenly exposed) breast.
Things happen in this world that are often too outrageous to
think of as real. Sometimes they happen at the hand of a so-called
Introduction
healing professional. Through our work we have heard example
upon example, like those just mentioned and worse, of maltreat-
ment and exploitation by psychotherapists and counselors of all
stripes. One of us, Margaret, has been a clinical psychologist for
fifty years; the other, Janja, is an educator and consultant in the
field of psychological influence and abuse. So you might conclude
that we’ve encountered the bizarre and the arcane, the violent and
the greedy, and w^ have. You might also think that we’ve probably
gotten used to it, become hardened and cynical, but we never have.
Instead, we hope to use what we’ve heard to educate psychother­
apy consumers by exposing some of the misdeeds and illogical the­
ories and alerting consumers to the controversial nature of certain
therapies.
Abuse exists in many parts of our society, some of it perhaps
much worse than what you will read about here. Yet we feel that
these injustices, these instances of devastating emotional harm and
financial loss, this psychological manipulation and in some cases
physical and sexual abuse must no longer go unheeded. We seek to
expose the questionable reasoning and behaviors that hide behind
a mask of professionalism because we believe that, for the most part,
the general public, the professional community, and the media are
unaware of (and in some cases, we shudder to think, turning a blind
eye to) the kinds of abuses that are rampant today in the fields of
psychotherapy and personal transformation. We add “personal
transformation” because over time we have seen that many so-called
therapies actually have less and less to do with legitimate forms of
psychotherapy as they have more and more in common with unsci­
entific pop psychology theories and New Age techniques.
A key to understanding what goes wrong in these situations is to
remember that the practice of psychotherapy has been around for
hundreds if not thousands of years. There are known methods of
treatment that work, that bring positive results. For example, it is
generally accepted that cognitive therapy really works with depressed
people, and that certain medications help those who suffer from