Mental illness

[Sturmboe]

Hello,

I'm interested in the reactions of concerned people , who are participating in ceremonies / " healing therapies," which are not based on their culture and way of life
in those ceremonies / " healing therapies " which are performed by unauthorized leaders

Sometimes these  concerned people need help by professional medical doctors and therapists.

I am interested in the following experiences:
Which mental illness are in the aforementioned abuse known, if at all the mental illness can be  derived due the abuse?
How do  mental illness develop, which are already in existence ? Certainly it is not easy for all sides to work with concerned people in an adaquate therapie with professional help.

Another question contains a breathing therapy. "Holotropes Atmen" includes "shamanic aspects", but I didn´t find anything about the shamanic background, from America or another culture? "Holotropes Atmen" is a breathing therapy developed by Grof, (breathing - form based onHyperventilation). The resultes of these forms of therapy is being controversially discussed.

Kind regards
Sturmboe

[Lime Tree]

Your last question is about holotropic breathing by Stanislav Grof. He was interested in psychedelic psychotherapy and transpersonal psychology. (See Wikipedia.) I suppose he himself never called it "shamanic". The breathing technique of Leonard Orr ("rebirthing") was taken from India. About this technique I do not know.

[Defend the Sacred]

... I don't think Leonard Orr took his "hyperventilate till your system overloads" technique from India. It's not Breath of Fire, for instance, though they try to say there's a connection. I think Orr made most of it up, then tried to make it seem more ancient by pretending it was from India. His rebirthing crew misappropriated and misrepresented all kinds of things about Hinduism and Hawaiian Indigenous religion. They incorporated all kinds of terminology from the fraudulent "Huna" books.

The rebirthing people are dangerous. They pretend to be psychologists, and some of them dish out half-baked Freudian oppression around birth and gender issues. But to be a rebirther you only have to take a few seminars, then go through ten sessions of rebirthing yourself, you do not need any kind of training in psychology or psychiatry.

The group is cultish, and encourages people to cut ties to their family and friends, and to consider their pay-to-hyperventilate comrades their new family. They mess with people's minds and rip them off for huge quantities of money.

We have a number of threads here that mention rebirthing. Go back to the main page and use the Search box.

And please, be careful; those people are messed up.

[Epiphany]

I lived at Leonard Orr's ramshackle hot springs resort in N California, for a few months in the mid 80s, he often was in residence, so I do know about him and his work. He is a con artist, and unless his public behavior is entirely an act, he easily would be diagnosed as mentally ill too.

He says he is immortal and he told us that he is a guru. He says his breathing practices are different from what Grof and others taught. I don't know if he ever applies the word "shaman" to himself. Leonard teaches a garbled Nuage form of Hinduism along with other influences. Doing a program like this http://rebirthingbreathwork.com/training/three-year-mastery-program/ could definitely damage a person.

Frauds draw vulnerable people to them. Frauds manipulate and abuse people, which obviously does not help their mental health any. Ripping off cultures makes this all even worse.

Many people drawn into cultic groups are intelligent, sane people, who happen to be in a time of life transition.

Sturmboe, this article might help:  Mental Health Issues - Thought Reform Programs and the Production of Psychiatric Casualties http://www.culteducation.com/reference/recovery/recovery8.html

[Epiphany]

Kathryn is right, Leonard Orr did not get his breathing technique from India.

Leonard Orr is the discoverer and founder of the worldwide Rebirthing Breath work movement. As a result of spontaneous rebirthing experiences, from 1962 to 1975, he discovered and developed the technique known as ‘connected breathing’, where the inhale and exhale are merged with no pause in between.

Leonard was spiritually enlightened in 1960, unraveled the death urge he learned from his family tradition in 1967, and had numberless spontaneous birth, prenatal and infancy memories. Leonard sometimes says that his healing and personal evolution was caused by spiritual accidents in the bathtub.

http://rebirthingbreathwork.com/about-u/leonard-orr/

So he claims he came up with all this on his own. He also told us that he invented fire meditation. Dangerous man, he likes to mess with people, and his main goal is money.

[Sturmboe]

It was just interest for the shamanic background of Grof´s therapie. I read that Grof experienced with LSD and was inspired by the results of this Drugs. When LSD was forbidden he searched for another way to get the same results as LSD and developed this breathing therapy.

I know, that breathing therapies basing on hyperventilation are dangerous, but for a lot of people it is not clear, what happens during this breathing technic.
In Germany the occupational title "Breathing Therapist" is not protected by licensure, the education of all the different schools are not controlled by the state / country. These therapists use therapy often without substantiated medical or psychologic education.

Also some psychologists and psychotherapist are using hyperventilation to reduce stress (often without realizing, the patients are using hyperventilation) or they use it consciously to integrate traumatical material (PTSD) during their therapy - and even between the psychologists it is  being controversially discussed, there are no consolidated findings. If hyperventilation can integrate traumatical material? Could be, I don´t know.... but I don´t believe it, I rather think it dissociate.

[Defend the Sacred]

My exposure to the Rebirthing communities convinced me that their "therapies" and breathing techniques are more likely to traumatize people than relieve trauma. People most definitely got crazier the longer they hung around that scene.

[Sturmboe]

Kathryn, you so are right,

it is definitely true hyperventilation techniques, for e. g. Rebirthing, can (re)traumatize or activate a trauma, wich is repressed and which was in the consciousness no longer available. And the "therapist" can not be sure that he can recognize a (re)traumatization in his therapy. This is sometimes not even the victims clearly.

Those who were traumatized, decompensate if they must confrontate helpless the intrusions and flashbacks and have no skills. That's probably why they are superficially seem crazy to other people.

[Sparks]

Sturmboe, this article might help:  Mental Health Issues - Thought Reform Programs and the Production of Psychiatric Casualties
http://www.culteducation.com/reference/recovery/recovery8.html

A very enlightening read, once I found this 1990 article at its present URL:

https://culteducation.com/brainwashing/3208-thought-reform-programs-and-the-production-of-psychiatric-casualtiess.html