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Jeremiah1278
Guest
You’re very helpful. What does it mean that I had my psychological apparatus suspended and what dangerous thing happened to me during this time?
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iloveangels
Guest
You were willing to suspend your native psychological operations, with respect to your privacy, your normal methods of thinking and your freedom for a while in order to go along with a group process which was directed by someone outside of you. This is why you were asked not to leave the property, your cell phone was taken, people were asked not to call you, etc.
Certain types of encounter techniques were used to get people to talk in groups about their inner problems, anxieties or thought processes or guilt, for the purpose of reassuring them or giving them group (name removed by moderator)ut on these things. These people were asked to suspend their usual reactions in order to absorb the group impact toward those things. They may have been asked to substitute the group reaction for their own. This is commonly called “sharing” but it can be considerably more than common sharing of the sort you might do with some person on a bus, in your neighborhood or at work, who, after all, you know as well as some of the people in your group.
Your privacy may have been suspended in some rather common ways for these techniques. You may have been asked to divulge personal information. Or someone close to you may have been asked to divulge personal information about you or provide a personal momento for you. YOu may have been expected to perform personal acts such as showering, sleeping or shaving in a relatively public place or in a group. Your expectations about eating may have been altered, although this is probably less common and you may not have seen this one in a cursillo.
You may have been given a secret message or a communication from someone at a crucial point in the process, in order to elicit a response from you. You may have been expected to get a “high” off of some mental process, process of consensus or other similar psychological item.
Your responses may have been scripted, curtailed, subjected to group analysis or restrained in some manner. You may have been expected to adopt a certain sort of communication or vocabulary. You may have been socially coerced to do or say something. You may have been timed or scheduled even though, you know, you weren’t allowed to go anywhere anyway. YOu probably were directed to produce some kind of product–like a presentation, a piece of emotionally-expressive “art” or a speech that you would not have been interested in outside the group setting. Posters are a good example of this, particularly if they use a medium you haven’t used in 10 years and don’t particularly favor, like crayon or poster paint.
You may have been directed to “look up” or “look down” on someone else inside or outside the group, although this is generally only present in the more hardcore versions of encounter grouping.
You may not attend this session in the same grouping, with the same people more than once. Other later experiences may or may not be available for you to attend. Registration for those later experiences may be restricted so that not everyone can come, and even not everyone in the original grouping may come…
I’ll stop now because this comment window is going to close on me, but you get the idea…
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iloveangels
Guest
The things that separate this sort of activity from normal activity are the use of classic psychological methods in aggressive amounts over a period of time: several days or hours with as little interruption as physically manageable. The amounts of these things far exceed anything seen in your normal daily life. That’s how they work.
the level of intensity
revelation of private mental & emotional worlds
no time alone or in private
group process
restriction of normal activity
deprivation
substitution of vocabulary
And in very, very aggressive versions of encounter grouping, which cursillo may or may not be, you will also see:
Role playing
Role assignments
Scape-goating of those not willing to participate
Recruiting for the next generation
The politics of power to see who can please the facilitator personally, which may or may not be used by the facilitator in advanced ways
Mimicry of the facilitator, no matter what the facilitator does or says
Evidence of non-directional approval for changes in morals, belief or perception
Some people become very skilled at facilitating these processes. Be careful out there.
the level of intensity
revelation of private mental & emotional worlds
no time alone or in private
group process
restriction of normal activity
deprivation
substitution of vocabulary
And in very, very aggressive versions of encounter grouping, which cursillo may or may not be, you will also see:
Role playing
Role assignments
Scape-goating of those not willing to participate
Recruiting for the next generation
The politics of power to see who can please the facilitator personally, which may or may not be used by the facilitator in advanced ways
Mimicry of the facilitator, no matter what the facilitator does or says
Evidence of non-directional approval for changes in morals, belief or perception
Some people become very skilled at facilitating these processes. Be careful out there.
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BlueRoses12
Guest
Thank you. I was trying to put into words the difference here. Spiritual life often does require a dying to self. That’s only worthwhile (or safe!) if it’s done in an authentic way, out of your free will, and under the leadership of a pastor or a group that you accept as valid. It’s impossible to really discern the validity of this group before -]being hooked into a weekend/-] joining it, because of all the secrecy.
I heard a lot of loaded language during my weekend, manipulating me into abandoning my critical faculties. “Utilize, don’t analyze!” is what we candidates were constantly admonished. That’s known as a thought-stopper, by the way.
And this isn’t just one or two freakish weekends. I believe that this type of group has cleaned up their act somewhat, mostly because of negative word-of-mouth publicity and a realistic fear of lawsuits. This cleanup effort has had varied results – obviously! – depending on region, etc. But it seems the core, or hallmark, of this weekend is the very type of experience that distinguishes it from more authentic, adulthood-respecting, choice-oriented weekends – whisking people away, removing their symbols of adulthood such as wristwatches, and bombarding them emotionally.
No, each and every sign won’t necessary be present in each and every weekend. So? Gray is gray, whether pearl or charcoal.
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tafan
Guest
Totally seperates? That would be too strong, but in general, yes, the study of the faith should be somewhat seperates from our own and others’ personal feelings. For example, my or your feelings have very little to do with understanding the doctrine of transubstantiation, or the church’s moral teachings, or (well it seems like I could go on and on)
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iloveangels
Guest
Yes.
The kind of “dying to self” that is religious is the kind you see, commonly I might add, when you see someone dealing with a large batch of children or an alcoholic spouse or poverty and doing it as patiently as possible with faith, trust and prayer. And as you say, there is a choice here–a person can be nasty or they can be prayerful and Christian about this, and the person “dying to self” has decided to put things in God’s hands and have some faith over it.
You also see “dying to self” when you see an old lady at daily mass who you can tell has prayed over and over and over day after day and knows God because she’s put other things on the shelf and committed herself to prayer day after day after day, whether it was easy or not. Again, such things are very much the product of faith and free choice. No one makes old ladies pray every day and a lot of them don’t.
“Dying to yourself” doesn’t happen in a weekend. And it’s not attained by some kind of high from social interaction. That idea is a very psychological thing, and a recent thing.
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Jeremiah1278
Guest
I’m still waiting to hear the dangerous thing that happened to me. Is it that I shared too much?
You are adequately describing techniques used by encounter groups. Aspects of the Cursillo method are aspects of an encounter group. But let’s be honest with everyone on this thread who are not familiar with the term Encounter Group, because you are making it very scary. An encounter group is essentially any group-therapy-type setting where the presence of others sharing encourages the individual to share when they otherwise wouldn’t. So, Alcoholics Anonymous, a program that works partly because it is an encounter group is not dangerous but is very effective and does a ton of good. It is effective because it gets people to say things in a group. Tricks them into sharing. Members suspend their native psychological operations and normal methods of thinking if only for the time during the meeting or the hours later with their sponsors. And they go to these meetings specifically to have their normal way of thinking suspended so that they can do the work of AA.
I understand that Cursillo and AA are very different. But both are encounter groups and both are designed to get you to begin thinking about your place in society in a new and better way. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you think the danger is that an amateur could be running a Cursillo weekend and through the peer pressures of encounter group technique, cause someone to be harmed. Is this what you are saying? Or are you saying all encounter group methodology is dangerous? (And to whom? Dangerous for everyone?) Because that claim seems weak in the face of very effective and helpful encounter groups / group therapy and the Church’s blessing of the Cursillo method.
[For the record: when I’m on vacation, I try to suspend my native psychological operations by leaving my work blackberry at home. It’s very effective. Because my normal psychological operation is such that I am always at least 20% in the pocket with my blackberry.
]
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iloveangels
Guest
You said it yourself: “Aspects of the Cursillo method are aspects of an encounter group.”I’m still waiting to hear the dangerous thing that happened to me. Is it that I shared too much?
You are adequately describing techniques used by encounter groups. Aspects of the Cursillo method are aspects of an encounter group. But let’s be honest with everyone on this thread who are not familiar with the term Encounter Group, because you are making it very scary. An encounter group is essentially any group-therapy-type setting where the presence of others sharing encourages the individual to share when they otherwise wouldn’t. So, Alcoholics Anonymous, a program that works partly because it is an encounter group is not dangerous but is very effective and does a ton of good. It is effective because it gets people to say things in a group. Tricks them into sharing. Members suspend their native psychological operations and normal methods of thinking if only for the time during the meeting or the hours later with their sponsors. And they go to these meetings specifically to have their normal way of thinking suspended so that they can do the work of AA.
I understand that Cursillo and AA are very different. But both are encounter groups and both are designed to get you to begin thinking about your place in society in a new and better way. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you think the danger is that an amateur could be running a Cursillo weekend and through the peer pressures of encounter group technique, cause someone to be harmed. Is this what you are saying? Or are you saying all encounter group methodology is dangerous? (And to whom? Dangerous for everyone?) Because that claim seems weak in the face of very effective and helpful encounter groups / group therapy and the Church’s blessing of the Cursillo method.
[For the record: when I’m on vacation, I try to suspend my native psychological operations by leaving my work blackberry at home. It’s very effective. Because my normal psychological operation is such that I am always at least 20% in the pocket with my blackberry.
Yes, they are.
And like I said before, there are some people who groove on psychological manipulation. It’s their thing. I don’t know if you are one of those people or not.
Encounter grouping only has one use that is legitimate. It’s a tool and a powerful one. In the hands of a psychologist with a mentally ill patient it can be a tool for management of symptoms. But just like any medical tool, it’s for professionals after diagnosis, prognosis, etc…
You wouldn’t let the mailman take out your appendix. You wouldn’t let the cub scout leader do your coronary bypass. You shouldn’t let some non-psychologist do psychological techniques on you.
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Jeremiah1278
Guest
Ah. I see what you’re saying. I would only submit that the intense learning in the context of Cursillo is less an academic study of doctrine (which I would agree with you), as it is learning about your role in the lives of others and how to create a Christian environment. Those things can have an emotional element to the extent that empathy is big party of identifying places that could use your help and humility is sometimes learned best through our emotional faculties.
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Jeremiah1278
Guest
Okay. I take this to mean you are suspicious of all encounter group methodology. I think I fully understand your position now. Thanks for taking the time to discuss.
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iloveangels
Guest
All encounter grouping on normals which is done without formal psychological need as prescribed by a medical specialist, yes.
Amateur hobby-level psychological experimentation is a bad thing. Just like amateur hobby-level surgical experimentation is a bad thing.
Like I said before: You wouldn’t let the mailman take out your appendix. You wouldn’t let the cub scout leader do your coronary bypass. You shouldn’t let some non-psychologist do psychological techniques on you.
NB: The problem here isn’t really that your friendly local cub scout leader wielding a scalpel couldn’t follow a cookbook manual and get the basic job done. They probably could. The problem is that they don’t know how complicated it could be if something went wrong, which it has a fair likelihood of doing. And they wouldn’t know how to manage the whole person outside the list of directions–aka, managing everything else that’s going on, the anaesthetic, the after-care and all that. It’s a nightmare.
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iloveangels
Guest
Jeremiah,
Do you know anything about Carl Rogers or Abraham Maslow?
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iloveangels
Guest
You are saying that, for instance, the validity of the doctrine of the Resurrection isn’t self-experiential in nature, meaning that it’s true regardless of whether I experience it personally or not. I would agree. That doctrine is a matter of revelation, something the Church has always recognized as a primary method of knowing religious truths. This is Catholicism 101.
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Jeremiah1278
Guest
This is where you and I are different. We are the same in that I wouldn’t let a mailman remove my appendix and I wouldn’t let a cub scout leader do my coronary bypass. Basic therapy techniques are worlds different from these surgeries — I would talk to my wife about feeling a bit depressed today. You may say I’m playing with fire. I would tell you that because I’m healthy and stable that there is no great risk in seeking my wife’s ear when a professional is available to me. I think it’s overstating things a bit to say that my wife’s amateur usage of professional techniques is dangerous. Likewise, when it comes to the relatively benign effects of group therapy techniques on normal, healthy adults like myself, I’m just fine with not paying a professional.
Cursillo made me unaware of the time of day, encouraged me to share, and yes—I went without my friends and family for 3 whole days. I shared more than I would have in a different setting. Normal, healthy adults are in no danger when they are sharing more of themselves than they are accustomed to in group therapy-type settings common in retreats or team-building exercises.
On the other hand both Cursillo and I know that folks in need of therapy or who are otherwise mentally unstable should not attend Cursillo. Perhaps the danger you are talking about relates to these folks and we ultimately agree on that. And here I am assuming that it’s the emotional effects of the over-sharing that you are saying is dangerous. I’m sorry. I’m just assuming that’s what you mean.
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Jeremiah1278
Guest
I know one thing about Maslow, and that’s his hierarchy of needs. Carl Rogers sounds like a fast food chain.
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iloveangels
Guest
No, no. You didn’t read what I wrote. The difference between ordinary discourse and these sorts of techniques is precisely the list of things I gave, including privation and intensity.
Do you actually know anything at all about Carl Rogers or Abraham Maslow? ? Anything??
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iloveangels
Guest
That’s what I figured. Well, you need some education about psychology.
There are a lot of theories about how people work psychologically. You may have heard about some of them. Many, many methods come out of these theories and experimentation happens in institutions and sometimes outside institutions to validate them.
Sometimes these methods are used in therapy of non-institutionalized people, and some of these methods have made their way into the general population, aka transactional analysis and all that. When the field was relatively new in the 70s, this happened with a vengeance, actually, and encounter groups first entered the general culture then. They are really quite old now. Cursillo is only one of the movements that picked these things up and used them naively without knowing what they would do.
Anyway…Carl Rogers was a famous psychologist who pioneered several innovative techniques, including non-directive psychology, which is what encounter groups are.
He pioneered his techniques on mentally ill people, but then he also started experimenting with something he called “therapy for normals.” He hoped that it would make them “more aware of themselves,” and “more sensitive,” and “more self-fulfilled,” etc. Remember all that buffalo scat about “I’m running away from home to find myself” that went on in the 70s? Yeah, well that. This is how this particular set of techniques entered the popular culture. [Maybe you’re not old enough to remember that, I am.]
The consequences of hardcore use of this stuff can be dramatic, which totally shocked even Rogers. That hasn’t changed. There’s been a lot written about this series of events and these methods in the 40 years since they entered the mainstream. You can google Carl Rogers and find a lot of information. Please do. Here are a few articles that I picked up… There are many more.
Although people still do this stuff, it’s very, very 1970s in nature. I am surprised that Cursillo still operates in the US, seriously. It’s way passe. This stuff is silly and dangerous for normals to engage in.
psychclassics.yorku.ca/Rogers/therapy.htm
rickross.com/reference/general/general453.html
ETC.
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iloveangels
Guest
Like I said before, there are mentally ill people for whom these things are a help, when they are under the care of a psychologist or psychiatrist. People with defective ideation that leads them to contemplate strange or dangerous things can be helped, using these methods, when under the care of a licensed doctor who understands differential diagnosis and has a lot of experience.
BUT they are not playthings. They should not be played with casually or in a hobby-like fashion. They can and do wreck peoples’ lives and send a few people raving into institutions.
At the very least, they can mess up the ideation processes of normals and make them significantly less able to function in normal ways. Notably, they are dangerous to motivational structures and can mess up moral perception. They are not compatible with a well-formed conscience.
BUT they are not playthings. They should not be played with casually or in a hobby-like fashion. They can and do wreck peoples’ lives and send a few people raving into institutions.
At the very least, they can mess up the ideation processes of normals and make them significantly less able to function in normal ways. Notably, they are dangerous to motivational structures and can mess up moral perception. They are not compatible with a well-formed conscience.
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BlueRoses12
Guest
Thanks for the information.
Yeah.
Dangerous for “normals,” and far more so, for vulnerable people who weren’t screened out, weren’t informed, and had no idea they what they were walking into.
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iloveangels
Guest
Correct. And the first thing that popped into my mind when the other commenter said that some people obviously shouldn’t take these things, was: How do you screen them if you are amateurs? Do they screen themselves? How is this supposed to work? Meaning, it doesn’t.Thanks for the information.
Yeah.
One of the key things about Cursillo is that they won’t tell you what goes on before you show up. It’s all supposed to be some kind of a surprise. Well, how is a person who is going to be especially bothered by it to know? Even for people who get through it fine, that’s just coercive.
It’s just a really bad idea all the way around.
This is the 2010’s. There are many freer, more respectful, more faithful ways to engage Catholics with their faith.
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