at present, i place great value and confidence in the millions of licensed, professional psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, licensed clinical social workers,and the various other disciplines at work in our mental health care system.........i respect them greatly because of the incredible demands and stressors their chosen fields put on them personally, as well as their loved ones.........i respect them for doing their best to help those who need their services, in spite of severe "underfunding" in their areas of expertise........i have watched them touch the untouchable, reach the unreachable, and minster to the sick and suffering........i have rejoiced at their successes, and i have sorrowed with them at their failures.........i have also witnessed them stare down some of the most vile, insanely evil, and despicable characters you'd ever imagine could remain living........and do so non-judgementally and objectively despite the personal revulsion of what they're looking at!........i never saw vic, or twi, or any of twi's "trustees" through the years ever come close to any of that!!..........imo, twi stood diametrically opposed to professional, therapeutic relationships, then and now!...........but i never thought, nor do i think today, that god and/or jesus opposes them................what do you think?.................................................peace.
Thank you Don'tWorryBeHappy for an imformative and useful thread.
As far as psychotherapy goes, I've never been physically close to it, but I do remember that Dr. Wierwille taught the dismissive attitude that you describe. For most of my life since it's been very easy for me to hold on to this attitude in some kind of benign prejudice I think. But it has also been obvious to me that a systematized field of study on the human condition could be useful, informative, and helpful at best while potentially being harmful at worst. I think that the same can be said of religions too.
When my splinter group experience ended with my expulsion I begged my wife to go to some kind of councelling and I sought out direction and help from some of the local ministers. After I found what seemed like a councelling service that for me seemed to stand out above the rest I asked my wife to go there with me. She declined, as she was taught that the devil and I were some kind of best buds or something.
TWI stories mixed with my splinter experience has taught me that a well intentioned non-christian therapist is much, MUCH better than a ministry controlled by a man with sociopathic tendencies that totally wrecks any attempt to live in any kind of spiritual reality. I think that a ruined spiritual reality can at best be called a delusion. I think that for these reasons that a BAD THERAPIST is most likely FAR LESS HARMFUL THAN TWI.
Oh yeah, and why wouldn't the founding president of twi say psychotherapy, counseling, etc was of the devil and scare the bejeezus outa his victims or those desiring to help?
That way those victims or helpers didn't get armed with the coping skills, the tools to possibly make changes or the strength of someone actually believing them and them possibly standing up to his pitiful self.
Well, I'd have to disagree. I think people need to be judged on a case by case basis. I met a therapist who was very scary and dangerous and hurt a lot of people. Yet he had all the right degrees, accolades and society to back him.
Another therapist I know has the most highest education yet has the least amount of common sense than anyone I've ever met. She's been put in charge of many programs yet does more harm than good. After many years of destruction, she's finally been booted out.
I also know therapists who have truly and honestly helped people. (Friends I have in the profession).
I think some people completely flip out when they get a little power. They don't use it for good they use it for self serving egotistical purpoes.
Sometimes people mean well but they have been deceived by an organization that wants them to promote their agenda. So they end up unwiitingly passing on damaging info and attitudes. Then there are people who in the midst of God awful hell still are able to get a positive message across and help someone.
I think it all goes back to thinking for ourselves. It's OK to go get help and advice, we just need to make sure we're not turning our lives over to someone else. Final decisions need to be ours because we are the ones who have to wake up every day and live with them.
I had hoped it was clear that judging people on a case by case basis was necessary and also that it was in my thinking too.
The more damaging part IMO is that mixing God's Word with Dr. Wierwille's thinking seems to be a much more toxic mixture in general than dealing with just Dr. Wierwille's pathologies.
Personally, I wouldn't make it a bumper sticker, however. It would only be "gotten" by a few and only be odd to the rest IMO. :)
I had hoped it was clear that judging people on a case by case basis was necessary and also that it was in my thinking too.
The more damaging part IMO is that mixing God's Word with Dr. Wierwille's thinking seems to be a much more toxic mixture in general than dealing with just Dr. Wierwille's pathologies.
Personally, I wouldn't make it a bumper sticker, however. It would only be "gotten" by a few and only be odd to the rest IMO. :)
Yeah, I can see it's in your thinking too. :) And you're right, only a few would get a bumper sticker like that. Besides, it would make it seem they were more important than they really are.
...TWI stories mixed with my splinter experience has taught me that a well intentioned non-christian therapist is much, MUCH better than a ministry controlled by a man with sociopathic tendencies that totally wrecks any attempt to live in any kind of spiritual reality. I think that a ruined spiritual reality can at best be called a delusion. I think that for these reasons that a BAD THERAPIST is most likely FAR LESS HARMFUL THAN TWI.
Hi Jeff
That would make a cool bumper sticker!
I agree
~~
Don't Worry, thanks for a great thread idea – as usual, your posts are a concentrated dose of compassion, honesty and wisdom…lots of good input from everyone else too!…IMHO, at its best, a TWI "counselor" using Jay Adams' methods were okay on little issues [helping someone deal with a bad attitude, improve relationships, etc.]…I'm all for professional help nowadays and have sought their services for our marriage, issues with depression and leaving TWI.
I qualify "at its best" when the "counselor" was truly intent on helping the person AND not using Adams' methods as a means to push TWI's agenda. I remember during our Christian Counseling Seminar [which revolved around Adams' stuff] we were taught to check out the person's status with TWI. Are they attending twig? Are they abundantly sharing? And so on…From what I remember/experienced the times of TWI counseling being "at its best" were few and far between….Mostly it was about maintaining control as mentioned in Mstar's post:
...Wierwilles narcississtic personality and own psychological makeup of needing complete control and just dictating to people 'der verd' as the complete answer to everything had to have been a prime reason why he was so against psychology --resulting in his bogus doctrines regarding it that were taken as gospel...
Oh yeah, and why wouldn't the founding president of twi say psychotherapy, counseling, etc was of the devil and scare the bejeezus outa his victims or those desiring to help?
I wonder if perhaps he had had a run-in with a shrink or two in his past. Narcissists generally don't get better, because they don't think anything is wrong with them. It is the rest of the world that is at fault.
thank you for the many insightful posts you have contributed to this discussion!.......hopefully, there will be more, and a broad spectrum of experiential knowledge, and current theories/principles relating to the topic will be available for further discussion.
no inference should be made from my first post on this thread, that our mental healthcare delivery system provides a benign, or "risk-free" panacea for the psychological, emotional, or psychosocial illnesses that plague our wonderfully free and open society.........as many of us know from experience, there are "bad apples" in most barrels in all aspects of human activity and endeavor.........there are undoubtedly as many poor practitioners in our mental health/social work delivery systems as there are in any field........as someone posted , the attainment of advanced degrees, and licensure to practice professionally in no way insures that every licensed, or trained professional will provide the top notch, expert care or counseling that those who seek or require their services might expect.......caveat emptor applies equally to the process of seeking out and engaging professional counselors as it does to buying major appliances, or deciding which school you'll attend!
to clarify, my point was to demonstrate that, imo, vic and his way, offered no legitimate training in pastoral counseling to those who were placed in positions where such professional training was a necessity, and to whom twi followers were directed to receive such professional services. what's worse, is that, not only was such training never provided, but the broad brush of his personal psychopathologies was applied to paint the entire fields of psychiatry, psychology, and social work as being "of the devil", "born in a seance", and of no godly value to anyone who truly believed his version of "god's word"!......thus, as rumrunner noted, his version of what "pastoral counseling", or "ministering" was, served only to build and maintain a destructive, covertly manipulative, hierarchical leadership structure to serve his own lusts for power, control, "material abundance", and serial sexual predation.
thus, vic's system of "ministering to god's people" demanded complete loyalty to his way........this required the rejection of individual, critical thinking processes, abdication of the need and right to question his/god's authority, and stunting of the normal progression of individual identity formation..........replacing these with, what turned out to be, unhindered indoctrination into the dysfunctional world of his personal pathologies, and the adoption of same as the "god ordained", properly expected "walk by the spirit" that his "training" programs purportedly offered........imo, these implied expectations produced a state of perpetual adolescence among the most loyal and dedicated followers,,,,,,,,keeping them in a state of "suspended animation" rather than maturing through the ericsonian developmental stage of "identity formation vs.identity confusion", the developmental stage associated with the normal progression from adolescence to adulthood........this produced a loyal cadre of adolescent "leaders" who were totally unable to provide any healthy, functional direction to those instructed to follow them!.........these "trained leaders" progressed no further in their own "normal" maturation and effectiveness than to become, what t-bone so incisively described on another thread, either "victims, predators, or facilitators" of vic's dysfunctionally twisted and perverse "doctrines and practices"!.......all under the guise of "learning, teaching, and living the word of god as it had not been known since the first century"!
the fact that there remain today, a fair number of these vic "trained", "perpetually adolescent", "christian leaders", is most poignantly demonstrated by the continued existence of twi itself, as well as a number of twi offshoot "ministries", which, at their core, unabashedly continue to promote vic's interpretations, confabulations, and perversions of the bible as "scriptural truth", or "the rightly divided word of god"!........they offer no more legitimate, professional, or functional "pastoral counseling" than did their "father-in-the-word", and are prone to the various whims and fancies offered by pop-psycholgy, "self-help/improvement" organizations like momentus,........which also offer no professionally trained/qualified counselors or instructors, when they supposedly offer such "professional" help to those who seek it.........as their unfortunate "track records" prove, they usually wind up injuring and damaging folks more than they help or improve them!.......and, just like "the way that vic built", they fail miserably at truly helping or "ministering to" those drawn to them by whatever needs they seek to satisfy for whatever reasons their personal circumstances may produce.
the need for professionally educated, legitimately credentialed, and personally skilled and dedicated mental health/social work practitioners is as great as it's ever been in our society and culture today.......imo, it is absolutely imperative for organizations who present themselves as "servants to and for the public good", to do so in a professional, functional ly effective manner.........to provide properly educated and prepared professionals to legitimately assist those in need of their services.......that, imo, is an absolutely requisite qualification, and one which encourages professional responsibility and accountability.........or, they can remain destructive, self-serving cults of personality, under the cloak of "christian churches, or ministries".........the choice is up to the direction and conscience of their self-appointed "leaders".........as well as to an informed, educated, public!..........caveat emptor!......................peace.
To me, the expression "perpetual adolescence" rings loud and clear.
It was when a number of people began to emerge, in their personal development, from that stunted emotional growth state in the mid 1980s that lights started turning on about what we all had gotten ourselves into.
I can reflect back to a couple of points in my late 20s when I started to have brief moments of cognative dissonance regarding some of the things twi expected of me... then, when the big "exodus" around 1986, when JAL, Tom Reahard, et.al stirred things up when they tried to confront twi leadership... I had just graduated from college (at age 31) and was ready myself to begin emerging from that (no longer) perpetual adolescence... which, I suppose, is why I left twi that year.
I realize it's only tangentially related to the topic of therapeutic relationships, but it is a theme evoked by what DWBH posted in this thread.
Oh yeah, and why wouldn't the founding president of twi say psychotherapy, counseling, etc was of the devil and scare the bejeezus outa his victims or those desiring to help?
That way those victims or helpers didn't get armed with the coping skills, the tools to possibly make changes or the strength of someone actually believing them and them possibly standing up to his pitiful self.
Right on Shellon.
I remember a teaching they had all of us Wows listen to. Some Rev. went on about how this Corps girl/wow family leader had left the field after witnessing to a Psychiatrist. I guess he ended up "witnessing" to her, because she no longer wanted to be involved with TWI. She moved in with him while he was helping her get on her feet. But the Rev. on the tape spinned it as her being influenced by the spirits he operated and being tricked by worldly knowledge. He acted like he was so sorry for her. (While ripping them to shreds).
The reason they had all the wows listen to this was because they were threatened by what happened.
Just like when they were threatened by the internet. Several years ago my FC actually called everyone to tell us we were to stay away from the internet because of the devil spirits it would let in our homes. And we were supposed to confess if we had looked at any anti TWI sites.
When people are trying to control you, they don't want you to have information. And especially they don't want you to have coping skills.
When people are trying to control you, they don't want you to have information. And especially they don't want you to have coping skills.
Bullseye!
One of the moments of cognative disonance I mentioned previously occurred while I was a WOW in northern Ohio. The family coordinator was an 11th corps guy on his interim year. I remember several times when he told me (emphatically) that I was too prideful. Of course, that was because I was telling him I didn't agree with his view/judgement on something or other. This occurred several times that year.
I was, at that time, just beginning to trust my own relationship with God... or my own judgement, however you'd like to look at it. And even when I couldn't say it out loud because of his rebuke, I told myself I knew he what he was saying was bovine feces.
I had been in the 9th corps... didn't finish my interim year... but I think it was largely because of this interaction with the 11th corps guy that I never felt compelled to re-enter the WC program... it's not that he was all bad. He wasn't. I've been in touch with him since and he's a decent guy. In fact, I went back to college right after that wow year and ended up getting my degree with the same major he had gotten his in (he got his before going in the WC). But the cognative disonance was signficant regarding the culture of obedience...
It was a couple of years later that the PooP thing happened and I was ready to jettison twi by then.
I am not a mental health professional, but I do have a seriously mentally ill sibling. I didn't talk much about my brother when I was in TWI, and when medicated his behavior isn't unusual to the casual observer, he was at my TWI wedding and everything. Even my hubby wasn't really aware. But after my parents died he quit his medication. Then, everyone becomes aware with very little effort.(He is paranoid schizophrenic.)
Once in TWI I went through a big time of prayer to heal him, cast out the spirit etc but I never got a 'green light.'
Medicine has done more for his quality of life than anything else--except parents and siblings who care about him and kept him off the streets, which is where he would have ended up with TWI counsel I'm pretty sure.
I'm too relaxed (on vacation) to write too much on this topic but here are a few thoughts.
After 7 years in TWI ('70-'77) I earned a Masters of Science in Pastoral Counseling at an accredited Catholic College in NY ('80-'83) and then went to a Presbyterian (PCUSA) seminary ('83-'86) and earned a MDiv and was ordained to ministry.
Through reading, education and church-going between '77 and '83 I gradually, with hard work, corrected a lot of the error TWI taught me between '77 and '83 when I entered seminary, though there were still some traces of foolishness in my beliefs. So, I guess you'd say I oozed out.
Absolutely nothing I learned officially in TWI prepared me for ministry or counseling. Being a Twig Leader DID grant me the opportunity to practice some amateur ministry and I don't think I did much harm after I was 18 or so (got in just short of my 16th birthday). As implied above, most of my task of preparation for my calling involved unlearning error from TWI. Actually my childhood experience in church helped me more than PFAL etc.
Jay Adams' book was as anemic as most stuff sold in Christian bookstores IMHO. It preapred me for coiunseling about as well as Hal Lindsay's book prepared me for predicting the future. Almost any classic, accepted, secular text was much better. For me, Harry Stack Sullivan's 'Interpersonal Psychiatry' made as much sense as almost anything else - and I have found that many of the best counselors I know practice methods based on similar theory. Truly, the best method all goes back to Plato's "know thyself". Of course Wayfers knew so little of themselves because they brainwashed, in a cult! Even orthodox Freudian stuff was safer, wiser despite its wackiness. Any teaching that involves any clinical application of 'casting out devil spirits' has no place in counseling!
Well, I'm not cleaning this post up 'cause there's a gentle breeze coming in off the bay and lots of children are playing out on the lawn and the Yankees just beat the Red Sox and there's a Klondike Ice Cream Bar with my name on it... and I hear the love of my life laughing next door...
First of all, Don, thank you for your heartfelt outpouring of love. Second of all, i have decided not to read another word on here except yours (opening post), partly because sometimes I am still so easily swayed, and also because you started the thread and asked for a reply.
recently, on another thread, someone demanded to know why i did'nt just "call the cops"?, rather than resort to "just" comforting the wounded? how utterly shallow and compassionless a question! .......
(ps. i know you went on to to say more).
I have absolute love and respect for you. But saying someone is utterly shallow and compassionless is not fair, at least not if you're a shrink helping THAT person. Respectfully, do you see what I mean?
There are times that maybe a person really doesn't have a willful ignorance of profound suffering. It might be that the person in question has their own profound suffering. That's all I mean.
I too place a great value on, and respect, licensed professionals in the area you described -- the millions. I ABSOLUTELY don't think that God or Jesus opposes them. Many have touched the untouchables, stared down evil, and everything you said -- without any doubt in my mind. But there are some that have not done so. There are some that have an ego, have their own agenda, and actually hurt people.
I'm not in ANY WAY denying what you said. I agree, but I just wanted to add that.
Thank you. I love you.
I just want to say that the nonjudgmental part MAY have to be extended to some of the "evil" people. Good God, please don't crucify me for that one (not talking to you, Don, just in general).
I dont think that the leaders are sat there systematically planning methods to control their followers.
I dont think they are conscious of that at all.
Well, perhaps L Ron Hubbard, but most of the others, no.
I think the leadership are trapped within the system as well, and are basically obsessed with not allowing a lamb to be lost and are rationalizing their decisions in their own minds because they are telling themselves they must desperately "protect" the household from the infection of worldly influence and the snares of Satanic influence. And so these control methods spontaneously generate within the group by virtue of it being a seperationist group with no external checks/balances and by virtue of its being a totalism.
Considering that all cults basically manifest the same control methods, we must either say that all the cult founders have either read Hitlers Mein Kampf and Stanley Millikin and are fully versed in the methods of control, which they then wickedly set about implementing so as to fleece and flog the flock, or there is some other cause for these control methods generating within the group.
I don't think the controlling leaders i knew gave a dam about lost lambs. i think they were hoping to look good to their uppers and get kudos for their 'stand.' It was all about them.
I dont think that the leaders are sat there systematically planning methods to control their followers.
I dont think they are conscious of that at all.
Well, perhaps L Ron Hubbard, but most of the others, no.
I think the leadership are trapped within the system as well, and are basically obsessed with not allowing a lamb to be lost and are rationalizing their decisions in their own minds because they are telling themselves they must desperately "protect" the household from the infection of worldly influence and the snares of Satanic influence. And so these control methods spontaneously generate within the group by virtue of it being a seperationist group with no external checks/balances and by virtue of its being a totalism.
Considering that all cults basically manifest the same control methods, we must either say that all the cult founders have either read Hitlers Mein Kampf and Stanley Millikin and are fully versed in the methods of control, which they then wickedly set about implementing so as to fleece and flog the flock, or there is some other cause for these control methods generating within the group.
Well, probably for some this is true. I knew a leader that was so paranoid everyone would get killed in a car accident, he had everyone check in with their FC when they left and when they returned from even the shortest trip somewhere. It was weird and cumbersome, but he really was concerned about all of us. He had heard one to many hysterical teachings and was deeply influenced by it. He promoted a lot of fear. He wasn't fully versed in the methods of control, but he was controlling.
I don't think the controlling leaders i knew gave a dam about lost lambs. i think they were hoping to look good to their uppers and get kudos for their 'stand.' It was all about them.
For others this is probably what is mostly true. Some people get off on giving constant unsolicited advice and opinions. They are like the pharisees who want to look good but not really do good. Put them in a leadership role and they really go overboard, especially if there is a hysterical and superstisious ministry behind them.
All of the controlling leaders I knew insinuated themselves into the most personal aspects of my life. They seemed to get off on telling people what to do and having people do it. (God forbid they get real jobs.) Yet for all that, they are not friends. They don't send Christmas cards or keep in touch. I used to feel so compelled to share with these people who didn't care about me, it was all about them. They were only concerned about me to the extent I was useful to them. Like if I could help fill a quota for a class or clean their house etc...
I doubt they read Hitler or Millikin. They learned from living examples in their TWI midst.
ps. one of the reasons i posted what i did is because a friend of mine went to a psychiatrist to get help from the past and the way ministry, and ended up in an "affair" with him, and he was a horrible control freak abuser.
Some people get off on giving constant unsolicited advice and opinions. They are like the pharisees who want to look good but not really do good. Put them in a leadership role and they really go overboard,
How many of these has everyone known.
Some wannabe servant councelling you before witnesses because you are sat by the pool reading an Arthur Hailey novel.
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JeffSjo
Thank you Don'tWorryBeHappy for an imformative and useful thread.
As far as psychotherapy goes, I've never been physically close to it, but I do remember that Dr. Wierwille taught the dismissive attitude that you describe. For most of my life since it's been very easy for me to hold on to this attitude in some kind of benign prejudice I think. But it has also been obvious to me that a systematized field of study on the human condition could be useful, informative, and helpful at best while potentially being harmful at worst. I think that the same can be said of religions too.
When my splinter group experience ended with my expulsion I begged my wife to go to some kind of councelling and I sought out direction and help from some of the local ministers. After I found what seemed like a councelling service that for me seemed to stand out above the rest I asked my wife to go there with me. She declined, as she was taught that the devil and I were some kind of best buds or something.
TWI stories mixed with my splinter experience has taught me that a well intentioned non-christian therapist is much, MUCH better than a ministry controlled by a man with sociopathic tendencies that totally wrecks any attempt to live in any kind of spiritual reality. I think that a ruined spiritual reality can at best be called a delusion. I think that for these reasons that a BAD THERAPIST is most likely FAR LESS HARMFUL THAN TWI.
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waysider
Hi Jeff
That would make a cool bumper sticker!
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Shellon
Oh yeah, and why wouldn't the founding president of twi say psychotherapy, counseling, etc was of the devil and scare the bejeezus outa his victims or those desiring to help?
That way those victims or helpers didn't get armed with the coping skills, the tools to possibly make changes or the strength of someone actually believing them and them possibly standing up to his pitiful self.
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finallyunderstand
Well, I'd have to disagree. I think people need to be judged on a case by case basis. I met a therapist who was very scary and dangerous and hurt a lot of people. Yet he had all the right degrees, accolades and society to back him.
Another therapist I know has the most highest education yet has the least amount of common sense than anyone I've ever met. She's been put in charge of many programs yet does more harm than good. After many years of destruction, she's finally been booted out.
I also know therapists who have truly and honestly helped people. (Friends I have in the profession).
I think some people completely flip out when they get a little power. They don't use it for good they use it for self serving egotistical purpoes.
Sometimes people mean well but they have been deceived by an organization that wants them to promote their agenda. So they end up unwiitingly passing on damaging info and attitudes. Then there are people who in the midst of God awful hell still are able to get a positive message across and help someone.
I think it all goes back to thinking for ourselves. It's OK to go get help and advice, we just need to make sure we're not turning our lives over to someone else. Final decisions need to be ours because we are the ones who have to wake up every day and live with them.
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JeffSjo
Dear Finallyunderstand,
I had hoped it was clear that judging people on a case by case basis was necessary and also that it was in my thinking too.
The more damaging part IMO is that mixing God's Word with Dr. Wierwille's thinking seems to be a much more toxic mixture in general than dealing with just Dr. Wierwille's pathologies.
Personally, I wouldn't make it a bumper sticker, however. It would only be "gotten" by a few and only be odd to the rest IMO. :)
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finallyunderstand
Yeah, I can see it's in your thinking too. :) And you're right, only a few would get a bumper sticker like that. Besides, it would make it seem they were more important than they really are.
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WhiteDove
I always liked Melanie's take on Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Oh mine eyes have seen the glory of the theories of Freud,
He has taught me all the evils that my ego must avoid.
Repression of the impulses resuling paranoid
As the id goes marching on.
Glory glory psychotherapy, glory glory sexuality,
Glory glory now we can be free as the id goes marching on
There was a man who thought his friends to him were all superior
And this complex he imagined made life drearier and drearier
Till his analyst assured him that he really was inferior
As the id goes marching on.
Glory glory psychotherapy, glory glory sexuality,
Glory glory now we can be free as the id goes marching on
Do you drown your superego in a flood of alcohol - or something else -
And go running after women till you're just about to fall.
You may think you're having fun but you're not having fun at all
As the id goes marching on.
Glory glory psychotherapy, glory glory sexuality,
Glory glory now we can be free as the id goes marching on
Oh sad is the masochism, the vagaries of sex
Have turned half the population into total nervous wrecks.
But your analyst will cure you, long as you can pay the cheques
As the id goes marching on.
Glory glory psychotherapy, glory glory sexuality,
Glory glory now we can be free as the id goes marching on
Is your body plagued by aches and pains that you can't understand
Compound fractures ingrown toenails, floating kidneys, trembling hands,
There's a secret to your trouble: you're in love with your old man
As the id goes marching on.
Glory glory psychotherapy, glory glory sexuality,
Glory glory now we can be free as the id goes marching on
Freud's mystic world of meaning needn't have us mystified
It's really very simple what the psyche tries to hide:
A thing is a phallic symbol if it's longer than it's wide
As the id goes marching on.
Glory glory psychotherapy, glory glory sexuality,
Glory glory now we can be free as the id goes marching on.
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T-Bone
I agree
~~
Don't Worry, thanks for a great thread idea – as usual, your posts are a concentrated dose of compassion, honesty and wisdom…lots of good input from everyone else too!…IMHO, at its best, a TWI "counselor" using Jay Adams' methods were okay on little issues [helping someone deal with a bad attitude, improve relationships, etc.]…I'm all for professional help nowadays and have sought their services for our marriage, issues with depression and leaving TWI.
I qualify "at its best" when the "counselor" was truly intent on helping the person AND not using Adams' methods as a means to push TWI's agenda. I remember during our Christian Counseling Seminar [which revolved around Adams' stuff] we were taught to check out the person's status with TWI. Are they attending twig? Are they abundantly sharing? And so on…From what I remember/experienced the times of TWI counseling being "at its best" were few and far between….Mostly it was about maintaining control as mentioned in Mstar's post:
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GarthP2000
DWBH,
"Coward Allen"
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shazdancer
Shellers, you said
I wonder if perhaps he had had a run-in with a shrink or two in his past. Narcissists generally don't get better, because they don't think anything is wrong with them. It is the rest of the world that is at fault.Link to comment
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DontWorryBeHappy
hello again greasespotters!
thank you for the many insightful posts you have contributed to this discussion!.......hopefully, there will be more, and a broad spectrum of experiential knowledge, and current theories/principles relating to the topic will be available for further discussion.
no inference should be made from my first post on this thread, that our mental healthcare delivery system provides a benign, or "risk-free" panacea for the psychological, emotional, or psychosocial illnesses that plague our wonderfully free and open society.........as many of us know from experience, there are "bad apples" in most barrels in all aspects of human activity and endeavor.........there are undoubtedly as many poor practitioners in our mental health/social work delivery systems as there are in any field........as someone posted , the attainment of advanced degrees, and licensure to practice professionally in no way insures that every licensed, or trained professional will provide the top notch, expert care or counseling that those who seek or require their services might expect.......caveat emptor applies equally to the process of seeking out and engaging professional counselors as it does to buying major appliances, or deciding which school you'll attend!
to clarify, my point was to demonstrate that, imo, vic and his way, offered no legitimate training in pastoral counseling to those who were placed in positions where such professional training was a necessity, and to whom twi followers were directed to receive such professional services. what's worse, is that, not only was such training never provided, but the broad brush of his personal psychopathologies was applied to paint the entire fields of psychiatry, psychology, and social work as being "of the devil", "born in a seance", and of no godly value to anyone who truly believed his version of "god's word"!......thus, as rumrunner noted, his version of what "pastoral counseling", or "ministering" was, served only to build and maintain a destructive, covertly manipulative, hierarchical leadership structure to serve his own lusts for power, control, "material abundance", and serial sexual predation.
thus, vic's system of "ministering to god's people" demanded complete loyalty to his way........this required the rejection of individual, critical thinking processes, abdication of the need and right to question his/god's authority, and stunting of the normal progression of individual identity formation..........replacing these with, what turned out to be, unhindered indoctrination into the dysfunctional world of his personal pathologies, and the adoption of same as the "god ordained", properly expected "walk by the spirit" that his "training" programs purportedly offered........imo, these implied expectations produced a state of perpetual adolescence among the most loyal and dedicated followers,,,,,,,,keeping them in a state of "suspended animation" rather than maturing through the ericsonian developmental stage of "identity formation vs.identity confusion", the developmental stage associated with the normal progression from adolescence to adulthood........this produced a loyal cadre of adolescent "leaders" who were totally unable to provide any healthy, functional direction to those instructed to follow them!.........these "trained leaders" progressed no further in their own "normal" maturation and effectiveness than to become, what t-bone so incisively described on another thread, either "victims, predators, or facilitators" of vic's dysfunctionally twisted and perverse "doctrines and practices"!.......all under the guise of "learning, teaching, and living the word of god as it had not been known since the first century"!
the fact that there remain today, a fair number of these vic "trained", "perpetually adolescent", "christian leaders", is most poignantly demonstrated by the continued existence of twi itself, as well as a number of twi offshoot "ministries", which, at their core, unabashedly continue to promote vic's interpretations, confabulations, and perversions of the bible as "scriptural truth", or "the rightly divided word of god"!........they offer no more legitimate, professional, or functional "pastoral counseling" than did their "father-in-the-word", and are prone to the various whims and fancies offered by pop-psycholgy, "self-help/improvement" organizations like momentus,........which also offer no professionally trained/qualified counselors or instructors, when they supposedly offer such "professional" help to those who seek it.........as their unfortunate "track records" prove, they usually wind up injuring and damaging folks more than they help or improve them!.......and, just like "the way that vic built", they fail miserably at truly helping or "ministering to" those drawn to them by whatever needs they seek to satisfy for whatever reasons their personal circumstances may produce.
the need for professionally educated, legitimately credentialed, and personally skilled and dedicated mental health/social work practitioners is as great as it's ever been in our society and culture today.......imo, it is absolutely imperative for organizations who present themselves as "servants to and for the public good", to do so in a professional, functional ly effective manner.........to provide properly educated and prepared professionals to legitimately assist those in need of their services.......that, imo, is an absolutely requisite qualification, and one which encourages professional responsibility and accountability.........or, they can remain destructive, self-serving cults of personality, under the cloak of "christian churches, or ministries".........the choice is up to the direction and conscience of their self-appointed "leaders".........as well as to an informed, educated, public!..........caveat emptor!......................peace.
Edited by Don'tWorryBeHappyLink to comment
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Rocky
To me, the expression "perpetual adolescence" rings loud and clear.
It was when a number of people began to emerge, in their personal development, from that stunted emotional growth state in the mid 1980s that lights started turning on about what we all had gotten ourselves into.
I can reflect back to a couple of points in my late 20s when I started to have brief moments of cognative dissonance regarding some of the things twi expected of me... then, when the big "exodus" around 1986, when JAL, Tom Reahard, et.al stirred things up when they tried to confront twi leadership... I had just graduated from college (at age 31) and was ready myself to begin emerging from that (no longer) perpetual adolescence... which, I suppose, is why I left twi that year.
I realize it's only tangentially related to the topic of therapeutic relationships, but it is a theme evoked by what DWBH posted in this thread.
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finallyunderstand
Right on Shellon.
I remember a teaching they had all of us Wows listen to. Some Rev. went on about how this Corps girl/wow family leader had left the field after witnessing to a Psychiatrist. I guess he ended up "witnessing" to her, because she no longer wanted to be involved with TWI. She moved in with him while he was helping her get on her feet. But the Rev. on the tape spinned it as her being influenced by the spirits he operated and being tricked by worldly knowledge. He acted like he was so sorry for her. (While ripping them to shreds).
The reason they had all the wows listen to this was because they were threatened by what happened.
Just like when they were threatened by the internet. Several years ago my FC actually called everyone to tell us we were to stay away from the internet because of the devil spirits it would let in our homes. And we were supposed to confess if we had looked at any anti TWI sites.
When people are trying to control you, they don't want you to have information. And especially they don't want you to have coping skills.
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Combination
Enough to stop further questioning or consideration right there.
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Rocky
Bullseye!
One of the moments of cognative disonance I mentioned previously occurred while I was a WOW in northern Ohio. The family coordinator was an 11th corps guy on his interim year. I remember several times when he told me (emphatically) that I was too prideful. Of course, that was because I was telling him I didn't agree with his view/judgement on something or other. This occurred several times that year.
I was, at that time, just beginning to trust my own relationship with God... or my own judgement, however you'd like to look at it. And even when I couldn't say it out loud because of his rebuke, I told myself I knew he what he was saying was bovine feces.
I had been in the 9th corps... didn't finish my interim year... but I think it was largely because of this interaction with the 11th corps guy that I never felt compelled to re-enter the WC program... it's not that he was all bad. He wasn't. I've been in touch with him since and he's a decent guy. In fact, I went back to college right after that wow year and ended up getting my degree with the same major he had gotten his in (he got his before going in the WC). But the cognative disonance was signficant regarding the culture of obedience...
It was a couple of years later that the PooP thing happened and I was ready to jettison twi by then.
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Bramble
I am not a mental health professional, but I do have a seriously mentally ill sibling. I didn't talk much about my brother when I was in TWI, and when medicated his behavior isn't unusual to the casual observer, he was at my TWI wedding and everything. Even my hubby wasn't really aware. But after my parents died he quit his medication. Then, everyone becomes aware with very little effort.(He is paranoid schizophrenic.)
Once in TWI I went through a big time of prayer to heal him, cast out the spirit etc but I never got a 'green light.'
Medicine has done more for his quality of life than anything else--except parents and siblings who care about him and kept him off the streets, which is where he would have ended up with TWI counsel I'm pretty sure.
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Juan Cruz
Dear All,
I'm too relaxed (on vacation) to write too much on this topic but here are a few thoughts.
After 7 years in TWI ('70-'77) I earned a Masters of Science in Pastoral Counseling at an accredited Catholic College in NY ('80-'83) and then went to a Presbyterian (PCUSA) seminary ('83-'86) and earned a MDiv and was ordained to ministry.
Through reading, education and church-going between '77 and '83 I gradually, with hard work, corrected a lot of the error TWI taught me between '77 and '83 when I entered seminary, though there were still some traces of foolishness in my beliefs. So, I guess you'd say I oozed out.
Absolutely nothing I learned officially in TWI prepared me for ministry or counseling. Being a Twig Leader DID grant me the opportunity to practice some amateur ministry and I don't think I did much harm after I was 18 or so (got in just short of my 16th birthday). As implied above, most of my task of preparation for my calling involved unlearning error from TWI. Actually my childhood experience in church helped me more than PFAL etc.
Jay Adams' book was as anemic as most stuff sold in Christian bookstores IMHO. It preapred me for coiunseling about as well as Hal Lindsay's book prepared me for predicting the future. Almost any classic, accepted, secular text was much better. For me, Harry Stack Sullivan's 'Interpersonal Psychiatry' made as much sense as almost anything else - and I have found that many of the best counselors I know practice methods based on similar theory. Truly, the best method all goes back to Plato's "know thyself". Of course Wayfers knew so little of themselves because they brainwashed, in a cult! Even orthodox Freudian stuff was safer, wiser despite its wackiness. Any teaching that involves any clinical application of 'casting out devil spirits' has no place in counseling!
Well, I'm not cleaning this post up 'cause there's a gentle breeze coming in off the bay and lots of children are playing out on the lawn and the Yankees just beat the Red Sox and there's a Klondike Ice Cream Bar with my name on it... and I hear the love of my life laughing next door...
Namaste',
Juan
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excathedra
First of all, Don, thank you for your heartfelt outpouring of love. Second of all, i have decided not to read another word on here except yours (opening post), partly because sometimes I am still so easily swayed, and also because you started the thread and asked for a reply.
(ps. i know you went on to to say more).I have absolute love and respect for you. But saying someone is utterly shallow and compassionless is not fair, at least not if you're a shrink helping THAT person. Respectfully, do you see what I mean?
There are times that maybe a person really doesn't have a willful ignorance of profound suffering. It might be that the person in question has their own profound suffering. That's all I mean.
I too place a great value on, and respect, licensed professionals in the area you described -- the millions. I ABSOLUTELY don't think that God or Jesus opposes them. Many have touched the untouchables, stared down evil, and everything you said -- without any doubt in my mind. But there are some that have not done so. There are some that have an ego, have their own agenda, and actually hurt people.
I'm not in ANY WAY denying what you said. I agree, but I just wanted to add that.
Thank you. I love you.
I just want to say that the nonjudgmental part MAY have to be extended to some of the "evil" people. Good God, please don't crucify me for that one (not talking to you, Don, just in general).
Major peace.
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Combination
I dont think that the leaders are sat there systematically planning methods to control their followers.
I dont think they are conscious of that at all.
Well, perhaps L Ron Hubbard, but most of the others, no.
I think the leadership are trapped within the system as well, and are basically obsessed with not allowing a lamb to be lost and are rationalizing their decisions in their own minds because they are telling themselves they must desperately "protect" the household from the infection of worldly influence and the snares of Satanic influence. And so these control methods spontaneously generate within the group by virtue of it being a seperationist group with no external checks/balances and by virtue of its being a totalism.
Considering that all cults basically manifest the same control methods, we must either say that all the cult founders have either read Hitlers Mein Kampf and Stanley Millikin and are fully versed in the methods of control, which they then wickedly set about implementing so as to fleece and flog the flock, or there is some other cause for these control methods generating within the group.
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Bramble
I don't think the controlling leaders i knew gave a dam about lost lambs. i think they were hoping to look good to their uppers and get kudos for their 'stand.' It was all about them.
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finallyunderstand
Well, probably for some this is true. I knew a leader that was so paranoid everyone would get killed in a car accident, he had everyone check in with their FC when they left and when they returned from even the shortest trip somewhere. It was weird and cumbersome, but he really was concerned about all of us. He had heard one to many hysterical teachings and was deeply influenced by it. He promoted a lot of fear. He wasn't fully versed in the methods of control, but he was controlling.
For others this is probably what is mostly true. Some people get off on giving constant unsolicited advice and opinions. They are like the pharisees who want to look good but not really do good. Put them in a leadership role and they really go overboard, especially if there is a hysterical and superstisious ministry behind them.
All of the controlling leaders I knew insinuated themselves into the most personal aspects of my life. They seemed to get off on telling people what to do and having people do it. (God forbid they get real jobs.) Yet for all that, they are not friends. They don't send Christmas cards or keep in touch. I used to feel so compelled to share with these people who didn't care about me, it was all about them. They were only concerned about me to the extent I was useful to them. Like if I could help fill a quota for a class or clean their house etc...
I doubt they read Hitler or Millikin. They learned from living examples in their TWI midst.
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excathedra
ps. one of the reasons i posted what i did is because a friend of mine went to a psychiatrist to get help from the past and the way ministry, and ended up in an "affair" with him, and he was a horrible control freak abuser.
thank you.
love,ex
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waysider
I don't think Wierwille sat and planned his control strategies either.
They just flowed from him as fluently as jazz flowed from John Coltrane's horn.
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Combination
How many of these has everyone known.
Some wannabe servant councelling you before witnesses because you are sat by the pool reading an Arthur Hailey novel.
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