Editing Lifespring (section)

==Course overview==
The Lifespring training generally involved a three-level program starting with a "basic" training, an "advanced" breakthrough course, and a three-month "leadership program" which taught the students how to implement what they learned from the training into their lives. "There is no hope" is a fundamental tenet in the course. The fundamental purpose of the leadership program was enrollment; the participants in the Leadership Program were essentially an unpaid salesforce with the sole mission of enrollment by any means. The trainers used high pressure and humiliation to force participants to achieve enrollment goals. This included yelling at the group as a whole at meetings, and singling individuals out and humiliating them in front of the whole group. Participants were told the city and the world is at stake and the only solution was enrolling as many people into the trainings as possible.<ref name="Sfires">The 3 month leadership program consisted of numerous meetings,  some spontaneous where participants were contacted and ordered to report to the Lifespring office for an emergency meeting, many times arriving to find the door locked and a sign on the door saying "GO ENROLL SOMEBODY ". There were also 3 weekends including a mystery third weekend called "Third Weekend " where the participants were taken away to an undisclosed location and never knew ahead of time where they were going. Graduates were sworn to secrecy about location and events of the third weekend. The mystery and hype of the third weekend is what kept many participants involved in the program.To increase enrollments trainers often used the threat of expelling participants before third weekend and banning from all future Lifespring events for lif.. Attendance at all three weekends was mandatory with no excuse accepted. This included a death in the family...even a parent...The participants were told that they made an unconditional commitment to attend and that going to the funeral was meaningless as it would not bring back their loved one nor change the situation.  Hospitalization and severe illness were also not an excuse..participants were told they had to" CRAWL TO THE WEEKEND" if needed.  [http://www.lifespring-scientific-research.com/pages/lifespring-ScientInq3.htm Lifespring Scientific Research], Scientific Inquiry: A Report on Independent Studies of the Lifespring Trainings, Page 3</ref> Less than two percent found them to be "of no value".<ref name="Sfires"/> Graduates were often eager to share their own experiences in the training with family, friends, and co-workers, although they were precluded from sharing fellow trainees' experiences. There was never any compensation for assisting in enrolling others into the workshops.<ref name="Sfires"/> However, another, independent study found, "The merging, grandiosity, and identity confusion that has been encouraged and then exploited in the training in order to control participants is now used to tie them to Vitality (Lifespring) in the future by enrolling them in new trainings and enlisting them as recruiters."<ref name="Perso">[http://perso.orange.fr/eldon.braun/awareness/v-intro.htm The Politics of Transformation: Recruitment —  Processes In a Mass Marathon Psychology Organization], Philip Cushman, fair use excerpt, Introduction</ref>
  
The basic training was composed of successive sessions on Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday day and night, Sunday day and night, a Tuesday night post-training session ten days after graduation, and a post-training interview. Evening sessions began at 6:30 pm and lasted until 11:30 or 12 or later. Saturday sessions started at 10 am and sometimes lasted until midnight. Sunday sessions started at 9 am and lasted until approximately 6 pm. The trainings were usually held in the convention facilities of large, easily accessible, moderate priced hotels (i.e., mid-town New York). A basic training was usually composed of 150–200 participants, while an advanced training was composed of 75-100 participants. Approximately 50 percent of advanced training graduates participated in the leadership program. Training also included alumni volunteers who served as small group leaders, several official staff, an assistant trainer, and a head trainer.<ref name="Perso"/>

The training consisted of a series of lectures and experiential processes designed to show the participants a new manner of contending with life situations and concerns and how other possible explanations and interpretations may lead to different results. Some individuals complained that they felt harangued, embarrassed, or humiliated by the trainer during the training. A few individuals chose not to complete the training. Additionally, the trainer used many English words in a manner different from their usual meaning. "Commitment", for instance, was defined as "the willingness to do whatever it takes". "Conclusion" was defined as a belief. Also, words such as "responsibility", "space", "surrender", "experience", "trust", "consideration", "unreasonable", "righteous", "totally participate", "from your head", "openness", "letting go" were redefined or used so as to assign them a more specific meaning.<ref name="Perso"/> "Stretch" was an activity that was outside the participant's comfort zone. During the advanced course the participants were sometimes sent out to perform certain tasks. If any participant did not complete their task the group was considered in "breakdown ".

The book ''[[Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training]]'' made comparisons between Lifespring and [[Erhard Seminars Training|Erhard Seminars Training (est)]].<ref name="evaluating" />

Lifespring has been characterized as a form of "[[Large Group Awareness Training]]" in several sources.<ref name="zeig">{{cite book  | last = Zeig  | first = Jeffrey K.  | title = The Evolution of Psychotherapy: The Third Conference  | publisher = Psychology Press  | year = 1997  | pages = [https://archive.org/details/evolutionofpsych00zeig/page/352 352, 357]  | isbn = 0-87630-813-2  | url = https://archive.org/details/evolutionofpsych00zeig/page/352  }}<br>"Training or T-groups, sensitivity training, and encounter groups spread and were followed by commercially sold large group awareness training programs, such as est, Lifespring and other programs."</ref><ref name="handbook">{{cite book
| last = Burlingame  | first = Gary M.| title = Handbook of Group Psychotherapy: An Empirical and Clinical Synthesis | publisher = John Wiley and Sons  | year = 1994  |pages = 528, 532, 535, 539, 549, 550, 555, 556, 581, 583|isbn = 0-471-55592-4}}</ref><ref name="SingerLalich1996">[[Michael Langone]], ''[[Cultic Studies Review|Cult Observer]]'', Volume 15, No. 1, 1998</ref><ref name="denniscoon">{{cite book  | last = Coon  | first = Dennis  | title = Psychology: A Journey  | publisher = Thomson Wadsworth  | year = 2004  | pages = [https://archive.org/details/psychologyjourne00coon/page/520 520, 528, 538]  | isbn = 0-534-63264-5  | url = https://archive.org/details/psychologyjourne00coon/page/520  }}<br>"Large-group awareness training refers to programs that claim to increase self-awareness and facilitate constructive personal change. Lifespring, Actualizations, the Forum, and similar commercial programs are examples.  Like the smaller groups that preceded them, large-group trainings combine psychological exercises, confrontation, new view-points, and group dynamics to promote personal change."</ref><ref name="tindale">{{cite book | last = Tindale | first = R. Scott|title = Group Processes: Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology | url = https://archive.org/details/blackwellhandboo00hogg | url-access = limited | publisher = Blackwell Publishing  | year = 2001  | pages = [https://archive.org/details/blackwellhandboo00hogg/page/n644 630]  | isbn =  1-4051-0653-0}}<br>"EST, FORUM and LIFESPRING are all examples of LGATs, for members seek to improve their overall level of satisfaction and interpersonal relations by carrying out such experiential exercises as role-playing, group singing and chanting, and guided group interaction."</ref><ref name="coonintroduction">{{cite book | last = Coon | first = Dennis | title = Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior | publisher = Thomson Wadsworth | year = 2003 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/introductiontops00coon_1/page/648 648, 649, 655] | isbn = 0-534-61227-X | url = https://archive.org/details/introductiontops00coon_1/page/648 }}</ref><ref name="evaluating">{{cite book | last = Fisher  | first = Jeffrey D.  |author2=Silver, Chinsky |author3=Goff, Klar  | title = [[Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training]]  | publisher = Springer-Verlag  | year = 1990  |  pages = 142  |   isbn = 0-387-97320-6}}<br>'''Page vii''' — "The research reported in this volume was awarded the American Psychological Association, Division 13, National Consultants to Management Award, August 13, 1989."</ref>