Editing Large-group awareness training (section)

==LGATs and the anti-cult movement==

After commissioning a report in 1983 by the [[APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control]] (DIMPAC) chaired by [[anti-cult movement| anti-cult]] psychologist [[Margaret Singer]], the American Psychological Association (APA) subsequently rejected<ref name="apamemo">[http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/cultsect/mdtaskforce/bserp_loomis.htm American Psychological Association Memorandum of 11 May 1987] {{webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060901094743/http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/cultsect/mdtaskforce/bserp_loomis.htm |date=2006-09-01}} - "BSERP thanks the Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control for Its service but Is unable to accept the report of the Task Force. In general, the report lacks the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA Imprimatur."</ref> and strongly criticised <ref name="apabrief">[http://www.cesnur.org/testi/molko_brief.htm CESNUR – APA Brief in the Molko Case]</ref> the 1986 DIMPAC report, which included large group awareness trainings as one example of what it called "[[coercive persuasion]]".{{cn|date=September 2023}} In 1997 the APA characterized Singer's hypotheses as "uninformed speculations based on skewed data".<ref name="apabrief" />{{dead link|date=September 2023}} It stated in 1987 that the report generally lacked "the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur."<ref name="apamemo" /> The APA also stated that "the specific methods by which Drs. Singer and Benson have arrived at their conclusions have also been rejected by all serious scholars in the field."<ref name="apabrief" />{{dead link|date=September 2023}}
Singer sued the APA, and lost on June 17, 1994.<ref name="singersuit">[http://www.cesnur.org/testi/singer.htm Decision Against Margaret Singer (CESNUR)<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
Despite the APA rejection of her task-force's report, Singer remained in good standing among psychology researchers.<ref>Blim, Andrew: 'Cult Experts Sue Lawyers, Others" in ''[[National Law Journal]]'', August 31, 1992, Vol 33, Issue 19: "Berkeley professors Margaret Singer and Richard Ofshe ... are viewed by even the lawyer-defendants as reputable scholars".</ref> Singer reworked much of the DIMPAC report material into the book ''[[Cults in Our Midst]]'' (1995, second edition: 2003), which she co-authored with [[Janja Lalich]].

Singer and Lalich state that "large group awareness trainings" tend to last at least four days and usually five.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Singer
 |first1               = Margaret Thaler
 |author-link1         = Margaret Singer
 |date                 = 11 April 2003
 |orig-date            = 1995
 |chapter              = Intruding into the Workplace
 |title                = Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=OourEAAAQBAJ
 |edition              = revised
 |publication-place    = San Francisco
 |publisher            = John Wiley & Sons
 |page                 = 192
 |isbn                 = 9780787967413
 |access-date          = 20 September 2023
 |quote                = LGAT programs tend to last at least four days and usually five.
}} 
</ref>
Their book mentions Erhard Seminars Training ("est") and similar undertakings, such as the [[Landmark Forum]], Lifespring, Actualizations, [[Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness |MSIA]]/Insight and [[PSI Seminars]].

In ''Cults in our Midst'', Singer differentiated between the usage of the terms ''cult'' and ''Large Group Awareness Training'',<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Singer
 |first1               = Margaret Thaler
 |author-link1         = Margaret Singer
 |date                 = 11 April 2003
 |orig-date            = 1995
 |chapter              = Defining Cults
 |title                = Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=OourEAAAQBAJ
 |edition              = revised
 |publication-place    = San Francisco
 |publisher            = John Wiley & Sons
 |page                 = 4
 |isbn                 = 9780787967413
 |access-date          = 20 September 2023
 |quote                = The first [category] is made up of the cults and cultlike groups who expose their recruits and members to organized psychological and social persuasion processes designed to produce attitudinal changes and to establish remarkable degrees of control by the group over these recruits' and members' lives. These cults deceive, manipulate, and exploit their members and hope to keep them for as long as possible. The second category consists of the commercially sold large group awareness training programs and other 'self-improvement,' psychology-based or miscellaneaous organizations that use similar intense coordinated persuasion processes but ordinarily do not intend to keep their customers for long periods of membership. They prefer that adherents buy more courses and products and bring in more customers, staying around for perhaps a year or two.
}} 
</ref><ref name="ourmidst">{{Cite book|title= Cults in our Midst|last= Singer|first= Margaret|author-link= Margaret Singer|isbn= 0-7879-0266-7|year= 1996|publisher=[[Jossey-Bass]]|chapter=Intruding into the Workplace|chapter-url= http://caic.org.au/psyther/lgat/singer.htm|title-link=Cults in our Midst}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=September 2010}} while pointing out some commonalities.<ref>{{Cite book|last= Singer |first= Margaret Thaler |author-link= Margaret Singer |others= with [[Janja Lalich]] ; foreword by [[Robert Jay Lifton]] |title= Cults in our midst |series= Jossey-Bass social and behavioral science series |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Z7cQAQAAIAAJ |access-date= May 26, 2010 |year= 1995 |publisher= Jossey-Bass Publishers |location=San Francisco |isbn=0-7879-0051-6 |pages=381}}</ref><ref>
{{Cite book
|last= Singer
|first= Margaret Thaler
|author-link= Margaret Singer
|others= with [[Janja Lalich]]; foreword by [[Robert Jay Lifton]]
|title= Cults in our midst
|series= Jossey-Bass social and behavioral science series
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Z7cQAQAAIAAJ
|access-date=May 26, 2010
|year= 1995
|publisher= Jossey-Bass Publishers
|location= San Francisco
|isbn= 0-7879-0051-6
|page= 85
|quote= ... cultic groups use large group awareness training (LGAT) techniques ...
}}
</ref>
Elsewhere she groups the two phenomena together, in that they both use a shared set of thought-reform techniques.<ref>
{{Cite book
 | last = Singer | first = Margaret Thaler | author-link = Margaret Singer
 | contribution = The Process of Brainwashing, Psychological Coercion, and Thought Reform
 | editor-last = Dawson | editor-first = Lorne L. | editor-link = Lorne L. Dawson
 | title = Cults and new religious movements: a reader
 | edition = 2nd
 | series = Blackwell readings in religion
 | publisher = Wiley-Blackwell
 | volume = 2
 | pages = 149–150
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=nHMQrhbpEz0C
 | isbn = 978-1-4051-0181-3
 | access-date = May 26, 2010
 | quote = There is ... an important distinction ... between the version of thought reform prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s and the version used by a number of contemporary groups, including cults, large group awareness training programs, and assorted other groups. These latter-day efforts have built upon the age-old influence techniques to perfect amazingly successful programs of persuasion and change. What's new – and crucial – is that these programs change attitudes by attacking essential aspects of a person's sense of self, unlike the earlier brainwashing programs that primarily confronted a person's political beliefs.
 | year = 2003
 }}
</ref><ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Singer
 |first1               = Margaret Thaler
 |author-link1         = Margaret Singer
 |date                 = 11 April 2003
 |orig-date            = 1995
 |chapter              = Defining Cults
 |title                = Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=OourEAAAQBAJ
 |edition              = revised
 |publication-place    = San Francisco
 |publisher            = John Wiley & Sons
 |page                 = 4
 |isbn                 = 9780787967413
 |access-date          = 20 September 2023
 |quote                = Thus groups in both categories use thought-reform processes.
}} 
</ref>