Talk:Lifespring/Archive 1

Cleanup
I have started a cleanup of this article, and it now reads much more NPOV. It is also on my watchlist, and I will revert any vandalism that I see. Jeffpw 16:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Anti-lifespring stuff
wow, it's pretty interesting to go back in the history of this page and look at the stuff that's been removed. Here someone took out some critical links and someone removed a scholarly reference. It also appears that some valid categories were removed in that first round. I'm going to go ahead and return new age and personal dev, i think this group may qualify but I don't know that much about it so please share your thoughts! please feel free to let me know on my talk page! I'm not really sure about all those critical links. I don't really feel like going through them(at least right now) but at least one or two should probably be in the article to balance things out. I think we should also add link descriptions. TitaniumDreads 23:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S. I came to this page because I read this fascinating account of someones experience in an LGAT and I was looking for more information.http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eldon.braun/awareness/lgat1.html TitaniumDreads 23:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This page is nothing more than a puff piece sales brochure for Lifespring. How can Wiki allow such an obviously pro-biased piece to stand? I came here after reading the articles about est and the Forum, and they are much more balanced. I find it difficult to believe that Lifespring is any different from those two LGATs.Jeffpw 13:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Lifespring Scientific Research
I added a page that describes some of the research on Lifespring from a fairly pro-lifespring standpoint. I wrote to some of the authors mentioned there (Lieberman), and one of them sent me some draft PDFs of the research materials, but not the full citations (I think they are chapters from books, although he said they were drafts of the papers). I'd like to figure out how to cite them properly, but for now I added the "lifespring-scientific-research.com" external link... it accurately represents data from the papers I got from Dr. Lieberman, but emphasises the positive results to the point where I wouldn't describe it as an unbiased source. (looking at the PDFs, the citations are: "In; The Social Psychology of Self-Initiated and Externally Imposed Personal Change Eds. J.D. Fisher, J.M. Chinsley, Y. Klar and A. Nadler Springer-Verlag Press 1992 Perceptions of Changes in the Self: The Impact of Life Events and Large Group Awareness Training Morton A. Lieberman University of California, San Francisco" and "IMPACT OF LARGE GROUP AWARENESS TRAINING; EFFECTS OF LIFESPRING ON PARTICIPANTS' MENTAL HEALTH, SELF CONCEPT ROLE BEHAVIOR, AND PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR INTERPERSONAL ENVIRONMENT MORTON A. LIEBERMAN (UCSF) AND CONSTANCE STILLINGER (STANFORD)" but I can't find official published versions of either of these on amazon or in google scholar.

John Hanley also wrote a book (now out of print) -- I can't think of a reason not to add that now: Lifespring: Getting Yourself from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by John Hanley; Simon and Schuster 1989 ISBN: 0671725084

Dr. Lieberman graciously responded to a followup email while on vacation, but didn't completely resolve my inability to locate the published versions of his research... he has said he may be able to help further in the future. From his leads, however, it appears I will be likely to be able to find 2 of the 3 articles he descibed in volumes in the UCLA library (since I'm not willing to pay $400 for 3 books from Amazon, 2 of which will contain chapters I want for this...) One article is probably either in:

Self Change: Social Psychological and Clinical Perspectives by Yechiel Klar, Jeffrey D. Fisher, Jack M. Chinsky; Springer (April 1992) ISBN: 0387978119

or

Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training: A Longitudinal Study of Psychosocial Effects (Recent Research in Psychology) by Roxane Cohen Silver, Jack M. Chinsky, B. Goff, Y. Klar, Jeffrey D. Fisher (Editor); Springer (October 1990) ISBN: 0387973206

( which are listed with slightly different titles on J.D. Fisher's web site )

The other article is in:

Handbook of Group Psychotherapy: An Empirical and Clinical Synthesis by Addie Fuhriman (Editor), Gary M. Burlingame (Editor) Wiley; 1st edition (January 15, 1994) ISBN: 0471555924

He also referred to

GROWTH GROUPS IN THE 1980'S; MENTAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS by Morton A. Lieberman University of California, San Francisco

but I have no idea if this is a book, a UCSF tech report, or some other sort of document; I can't find it in any of th usual places (google scholar, google, amazon,...).

I intend to add these references once I've consulted the actual books.

I have also been in communication with Lee Ross, who was comissioned to run an independent study on Lifespring around 1985. He is mailing me a copy of that study so I can use it as a primary source. From what he's said, although it is not peer reviewed and was comissioned and published by Lifespring, he had complete autonomy in designing and conducting the study and reporting the results, and as he appears to be a very reputable expert in the field. As far as I can tell without having the papers in hand, both the and  are not misrepresentative at all, although they are clearly not an unbiased summary of the data, as I assume the actual report will be.

For what it's worth, I've gone through the Accelerate Trainings variant on this with a generally positive experience. I'm not positive how to address that without editorializing. In the process of deciding whether to do the trainings, I did a good deal of research on the history of Lifespring, and found that there is very little available in terms of unbiased information; almost everyone is either involved in advocacy or opposition, and almost no one cites real references. The "Awareness Page" mentioned above is the most neutral reference I found, although it links to some very non-neutral pages.

It might be worth adding that both Lifespring and est were created by people who had been involved with a company called "Mind Dynamics," so while they're not the same lineage, they're cousins, of a sort.

Incidentally, I was unsure if it is appropriate to link to the web pages of the organizations mentioned using the lifespring trainings-- Accelerate has one at [accleratetrainings.com], for example, which does include some "scientfic research" but not specific references to peer-reviewed journal papers, as well as (of course) the commercial info for Accelerate. I have never been involved with editing a page this "controversial" before, so I figured I'd put this info in "talk" first, except for a minor spelling edit and adding the "lifespring scientific research" page.

For what it's worth, I thought the external links removed on 4/25/06 were a pretty fair set of pro- and con- references on the web, although they are all of questionable validity given the Verifiability standards... it doesn't seem accurate to leave the isaccorp link while removing those. Doing a google search "site:isaccorp.org lifespring" I find that they largely site the worst reports about Lifespring on the web, and, at says "Leading cult experts including FactNet and Rick Ross have classified Lifespring as a cult." (note: Rick Ross has an entry). Elsewhere isac just says unattributed "Lifespring has been classified as a cult" in context that appears to be criticising some specific person who used to be a Lifespring trainer. I am not at all sure that any of these groups meet the standards for reliability in Verifiability, but that's true of most discussions of Lifespring I've found on the web. I suppose the magazine articles cited by these sites at least ostensibly have some editorial standards, so they may be better references for the anti-Lifespring stance from Wikipedia standards.

It's going to take a lot of work to keep this meeting the Wikipedia standards of NPOV, Verifiability, and the "what's a valid primary source" aspect of the No Original Research policies.

I'm going to try to find original "Primary Source" references for everything I can, pro and con, but this is so polarizing a topic, it's pretty hard for a controversial-wikipedia-newbie like me... I'll have to read up on the policies much more than my past wikipedia contributions...

Montyy0 03:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Claims not verified
Very few claims in this article, pro or con, are verified with credible sources. Please add references where possible or remove unsubstantiated claims. Rfrisbietalk 19:30, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

removing contested paragraph
Lori Todd, of the Legacy Center in North Carolina, wrote me an e-mail in which she contests the paragraph about the alleged spin-offs from Lifespring. Since the paragraph is unsourced, I'm removing it per Wikipedia policy that any contested unsourced statement must be removed. Todd also contests the reliability of rickross.net and factnet.org as sources. I'm not sure if our use of factnet.org (linked from the text of the article) counts as a source or not, but rickross.net is definitely used as a source. I don't have time right now to decide for myself whether or not these are reliable sources, but I thought I'd introduce Lori Todd's position for discussion. --Allen 03:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC) I will be working on getting sources for this section today, and I ask you not to remove it until I have had the chance to do it. Jeffpw 07:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * From Wiki Verifiability: Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider moving it to the talk page. Alternatively, you may tag the sentence by adding the template, or tag the article by adding  or . You can also make unsourced sentences invisible in the article by adding  after it, until reliable sources have been provided. Leave a note on the talk page or edit summary explaining what you have done.


 * It's a moot point now, since I found a reliable source for that paragraph, and even more names of Lifespring spinoffs to add from said source. I guess Lori should have quit while she was ahead, and not tried to edit by proxy. Jeffpw 08:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Forgot to add: The Rick Ross site is indeed used as a source, but if you click to the link, it takes you to a Redbook Magazine article. Ross is only hosting the article. Jeffpw 08:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You're right, Jeff; I should have at least quoted the section here on the talk page. As for editing by proxy, I don't really know what to think about Lori Todd writing me privately rather than posting here herself.  As far as I know, though, e-mailing an editor with concerns is considered a legitimate way to interact with Wikipedia, as long as everything is done openly.  At any rate, it looks like User:Freely has begun using edit summaries, which I feel is a positive step.  Freely has, as of now, deleted the paragraph again.  It looks like a few of the sources given for it might be reliable, and once I get a chance to convince myself of this I'll restore the paragraph myself (though I expect someone else will beat me to it).  That said, I don't think it's fair to call Freely's edits (or those of the anon IP who is probably Freely) "vandalism".  Freely has used edit summaries to try to explain his or her edits, and even though the explanations are a bit off-base (e.g. they don't address the sources), I don't think they meet the standard of WP:VAND.


 * (By the way, I realize that User:Freely may well be Lori Todd, but I'm trying to treat the two as separate just in case. I haven't actually asked Todd if she's also User:Freely.)  --Allen 23:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Since one of the sources for the paragraph comes from a Lifespring alumni page, I don't see how it can be contested at all. That's why I consider it vandalism. It is reverted, and I am goign to ask for page protection if it happens again today. Jeffpw 05:41, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. If you're talking about the Digital Gothic link, it only mentions a few of the programs.  If you're talking about the Everybody Goes link, it looks like it does mention all the programs, but it doesn't specifically say they're incarnations of Lifespring.  Either way, a reference does not meet WP:RS simply by being pro-Lifespring or written by Lifespring alumni.  Even if the references were ironclad, though, I still don't think Freely's deletions should be considered vandalism.  From WP:VAND: "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia."  --Allen 13:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I am now off to see about blocking Freeley, since he has 4 warnings about this on his talk page now. If necessary, I am prepared to take this to mediation or arbitrationJeffpw 15:38, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * We'll just have to agree to disagree, Allen. Reference #15 includes all the groups, and comes from what seems (to me, anyway) a highly neitral source. #16 comes from a Lifespring alumni page, and recommends same groups to Lifespring Alumni. I can't speak for the other references, since Smeeglova (sp?) included them. Perhaps he'll weigh in on this page later--something I wish Freeley and the anon IP would also do. As for the WP:VAND quote, I simply say I think the edits are explicitly bad faith. As I already said, the paragraph is referenced. They have not provided any documentation to refute it. If Wiki was changed to suit the whim of every anon who claimed that sourced information was inaccurate without showing evidence, there would be even more anarchy than we see now.
 * I also find it somewhat ironic that this "controversial" paragraph was added in the Revision as of 23:05, 9 March 2006, when it was a completely POV sales pitch for Lifespring, including actual lies about the organization. it seems like now that the article is actually neutral, and stating facts that Lifespring finds uncomfortable to have included in the article, they want to distance themselves from the article. Jeffpw 17:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

E3, a successor?
Someone once tried to harangue me to take a program called E3 (I refused). Searching it on line, I got the impression that it was a successor to Lifespring. Does anybody know if that's right?

That E3 is apparently gone now, and the stuff I found on line at the time isn't there anymore. Unfortunately, E3 is apparently also the name of some line of high-tech games, or something like that, so if you search E3, you get bombarded with hits about that.

140.147.160.78 15:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)Stephen Kosciesza


 * Sure looks that way: Jeffpw 16:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Biased
This page now seems to be very biased against Lifespring.

Many of the claims on the page are untrue and Jeffpw seems to have taken the editor's lead here.

Jeff, you should attempt to verify some of the claims made on the article and remove the slanted POV in the article.

Mitch
 * Every claim in the article is sourced. If you think the article is one-sided, you are more than welcome to add content, providing it is also sourced. It is everyone's right to edit here; it is everyone's responsibility to have their edits be verifiable. Jeffpw 20:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually the opening statement is full of POV. You cannot declare that Lifespring IS LGAT. You can only claim 'abc' called them LGAT. LGAT has no formal definition and thus cannot be applied without defining the context of the application. Lsi john 22:22, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I am new to this, but seems like User:Smee can decide what gets to be on this page and no one else. User:Smee definitely has abias against Lifespring. From reading the discusions Factnet is a questionable source along with Rick Ross. As for the survey, how can a survey of 53 people be used as evidence that Lifespring is a cult. In fact the survey groups "Scientology, est/Forum, Lifespring" as one entity. Clearly Scientology and est/Forum and Lifespring are in different genres. Scientology is a religious organizaton with a self-help philosophy, as the Wikipedia articile states. While est/Forum and Lifespring are either a company that offers training and development programs or a "New Age/human potential training LGAT" as the Wikipedia articiles state. Why the definitions are different even though they are two branches from the same tree is a question for later. The point is est/Forum and Lifespring can't be grouped with Scientology for survey pruposes and be consider valid. Both should be removed. --Longncsu 20:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Longncsu your observations are shared by many other contributors, though your choice of words to express those observations may be harsher than would be used by others. Lsi john 22:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)