In this episode, Dr. Doyle and Jean return to the underlying discussion of the self-help industry and the flaws within it that drive SEEK Safely’s mission. It was after Kirby Brown’s death at the 2009 Spiritual Warrior retreat that the Brown family discovered some of the rot at the core of this multi-billion dollar industry. This drove the family to found SEEK Safely, recognizing that the impulse to seek is not the issue—it’s the unethical, unregulated self-help providers that are the issue and the source of potential harm. Empowering and protecting seekers has always been, and remains, SEEK’s ultimate goal.

Show Notes: 

To Read: 

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Tragedy in Sedona by Connie Joy

Cult Education Institute, website of Rick Alan Ross 

Stanley Milgram Authority experiments

To Watch: 

School House Rock: How a Bill Becomes a Law

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website

Follow SEEK on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Follow Dr. Glenn on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Read the memoir “This Sweet Life: how we lived after Kirby died” by Jean and her mom, Ginny Brown

Donate to support SEEK’s mission

To Contact SEEK email [email protected]

Previously on the Podcast, Anne Peterson introduced her new memoir, "Is This A Cult?" about her many years of involvement with Landmark. Anne joins the podcast again to discuss the response to her memoir, including a flood of messages from other ex-Landmarkians saying "same here!" Anne also shares what she's learned since her book launch that has given her even more clarity about her own experience and what needs to happen going forward to create a more ethical self-help industry.

SEEK is excited to share that Anne is launching the Safe Practitioners Workshop,  an 8-session program for self-help practitioners and consumers, designed around the tenets of the SEEK Safely Promise. Sign up for one or all sessions here. The Workshop starts June 5th. Listen for more on what Anne sees as the SEEK Safely Movement.

A couple of corrections/clarifications to things said in the episode:
- We slightly misspoke on the specifics of the financial arrangements around the sale of WEA (Werner Erhard & Associates) to Landmark, and understated the amount.  Here is the legal case in which the specific of the deal were reported: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/16/410/491724/
- We conflated The Goddard School with Bill Gothard IBLP religious schools discussed in the doc-series Shinny Happy People. The Goddard School is a private pre-school company with an excellent reputation and has no affiliation to the Gothard schools.

Mentioned on the Episode:
To Read:
"Is This a Cult: Confronting the Line between Transformation and Exploitation"

To Listen:
Previous Episode with Anne about her Memoir
Anne on A Little Bit Culty

To Watch:
The Program

To Learn:
ilumn8.life
The SEEK Safely Promise

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website
Follow SEEK on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Follow Dr. Glenn on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Read the memoir “This Sweet Life: how we lived after Kirby died” by Jean and her mom, Ginny Brown
Donate to support SEEK’s mission
To Contact SEEK email [email protected]

Here is Part 2 with Brit Barkholtz.
Brit Barkholtz is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in trauma and eating disorders, active in the Twitter therapist community as The Caffeinated Therapist. Brit shares her take on MLMs, self-help exploiting trauma, “culty” stuff, and Taylor Swift as a tool of trauma recovery.

This episode is Part 1 of 2.

To Read:
Brit’s thoughts on The Tortured Poet’s Department on HuffPo
PESI

To Listen To:
SEEK Podcast Episode on MLMs
SEEK Pod Episode on Trauma
Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poet’s Department

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website
Follow SEEK on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Follow Dr. Glenn on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Read the memoir “This Sweet Life: how we lived after Kirby died” by Jean and her mom, Ginny Brown
Donate to support SEEK’s mission
To Contact SEEK email [email protected]

Brit Barkholtz is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in trauma and eating disorders, active in the Twitter therapist community as The Caffeinated Therapist. Brit shares her take on MLMs, self-help exploiting trauma, “culty” stuff, and Taylor Swift as a tool of trauma recovery.

This episode is Part 1 of 2.

To Read:
Brit’s thoughts on The Tortured Poet’s Department on HuffPo
PESI

To Listen To:
SEEK Podcast Episode on MLMs
SEEK Pod Episode on Trauma
Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poet’s Department

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website
Follow SEEK on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Follow Dr. Glenn on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Read the memoir “This Sweet Life: how we lived after Kirby died” by Jean and her mom, Ginny Brown
Donate to support SEEK’s mission
To Contact SEEK email [email protected]

Bypassing is, essentially, avoidance. It's something we all do from time to time as a response to something unpleasant in our lives. But sometimes bypassing can cause us to go too far, putting off challenge for later that we'd be better off dealing with now. And sometimes in the self-help world, bypassing is either encouraged or deeply embedded in the thought system being pushed.

Dr. Glenn highlights how spiritual bypassing, emotional bypassing, and reality bypassing are all especially dangerous for trauma survivors. Have a listen so you can be prepared to recognize bypassing and know whether or not it's a potential red flag situation.

On another note, special thank you to everyone who donated to Dr. Glenn's birthday fundraiser to benefit SEEK! We are always so grateful for the support!

To Read:
“The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck
“Is This a Cult” by Anne L. Peterson https://isthisacultbook.com
About EMDR Therapy
About Somatic Therapy
“Waking the Tiger” by Peter Levine

To Listen To:
SEEK Safely Podcast Interview with Anne Peterson Part 1, Part 2
The Deep End by Jennings Brown

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website
Follow SEEK on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Follow Dr. Glenn on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Read the memoir “This Sweet Life: how we lived after Kirby died” by Jean and her mom, Ginny Brown
Donate to support SEEK’s mission
To Contact SEEK email [email protected]

Continuing our conversation with Anne Peterson, who has decades of involvement with Landmark, one of the original large-group awareness training (LGAT) companies, including experience producing a breakthrough leadership program developed for Landmark's founder, Werner Erhard. She tells her story in her memoir, “Is This A Cult: Confronting the Line Between Transformation and Exploitation.” This episode is Part 2 of 2. Listen to Part 1 if you haven’t already!

To Read:
https://isthisacultbook.com
iLumn8.life, Anne’s safer self-help platform
Rick Alan Ross
“Outrageous Betrayal” by Steven Pressman
The SEEK Safely Promise
“This Sweet Life” by Ginny and Jean Brown
About LGATs

To Watch:
I Am Not Your Guru

To Listen:
Anne’s First Interview on the SEEK Safely Podcast

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website

Anne Peterson has decades of involvement with Landmark, one of the original large-group awareness training (LGAT) companies, including experience producing a breakthrough leadership program developed for Landmark's founder, Werner Erhard. Millions (3.5 million, according to Landmark's press packet) have passed through its trademark Landmark  Forum training, many of them having positive experiences. But after her many years of working with Landmark as a facilitator and program producer, Anne began to see some of the cracks under the surface, particularly with its very guru-y founder, Werner Erhard (aka Jack Rosenberg). Anne is now telling her story–and in the process, raising many red flags for other seekers of personal growth–in her memoir, “Is This A Cult: Confronting the Line Between Transformation and Exploitation.” This episode is Part 1 of 2.

To Read:
https://isthisacultbook.com
Rick Alan Ross
“Outrageous Betrayal” by Steven Pressman
“The Program” by Toni Natale
The SEEK Safely Promise
“This Sweet Life” by Ginny and Jean Brown
About LGATs

To Watch:
I Am Not Your Guru

To Listen:
Anne’s First Interview on the SEEK Safely Podcast
Guru Podcast

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website

This episode is a throw-back to our annual fundraiser, Kirby Jam, in October 2023.  We had live-streamed on a different topic each night, and on this night, Monday, October 16th, we discussed our effort to pass self-help consumer protection legislation. Dr. Glenn, Jean, and SEEK Founder Ginny Brown talk about why we feel the legislation is necessary, what our effort has looked like, and the bill that we are hoping will make it to the floor in the New York State Legislature in 2024. (And please give us a bit of grace for extraneous noises, etc, as what you are hearing was live-recorded!)

To Read:
About Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos
About SEEK’s Consumer Protection Bill

To Listen To:
SEEK’s Kirby Jam first night broadcast
S2E2 Glenn and Jean Spoil 'The Secret' on the SEEK Safely Podcast

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website
Follow SEEK on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Follow Dr. Glenn on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Read the memoir “This Sweet Life: how we lived after Kirby died” by Jean and her mom, Ginny Brown
Donate to support SEEK’s mission
To Contact SEEK email [email protected]

Our resident self-help geeks, Dr. Doyle and Dr. Christine Whelan, along with Jean, talk about self-help books that aren’t self-help books—that is, books that were not written to be self-help books but have been adopted into self-help culture, or society at large, as self-helpy how-to life manuals. Some are about other aspects of mental health and wellness, some are memoir or autobiography, some are straight-up fiction, but somehow they either took on a self-help life of their own, or have been readily adopted by the self-help industry, or launched the author into the self-helpisphere. 

The rest of the notes are just links. 

So. Many. Links.

To Read: 

The Bible by God(?)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Purpose by Richard J. Leider
Self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden
The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Brandino
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Art of the Deal by Tony Schwartz and Donald Trump
I’m Ok; You’re Ok by Thomas Harris
The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Get the links to the rest of the books we mention on our website...

Did you set a New Year’s resolution that is already floundering? Have you been inundated by self-help/wellness/woo-woo New Yearsy stuff, too? Or maybe peri-menopause supplements… The self-help industry loves a New Year’s resolution, so Jean and Glenn talk all about resolutions–their own takes and advice for resolutions, red flags to watch for in scammy self-help world, and some thoughts on how to approach this interesting, sometimes inspiring, sometimes overwhelming, time of year! 

Also Mentioned in this Episode -

To Read: 

Jean’s Blog www.theselfstyledlife.com

Glenn’s Blog www.useyourdamnskills.com

To Listen To:

Glenn on the GutWizdom podcast

To Help you Move Your Body: 

Mommastrong (the fitness program Jean mentions)

Learn more about SEEK Safely on our website

Follow SEEK on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Follow Dr. Glenn on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

Read the memoir “This Sweet Life: how we lived after Kirby died” by Jean and her mom, Ginny Brown

Also, please let us know where the burr goes!