Large Group Awareness Training
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Large Group Awareness Training or LGAT is a mechanism for promoting awareness change and rapid, thorough commitment to a cause or idea. LGATs tend to be brief but intense sessions of a few hours or days in which, ideally, participants adopt the message of the 'training' promptly and enthusiastically.
Some see the classic LGAT as utilizing peer pressure and group dynamics in a high-pressure sales environment that promotes uncritical psycho-babbling togetherness and thus markets nebulous memes, and as fostering a propensity to recruit new participants into a participation-oriented pyramid scheme under the guise of providing useful training.
Others see LGAT as a group mind methodology that can be used to accelerate training in specific skills. Improvisational comedy is an example of a skill that is, typically, taught via group-awareness training.
Historically, LGAT origins trace back, at least in part, to the encounter group movement of the 1960s.
Alleged LGATs include:
- Context Associates
- est/Landmark Education
- Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
- Exegesis
- Garden Company
- Insight
- Lifespring
- ManKind Project
- Momentus
- Training Phoenix 2000
- PSI World
- Silva Method
- Sterling Institute of Relationships
- Whole Mind Learning (WML)
- Life Training / Kairos Foundation
A new group practicing Large Group Awareness Training in Los Angeles is called M.I.T.T. Typical of such scams, it sells very expensive seminars, and puts strong psychological pressure on its members to go out and recruit more members. In this way it is a cross between Scientology style cults and multi-level-markerting pyramid schemes. Follow this link for an interesting discussion of the techniques used and the history of MITT.
http://www.factnet.org/discus/messages/1/634.html?1116590009
See Also
External reference and links
- Fisher, J.D. et al. (1990). Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training: A Longitudinal Study of Psychosocial Effects. Springer-Verlag.
- LGAT - or Large Group Awareness Training (http://lgat.info)
- The Awareness Page (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eldon.braun/awareness/)
- http://caic.org.au/psyther/lgat/singer.htm
- A University of Leeds research summary (http://www.psyc.leeds.ac.uk/staff/OdellS/research.htm)Template:Psych-stub