The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

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joe sz
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The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by joe sz »

Expanding on The Transtheoretical Model regarding Exit Counseling and Cultic Studies
( :sad: the footnotes did not come linked or numbered below, but I will notify this thread when I post this later on my website)
Joseph Szimhart, 2011


Abstract
People form groups of various kinds from planned or engineered to spontaneous and accidental; from ephemeral to permanent. Groups can range from healthy to unhealthy or benign to dangerous in behavior and purpose. Individuals within groups based on special devotional features and rituals directed toward a person, idea or object are often called cult members. Devotional behavior coupled with ritual often produces habit-forming activity. Habits, good or bad (as social contagion), can be hard to change. In an earlier paper (ICSA Today:
Vol 1), I compared the exit or defection process of cult members to a ‘six-stage’ model of change, a.k.a. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) as presented by Prochaska JO, Norcross JC, DiClemente CC. in Changing for Good: The revolutionary program that explains the six stages of change and teaches you how to free yourself from bad habits (New York: W. Morrow; 1994). "Changing for Good" applies to all bad habits although the model’s proponents most often apply it to addictions.

This paper will expand on the application of The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) to exit counseling while noting criticisms of the model as well as rejoinders to criticism.

The paper is to be presented in conjunction with AIS colleagues in Spain (Atenció i Investigació de Socioaddiccions) who find parallels in their “addictions” approach to cultic behavior.



The Transtheoretical Model in brief

“The transtheoretical model in health psychology assesses an individual’s readiness to act on a new healthier behavior, and provides strategies, or processes of change to guide the individual through the stages of change to action and maintenance.”
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical_model>

In an earlier paper I suggested that an exit counselor as interventionist most often confronts a “cult” member or someone in an allegedly abusive relationship when that member (client) is in a pre-contemplation or quasi-contemplation stage of change. In other words, the client resists critical discussion about a personal affiliation to a controversial group, motivational idea or charismatic relationship through inflexible rationalization, circular argument or complete avoidance. The committed or cult-aligned client resists discussion to the point of avoiding contact with family and friends deemed as critics and outsiders. In extreme cases, the loyal cult member may plot to dispense with the existence of targeted outsiders or infidels.

The pre-contemplation stage as defined by The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behavior change proposed in the popular book, Changing for Good goes as follows: People at this stage do not intend to change and may be unaware of the reasons or need for change. Precontemplators typically underestimate the Pros of changing and overestimate the Cons. There are six stages in TTM:

The stages of change are:
 Precontemplation (Not yet acknowledging that there is a problem behavior that needs to be changed)
 Contemplation (Acknowledging that there is a problem but not yet ready or sure of wanting to make a change)
 Preparation/Determination (Getting ready to change)
 Action/Willpower (Changing behavior)
 Maintenance (Maintaining the behavior change)
 Relapse (Returning to older behaviors and abandoning the new changes)
*Another aspect of Stage 6 can be Termination (“individuals have zero temptation and 100% self-efficacy... they are sure they will not return to their old unhealthy habit as a way of coping.” In other words, the individual has achieved “transcendence,” meaning the unhealthy habit no longer appears to have power over the person who has begun to flourish beyond the habit or affiliation.


TTM and Exit Counseling

My interest in the book began in 2001 when a Muslim psychiatrist from Pakistan I was working with in a mental hospital recommended it. He readily recognized parallels in TTM to recovery from harmful cults that we were discussing at the time.

During a “cult” intervention, if fruitful, the interactions and discussions (on average over several days) produce shifts and expansion in a client’s perspectives and group orientation from precontemplation to contemplation, preparation and action. A successful intervention invites contemplation while continuing to provide evidence to instill determination and encourage willpower to act—to break with harmful cultic devotion. Throughout the intervention process, the exit counselor provides enough resources and information to sustain the maintenance stage should the client choose to move on from cult affiliation. In all my years of cult intervention or exit counseling I found it miraculous at times that after ten to twenty hours or more of frustrating dialog, suddenly something "snaps" or emerges, and I watch a change occur, a reversal from defensiveness to contemplation, and then to real questioning that often but delightfully puts me back on my heels. I observe the effects of lock-step neuropathways lose their power and collapse as new rivers or streams of thought break free from the neuro-reservoir of a dammed up, constricted self. The client seems to no longer “fit” in the straightjacket belief patterns and behaviors of a cultic system.

I recall this same experience in my self when I struggled over a year (1979-80) to recognize what the New Age cult I was part of was really about. As I did, most cult members who emerge do it on their own in fits and starts, but it is amazing to watch this process occur in compressed time as a “coach.” Whether we call this bounded state of mind or psychological constriction an addiction, a bad habit or a social contagion, TTM readily applies when we seek to change the bounded state and end or moderate the bad habit.

Therapists, who do not intervene but are approached by ex-members, tend to encounter clients in various stages of recovery from cultic harm. In most therapy cases, the client has emerged from a contemplative stage and entered fully in the determination, action or maintenance stages with attendant struggles for recovery. Some may have slipped back into contemplation, especially if the exit was auto-determined without outside intervention. In the latter cases the therapist must determine what unresolved issues continue to haunt the client. The client may have a recurring phobia induced by cult participation and teaching. For example, the client continues to make magical connections to coincidences and believes that occult powers or demons are acting. These connections may come from losing a job or inability to land a job, recurring nightmares, odd illnesses, getting cult-related messages from movies or television—all of which can unnerve an anxious client enough to cause doubt about breaking with the group. The phobia or unnerving coincidence may even trigger desires to return to some part of group ritual or mindset.

This attraction to return to cult life is like an addiction or habit as TTM indicates. The memory function among the brain’s neuronets offer solutions to the anxiety. The former member remembers what worked to sooth or energize in the group activity. In the case of an addict, this attraction may be for “just one shot of whiskey” or hit of cannabis to “recall” immediate and temporal relief. The former cult member might return to an old mantra, revisit a familiar passage in a cult leader’s book, or have an urge to take another workshop. This return to habit can open up memories of a social network with warm feelings for like-minded folk in the group. It is like a temptation to sleep with an old lover while repressing memories of harm from the relationship.

The brain function contains many “rival ideas” that make up human personality and the decision process. (The “rivals” in the brain have been proposed and discussed by neuroscientist David Eagleman in his book Incognito. ) A hit of marijuana or shot of whiskey can disinhibit a more sober self—loosen one up so to speak—to free up a repressed, daring or reckless rival self. Reengaging cult activity, literature or ritual, even briefly or inadvertently, can flood an ex-member’s emotional self thus causing conflict and an urge to realign. Neurologically speaking, the disinhibited aspect of the brain may seek its illicit pleasure, release its unjustified anger, reengage memories of an old lover, or agree to sign a questionable contract. This is why we serve good wine and fine cheese at art openings to help with sales! Our protection from harmful choice occurs in discursive, “stop and think” mechanisms in the pre-frontal cortex as thoroughly discussed by neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor in Brainwashing: The science of thought control.

The dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex is a key to grasping what happens when someone is brainwashed. “The original studies of Fuster and of Goldman-Rakic emphasized the fundamental ability of the prefrontal cortex to represent information not currently in the environment, and the central role of this function in creating the “mental sketch pad”. Goldman-Rakic spoke of how this representational knowledge was used to intelligently guide thought, action and emotion, including the inhibition of inappropriate thoughts, distractions, actions and feelings.”

Cult activity is notorious for offering techniques of transcendence and ecstacy as a way to surpass what is often pejoratively called the “monkey mind” or the “lower self.” These techniques can energize parts of the brain that release endorphins or stimulate the fright-flight reaction. In either case a cult member hears the admonition to “go-within” through meditation or to “listen to God” through prayer. In translation this often means to bypass the prefrontal cortex function (monkey mind) in favor of more emotional and primal, “holistic” reactions. It is this resonant reaction that many cult members interpret as a mystical “higher self” or the “Holy Spirit” guiding them. What cult members do not grasp is how dependent this primitive function of brain activity is on social forces in the environment and not necessarily on an independent “self” within. I.M. Lewis in his study of Ecstatic Religion states:

“…every transcendental encounter is unique and can be apprehended only by direct, personal experience. At an individual level this of course is always true. But it does not alter the fact that mystical experience, like any other experience, is grounded in and must relate to the social environment in which it is achieved. It thus inevitably bears the stamp of the culture and society in which it arises.”

Kathleen Taylor puts it this way: “Often the degree to which freedom is trumpeted reflects the degree to which it is actually being restricted.”

My point here is that this simpler, more primal or subcortical aspect of brain function often rules over or undermines the executive function of the prefrontal cortex as a result of cult induced phobias and ecstacies. In matters of faith or cult loyalty, doubt and skepticim are enemies, dark forces or devils whereas good fortune comes from faith in the leader and right application of rituals.

I worked as a primary therapist for a year with recovering addicts at a half-way house. We often discussed how drugs affect the brain to undermine the finer aspects of personality and decision processes. An addict does not “stop and think” beyond strategizing how to feed and conceal his habit. Though there is a known harm, urges to quit are readily undermined by stronger, simpler brain functions that Taylor calls “cogwebs” that guide belief and habit. In cults, the social reinforcement within the bounded system strengthens neural pathways that bypass stop and think mechanisms or the normally busy “monkey” that bounces around seeking a sound solution. This simpler neural pathway constitutes a habit pattern. Strong beliefs are simpler neural pathways—usually more abstract and less accurate than weakly held convictions that need to be thought out. Taylor writes, “Stronger, simpler, more abstract cogwebs [congitive neural networks] tend to have a much greater impact on behaviour (sic).” Obsessive behavior is the evidence of any habit.

In cults, a behavior known to harm will not stop the true believer, to use a phrase coined by Eric Hoffer in his popular 1951 book: “...in order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.” Hoffer is not referring to scientific certainty in the sense that we know the application and result of an algorithm. We have to be absolutely certain or have a strong belief in why we act if we know our actions will harm someone. This form of “simpler” behavior based on belief encompasses a range of activity. It ranges from cult members who cut off their parents, children and close friends, or end a promising career, to deployable agents who strap on explosive devices that detonate in a crowded marketplace.

Indeed, the mind of the assassin has been studied often in relation to brainwashing theory. In his exhaustive investigative report on the U.S. government’s attempts to study brainwashing, John Marks concludes that no drug, coercive bullying or hypnotic technique proved nearly as effective as “religious conversion” to create a trustworthy, deployable agent or soldier. Terry McDermott’s Perfect Soldiers (2005) is another study of the assassin mentality within a radical faith in a cause. McDermott spent years analyzing and exploring the lives and characters of the 9/11 hijackers. “McDermott's detailed biographies of the hijackers go far beyond the characterizations of the 9/11 report, and he is skeptical of accounts that portray them as deeply disturbed: all came from intact families, most were middle-class, few were deeply religious, none were abused or estranged. Recruited for the hijackings and informed they would die, they thought it over and agreed.” It is important to note that although the hijackers were not particularly “religious” Muslims, they nevertheless converted to a much narrower cause, to stop the hated American infidel, a cause that they came to believe in absolutely.


So this much, I think, should be clear: Strong beliefs, once accepted or internalized, are hard to change even if we want to change them and have good reason to change. Strongly held beliefs can also be dangerous for both those holding the belief and those on the outside harmed by behaviors related to the belief. Beliefs adhered to on a day to day basis become less flexible and result in ritualistic or habitual behaviors. Application of the TTM for habit change appears to be a step forward in the treatment of addictions and other bothersome behaviors, especially when compared to the well-worn, now controversial “12 Step” Alcoholics Anonymous model that TTM appears to be replacing in most treatment facilities. TTM has not been applied and studied in a formal sense to cult recovery or intervention strategies save out of incidental curiosity on my part to my knowledge. Despite the apparent usefulness of TTM, I want to mention current criticism of the model or similar models.


Stages models questioned

A popular, five-stage grief model for terminal illness appeared in the 1969 book, On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross decades ago but subsequent research and critics provide evidence that the stages were artificially imposed without proper observation of how people go through a grief process. The Kübler-Ross stages in brief are:

Denial—“I feel fine.”; “This can't be happening, not to me.”
Anger—“Why me? It's not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; “Who is to blame?” Bargaining—“Just let me live to see my children graduate.”; “I'll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if...”
Depression—“I'm so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I'm going to die... What's the point?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?”
Acceptance—“It's going to be okay.”; “I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”
Noting the popular response, Kübler-Ross later extended her model beyond terminal illness to any form of catastrophy or loss: income, the loss of a friend or spouse, drug addiction, serious disease, infertility, relocation, or a house to flood or storms. Although Kübler-Ross warned people not to apply the stages as concrete steps, critics noted that too many ignored the warning and that she was not accurate with the stages in any case. “Often, people will experience several stages in a “roller coaster” effect—switching between two or more stages, returning to one or more several times before working through it.” “The extensive work of George Bonanno has shown that the stages model of grief has no scientific basis.”
What this means is that the old Freudian view that influenced Kübler-Ross—that we “repress” stuff after a trauma and thus need therapy or years of psychoanalysis to unlock the psychic plumbing—is no longer useful or valid in light of recent neurological experiment and observation. Gary Stix (‘The Neuroscience of True Grit’, Scientific American, March,2011) writes: “So the wiring inside our heads prevents most of us from getting stuck in an inconsolable psychological state. If our emotions get either too hot or cold, a kind of internal sensor—call it a “re¬sil¬ience-¬stat”—¬returns us to equilibrium.”

The value of TTM “6-stages” however remains in practice over and above the largely discredited Kübler-Ross “5-stages” grief model. TTM is “arguably the dominant model of health behaviour change, having received unprecedented research attention, yet it has simultaneously attracted exceptional criticism.” An example of criticism: “In a 2002 review, the model’s stages were characterized as “not mutually exclusive”; furthermore, there was “scant evidence of sequential movement through discrete stages.” The following rejoinder to critics of TTM is typical: “Studies that find the model (TTM) ineffective are poorly designed; for example, they have small sample sizes, poor recruitment rates, or high loss to follow-up.” In any case, models of change are dynamic, not sequential as might be suggested by an outline or reference list. TTM continues to show promise as a guide to healthy change from harmful, habitual behavior.


Concluding remarks
As an exit counselor and cult critic for over twenty five years, I found openness to criticism and change as essential for healthy behavior in or out of a cult. The critical approach my colleagues and I have used to deconstruct cult behavior invites a similar skepticism to my field and my career. To be sure, an ardent clique of sociologists and religious scholars has published scathing objections to both the “cult” label for what they gingerly call “new religious movements” and to using the cult label to justify intervention (especially coercive approaches). A strong representation of this criticism appeared with The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-cultists, and the New Religions in 1980. More moderate articles appeared in Cults and The Family in 1982 indicating that harmful cults, properly defined, do exist, and intervention (exit counseling) at some level has real value.

Despite the heady dismissals by some sociologists, social contagion in the form of harmful cult behavior continues decades later and intervention properly applied remains an effective remedy. Research into cult behavior and recovery from cult harm, however, lags well behind related fields in social psychology. For example, the vast addictions arena proportionately receives enormous attention from insurance companies as well as behavioral scientists compared to the cult problem which is practically ignored by comparison. Currently there are perhaps a mere handful of significant though struggling, cult-related recovery services in North America whereas there are over 900 rehab facilities in the state of New York and 75 in New Mexico alone!

This is not to say that cult issues deserve as much attention but the disparity amazes me considering how pervasive and harmful cult formation remains and how dangerous it can be when “perfect soldiers” are the result. Even in the rehab listings under InterventionAmerica.org that I referenced above, I easily found one rehab called cult-like and harmful by former clients:

“Pathways may sound appealing, but the treatment compares more to brainwashing than recovery. Their approach, flooding and drilling the patients hours a day with recovery material, gives the facility a prevalent cult-like theme that does not internally assist the patients.”

Yet, as I discovered while working for the past 13 years for a psychiatric emergency hospital that regularly treats addicts with “dual-diagnosis,” there is little to no attention paid to specific needs of addicts and “post-boot camp” survivors that came from abusive, cult-like rehabs to our facility. Or to consumers who have been in a religious cult. (I meet clients during intake as a crisis caseworker, so I do an initial assessment before a psychiatrist meets them). These troubled folks (a small but significant minority of hospital clients I engage) are genuinely surprised to meet someone who not only asks relevant questions about their cultic rehab or “cult” experience, but also has insight into what they have just been through and what they might do about it. Treatments at the hospital where I work, as I imagine at nearly all behavioral health clinics, effectively ignore the “religious” and cultic harms.

This is why The Transtheoretical Model and its applications interest me beyond what I find as useful for my clients. With more attention paid to established change and recovery models, the cultic studies field can benefit in its struggle to establish a more credible description and remedy for a very real and significant social problem.


Notes:
http://icsahome.com/idx_topics.asp?Subj ... ationships
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical_model
ICSA Today, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010: A Recovery-from-Addictions Model Applied to Cult Intervention http://icsahome.com/infoserv_respond/by ... tervention
Prochaska, JO; Norcross, JC; DiClemente, CC (1995) Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward (Harper Paperbacks)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical¬_model
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/1 ... Page1.html
In the 1983 version of the model, the Termination stage is absent. In the 1992 version of the model, Prochaska et al. showed Termination as the end of their “Spiral Model of the Stages of Change,” not as a separate stage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheor ... te_note-27
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive ... n-conflict
Eagleman, David (2011) Incognito: The secret lives of the brain (Pantheon)
http://www.taylorsciencewriter.com/bw.html
Taylor, Kathleen (2006) Brainwashing: The science of thought control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex
Goldman-Rakic PS; Cools, A. R.; Srivastava, K. (1996). “The prefrontal landscape: implications of functional
architecture for understanding human mentation and the central executive”. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
351 (1346): 1445–53.
Lewis, I.M (1989) Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession (New York: Routledge) 5
Taylor, Kathleen (2006) Brainwashing: The science of thought control (Oxford University Press, USA) 215
IBID 137
Hoffer, Eric (2002) The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Harper Perennial Modern Classics. The quote I use is from a review—my early edition is buried away in a box: http://www.amazon.com/review/RVRMBWVJN1 ... MBWVJN1RI1
Marks, John D. (1991) The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences (W. W. Norton & Company)
McDermott, Terry (2005) Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It (HarperCollins)
IBID: http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Soldiers- ... 954&sr=1-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCble ... #Criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCble ... Santrock-1
IBID
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -true-grit
IBID
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheor ... tage2008-9 Armitage, CJ. “Is there utility in the transtheoretical model?” Br J Health Psychol 2009;14(Pt 2):195–210. Epub 2008 Oct 14. Accessed 2009 Mar 17.
IBID: Littell, JH; Girvin, H. “Stages of change. A critique.” Behav Modif 2002 Apr;26(2):223–73
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical¬_model [see notes 43,46,47]
Shupe, Anson D.; Bromley, David G. (1980) The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-cultists, and the New religions (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Library of Social research, Vol. 113—Sage Publications)

Kaslow, Florence and Sussman, Marvin, Editors (1982) Cults and The Family (New York: The Haworth Press). See: Marvin F. Galper, “The Cult Phenomenon: Behavioral Science Perspectives Applied to Therapy”, 141-49
http://interventionamerica.org/Searchdi ... m?State=NY
http://interventionamerica.org/listing. ... ab_ID=5989
http://www.mces.org/
WofthesunEofthemoon
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Re: The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by WofthesunEofthemoon »

Thanks for sharing this with us, Joe. I really enjoyed reading these very important concepts.

W.E.
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David McCarthy
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Re: The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by David McCarthy »

Yep...
Thanks Joe....
with much appreciation

David
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Re: The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by joe sz »

I added this section on new research re "optimism" to the paper, a work in progress.....
it goes after 'addiction, habit, devotion and belief" section

Cult members and optimism

Research in neurology and sociology agrees that human beings have an “optimism bias.” We are hardwired to be optimistic about our future, our health, our choices, our bets, or our affiliations. People described as “realistic” tend to depression as people who know or believe they cannot survive an illness, for example, whereas optimists are less objective: “People with mild depression are relatively accurate when predicting future events.” Evolution appears to have rewarded optimism which offers advantages despite risks. If human beings had remained risk avoidant, they may have never left the confines of the cave or the trees.

However, as with any positive tool, there is a downside. We do make regrettable choices despite feeling good about the choice initially. Optimism is readily manipulated. Once we decide or are converted to a product, belief or relationship, research shows that we will value the choice more while we degrade competing items that we rejected. “True, sometimes we regret our decisions; our choices can turn out to be disappointing. But on balance, when you make a decision—even if it is hypothetical choice—you will value it more and expect it to bring you pleasure…According to social psychologist Leon Festinger, we re-evaluate the options postchoice to reduce the tension that arises from making a difficult decision between equally desirable options.” The context and environment (factors of influence) in which we make a decision matters.

The question arises: how do we guard against false or manipulated optimism? Sharot reports, “Knowledge is the key. We are not born with an innate understanding of our biases. The brain’s illusions have to be identified by careful scientific observations…” It is this “postchoice” re-evaluation process (of apparently regrettable choices) that exit counseling challenges to encourage a change for better health or greater value. TTM offers a roadmap for tracking that change.

[ref: Sharot, Tali. “The Optimism Bias” (Time: June 6, 2011);
Sharot, Tali (2011)The Optimism Bias: A tour of the irrationally positive brain (Pantheon)
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Re: The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by ex »

hi joe .i started from the end of this thread.
a few month ago i got over an article about positive thinking. since i always valued my negative thoughts it realy pleased me to read there that being too positive just backfires in form of underestimating or simply not acknowledging life threatening situations. how often did we have the over joyful ramster telling us how wrong we are and just be in general unhappy customers and that's why we r wrong. getting out of the tree without evaluating a drop could kill you.thanks for this.
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Re: The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by Ockham »

JZ Knight uses the same tactic that automobile sales people use. They try get get you to spend as much time as possible. This plays into the optimism effect that Joe mentioned. The cult members or automobile buys tend to hang onto a failed proposition a lot longer than they should. There's all that mental energy expended and that feeling of, "well, if I spent this much energy, if only I spend just a little bit more, just maybe this mess will work out... even if it still looks like it is going nowhere right now."

The car dealer hopes you'll cave and buy his over-priced outmobile anyway instead of maybe enduring going through the same agony at yet another car dealer just to face as rotten a deal anyway. The same thing works with, "Ramtha." At least some ramsters have seen the ulgy side of JZ Kngiht and her alter ego, "Ramtha." They know as much, but they keep going because they've spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours trying to make RSE work like, "Ramtha," promises. If only they can try a little harder or uncover a little, "discipline," detail they've missed, maybe it will work and they'll get over the wall of failure. If you fail at RSE, then what do you do next? Ugh, start over!

The problem is that little Eureka! moment never comes, becuase it can't with RSE. Misguided optimism is probably a good survival strategy somewhere in humankind's past, allowing us order go forward agains seemingly insurmountable odds in a hash post ice age world. Now, this brain wiring opens us up exploitation by dishonest hucksters like JZ Knight and automobile sales people. JZ Knight gets to work her egoistic abuse against her customers to her delight. We need to evolve. :-)
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Re: The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by David McCarthy »

Great post Ockham thank you... :idea:
No surpsise that JZ Knight was a cable TV salesperson...
Don't act phony! - Yea right...

David

Door to Door Sales Training for cable TV Reps: Don't act phony! - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu5GRiMquJs

Door to Door Sales Coaching for Cable TV Reps: Do you like what you have now? - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCY_yDpa ... re=related
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Re: The Transtheoretical Model and cult behavior change

Unread post by joe sz »

ockham
yes, I think that's the same social mechanism at work.
How many of us will stay in a theater or glued to a tv to see the end of a bad movie? We hope at some stage the plot is rescued and there will be a pleasant surprise, a reward for our effort.
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