Lifespring - Critical Viewpoints

Critical Viewpoints

In 1980, ABC's 20/20 aired an investigative report about Lifespring. They interviewed cult expert Dr John Gordon Clark of Harvard Medical School, who said the group practiced mind control and brainwashing.

In 1987, the Washington Post reported that Hanley was convicted of felony mail fraud in 1969. In 1980, a federal judge rejected Hanley's request to have the conviction removed from his record. His request for a presidential pardon was also denied.

In 1990 KARE-TV (Channel 11) ran a segment called "Mind Games?" that Lifespring claimed was deceptive and sensationalized.

The Skeptic a newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics, reported in 1989 on criticism from a participant that was a staff volunteer until becoming disgruntled with the organization. This former staff volunteer said that workshops were too stressful and disruptive, and that the program was "an urban cult" .

One prominent critic of Lifespring is Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Mrs. Thomas asserted in an interview with The Washington Post that she chose to seek counseling after her decision to stop participating in Lifespring. In order to avoid phone calls from fellow Lifespring members, urging her to remain in the course, she chose to hide in another part of the United States. One explanation for the criticisms and actions taken by roughly 8% of all Lifespring graduates comes from clinical psychologist and Lifespring graduate Bronson Levin. Levin said, "people who are not prepared for the intense emotional experience of Lifespring or who have hidden traumas tend to become overwhelmed as childhood memories come thundering back to them during training." Virginia Thomas went on to speak on panels and organized anti-cult workshops for congressional staffers in 1986 and 1988.

Lifespring awareness groups claim that participants are asked to enroll family, friends, etc., in the workshops and to enroll in additional courses.

In 1993, Lutheran Reverend Dr Richard L. Dowhower, conducted a survey of clergy attitudes toward other groups that they have labeled as cults. The 53 respondents were from the Washington, DC area and included 43 Lutheran clergy and seminarians, one Roman Catholic and one Jewish clergyman, and an Evangelical minister. The response chart indicates twenty eight (28) responses to "The cults I am most concerned about are:", with the answer "Scientology, est/Forum, and Lifespring". . Dr Dowhower was an advisor of the American Family Foundation, which published the Cult Observer.

British TV producer and filmmaker Peter Pomerantsev has theorised that model Ruslana Korshunova's suicide was related to her involvement with Rose of the World, a controversial Moscow-based organisation which describes itself as "training for personality development". While researching for a documentary into Korshunova's death, Pomerantsev learned that the model spent three months attending training session at Rose of the World. These sessions—which encourage participants to share their worst experiences and recall repressed memories—are modelled after Lifespring, whose controversial methods were the subject of multiple lawsuits for mental damages in the US during the 1980s. Korshunova attended training sessions with a friend, Ukrainian model Anastasia Drozdova, who committed suicide under similar circumstances in 2009. Friends of the two women reported changes in behaviour after several months at the Rose. Korshunova became aggressive, while Drozdova experienced violent mood swings and grew reclusive. Both lost weight. After three months of training, Korshunova returned to New York to look for work, where she wrote of feeling lost and doubting she would ever find herself. Rick Ross, head of the Cult Education Forum, argues that organisations such as Rose of the World "work like drugs: giving you peak experiences, their adherents always coming back for more. The serious problems start when people leave. The trainings have become their lives—they come back to emptiness. The sensitive ones break." Only months after leaving the Rose, Korshunova was found dead.