SGA Workshop- April 2007

from GoldenMic - Thursday, April 26, 2007
accessed 912 times

The ICSA just completed (4/07) their second annual recovery workshop for SGA's, and it is giving me some real hope for the development of protocols and methods of healing that are geared to the needs and perspectives of SGA's.

At this workshop, there were SGA's from Bible-based cults, Eastern religion cults, Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, therapy cults, and from cults ranging in size from 20 to thousands. I have attached a review of the process written by a friend who attended, since he said it so well, and I do apologize for the overly kind comments about me personally, and did a small amount of editing (noted in parentheses) so I would not be embarrassed by such kindness. Of course, I got his permission to do this.

"The Conference started promptly late Friday afternoon (4/13/07) with
introductions and Carol (Giambalvo) laying out the weekend plans and protocols. There were a lot of new faces as well as some familiar ones, nice balance.

I think it is helpful to have former attendees to these conferences
there for the new people as those of us that have been dealing with
this for a while are able to show them many things and in turn learn
more through new eyes. A number of good reasons for this such as 1)
Being the new attendees are not alone 2) No matter how long they have been going through this there are others who have been going through it longer and successfully recovering 3) The newcomers often provide a new and fresh perspective which we all benefit from. Many more Men this time, which I was grateful for, still a minority but good to see that more Men are feeling comfortable working at coming to terms with their experience which, in my view, is a real healthy step for Men.

After Dinner, Bill Goldberg gave his presentation on Critical
Thinking. This presentation is always delightful and enlightening and
I think it helps put perspective on my thought processes after
leaving such groups.

Saturday morning, we had Breakfast and then Michael gave his
presentation with both He and Joyce moderating. It was particularly
poignant and really hit home. The first part was SGA's Culture of
Submission and Hidden Rebellion within High Demand Groups and then
the second part was Dealing with Culture Shock. Both sessions,
centered on a small break, were extremely moving, deeply unsettling,
but in a positive way, and I felt touched everyone in the room,
including the other professionals who managed to grasp and even
deeper understanding of our experience.

I want to note here that I feel that (the SGA presentation) managed to examine the dynamics and distill their very essence into words and
emotions that are oftentimes hard for even me to come to terms with.
I also know, having done a lot of this kind of work myself, that I am
certain there was some pain involved on the speaker's part as
he trudged through that process, a pain that was the expense, of
creating such an insightful presentation. Nothing quite compares to the genuine effectiveness of an SGA presenting from experience.

Roseanne Henry and Leona Furnari gave their presentation. Both of them are incredible presenters and facilitators. The title of their presentation was "Healthy Individual Development is Fostered by Healthy Families".

(On Sunday, Lorna Goldberg gave a presentation on "The overly harsh conscience of emerging SGA's", and the clinical issues involved in considering if one wishes to engage in the forgiveness process.

Evaluations and follow-up comments indicated that the participants felt the process was worth the effort, provided psycho education, and helped some participants do some serious inner work).