Controversial Human Potential Trainings

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Lifespring
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This article is about the controversial human potential trainings. For the Christian podcast, see Lifespring (podcast).

Lifespring was a for-profit private company, founded in 1974. The company promoted itself through books and word of mouth advertising. By 1989, officials stated that over 300,000 people had enrolled in the company's seminars.[1] Lifespring has been classified as a New Age/human potential training company.
The book Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training made comparisons between Lifespring and Werner Erhard's Est training[2].

Lifespring was referred to in the media as a controversial motivational group[3]. The company was the subject of investigative reports by the media[4], and was criticized by former staff and participants[3][5]. After a series of lawsuits in the 1980s which alleged that Lifespring was responsible for mental damages to the plaintiffs[4][6], the company had to pay out damages as a result of settlements and one lost jury decision[4][6].

History

Lifespring was founded in 1974 by John Hanley Sr., after working at an organization called Mind Dynamics with Werner Erhard, the founder of est. Lifespring concentrates on how people experience each other, whereas est concentrates on changing the way people experience themselves.[7] However, there are many similarities between the two, as well as with Scientology[1][8].

The former Director for Corporate Affairs of Lifespring, Charles "Raz" Ingrasci, [9] also worked with Werner Erhard, promoting an est mission to the USSR and the Hunger Project. Ingrasci is now President of the Hoffman Institute[10] which offers programs such as the Hoffman Quadrinity Process which some regard as similar to Lifespring[11].
Though John Hanley denied that Lifespring was a duplicate of Erhard Seminars Training, Melton and Lewis described the similarities between the two as "striking", in their 1992 work, Perspectives on the New Age[8]. Melton and Lewis point out that both Werner Erhard and John Hanley had previously worked at Mind Dynamics. They then went on to cite specific examples of techniques utilized by both Lifespring and EST, stating that both used "authoritarian trainers who enforce numerous rules", both groups require applause after a member's "share" in front of the group, both deemphasized ratiocination, in favor of "feeling and action"[8]. The authors also pointed out that graduates of both Lifespring and EST were "fiercely loyal", and recruited heavily for their respective groups, reducing marketing expenses to virtually zero[8].

Later developments

While trainings continued until the mid-nineties in certain parts of the country, the lawsuits and the bad press crippled the company. One Lifespring follower, Sue Hawkes, started a similar program, called Vistar, but it was unsuccessful.[4] Lifespring training, once offered under a unified corporate umbrella, now appears in several guises world-wide delivered by differently-named companies. Some of these companies offering the training programs once offered by or based on Lifespring include Momentus; Insight Seminars; Resource Realizations; The Great Life Foundation, Visionworks; The Impact Trainings; Harmony Institute; Spectrum Trainings; Phoenix2000, Vistar/Serendipidity; Summit Education; Personal Dynamics; Choicenter; Millennium 3; Asia Works; Argentina Works; Chile Works; MexWorks; WorldWorks; The Legacy Center; Essential Education; Rising Star Communications; Humanus Institute; and Wings Seminars.[26] The new religious movement called Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness has been referred to as an "offshoot" of Lifespring.[27]

Lawsuits

More than 30 lawsuits were filed against Lifespring for charges ranging from involuntary servitude to wrongful death. The suits often claimed that the trainings place participants under extreme psychological stress in order to elicit change. The group had to pay out large amounts of money to participants who required psychiatric hospitalization and to family members of suicides.[6] The first jury decision came in 1984 in which Deborah Bingham testified she'd been in a psych ward for a month after attending two Lifespring courses and was awarded $800,000. Gabriella Martinez testified that she heard her trainer's voice in her head the night she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills; Lifespring settled out of court.[4]In 1993, Pittsburgh lawyer Peter N. Georgiades won a $750,000 settlement for a Lifespring trainee who was institutionalized for two years following Leadership training.[6]In 1982, the family of David Priddle accepted an undisclosed sum when they sued Lifespring after he jumped off a building; Artie Barnett's family also reached an out of court settlement, when Barnett, who couldn't swim, drowned during a Lifespring training. Gail Renick's family received $450,000 after she died from an asthma attack during a training session. She had been led to believe her medication was unnecessary.[4]