LP-fortellinger - Norwegian website sharing information and experiences about Lightning Process - now available in English

I have been reading through the stories. Here are some of the key points that stood out for me.

Enrolment:
Some people were recruited by word of mouth following media stories about LP curing people with ME. Others were recommended to do it by doctors, and some were even expected to do it by the Norwegian employment department before they could get financial support.

Some were children and teenagers. These took a family member with them.

The course is very expensive for a 3 day 'training' of about 5 hours a day in small groups with a trainer.

Enrolment was not automatic on application. Participants had to fill in forms and have phone assessments which were geared around making sure the person was 'ready'. This meant basically being able to convince the trainer that they were suitable subjects for believing and doing everything they were told to do without asking questions, or expressing doubts or negative feelings. They had to say they weren't analytical.

Enrolment on a very expensive course with a process you had to pass to be accepted made the course very enticing. It helped create an aura of excitement that they were going to experience something special and complex and that they were excited and privileged to be accepted. Some were told they weren't ready when they first applied, so they tried harder to put aside any doubts and scientific thinking and to accept everything they were told.

On arrival, or beforehand, not sure which, they all had to sign a confidentiality agreement that they would not tell anyone what the course consisted of. Some were still years later quite frightened about revealing what happened on the course.

The course

Participants, some very sick, were expected to sit on hard upright chairs for hours at a time for 3 days. One asked if they would be allowed to lie down if they needed to and was told that never happened.

No one was allowed to question or criticise anything that was said or done during the course, being told if they did they would be asked to leave.

The course started with some scientific sounding information about the mind affecting physical health, also some pictures of optical iliusions to build the idea that the mind could be tricked into thinking they were physically sick.

They were told they did not 'have ME', they were 'doing ME', and the method would enable them to stop 'doing ME'.

Then they had to learn the method and practice one by one with the trainer in front of the group. This consisted of standing on pieces of paper on the floor and saying NO with an emphatic arm gesture to their symptoms every time they had a thought about experiencing symptoms, or about being sick, and stepping onto another piece of paper choosing between 'the life I love' and 'the pit', and saying aloud that they choose the life they love.

They were told to repeat the process all the time, whenever they started 'doing ME'. At the end of the first day they were told they had to do some sort of activity they hadn't believed they could do, like going to a shopping centre, and report back the next day what they had done.

They were told that part of the process was that they were to tell everyone in their lives that they had recovered, and to get rid of all associations in their home of their sick life, like the clothes the wore when they were 'doing ME', even sofas they rested on. They had to get on with their lives as recovered people and every time they felt symptoms, the had to stop themselves 'doing ME' by repeating the Stop action and chosing the 'life they love'.

Before they left at the end of the third day, they were told that they had to sign a document saying they had recovered. This was justified on the ground that stopping 'doing ME' meant the same as being recovered. Most signed it. Some are now worried that their signing is used for recovery data.

They were told they must not communicate with each other after the course, nor must they look online for anything about ME, or join any online groups or ME organisations, as that would be 'doing ME'. The must also cut ties with any friends with ME.

The immediate effect

A few decided straight away that it was a con and a cult and dismissed it, feeling they had wasted their effort and money. Some of these took a while to recover from the PEM of the 3 days and the trauma of it.

Most believed and tried really hard to do the process, some finding that at first they did have a surge of energy and believed they had recovered and were able to push on for some time. Some felt the effect wear off and were persuaded to pay more to do refresher courses, and to keep doing the method even up to hundreds of times a day. Some described it as a rush of excitement and adrenaline that kept them going through the course and for variable lengths of time afterwards. Some who admitted to their coaches that it wasn't working were told it was their fault, they were doing it wrong, or they didn't want to recover.

The long term effects

All those who stuck with the method and believed it would work ended up sicker than before. Some managed to keep doing it and live more active lives than before the course for some weeks, months or even years, though the longer they kept trying, the more they realised afterwards that actually they had been pushing and crashing and getting sicker overall, but managing to persuade themselves that the crashes had other causes. They had persuaded themselves they had recovered but were actually living far from healthy lives.

All felt they had been conned, most ended up sicker, and quite a few had ongoing psychological problems believing they were failures and it was their fault the process hadn't worked, and their fault they were sick.
Some lost friends and felt awful for having lied to their friends and family by telling them they had recovered.

Several only found they could finally let go of their feeling of failure and stop doing the method once the plucked up courage to look online and found support groups and information about ME, as they had been told not to do.
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My thoughts

Reading some of these stories is very distressing. Lives and families and friendships have been destroyed, people have ended up much sicker, and some still live with ongoing psychological distress related to the process.

I suggest you take them a few at a time. They need to be read and shared widely.

My conclusion

LP is a cult and a dangerous scam. It uses brainwashing to harm its victims, and should be banned everywhere.

 

I have nothing but contempt for these parasites, frauds, and savages, and anybody who enables or protects them.

 

A further thought arising from reading these stories is that they highlight the vital importance in treatment trials of both objective outcome measures and long term follow up as the main end point - at least 2 years after initial treatment.

And collection of subjective outcome data needs to be done by people completely unconnected with whatever psychological treatment they have had, whether LP or the version of CBT used in PACE which had significant similarities. With patients being told this, to help to encourage them to feel they have permission to step outside the CBT/LP bubble and give an honest appraisal of their actual symptoms and illness severity.

For those still practising and believing in the LP methods, questions might need to be worded in a way that asks how often they are finding that they still need to do the 'Stop' method because of still 'doing ME', and what their symptoms are when they are 'doing ME'.

That poses an ethical question of whether the researchers should provide de-programming for those still sick, still brainwashed, and suffering psychological and self blame problems as a result of being brainwashed.

Many of these victims of brainwashing telling their stories here were still telling themselves and the people in their lives that they had recovered and that they were able to live normally sometimes for several years before they finally crashed so badly they had to admit they were still sick, and much sicker than before. The lengths some went to to cover up or re-interpret crashes while pretending to themselves and others to be recovered are extraordinary.