Cult Expert Dr Steven Hassan
Cult Expert Dr Steven Hassan
@drstevenhassan·58.1K subscribers·897 videos

Dr. Steven Hassan w/John Hunter, PhD: Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) Weaponize Dopamine

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October 12, 2023

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Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) bill themselves as transformational multi-day workshops. You often feel pressured to attend, perhaps by your corporation or a family member or friend, and you are deliberately not told what will happen there. These workshops often utilize eight to twelve-hour marathon sessions to wear down a person's identity. According to research by South African Dr. John Hunter, they artificially create bipolar states in participants. Hunter offers a fresh and unique analytical framework to explain the highs people experience at the end of a "training." He is a researcher and lecturer based in Johannesburg. His interest in large group awareness trainings – and their impact on mood and psychosis – is grounded in his personal experience of bipolar disorder and his participation in an LGAT in 2010. Dr. Hunter put forward the Dopaminergic-Defense Hypothesis, which offers insights into both (i) the "transformational" experiences associated with LGAT participation and (ii) the common claims of psychological harm and problematic behavior associated with LGAT participation. In 2022, he published an article summarizing the mechanism behind the dopaminergic defense in the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion (Hunter, 2022). Hunter and I believe the stress and hyperarousal methods occur in many different environments including authoritarian cults and religious groups. This interview is fascinating.

#freedomofmind #igotout #LGATs #dopamine

#drstevenhassan #stevenhassan #cults #mindcontrol #brainwashing #BITEmodel #businesscult #therapycult

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Guests & Subjects Covered

Dr. Steven Hassan w/John Hunter, PhDJohannesburg HisDr HunterDopaminergic-Defense HypothesisCognitive ScienceReligion HunterThe Influence ContinuumDr Hassan's

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Dr. Steven Hassan w/John Hunter, PhD: Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) Weaponize Dopamine · Cult Expert Dr Steven Hassan · Sentinel