Interview Episode: LGATs with John Hunter, Ph.D.
Special Guest: Dr John Hunter
Dr. John Hunter is a South African researcher and lecturer, based in Johannesburg. His interest in large group awareness trainings (LGATs) – and their impact on mood and psychosis – is grounded in his personal experience of bipolar disorder and his participation in an LGAT in 2010. In 2017, he completed a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, proposing a neurobiological explanation for the relationship between LGAT conditions and results.
EPISODE DETAILS
April 17th, 2024
1 hr 34 mins 28 secs
Season 6 presenting partner:
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
For his 2017 PhD, John Hunter put forward a hypothesis that offers insights into both the “transformational” experiences associated with large group awareness training (LGAT) participation and the common claims of psychological harm and problematic behaviour associated with participation. In 2023, Dr Hunter presented this work at the annual International Cultic Studies Association conference in Louisville, Kentucky, and for this episode he breaks down some of his findings – including where LGATs may or may not intersect with cults and cult-like behaviour.
EPISODE LINKS
Stress-induced hypomania in healthy participants: the allostatic “manic-defence hypothesis” — Dr John Hunter’s 2017 PhD Dissertation
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (Dr Albert Ellis)
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (Dr Aaron T. Beck)
Robert J. Lifton’s Eight Criteria for Thought Reform
The Book of est — Kirkus Reviews
'We're Gonna Tear You Down and Put You Back Together" — by Mark Brewer, Psychology Today, August 1975
Mindbreakers — by Roland Howard, The Daily Mail, 23 July 2001
Cults in Our Midst — by Margaret Singer, 1995
Psychiatric disturbances associated with Erhard Seminars Training — by L. L. Glass, M. A. Kirsch & F. N. Parris, American Journal of Psychiatry, 1977
Psychological effects of participation in a large group awareness training — by Fisher, J. D., Silver, R. C., Chinsky, J. M., Goff, B., Klar, Y., & Zagieboylo, C., Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1989
The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion — by Richard E. Petty & John T. Cacioppo, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Vol 19, 1986
Thinking, Fast and Slow — by Daniel Kahneman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011
The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping — Fishbowl Films, 2024