Editing Erhard Seminars Training (section)

== Practices ==
The est Standard Training program consisted of two weekend-long workshops with evening sessions on the intervening weekdays. Workshops generally involved about 200 participants and were initially led by Erhard and later by people trained by him. Ronald Heifetz, founder of the [[Center for Public Leadership]] at Harvard University, called est "an important experience in which two hundred people go through a powerful curriculum over two weekends and have a learning experience that seemed to change many of their lives."<ref>''Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World'', by Sharon Daloz Parks, published 2005 by Harvard Business School Press; pp. 157– 158</ref> Trainers confronted participants one-on-one and challenged them to be themselves rather than to play a role that had been imposed on them by the past.<ref name=Moreno>{{cite book|last1=Jonathan D|first1=Moreno|title=Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network|date=October 2014|publisher=Bellevue Literary Press}} {{ISBN|978-1-934137-84-0}}.</ref>

[[Jonathan D. Moreno]] observed that "participants might have been surprised how both physically and emotionally challenging and how philosophical the training was."<ref name=Moreno /> He writes that the critical part of the training was freeing oneself from the past, which was accomplished by "experiencing" one's recurrent patterns and problems and choosing to change them. The word ''experience'' meant to bring into full awareness the repetition of old, burdensome behaviors. The seminar sought to enable participants to shift the state of mind around which their lives were organized, from attempts to get satisfaction or to survive, to actually being satisfied and experiencing themselves as whole and complete in the present moment.<ref>''Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est'', by William Warren Bartley, III; New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978. {{ISBN|0-517-53502-5}}, p. 199.</ref>

===Anecdotal results===
Some participants reported experiencing powerful results through their participation in the est training, characterized by Eliezer Sobel as perceived "dramatic transformations in their relationships with their families, with their work and personal [[Goal|vision]], or most important, with the recognition [[self-awareness |who they truly were]] in the core of their beings".<ref name=Moreno />{{qn|date=February 2021}} One study of "a large sample of est alumni who had completed the training at least 3 months before revealed that "the large majority felt the experience had been positive (88%), and considered themselves better off for having taken the training (80%)".<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Galanter
 | first1 = Marc
 | author-link1 = Marc Galanter (psychiatrist)
 | year = 1990
 | chapter = Altered Consciousness
 | title = Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=dKlkYgGo2cEC
 | edition = 2
 | location = New York
 | publisher = Oxford University Press
 | publication-date = 1999
 | page = 75
 | isbn = 9780198028765
 | access-date = 18 February 2021
 | quote = The whole thing ["getting it"] is treated as a joke, discomforting the new converts. [...] Nonetheless, one study of a large sample of est alumni who had completed the training at least three months before revealed that the large majority felt the experience had been positive (88%), and considered themselves better off for having taken the training (80%).
}}
</ref> Other est participants described the sessions more negatively.<ref>{{Cite news |last=McClellan |first=Bill |date=9 January 1985 |title='Hunger Network' Unites Opponents |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/st-louis-post-dispatch/170402912/ |access-date=15 April 2025 |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

=== Controversy ===
In 1976 psychologist Dr. Daniel Fullman called est more of a [[Get-rich-quick scheme|money making scheme]] than a practical way to provide therapeutic help.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hostetler |first=Harold |date=4 April 1976 |title=Expanding the Mind: Real--or a Hustle? |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-advertiser/170398850/ |access-date=15 April 2025 |work=Honolulu Star-Advertiser |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref> Dr. Leonard Glass, a clinical professor of [[psychology]] at [[Harvard University]], alleged in 1983 that participants of est showed "severe emotional problems, notably psychosis, which occurred in the midst of or shortly after EST training."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rodgers |first=Ann |date=16 July 1983 |title=Life Training or Brainwashing? EST: The Story Behind Erhard Seminar Training |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/concord-monitor/170397799/ |access-date=15 April 2025 |work=Concord Monitor |pages=13}} and {{Cite news |date=16 July 1983 |title=EST |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/concord-monitor/170397911/ |work=Concord Monitor |pages=14 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref> A participant of an est seminar sued the organization in 1985 over [[negligence]] and [[fraud]],<ref>{{Cite news |date=6 December 1985 |title=$5 Million is Sought for Est 'Breakdown' |work=The Evening News |page=2 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-evening-news/170401878/ |archive-date= |access-date=15 April 2025 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref> and est has been accused of mind control and labeled a cult by critics who said that it exploited its followers by recruiting and offering numerous "graduate seminars."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/fashion/the-return-of-werner-erhard-father-of-self-help.html|title=The Return of Werner Erhard, Father of Self-help|last=Haldeman|first=Peter|date=2015-11-28|work=The New York Times|access-date=November 6, 2017|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

In 1985, a group of psychology researchers studied participants of the Forum, which had just evolved from est and was classified as a [[Large Group Awareness Training]] course. These researchers compared their outcomes to a [[control group]] of non attendees.  They published their results in the book ''[[Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training]]''. They found that while participants had a short-term increase in [[internal locus of control]], or the belief that one can control their own life, no long-term positive or negative effects on the study participants' [[self-perception]] were detected.