In response to my request, Mankind Project Executive Director, Carl Griesser yesterday emailed the MKP’s position statement on reparative therapy. He also confirmed the accuracy of a position paper I found online which addresses the question of whether New Warriors is therapy. You can read each statement by clicking the links below.
Clearly, the Mankind Project does not want to give any impression that what they do in the NWTA is therapy. This is understandable since staff would need to demonstrate training and credentials to conduct group therapy. The NWTA claims to address fears and wounds from the past and help a person become a better person. I recognize that therapy is hard to define but resolving unwanted states and trauma is generally considered an aspect of treatment. Here is a statement from the Mankind Project’s website regarding what the NWTA aims to accomplish:
The New Warrior Training Adventure is an invitation to step forward and look in the mirror. What do you see? Are you the leader that you are looking for? Are you living on the edge of your life? What stands between you and taking action in your world? What is the risk for you to take full responsibility for your life, for living it from the inside out? Do you have the courage to face your own fears and insecurities and discover the tremendous power and beauty that lies within you? Are you willing to step into the fullness of who you really are? Are you willing to discover the real joy and terror of being a man? If so, this training may be for you.
We do not recommend this training for every man. To participate in this training, you must be highly committed to your life, and ready to take a hard look at yourself, your deepest fears, your wounds from the past, and the specific ways your life is not working for you. We choose to work only with men who are ready and willing to do this initiatory work with us.
Facing “insecurities,” “your deepest fears,” “your wounds from the past,” and “the specific ways your life is not working for you” sounds like an active attempt to address dysfunction and trauma. However, I remain open to dialogue on this point and intend to speak further with MKP, perhaps yet today.
I have participated in MKP and found much “good” and much “bad”. As far as sexual orintation reparative therapy I found MKP surprisingly open. There are Christian based men’s groups associated with MKP which take another opinion on it, which I feel defeats MKP’s philosophy. The bad aspect of MKP has to do with the fact that this work can be very traumatizing and done by people who do not know what they are doing but “mean well”. I found when deep trauma issues arose it was handled poorly and made matters worse and more confusing, something I had to sort out with a therapist and on my own. I observed abusive and cohersive stratagies employed on other men as well. A friend tells me over the last few years many practices have been put under more scrutiny, but I personally doubt that enough has been done.
The better side of MKP is that despite the dangerous edge it is one of the only places I have found men’s emotional lives taken seriously. I appreciated the diversity, and there was support too. But I don’t think this is enough. MKP most likely has chosen not to call itself “therapy” for legal liability reasons. But even if you call it “healing” or “growth” work then some like professional suppervision is much needed. In the very least a method of discerning how it is effecting men, or if men are overly retraumatized by the work.
Unfortunately there seems to be in MKP a fear of loosing men. If MKP let go a bit and just simple had the philosophy that we are here to help men find the help or path they need, they would do much better. As it is now I think MKP still causes to much harm to recommend to anyone.
Warren,
People face insecurity and confront fear in forums everyday that are not billed as theraputic. I took a Toastmasters course years ago to become a better public speaker. I was able to face that deep fear and insecurity and overcome it throught their program. Is Toastmasters therapy? For me it was therapeudic similar to how my Warrior Weekend.
I think the misconception people may have about what happens on the Warior Wekend is that the staff is there to push participants to hit the “deep emotional homerun.” At least when I was active, men were supported facing insecurities/fears at whatever level they chose to go.
Do you feel threatened by groups (like NW) that offer non traditional avenues to self discovery and healing?
It seems that people have MKP confused as some kind of group where a gay man can get facilitated in changing his sexual orientation from gay to straight. Where did this come from?
(Unfortunately, my computer is not set-up to read the second document, New Warriors and therapy.)
It seems many ex-gay ministries make similar arguments about how they are offering religious and pastoral advice — not therapy. And yet, so much of the ex-gay movement is about advocating treatments that delve into their participants’ supposed “roots of homosexuality” such as abuse, “broken homes”, “sexual brokenness”, masculine/feminine insecurities, addictions, and similar active attempts to address so-called sexual dysfunction and trauma. The Exodus-affiliated ministry I participated in even offered individual counseling at “suggested” hourly rates by unlicensed self-proclaimed experts.
At least MKP admits that their group is not for everyone, whereas ex-gay ministries’ evangelical fundamentalism prevents them from turning people away.
Shouldn’t we be similarly challenging Exodus and other ex-gay ministries about the therapy they provide by their unlicensed and uncredentialed de facto counselors?