Website Changes (RSS)
Safety Bulletins
Revision 1.0
Current
Safety Bulletins
Background - The risks with using powerful
therapies: Unfortunately,
powerful trauma therapies can uncover trauma, especially
prenatal trauma, that can activate severe psychological
or physical distress, up to and including overwhelming
suicidal actions.
TeleClass Safety Procedures:
The ISPS
offers ongoing telephone class support of our peak
states graduates. This allows students who have taken
our classes to stay up to date with this rapidly
changing field. However, there are potential safety
risks that increase due to the fact that we cannot
physically supervise students with this format, unlike
during a residential workshop.
Warning - time jumping:
This problem
can be unwittingly activated, causing mild to major
depression. For most people the problem appears to be
permanent if unhealed. We have a way to heal it, and if
you have taken our training, you need to be aware of the
problem, how to identify it, and our latest technique
(Rev 1.1) on how to eliminate it.
Warning - spiral
developmental stage: Accessing
the end of the body brain (egg or sperm) spiral
developmental event can trigger irreversible multiple
sclerosis symptoms in susceptible individuals. This
event was used in the Beauty Way Process in Revision 0.6
and 0.7 of the Peak States Therapist Manual. Be sure to
remove this process from your copy of the manual if you
have it.
Background
Because the processes used in investigating and acquiring peak states are so new and original, there can be hazards and problems that have never been encountered before (or if encountered, had remained unrecognized as to cause).
In addition, peak states processes that also use powerful healing techniques can also suffer from the potential problems associated with these techniques - problems that do occasionally occur for most if not all of the latest generation of 'power therapies' (such as WHH, EMDR, TIR, etc.)
Risk Management Strategies at the ISPS for Peak States processes
To help minimize the risks associated with investigating and creating new processes, the Institute for the Study of Peak States has several layers of precautions in effect. These precautions can be divided up into three different kinds of risk depending on your involvement with the Institute - research, professional training, or client of our trainees.
- Research
Staff (Very high risk): The research staff explore
entirely new phenomenon. These phenomenon can be deadly -
over the last ten years, the average death rate for
people investigating peak states has been about 1 in 5
(i.e., it is slightly safer to play Russian Roulette than
it is to work on the research). Worse, if one includes
long term mental or physical problems that become
activated by the research, the long term probability that
one will be killed or injured by this work becomes 1 in
3. Obviously, this means that only volunteers who feel
strongly about the benefits of this work to mankind
should be involved at this level.
- Professional
Training Level 1 (Moderate risk): The material that we
teach our students is both restricted to material we
believe is relatively safe (i.e., either no known risks,
or risks are identified and ways to minimize or avoid
them are taught as part of the training). Our students
become, in effect, the 'beta' testers for new processes.
They are required to sign liability and consent forms
before starting the training. However, as the number of
people who use a procedure increases, the chance that
some unusual problem might be encountered also increases
(a problem well known in the testing of new drugs or
medical procedures). To minimize this problem, we
established an email group that acts as a safety
announcement mechanism. In addition, we post these
warnings on this website.
- Professional
Training, Level 2 (High moderate risk): This level of
work involves acquiring uncommon peak states that have
known dangers, such as suicidal ideation and other
hazards. To minimize this problem, the material is
restricted to this group, and is only presented after the
students have taken prerequisites that make the material
safer to use. However, fewer people have tested material
at this advanced level, hence the risk level of
triggering something completely unknown is increased.
- Certified
Practitioners (Lower risk): Essentially, certification
means that we've verified that they understand the
problems of working with a variety of clients, know what
to do when things go wrong, know what clients exceed
their training level, have legal approval for working
with clients, and have liability insurance. Most of these
requirements are met by professional psychological
training who have a specialization in trauma, with a few
additional courses involving the specialized nature of
peak states work (such as spiritual emergency, etc.) Risk
is lower for this group than that of our regular trainees
because they are trained in what unexpected problems can
occur - in our classes, we don't have time to do so at
the level that a school or training program in the
specific area can do.
- Clients (Possible risk): The risks of working on oneself are quite different from the risks of working with clients. We have agreements in place with people who have taken our class to NOT use the material on clients until they've been certified. Even though clients only see a small subset of the processes the professionals use on themselves, there are still risks involved. One kind of risk involves the problem of unexpected trauma responses (sudden suicidal feelings, abuse memories, psychotic breaks) that are unexpected and don't respond to treatment or may require hospitalization. Because peak states work can target areas of the psyche that isn't normally accessible, this frequency of risk is increased over that found by the use of other power therapies, although the same problems occur with any power therapy at a more infrequent rate. However, there are other risks than just those of trauma response, due to the nature of the peak states processes being used. Although the processes have been tested on a large group of people by the time a client uses a technique, the possibility exists that a given client will have an atypical response. For this reason, liability and informed consent waivers are required, as is restrictions to working only with physically and mentally healthy people is a must to minimize unexpected problems.
We address these risks, we require signed liability and consent forms before our trainings begin. In addition, we established an email group so that safety announcements can be made. In the two years that this has been in existence, we've had two safety alerts issued. If you are a past or present student of the ISPS, and are continuing to use the material you were taught, we highly recommend you stay signed up on the professional email list we established, below:
Practitioner
Support E-group
If you are a
graduate of our basic Whole-Hearted Healing™ therapy
or PeakStates™ training, we highly
recommend that
you sign up for our practitioner support discussion elist.
It gives us a way to send out any new safety alerts, let
you know about updates in technique or process changes,
receive new information, ask questions or share
experiences, and will help increase your professional
skills. (Note, this group is only
for
people who have taken our courses.) To sign up, put your
email address below and hit return or click on the
YahooGroups logo. This will take you to YahooGroups to
register.
Risk Management for ISPS Clinical Projects
The patients who volunteer to test our clinical projects have their own individualized liability and risk forms depending on the condition we're working with. We use the Stanford University format for the disclosure of risk forms as modified to our procedures (non-physically invasive, no drugs, etc.) The risk to the therapists doing the work is relatively minimal, as we are applying (in most cases) techniques that we've worked out in other settings.
Other Safety Concerns
In addition, because the Institute also acts as a clearing house for other's peak states processes, we occassionally enounter problems that occur with these processes that the creators did not encounter or did not realize were problems. Because our students might use these processes in the course of their work, we feel obligated to post any safety concerns that we encounter.