Saturday, November 3, 2007

A lesson in what Stress Management is not

Bob Forston runs the Forston Institute for Success through Stress Management. He is the past president of the National Association of Certified Stress Management Consultants. You can read all about his other credentials on his 'About us' page. Although he has a PhD in Psychology, he makes it clear that "He is not a licensed physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, psychotherapist, or social worker." I guess that's because Stress Management is not recognized by the medical community as a valid profession.

It becomes even clearer upon reading this wording from his disclaimer, "The services in this website and any other media are not intended to replace the services of licensed physicians, neurologists, psychoanalysts, clinical psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychometrics, social workers, psychotherapists, chiropractors or other similar professionals. The Forston Institute does not provide medical or mental illness evaluations, diagnoses or prescriptions.

Continuing to quote from the disclaimer, "The coordination of verbal and nonverbal energy responses along with a protocol of stress and congruency questions are not the practice of medicine, psychiatry, psychology or chiropractic. Memory events are considered ‘Emotional Reality’ because these events may or may not correspond with actual or historic reality. Therefore no claim is made as to what may have happened in the past and what one must or should do in the future.”

False memories are an issue

Wow! One can learn a lot from this well-written disclaimer. To me it is evidence that Western Medicine (read the AMA) does not like what people like Bob do when practicing stress management. I wonder why that is? I especially like the wording about 'memory events'. I imagine this has to do with false memories that may come up when questioning the subconscious mind about past events. It would be awful if someone thought they had a repressed memory of sexual abuse that didn't really happen to them at all.

Is it possible that the memories discovered and revealed may not belong to the person that currently possesses or expresses them? I'm not suggesting past lives as I don't believe in reincarnation but I am suggesting that those memories could belong to someone else who put them in the subconscious of the person in whom they are discovered. Food for thought.

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