Large Group Awareness Training

Large-group awareness training (LGAT) refers to activities usually offered by groups linked with the human potential movement which claim to increase self-awareness and bring about desirable transformations in individuals' personal lives. They are noted for being unconventional and often take place over several lengthy days.

LGAT programs may involve several hundred people at a time. Though early definitions cited LGATs as featuring unusually long durations, more recent texts describe the trainings as lasting from a few hours to a few days. In 2004, DuMerton, citing "Langone (1989)", estimated that "[p]erhaps a million Americans have attended LGATs". Forsyth and Corazzini cite Lieberman (1994) as suggesting "that at least 1.3 million Americans have taken part in LGAT sessions".

DuMerton described Large Group Awareness Training as "teaching simple, but often overlooked wisdom, which takes place over the period of a few days, in which individuals receive intense, emotionally-focused instruction". Rubinstein compared large-group awareness training to certain principles of cognitive therapy, such as the idea that people can change their lives by interpreting the way they view external circumstances.

In Consumer Research: Postcards from the edge, discussing behavioral and economic studies, the authors contrasted the "enclosed locations" used with Large Group Awareness Trainings with the "relatively open" environment of a "variety store".

The Handbook of Group Psychotherapy described Large Group Awareness Training as focusing on "philosophical, psychological and ethical issues." These relate to desires to increase people's personal effectiveness.

Psychologist Dennis Coon's textbook, Psychology: A Journey, defined the term "LGAT" as referring to: "programs claiming to increase self-awareness and facilitate constructive personal change". Coon further defines Large Group Awareness Training in his book Introduction to Psychology.

Lou Kilzer, in The Rocky Mountain News, identified Leadership Dynamics (in operation 1967-1973) as the first of the genre of what psychologists termed "Large Group Awareness Training". It is noted many permutations of large-group transformation trainings were directly or indirectly influenced by Leadership Dynamics.

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