How far will people go to separate you from your money?

I went searching on Google to see what the algorithm offered up as an answer to my query about the Hoffman Process--I was actually curious to know if anyone reads what I’m writing--and discovered some statements or claims about this Process that really stretch the facts. They are also a study in how to structure ordinary language to make a lie sound plausible.

“It is the only program of its kind offering evidence-based transformational work proven to deliver lasting results.” (hoffmaninstitute.org)

First let’s examine the phrase: “evidence-based transformational work proven….”

If perchance I were an ordinary Jane or Joe with some personal troubles and an extra 5,000 USD in my pocket, and I was looking for some personal relief for my suffering, and if I came across a program that claimed to be “evidence-based,” I might be interested or at least my curiosity would be peaked. I might assume that a team of mental health professionals, after careful examination of mental disorders ranging from simple neuroses to more acute mental disturbance, formulated and tested several protocols to treat these disorders, and over time evaluated their results. The sequence is important--facts or behaviors were observed, studied, and recorded; the evidence of their harm to a person’s well-being preceded the formulation of a course of treatment based on past psychological treatment; and last, the statistical results were examined. That is how science usually works.

Instead of careful observation by trained mental health professionals, in the case of the Hoffman Process, a psychic tailor was awakened in the middle of the night by the discontented ghost of his recently deceased psychiatrist revealing a way to treat the Negative Love Syndrome from “the other side.” After several people reported some relief and perhaps even personal insight following Hoffman’s process of psychic therapy, a carefully formulated study proved that these people were “transformed.”

Now let’s examine the phrase “deliver lasting results.” The baseline for measuring the improvement is self-reporting; it is entirely subjective or measured against general baseline surveys. Feeling good or being high is not evidence of anything other than feeling good or being high. If that is what you want for your 5000 USD, go for it. But the promises are just marketing, period. The Negative Love Syndrome is not an professionally accepted psychological disorder that has been studied and evaluated. It is not science.

I described my experience in the creation and testing of two surveys of participant’s results in my post, “Science vs. Spooks.”

If you still don’t see this as just marketing copy, read the preposterous claim that heads the sentence: “It is the only program of its kind…” Caveat emptor! Please do not subject yourself to any psychological manipulation by an untrained and unlicensed purveyor of transformation.

I have talked about my own experience with Hoffman at some length. Be forewarned, it includes a description of emotional and sexual abuse: The Dirty Secrets about the beginning of the Hoffman Process.

Why can I find nothing online about Bob Hoffman?

An examination of the praise for Bob Hoffman and the Hoffman Process, formerly known as The Quadrinity Process or Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy.

I was recently interviewed for a book about personal transformation, specifically with regard to my experience with the Hoffman Process and the Landmark Forum. The writer asked me, “Why can’t I find anything online about Bob Hoffman except pro forma praise or what look like infomercials?” So I Googled him.

I found the ghost-written and dated No One Is to Blame: Getting a Loving Divorce Form(sic) Mom and Dad, the Discoveries of the Quadrinity Process which is so worthless that I can find no recommendation by the Hoffman Institute. I love the professionalism of the typo. We all make mistakes, but really, it's been 50 years, and you can't get the title of Hoffman's only book spelled correctly? 

Volker Kohrn of the Australian branch of the Hoffman Institute posted a piece called 50 YEARS LATER, BOB HOFFMAN’S DREAM LIVES ON which is so awash with factual inaccuracies (check out my blog post Why do cults need to rewrite history?) that I wonder if Mr. Kohrn actually met Hoffman. He certainly didn’t do much research about Dr. Claudio Naranjo’s contribution to the development of the Process.

You can buy You Can Change Your Life: With the Hoffman Process by Tim Laurence. Tim is the owner of the UK Hoffman Process and not an entirely objective observer. He “... came to the United States and ‘studied’ with Bob Hoffman, the gifted ‘intuitive' who founded the ‘world famous’ Hoffman Process.” I have a few admittedly snarky comments about Tim’s bio blurb.

I knew Hoffman, and I know a good number of Process teachers, including Tim. No one “studied” with Hoffman. If you “worked” with him it usually meant that you were angling for an international license to sell the Process or a teaching credential. But it also meant that you put up with being verbally attacked, yelled at, humiliated and belittled, yet always justified by Hoffman’s claim that he was doing it all for your own good, that he was “breaking down to build up.” I know this from personal experience as well as countless conversations and complaints by Hoffman’s early followers. If you were a psychologist or really any professional, you were singled out for Hoffman’s particularly abusive brand of attention. This “study” was more akin to a secret, brutal fraternity initiation than anything remotely resembling an education or a course of psychotherapy.

But in truth, there was nothing subtle to learn. Although Hoffman had an opinion about any subject from OJ Simpson to Henry Kissinger, I'd be hard pressed to distinguish much difference. I mention these two cases because I distinctly remember conversations with Hoffman about both. Kissinger “ran all over the globe” trying to please a father who never approved of him, but he did some good. OJ killed his wife because he never got unconditional love from his parents. Kissinger, as well as Madeleine Albright, were both Jews who succeeded, a Hoffman obsession, and he couldn’t tear himself away from Simpson’s TV trial, an obsession that he felt guilty about but could not control.

I recently wrote in a post “Bamboozled” that the use of “intuitive'' is a ploy to cover Hoffman’s roots in the Spiritualist Church—not the elite, hip Science of Mind organization, but the one with spirit visitations and ouija boards. A “gifted, compassionate Intuitive'' is an innocuous and deceptive moniker to present an unqualified and untrained person who claims special knowledge that mysteriously surpasses the hard earned therapeutic work of professional psychology. Nothing could be farther from reality. 

An apparently sanctioned description by Dylan Jones appeared in the 24 September 2017 edition of GQ Britain: "Founded in 1967 by Bob Hoffman, a former tailor from Oakland, California, with no formal training in psychology, psychiatry or psychotherapy, the Process is designed to help the unmoored identify negative behaviours, moods and ways of thinking that developed unconsciously and were conditioned in childhood." At least Hoffman’s CV is accurate. I like the lyricism of "the unmoored." Really, let the precision of this precise psychological descriptor "unmoored" sink in before you plunk your money down.

Aside from the articles and reviews in either slick magazines or paid online infomercials, I know of at least one attempt to see if there were long term positive benefits from doing the Hoffman Process. A group of professional mental health researchers at a California University conducted a peer-reviewed long-term study. It was funded by a donation arranged by the Hoffman Institute. I wrote about it in Science vs. Spooks, Skepticism, scientific research and the Nostradamus effect. "You get what you pay for," or "Follow the money." Either works.

Why am I so harsh on an enterprise that has allegedly helped many people achieve some measure of inner peace and resolve unfinished business in their relationships with their parents? In my case Hoffman’s sexual abuse was severely damaging, and it took a very long time and a lot of money to resolve. The Hoffman Process is not psychotherapy but poses as an alternative. It’s a free world and anyone can subject themselves to anything they choose, but I feel that honesty obliges me to present another, less popular view so that people can make an informed choice.

Here is a link to my other writing about the Process.

© Kenneth Ireland, 2021