‘Family-Therapy Participants Try to Shed Childhood Anguish’

This letter is from an irate reader regarding the article on John Bradshaw’s four-day seminars in Orange County.

I attended all four sessions with the result being increased understanding that enables me to be a more relaxed, efficient and happy person. I find the biased and erroneous reporting in The Times offensive and demeaning.

At the very beginning, the uninformed reader would assume many people were there with stuffed animals. There were only two during the entire four days.

John Bradshaw is not a guru; he provides a very effective therapy that helps people to think and feel for themselves. If they need assistance after his lectures, they are encouraged to obtain it from their individual therapists, and many well-known and respected therapists refer their patients to John Bradshaw lectures.

The music was not New Age. Of the wide variety of tapes for sale, only one had the name New Age on it, and to my knowledge, it was not used for background music. New Age is considered to be demonic by many people. The headline word “Exorcise” implies evil spirits.

In my opinion, the falsity of these words gives the readers a tremendous misconception that harms the useful work that Bradshaw does.

We were not “huddled” in groups. A more appropriate description would be “gathered in supportive groups.” “Secrets” were not “confessed;” they were shared, more often involving childhood hurts than criminal acts. People were comforted and gained insight from others in the groups.

If Bradshaw’s therapy on healing the inner child had been available 40 years ago, I would have avoided much suffering and saved a big bunch of money.

FLORENCE STANSBURY

Laguna Hills