I worked for a Son-Rise family for almost two years. There are definitely cultish elements about the philosophy, for sure. The language is an argot unique to them and is extremely controlled; if you are deemed to have said something "negative" or pessimistic you will be reprimanded, and made to feel that the autistic child will pick up on your negativity and be dragged down as a result (even if you are not saying something in front of the child). This fosters an atmosphere of repression among employees: of course no one would ever want to hurt a child, but at the same time, then, employees don't feel free to bring up legitimate concerns about the job or the child's progress.
The most unsettling thing that I experienced during my time with this family was something with a former employee of the Institute––I forget the exact name of the procedure, but it was a back-and-forth "dialogue" (word in quotes for a reason, which I will explain) designed to help you, the employee, dig deeper and uncover any blocks you might have to truly joining (aka mimicking) the child during sessions and doing so with joy. The dialogue is really just the person in charge––aka the Son-Rise operative––asking you increasingly personal questions that you answer without being able to respond in kind. It's similar in structure to exercises in Transactional Analysis and Scientology's auditing, and it leaves you feeling very upset and vulnerable, or at least it did for me, because I felt backed into a corner, and like I had to reveal private information in order to help the child and keep my job and satisfy this interrogator. I remember being very embarrassed afterward, and I went to the bathroom to cry for a moment. Perhaps had I been older––I was only twenty-three at the time––I would have put my foot down, but I just didn't feel confident enough to do that.
I find much of Kaufman's theories puerile (generally I think radical authenticity is a cover for someone just wanting to be a douche bag in public) and his persona is definitely the same scent as many male spiritual gurus (overly confident and authoritative w/r/t his intelligence, smarmy, Mafia-esque w/r/t his family as "best" employees, self-mythologizing, etc.) Mostly I just felt bad for the family I worked for, because their child was severely autistic and seemed very unlikely to ever be able to live independently (which I think has ultimately proved to be the case) but they were never allowed to grapple with that idea verbally because it was giving in to the negative. They had an enormous amount of money though, so I guess they could just pay to keep a full-time staff to do Son-Rise with their child for the rest of his life, if they wanted to.
To respond directly to LeChat, I think there are some valid points here. There *is* a difference between a simplistic self-help thought process and a cult. With the former, you can just say, "Nope, not for me!" and walk away. I did hear plenty of stories about the Institute in Massachusetts that made it sound shady and unpleasant, but none that sounded outright coercive or aggressive or, like, disdainful of basic human rights. I didn't spend time there so I can't speak to it further. In my circumstances, I was a paid employee for a family who was heavily involved but did not live near the Institute, and while I felt the doctrine was definitely something I had to pretend to totally approve of, at the end of the day, I went home and did and believed what I wanted to.
The most unsettling thing that I experienced during my time with this family was something with a former employee of the Institute––I forget the exact name of the procedure, but it was a back-and-forth "dialogue" (word in quotes for a reason, which I will explain) designed to help you, the employee, dig deeper and uncover any blocks you might have to truly joining (aka mimicking) the child during sessions and doing so with joy. The dialogue is really just the person in charge––aka the Son-Rise operative––asking you increasingly personal questions that you answer without being able to respond in kind. It's similar in structure to exercises in Transactional Analysis and Scientology's auditing, and it leaves you feeling very upset and vulnerable, or at least it did for me, because I felt backed into a corner, and like I had to reveal private information in order to help the child and keep my job and satisfy this interrogator. I remember being very embarrassed afterward, and I went to the bathroom to cry for a moment. Perhaps had I been older––I was only twenty-three at the time––I would have put my foot down, but I just didn't feel confident enough to do that.
I find much of Kaufman's theories puerile (generally I think radical authenticity is a cover for someone just wanting to be a douche bag in public) and his persona is definitely the same scent as many male spiritual gurus (overly confident and authoritative w/r/t his intelligence, smarmy, Mafia-esque w/r/t his family as "best" employees, self-mythologizing, etc.) Mostly I just felt bad for the family I worked for, because their child was severely autistic and seemed very unlikely to ever be able to live independently (which I think has ultimately proved to be the case) but they were never allowed to grapple with that idea verbally because it was giving in to the negative. They had an enormous amount of money though, so I guess they could just pay to keep a full-time staff to do Son-Rise with their child for the rest of his life, if they wanted to.
To respond directly to LeChat, I think there are some valid points here. There *is* a difference between a simplistic self-help thought process and a cult. With the former, you can just say, "Nope, not for me!" and walk away. I did hear plenty of stories about the Institute in Massachusetts that made it sound shady and unpleasant, but none that sounded outright coercive or aggressive or, like, disdainful of basic human rights. I didn't spend time there so I can't speak to it further. In my circumstances, I was a paid employee for a family who was heavily involved but did not live near the Institute, and while I felt the doctrine was definitely something I had to pretend to totally approve of, at the end of the day, I went home and did and believed what I wanted to.