RE: Trauma Tourists

The recent news of Scientology and other so-called healer groups,
including GW, going to disaster areas to provide "relief" with their
healing "technology" is appalling. The purpose of this self-
proclaimed aid is to promote the image and agenda of these groups at
the expense of victims of natural and unnatural disasters, and has
even resulted in a new descriptive term indicative of the
exploitation of our times – trauma tourism.

Anyone, including myself, who has experienced people under severe
trauma, understands that while people respond positively to
sympathetic attention – indeed, almost any attention – their
real need is to receive basic necessities in the form of food,
medical care, and shelter, not Kabbala water and plastic pucks.These
basic needs continue for years and are not resolved by kind words
and plastic and paper gadgets.

Members of these groups handing out this colorful "magic" have
a "feel good" experience, smiles for the camera, and provide public
relations opportunities for their groups. The only people they
really help are themselves.

Aside from the real placebo effect of the kindness of strangers
(assuming some trauma tourists are so motivated), or aide workers
(who remain and help put lives back together in spite of being
given "plastic and paper" distractions), this is altogether a detour
from what is needed.

The real aide workers are the legitimate relief agencies who
organize vast resources and remain for years, long after pubic
attention and media have moved on.

The Trauma Tourists with their healing water, gadgets, and "crisis
counseling" without credentials, waiting for the next photo ops,
should be stopped.

Don






--- In gentlewindvictims@yahoogroups.com, "andreask53"
<andreask53@y...> wrote:
> CHecking this Gentle Wynd group out on their garish site and they
> bear a strong resemblance to scientology, especially with the
trauma
> products they promote all over their site alongside photos of the
> traumatized. Quite odd. I copy here a posting from elsewhere so
that
> you people can see how this is. The lawsuit seems the same script
> also, so they must be following a screenplay. Your group may
attempt
> to morph into a religion to escape censure by authorities next.
All
> in all these trauma chasers are empty of respectibility. Here goes:
>
>
> Scientology started off, not as a religion at all, but as a
> pseudoscientific practice, Dianetics, that made all kinds of
> grandiose claims about mental health. It only turned into
> a "religion" and became Scientology after Hubbard had to find a
way
> to get out of danger of being charged with making unfounded claims
> he could get in trouble for. By making it a religion, he protected
> himself from that. That way, anyone who criticized it could be
> written off as a "bigot".
>
> They've been around since 1950 and have been making bogus mental
> health claims that have nothing to do with religion. Their relief
> efforts preceded the current fad of trauma tourism.
>
> In SE Asia last January around the time of the tsunami, many of
the
> governments affected were turning away these trauma ghouls. People
> did not need this. What they needed was material assistance and
> reassurance that most people are resilient and will get through
it.
> The last thing they needed was to be used to promote the
> latest "power" therapy.
>
> Scientologists show up at the scenes of many disasters. They tried
> to go to Russia to offer "help" to children traumatized at the
> school tragedy at Beslan and ended up getting kicked out, and also
> were on the scene after 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing. This
is
> a classic tactic that cults and other pseudoscientific practices
use
> in order to promote themselves as doing good deeds. Sally Satel
even
> gave it a name: trauma tourism. They're using disasters and the
> tragedy of others to "spread the word".
>
> Scientology is not the only group that has descended on tsunami
> victims and offered unsolicited "help". What's particularly
alarming
> is that some of these trauma methods have been shown in some
> cases/studies to do more harm than good.
>
> What is up with these groups and the tsunami? People who are
> traumatized are extremely vulnerable to exploitation. A lot of
these
> groups have very cultish tendencies -- and indeed Lifton and some
of
> the early works that cult awareness is based on were trying to
> explain this.