Actualizations

1. Introduction

Version followed: Actualizations as its founder Stewart Emery presents it in Actualizations: You Don't Have to Rehearse to Be Yourself (Doubleday, 1978), supplemented by the clinical and empirical literature on the est-era large-group awareness trainings (LGATs) from which it derives; the organisation's current operating status is not established here and is treated as largely historical [uncertain: not verified]. [source: Bowker/Bookwire catalogue entry; Wikipedia LGAT, uncertain: secondary, unverified]

Actualizations is a large-group awareness training, not a psychotherapy. It is an intensive personal-growth seminar developed in the 1970s by Stewart Emery, described in catalogue material as an early est trainer and a co-founder of Actualizations, and marketed as "a supportive and loving workshop that helps people establish joyful relationships," with relationships as its central theme and self-understanding as a secondary benefit [source: Bookwire]. It belongs to the family of commercial trainings seeded by Mind Dynamics and est, which combine psychological exercises, confrontation or encounter, new conceptual frames and group dynamics across long days to produce a claimed "transformation" [source: Wikipedia LGAT; Finkelstein, Wenegrat & Yalom 1982; uncertain: secondary, unverified]. Emery's stated positioning was comparatively warm and "supportive" rather than harshly confrontational, but independent description of the specific Actualizations curriculum is thin, so where a procedure cannot be tied to Emery's own account it is described from the general LGAT literature and marked accordingly [uncertain].

The programme's own theory of change is experiential and group-based: a person is held in a structured, high-intensity group over consecutive long days, led through exercises and a reframing of their relationships and responsibility, and expected to leave with a shifted sense of self and of what is possible in their relationships [source: Emery 1978; Wikipedia LGAT, uncertain: secondary, unverified]. This guide is not instructions for running such a training. It is an implementation guide for the clinical work a psychotherapist does around a client's involvement: helping the client decide whether to attend, screening for risk, informed consent, preparation, debriefing a peak or a crisis, and managing recruitment, cost and family fallout. In that work, change happens through the therapist's framing, protection and integration — turning whatever the client experiences into something they can metabolise safely and autonomously [synthesis].

2. Framework

The clinician's involvement is organised into five phases. Timing below is a practical suggestion, not a fixed protocol; adapt to the client and to how much notice there is before the training [synthesis].

Phase A — Decision and screening (before any deposit is paid). Goal: a genuinely informed, unpressured decision, and detection of anyone for whom an intensive LGAT is contraindicated. Format: ordinary individual sessions. Criteria to proceed: the client can state their own reasons (not only a recruiter's), shows no active contraindication (below), and can describe the training's method, intensity and full cost in their own words. If an active contraindication is present, the task shifts from "prepare" to "support a decision to defer or decline." [source: Finkelstein, Wenegrat & Yalom 1982; Wikipedia LGAT; uncertain: secondary, unverified]

Phase B — Preparation (close to the date). Goal: a self-regulation and continuity-of-care plan, a rehearsed right to leave, a safety plan, and clear boundaries about the therapist's role. Criterion to proceed: the client holds a concrete plan for pacing, breaks, sleep, food and medication, and knows how to exit if they need to. [synthesis; informed by Mathe's pre-attendance checklist as summarised in Wikipedia LGAT, uncertain: secondary, unverified]

Phase C — During the training. Goal: a light, agreed safety net without the therapist endorsing or policing the event. Format: a pre-agreed between-session contact plan and crisis resources; the therapist does not attend. [synthesis]

Phase D — Debrief and integration (soon after finishing, then ongoing). Goal: distinguish a transient "peak" from durable change, integrate anything useful into the client's own values and relationships, and catch adverse reactions early. Criterion to move on: affect has settled, reality testing is intact, and any acute reaction has been addressed. [source: Fisher et al. 1989; Haaken & Adams 1983; Lieberman 1987; uncertain: secondary, unverified]

Phase E — Longer-term. Goal: manage recruitment pressure, the follow-on course ladder, unpaid "assisting," cost and debt, family concerns, and — for those who leave disillusioned — grief and re-entry. Ongoing, as needed. [source: enlightened-spirituality (Conway) essay; U.S. Dept of Labor Dallas report 2006, as reported; uncertain: secondary, unverified]

3. Guiding principles

Neither recruiter nor prosecutor. Do not sell the training and do not crusade against it; help the client reach and own their own decision. [synthesis]
Autonomy and the right to leave come first. The client may attend, defer, decline, or walk out mid-session without justifying it to anyone. [synthesis]
Screen before a deposit, not after. Contraindications matter most before money and social commitment lock the client in. [source: Finkelstein, Wenegrat & Yalom 1982; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Informed consent is about method and cost, not just risk. The client should be able to describe the intensity, the confrontation/encounter style, the hours, and the full price ladder before agreeing. [source: Wikipedia LGAT (Mathe); uncertain: secondary, unverified]
State is not trait. A weekend "high" or breakthrough is a state; treat durable change as something to be tested over weeks, not assumed. [source: Fisher et al. 1989; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Do not pathologise meaning. A client may find the experience genuinely valuable; explore it in their own language rather than diagnosing their beliefs. [synthesis]
Watch the reality-testing line. Intensive, sleep-shortened, emotionally arousing group work can transiently impair reality testing and ego functioning; know where ordinary catharsis ends and a clinical reaction begins. [source: Haaken & Adams 1983; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Protect the purse. Money spent, debt taken on, and pressure to buy more are clinical material, not side issues. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay]
Keep roles clean. The therapist does not attend as the client's guest, does not become a recruiter or an "assistant," and does not endorse the organisation. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05 multiple relationships; synthesis]
Be crisis-ready. Because arousal can tip into a stress reaction, hold crisis resources and a safety plan before, during and after. [source: Lieberman 1987; synthesis]
Name allegations as allegations. Reports of coercive pressure or labour violations are relayed as what sources report, not asserted as fact about the client's specific event. [synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

These are the clinician's procedures, not the training's exercises. The confrontation and encounter processes used inside LGATs are described only in outline; no scripts, question sequences or timings are given [source: Wikipedia LGAT, uncertain: secondary, unverified; enlightened-spirituality essay].

4.1 Clarify the client's own motivation and expectations

Purpose / when: Phase A, at the first mention of attending, and whenever a recruiter or friend is driving the plan. Separates the client's own goals from borrowed enthusiasm.
Steps: Ask the client to name, in their own words, what they want from the weekend and what they expect to feel. Ask who first suggested it and what that person said. Ask what they imagine will be different afterwards. Write their answers back to them and ask which are theirs and which are someone else's.
Example language (illustrative): "If you set aside what your friend said, what do you hope changes for you here?"
Watch for: Working: the client can state concrete, personal, testable hopes. Concern: goals that are vague, totalising ("fix my whole life"), or clearly someone else's; a sense that declining would cost them a relationship.

4.2 Screen for psychiatric contraindications before a deposit

Purpose / when: Phase A, before money or social commitment lock the client in. Intensive LGATs can precipitate stress reactions and, rarely, transient psychotic episodes; people with psychosis or borderline-level fragility have been advised not to attend. [source: Finkelstein, Wenegrat & Yalom 1982; Lieberman 1987; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Steps: Take a focused history for: current or past psychotic or manic episodes and bipolar disorder; PTSD or a significant unprocessed trauma; a recent bereavement or major loss; current suicidality or self-harm; an eating disorder; dissociative symptoms; pregnancy; and current heavy substance use. Ask about sleep need and medication that must be taken on schedule. Weigh current stability, not just diagnosis. If an active contraindication is present, recommend deferring and say why plainly.
Example language (illustrative): "A format this intense, with long days and little sleep, can shake people up in ways that are hard to predict. Given what we've been working on, I'd suggest waiting — here's my reasoning."
Watch for: Working: the client can hear a "defer" without feeling condemned. Concern: active mania, psychosis, acute suicidality, acute grief, or a client who cannot tolerate the idea of missing out — all raise the threshold.

4.3 Walk through informed consent for method and cost

Purpose / when: Phase A, once the client is leaning toward attending. Ensures consent covers the how, not just the whether.
Steps: Help the client find and read the organisation's own description of the format (length, daily hours, group size), its ground rules and any waiver, and the full price including follow-on courses. Where the published material is thin, note that and treat the gap itself as information. Confirm the client understands there may be public confrontation/encounter work, emotional arousal and long days. [source: Wikipedia LGAT (Mathe); enlightened-spirituality essay; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Example language (illustrative): "Before you sign anything, let's read exactly what they say happens in the room, and what the whole thing — not just the first weekend — will cost."
Watch for: Working: the client can describe the method and the full cost ladder unprompted. Concern: a waiver that the client hasn't read; "we can't tell you, you have to experience it"; pressure to decide tonight.

4.4 Review the finances and the contract

Purpose / when: Phase A, alongside consent. Protects against debt and sunk-cost traps.
Steps: List the entry fee, advanced courses, travel and time off. Ask how it will be paid and whether debt is involved. Locate the cancellation and refund terms. Agree a ceiling in advance (e.g. the entry course only) and write it down with the client. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay, which reports total spending can run to thousands]
Example language (illustrative): "Let's decide now what you're willing to spend in total, and put it in writing, so a decision made at midnight on day three isn't the one that sets your budget."
Watch for: Working: a firm, pre-set ceiling. Concern: borrowing to attend; a plan that already assumes the advanced courses; refunds that evaporate after an introductory evening.

4.5 Decision-support for the introductory evening

Purpose / when: Phase A. Introductory "guest" evenings are heavy on testimonials and designed to produce a same-night sign-up. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay]
Steps: Prepare the client to attend as an observer, not a buyer: go with a decision already made to not pay that night, notice persuasion techniques (testimonials, time pressure, "yes-saying"), and leave to think. Debrief afterwards against the client's pre-set criteria.
Example language (illustrative): "Go, watch how the evening is built, and keep one rule: you don't sign or pay tonight, whatever the room is doing."
Watch for: Working: the client returns able to describe the sales structure. Concern: the client paid on the night; a feeling that everyone else was committing and they'd be left behind.

4.6 Build a self-regulation and grounding toolkit

Purpose / when: Phase B, before the training; usable in a break or a bathroom if arousal spikes. Gives the client a way to down-regulate inside a high-arousal room.
Steps: Teach and rehearse two or three portable skills the client already responds to — for example slow paced breathing, orienting to the physical room (naming what is seen and heard), and a self-statement that re-asserts their own stance. Keep breathing low-intensity and paced; do not teach rapid or breath-holding techniques. Practise each in session until automatic.
Example language (illustrative): "If it gets to be too much, you can step out, feel your feet, slow your breathing, and remind yourself: 'I can stay or I can go — this is my choice.'"
Watch for: Working: the client can drop their arousal on cue in session. Concern: skills that only work when calm; a client who feels they would not be "allowed" to step out.

4.7 Make a continuity-of-care plan

Purpose / when: Phase B. Long days with little sleep and skipped meals amplify risk, especially around medication. [source: Wikipedia LGAT, uncertain: secondary, unverified; synthesis]
Steps: Plan protected sleep, food and hydration, and — crucially — uninterrupted medication timing (psychiatric and physical). Agree that scheduled medication is non-negotiable regardless of any "rules" about leaving the room. Never advise the client to start, stop or alter a medicine; route any medication question to the prescriber. Identify who the client will contact if they feel unwell.
Example language (illustrative): "Whatever the room asks, your medication happens on time. If a rule gets in the way, that's the room's problem to solve, not yours."
Watch for: Working: a concrete plan the client has written down. Concern: a programme rule or peer pressure that discourages breaks, sleep or stepping out to take medication.

4.8 Rehearse the right to leave

Purpose / when: Phase B. The single most protective skill for an intensive, boundary-pressing format. [synthesis]
Steps: Establish explicitly that the client may leave at any point, for any reason, and owes no one an explanation. Rehearse a simple exit line and a plan for what they do next (step out, call a named person, go home). Normalise that leaving is a legitimate outcome, not a failure.
Example language (illustrative): "You can stand up and walk out at any moment. You don't have to debate it or win an argument to go."
Watch for: Working: the client believes leaving is genuinely available to them. Concern: a belief that leaving means they are "running a racket," are broken, or will lose the group's regard.

4.9 Build a safety plan and set crisis resources

Purpose / when: Phase B, carried through Phases C and D. Because arousal can tip into a stress reaction. [source: Lieberman 1987]
Steps: Complete a brief safety plan: warning signs, self-regulation steps, who to call, and crisis lines. Give the client crisis numbers to keep on them: in the US, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline); in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123. Agree what would prompt the client to leave the training and seek help.
Example language (illustrative): "If things turn frightening rather than just intense — you can't sleep, you feel unreal, you're thinking about harming yourself — you leave and you call one of these numbers. No hesitation."
Watch for: Working: the client has the plan saved and knows the triggers. Concern: a client who treats distress as something to "push through" because the training frames it that way.

4.10 Set boundaries about the therapist's own role

Purpose / when: Phase B, and any time the client asks the therapist to attend, endorse, or join. Keeps the therapeutic frame clean. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05; synthesis]
Steps: State warmly that the therapist will support the client before and after but will not attend as a guest, will not endorse or condemn the organisation, and will not take on any role in it. Explain that this neutrality is what lets the therapist remain a safe place to think afterwards.
Example language (illustrative): "I'm not going to come, and I'm not going to tell you it's wonderful or terrible. My job is to be the person you can think it all through with afterwards — that only works if I stay outside it."
Watch for: Working: the client accepts the boundary without feeling rejected. Concern: repeated pressure to attend or approve; the client experiencing neutrality as disloyalty.

4.11 Agree a contact plan for during the training

Purpose / when: Phase C, spanning the training days. A light safety net that does not police the event.
Steps: Agree in advance a single check-in (for example a text each evening), and a clear threshold at which the client contacts the therapist or a crisis line rather than waiting. Confirm the client has a trusted person outside the training who knows where they are. The therapist does not attend, observe or intervene with the organisation.
Example language (illustrative): "Text me one line each night just so I know you're okay. If it crosses from intense into frightening, you don't wait for the morning — you call."
Watch for: Working: brief, reassuring check-ins. Concern: silence, or messages that signal escalating distress, grandiosity or sleeplessness.

4.12 Debrief the peak or breakthrough

Purpose / when: Phase D, first session after. Helps integrate gains without over-identifying with a transient state. Studies find measurable short-term effects whose durability is uncertain. [source: Fisher et al. 1989; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Steps: Invite the client to narrate the experience in their own words. Validate genuine insight and emotion. Then gently separate state from trait: ask which changes they could still act on in two weeks, and translate any insight into one small, concrete behavioural step inside their existing relationships and values. Avoid adopting the programme's jargon as the new frame of therapy.
Example language (illustrative): "That sounds like it mattered. Let's find the one thing from it you can actually do on Tuesday — the part that lasts past the glow."
Watch for: Working: enthusiasm that converts into modest, testable action. Concern: a "manic edge" to the euphoria, sweeping life decisions made in the afterglow, or the client speaking only in the training's vocabulary.

4.13 Conduct a post-training differential assessment

Purpose / when: Phase D, whenever affect or thinking seems altered. Distinguishes an ordinary high from a clinical reaction. Intensive group work can transiently impair reality testing. [source: Haaken & Adams 1983; Lieberman 1987; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Steps: Assess for: hypomania/mania (reduced sleep need, grandiosity, pressured speech, impulsive decisions) versus a benign peak; brief psychotic phenomena; dissociation, derealisation or depersonalisation; re-traumatisation or PTSD reactivation; and acute suicidality. Use your standard risk assessment. Where reality testing is impaired or mood is elevated, prioritise stabilisation and consider psychiatric referral.
Example language (illustrative): "You're sleeping only a couple of hours and feel on top of the world — I want to take that seriously rather than just celebrate it. Let's look at it carefully."
Watch for: Working: elevated-but-grounded, reality testing intact. Concern: sustained sleeplessness with elevated mood, unreality, voices, or frightening certainty — treat as clinical, not spiritual.

4.14 Stabilise an acute adverse reaction

Purpose / when: Phase D, if the client returns in crisis or decompensates. [source: Lieberman 1987; synthesis]
Steps: Prioritise safety and down-regulation: re-orient to the present, slow breathing, restore sleep and food, reduce stimulation, and re-establish the client's own baseline supports. Complete a risk assessment and activate the safety plan. Give crisis resources again (US 988; UK/IE Samaritans 116 123). Refer for urgent psychiatric assessment if there is mania, psychosis or acute suicidality. Frame the reaction as a response to an intense experience, not as the client's failure.
Example language (illustrative): "What's happening is a reaction to something very intense. We're going to get you sleeping and safe first, and sort out the meaning once you're steadier."
Watch for: Working: arousal settles with sleep and support over days. Concern: no settling, worsening, or the client blaming themselves for "not getting it."

4.15 Work with the "total responsibility" framing

Purpose / when: Phase D/E, when the client has absorbed a doctrine that they are the cause of everything that happens to them. LGAT frames have been reported to extend "taking responsibility" even to harms done to a person. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay]
Steps: Affirm the useful kernel (agency over one's responses) while clearly separating it from self-blame for abuse, assault or others' actions. Name that responsibility for one's response is not the same as fault for what was done. Watch especially for trauma survivors turning the doctrine against themselves.
Example language (illustrative): "Choosing how you respond is yours. What was done to you was not your doing — those are two different things, and I won't let them get collapsed into one."
Watch for: Working: the client keeps agency without self-blame. Concern: a survivor concluding an assault was their creation; guilt dressed up as empowerment.

4.16 Integrate the relationship material on the client's own terms

Purpose / when: Phase D/E. Actualizations foregrounds relationships and "being yourself" in them; integration means testing that against the client's actual life rather than importing the programme's model wholesale. [source: Emery 1978]
Steps: Ask what the training said about the client's relationships and which parts fit their own values. Convert any genuine insight into specific, consented behaviour with real people (a conversation, a boundary), checking for impulsive relationship upheaval. Keep the client's own language rather than the seminar's.
Example language (illustrative): "Of what you learned about your relationships, what actually rings true for you — and what's the smallest real change you'd want to try?"
Watch for: Working: measured, values-based relational steps. Concern: sudden ultimatums, confronting family "to complete," or recruiting loved ones as a form of connection.

4.17 Manage recruitment pressure and pressure to enrol others

Purpose / when: Phase E. Graduates are commonly urged to bring friends and family to introductory evenings and to enrol in advanced courses. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay]
Steps: Normalise that enrolling others is built into the model, and separate the client's wish to share something good from an organisational task. Rehearse declining without guilt. Explore what the client fears will happen if they stop recruiting. Protect relationships being strained by repeated invitations.
Example language (illustrative): "Wanting to share something that helped you is human. Being given homework to sign others up is the organisation's goal, not yours — you're allowed to keep the first and drop the second."
Watch for: Working: the client can decline recruiting and stay connected to people. Concern: friendships straining, guilt at "withholding," relationships increasingly limited to fellow graduates.

4.18 Address the assisting and volunteer pipeline

Purpose / when: Phase E, when the client is drawn into unpaid "assisting" or volunteering. Unpaid assistant labour at a related organisation was found by a U.S. Department of Labor investigation (Dallas, reported 2006) to breach minimum-wage and overtime rules; the organisation disputed the finding. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay, citing the DOL report; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Steps: Map the time, money and opportunity cost of volunteering against what the client is getting. Explore the meaning the role carries (belonging, status, staving off "incompleteness"). Support an autonomous decision about how much to give, and flag the labour-rights dimension where relevant.
Example language (illustrative): "Let's count what assisting actually costs you in hours and money, and what it's giving you — and whether that trade is one you'd choose with clear eyes."
Watch for: Working: a deliberate, bounded choice. Concern: escalating unpaid hours, neglected work or family, and identity fused with the role.

4.19 Hold a session for a concerned family member

Purpose / when: Phase E, when relatives are worried, with the client's consent. [synthesis]
Steps: With consent, meet the relative (or coach the client) to reduce polarisation: avoid attacking the group (which tends to entrench), keep the relationship warm and open, express specific concerns factually (money, sleep, withdrawal), and keep lines of contact alive. Offer psychoeducation on how high-pressure recruitment works without labelling.
Example language (illustrative): "The thing most likely to push someone further in is feeling judged by the people they love. Stay close, stay curious, and raise concrete worries gently rather than condemning the whole thing."
Watch for: Working: preserved relationship and open dialogue. Concern: ultimatums and estrangement that isolate the client further.

4.20 Support a former participant

Purpose / when: Phase E, for clients disillusioned with or leaving the organisation. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay; Haaken & Adams 1983; uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Steps: Make room for grief, embarrassment and anger about time, money and relationships. Address cognitive dissonance (heavy investment pulling toward defending the experience). Rebuild outside supports and identity beyond the group. Reframe leaving as a legitimate, discerning choice, and retain whatever was genuinely valuable without needing to endorse or wholly repudiate the whole.
Example language (illustrative): "You can keep the parts that genuinely helped you and still walk away from the rest. Leaving isn't admitting you were foolish — it's you deciding what's yours."
Watch for: Working: grief that moves and supports that rebuild. Concern: shame-driven isolation, or being pulled back by renewed contact and sunk-cost feelings.

5. Handling problems

The client wants the therapist to approve or attend. Hold the boundary from 4.10 warmly and repeatedly; frame neutrality as what keeps the therapist useful. If the client experiences this as rejection, name that directly and reaffirm support for them. [synthesis]

The client hears any screening or caution as an attack on the training. Shift from the organisation to the client: "I'm not arguing about the programme; I'm thinking about you and your history." Stay curious about what attending means to them rather than debating the group's merits — debate tends to entrench. [synthesis]

Overwhelm and flooding during or after. Prioritise down-regulation and sleep over insight (4.14). Keep sessions containing and structured; postpone meaning-making until arousal settles. If reality testing is impaired or mood is elevated with reduced sleep, treat it as clinical and consider psychiatric referral (4.13). [source: Haaken & Adams 1983; Lieberman 1987; uncertain: secondary, unverified]

Non-adherence — the client skips screening, pays on the night, or won't debrief. Avoid a power struggle; keep the door open and the relationship intact so the client returns when they need to. Reinforce the right to leave and the crisis plan even if other preparation was skipped. Treat a missed debrief as a standing invitation, not a closed matter. [synthesis]

Rupture — the client feels judged or "pathologised." Repair openly: acknowledge the client's experience as real and valuable to them, distinguish respecting their meaning from endorsing every claim, and recommit to exploring it in their language. Do not pathologise belief. [synthesis]

The client makes sweeping life decisions in the afterglow. Introduce a deliberate delay: "Let's let the big decisions wait two weeks and see which still feel right once the intensity passes." Convert enthusiasm into one small testable step (4.12). Assess for hypomania if decisions are impulsive and grand (4.13). [source: Fisher et al. 1989; synthesis; uncertain: secondary, unverified]

The client turns "responsibility" into self-blame for past harm. Use 4.15: separate ownership of one's response from fault for what others did. Be especially alert with trauma survivors; where this is entrenched, trauma-focused work may be needed before further training. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay; synthesis]

Escalating financial and volunteer commitment. Return to the pre-set ceiling (4.4) and the cost-benefit map (4.18). If debt is mounting, make it an explicit focus. Explore the belief that the next course or more assisting will finally "complete" something — a dynamic the critical literature describes as built into the model. [source: enlightened-spirituality essay]

Family estrangement over the client's involvement. Coach relatives away from ultimatums (4.19); isolation tends to deepen involvement. Keep the therapist's own stance non-condemning so the client does not add the therapist to the list of people who "don't understand." [synthesis]

"Recovered" memories or vivid new certainties from an exercise. Treat memories or convictions surfacing in a suggestible, high-arousal group with care: do not confirm or deny their literal accuracy, hold them as meaningful material, and avoid building major decisions on them. Where this becomes central, see the regression and false-memory guidance elsewhere in this project (Domain VI). [source: synthesis; cross-reference Domain VI regression harm account]

Modality-specific limits of these sources. Independent, detailed description of the current Actualizations curriculum is scarce; much of the clinical guidance here is generalised from the wider LGAT literature and from standard practice, and is marked [synthesis] or [uncertain] where that is so. Where a specific event differs from what these sources describe, trust the client's account of their own experience and adapt. [uncertain]

Sources

Bowker Books in Print / Bookwire catalogue entry for Emery, Actualizations: You Don't Have to Rehearse to Be Yourself (Doubleday, 1978), ISBN 9780385131223 (publisher's description).
Large-group awareness training (Wikipedia) [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
List of large-group awareness training organizations (Wikipedia) [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Effects of large group awareness training on participants' psychiatric status — abstract (American Journal of Psychiatry, PsychiatryOnline)
The Pros & Cons of LGATs (Timothy Conway, enlightened-spirituality.org) — a critical secondary essay; its interpretive claims are the author's
Emery, Stewart (1978). Actualizations: You Don't Have to Rehearse to Be Yourself. Doubleday.
Finkelstein, P., Wenegrat, B., & Yalom, I. (1982). Large group awareness training. Annual Review of Psychology, 33, 515–539. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Lieberman, M. A. (1987). Effects of large group awareness training on participants' psychiatric status. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144(4), 460–464.
Haaken, J., & Adams, R. (1983). Pathology as "personal growth": A participant-observation study of Lifespring training. Psychiatry, 46(3), 270–280. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
Fisher, J. D., Silver, R. C., Chinsky, J. M., Goff, B., et al. (1989). Psychological effects of participation in a large group awareness training. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 57(6), 747–755. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
U.S. Department of Labor, Dallas district office investigation (reported 2006), as reported in the enlightened-spirituality essay [uncertain: secondary, unverified].
American Psychological Association. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, Standard 3.05 (Multiple Relationships), https://www.apa.org/ethics/code

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