The Linden Method - retreat - my experience ( Don't read if you don't want to hear negative stuffxx)

[janieshuffle]

Hi there. This may seem a bit random but I really wanted to find a place to share my own experience with the Linden Method as Its actually really difficult to find any real reviews of the Linden Method as its so heavily marketed and controlled!

I want to start off by saying - this is my experience and if you are at the point in your illness where you don't want to hear negative stories about a treatment you are considering - stop reading here! It will not serve your purpose right now.

The other thing I will say is that I do agree that the online downloads/dvds etc are ok value and probably worth trying if you want to try something different etc.

I knew I was the kind of person who would download all the info and not really stick to it so I actually took the leap of attending one of their retreats ( at great expense, borrowing money from family etc). I will start off by saying that this was over a year ago and I have only just felt able to even write about my feelings towards the experience. I signed up at a hugely vulnerable and, frankly horrific, time. I was severely anxious, suffering with depersonalisation, de realisation, trauma and grief. I was completely desperate to find something that would help me out of the dark hole I was in. The Linden Method promised me this.

I was in a terrible state when I arrived ( with my husband accompanying me) and just found the whole thing overwhelming. The staff that met us were very nice and seemingly kind ( however it did feel as though their kindness was limited and if you started asking too many questions, taking up too much of their time etc, their own patience wore thin and you were made to feel as though you were being a bit of a pain.
The venue was lovely and, of course, the other people were sooo lovely. Our teacher ( can't remember her name now) was lovely too, she knew her stuff and had an answer for everything. However, over the days it became quite obvious that they all had the same lines and ways of saying the same message over and over. The message is basically ' keep you anxious, highly creative mind occupied AT ALL TIMES' and they literally mean from the minute you wake til the minute you sleep, always occupied, never allow for the anxious thoughts to take space in your brain.

I totally understand the theory behind this and agree that inaction is the enemy of anxiety. For me, keeping distracted and busy is very important and has helped me carry on and keep my activities and relationships going etc. However, I also know that when I am highly anxious and suffering with severe intrusive thoughts/memories etc etc, nothing I do can make me forget those. No matter what I am doing they will be there. I kept trying to get this across to them and they kept saying 'well you are just not doing the right things..' so guess what, I felt very bad about myself and tried new things. The same thing happened. I personally don't think its possible to find things that can fill up your day from start to finish that are so incredibly interesting and intense that anxiety doesn't creep in. Plus I also have a child and friends and family etc, I am going to spend time with them and yet I will still feel overwhelmingly anxious and weird etc.

I honestly tried so many things when I left the retreat, I took up singing, martial arts, CHANGED MY JOB!, listened to a million podcasts ( too anxious to read) etc etc. Guess what, it didn't help me heal, I got more and more exhausted, I wasn't honouring my own emotions atall and I still felt horrific even 4/5 months later.
I would ring the support centre quite often and would always be told the same thing, it felt unsupportive and completely dismissive of real people’s feelings and experiences. As I now know, everyone's healing journey is different and what may have worked for the 'cult of Linden' will not always work for 'everyone else' and how arrogant of them to think it will.

One of the 10 pillars is to 'not talk about anxiety' to friends and family. While, again, I understand that talking about it all the time just reinforces the language of anxiety and helps perpetuate it. However for me, and I am imagine thousands of others, talking about it to my loved ones has been a lifeline. There have been times that I was feeling suicidal and I reached out. It also helps me be honest and real and not fake. I also think its a very dangerous message as its that very problem that often leads people to suicide as they feel so alone.
My final interaction with them was one day when I was at work - I was in the middle of a very intense piece of work that required alot of concentration ( perfect Linden Method activity!) and I felt so despairing and awful, thoughts of suicide and overwhelm were literally almost paralysing me and I felt the only thing to do was to call them. The lady I spoke was really quite horrible, she made me cry and basically said - if you are feeling suicidal you need to call Samaritans which I did end up doing.
Thankfully I am alive! But considering the fact that I was one of only 10 people that spent three days with them at the retreat, noone has ever followed up to see how we are and especially after a call like that - no follow up atall. Shocking.

I kept in touch with 3 lovely people from the retreat, not one of them has found it helpful ( apart from we have all taken up a ew activity that we now enjoy so that's good). Other than that, no difference apart from the fact that we spent over £3000 and felt really crap about ourselves for a long time for our perceived 'failure' to apply the method properly.

The way they market their success is obviously false and may actually be unlawful.
I will say Charles was charming ( as was his lovely wife) and he is very passionate about it but I think he has totally forgotten what it actually felt like to have severe mental illness and that he thinks that his regimented regime is right for all people. It is not.

Final thing is that - they won't tell you what the Linden Method is until you have paid in full to attend the retreat. You get the online stuff for free when you sign up but if you want to try that first and then sign up they wouldn't give you your money back for the online stuff??? Dodgy and unethical. Having had a lot of time to reflect, I try very hard not to be bitter but im very angry and how we were treated and especially the lack of care and support afterwards ( the ladies on the phone are mean! They may seem kind to begin with but as soon as you start to ask too many questions they get shirty and one even told me I had run out of time!! ( 15 mins per call). I was crying and saying I felt I couldn't cope/carry on etc etc.!
Ok, I am actually getting angrier as I write so I will stop.
Please do feel free to contact me if you are able to and want to ask me anything. Do NOT commit £3000 to this retreat until you really know what you are paying for.

Sending so much love as if you are reading this you probably feel desperate for help. I know how that feels, im doing ok now but that has come through many things ( elements of the Linden Method like trying to occupy mind) but also many other ones such as sharing and talking about my feelings, expressing emotions, exercise, medications, time, gratitude practises and much more. Good luck whatever journey you are on - you are a frikin amazing, strong and powerful warrior!!!!

Wow @EmStar23 that sounds absolutely like the man. If you share that in the Facebook group mentioned above I think you’ll find others have had experience of his highly aggressive and narcissistic behaviour. It’s terrifying to think this unqualified loon is tinkering about with the mental health of often quite vulnerable people.

@EmStar23 wow, that is pretty shocking, even for Charles Linden, aka Lyndon Griffiths! Honestly, I'm speechless! Wasn't that around the time they changed venues? I'm guessing after that the hotel didn't want to have anything to do with him.

Horrific man!

I’m not on Facebook anymore, I’ll have to set up an account unless someone on here is kind enough to screenshot my post as I certainly want to encourage as many people as possible to do their research on this man!

Thanks @EmStar23 your experience has been posted on the page. Absolutely shocking behaviour and I’m not surprised you are still upset by it.

Thank you x

Gosh reading this upsets me so much cause we handed over a lot of money when my son was at rock bottom. I put all my trust in this horrid man and his scheme. My son was worse when he came home but I searched and searched and the negative comments are so hidden. It's heartbreaking as I cant warn others. Thank you so much for taking time to comment. Hopefully we can help others

I'll gladly do that - in fact, I was going to ask you if I could! It's so important that we share our experiences. So with your permission, I'll share this to the Facebook group - thank you!

Have you tried getting your money back? The method is advertised with a 100% success rate "so easy even a child can do it" - it's obviously not true - your bank should be able to assist you in getting your money back as it is a scam! Some people have been successful claiming their money back through their banks for the retreat. I myself claimed successfully through PayPal, although it was only for the online resources. I sincerely hope your son's doing better now. There are so many good resources available online for free and don't believe what Linden says about CBT - it does work and it offers a long-term strategy to deal with anxiety. Unfortunately, with the NHS the way it is at the moment, it is a lottery, but there is genuine help out there! And for many of us, just getting the right resources can be very helpful without even professional therapy.

@Michmorant he cynically targets people who are vulnerable and their loved ones who are worried and looking for support. Anyone in that position would understandably be very tempted by his promises of total cure. Part of his hard sell is to knock other forms of psychotherapy. The advice he gives regarding anxiety is totally counter productive and is designed to keep people dependent on him.

He’s extremely aggressive to anyone who so much as questions him and he shuts down reviews where he can. You could add your experience to Scampulse and also Twitter is your friend as it’s difficult for him to contain a tweet full of hashtags (plus he’s banned from Twitter!). The more people share the better the chances this man can be prevented from harming people.

Thank you for sharing on Facebook. I hope it’s helpful in understanding more about the man . I am shocked he seems to have celebrity endorsements , I wonder if he’s simply paid them?!

The celebrity endorsement is what fooled me. I read the heartbreaking story by Linda Robson birds of a feather about her son. How does he do it. ?

I was at the retreat at the same time as Linda Robson. She was there for herself but she was in such a severely anxious state that she ended up leaving early! He clearly couldn’t help her. I doubt she must be still endorsing him? I know with her son he actually went and stayed with them and gave him one to one. Obviously doing it to get the endorsement now I reflect on it. I wonder if anyone in the media would be up for doing an expose on him? It really needs to stop. Xx

I’m a CBT therapist and I can see absolutely no value in a therapeutic approach just because a celebrity has used it (or CL says they have). It’s just not a valid indicator of good, safe, ethical therapy, in fact it’s rather the opposite!

Whether therapy works or not isn’t about endorsement (celebrity or otherwise) or about anecdote, it’s about evidence - testing a hypothesis about how a particular form of anxiety comes about and how it is maintained then testing an approach across a large population in properly designed trials, against other approaches and against medication etc etc to see how well it does and continuing to search for ways to improve approaches. It’s not about one man’s ego!

Whenever a “cure” is offered - run! Whenever the cure is controlled by one guru - run! Whenever a therapy is only ever mentioned with a trademark or ®️ next to its name - run! Whenever most of the time is spent telling you all other approaches are crap - run! Whenever someone is telling you their way is the only way and they are trying to make you dependent on them - run! Whenever someone tells you they were completely cured and you read it in Chat magazine - run!

I think that sometimes something like TLM can feel like it helps: it’s the hard sell that encourages hope in the beginning. Sometimes the group environment is helpful and meeting others who are anxious can help someone realise they’re not alone. For some (very few) this new perspective is enough for them and perhaps that is when the celebrities endorse him. They go along to a retreat and get special attention on the understanding they do a bit of positive social media. Ive noticed that previous apparent endorsers of TLM like Miranda Hart no longer comment on it and will no longer enter into any kind of discussion about it. No celeb is going to own up to having been duped so I imagine most of them go on to quietly seek proper help elsewhere from a qualified clinician who doesn’t say a word about who their patients are.

@Janieshuffle1 that’s so interesting that you were there when LR left early. Matt Allwright of Watchdog was asking on Twitter about what he should tackle and I’ve mentioned TLM. I’ve corresponded with him before about another scam and he’s very receptive. CL really needs a tenacious journalist to get on his case, one that has a big media legal team behind them. The consumer protection angle re refunds and contracts etc is the best place to start but I’d like a real expose of the damage he’s done to people’s mental health through bogus treatment and his conduct towards those that dare to try and share their honest negative experience.

Thank you for this. Please let me know how I can help. I hear you when you say ‘run’ but the issue is that he is absolutely targeting incredibly vulnerable people who feel like they have already tried everything else and got nowhere. They are desperate and will literally do anything to feel ok again. Believe me, I know. I was the one who began this whole thread so people can read my story. Feel free to share with anyone who you think can help expose him. Thank you xx

@Janieshuffle1 yes I agree with you 100% about how desperate people are and that, for me, is the most upsetting thing. I hate the way he offers “cure” and then blames already vulnerable people when his methods [inevitably] don’t work.

I guess I listed a few things to run away from (some of the red flags of bogus therapy) in case someone comes along here and reads this thread, but I totally understand that people absolutely desperate to feel better will latch on to his promises and override any doubts in their minds in the hope he will provide the answer. He needs to be stopped and the more people who share their experience in one place the better, which is why the FB page is so important.

It would be great if someone did uncover his scam and look into TLM

So glad I found this! I had an email from them asking to give feedback why I hadn’t booked on to a retreat as yet. They asked if it was the cost etc…. I wrote back saying yes it was a lot of money when they wouldn’t give any info out on the treatment. I said I’d just like an example of what I’d be paying for. Needless to say no reply from them. I also said I was interested in how Charles had developed this method for himself at a time when he was so ill. No reply from them. This made my mind up that’s it’s all about the money.

Good questions from you. Not remotely surprised that they didn’t reply. It’s all based on persuasive marketing targeted at the most delicate and vulnerable people. Well done for feeling your own power despite your current struggles! I really hope you find the best support for yourself. I’m so much better now and that has been a process and included a lot of grief and trauma work alongside therapy, body work and medication. You will get there too xxx

You did the right thing, TLS! It's difficult to think sensibly when you're in a bad place and that's what Linden & Co. take advantage of. My husband warned me at the time that it looked like a scam, but I didn't listen to him - I just wanted to get better. Normally, I'm pretty clued up, but I was so desperate at the time. I promise you it will get better though - just give it time and do your research. One size does not fit all. Contrary to what Charles Linden says CBT does work - also, look into acceptance and commitment therapy (mindfulness, gratitude, meditation, diet, etc) - like Janie said above, it's a process - a personal journey - and you know what, when you come out at the other end, you'll be so much stronger for it. Best wishes!

Thank you for your kind words. I’m going with the CBT at the moment but it’s so difficult when as you say you feel so desperate

I hope so….. thank you

Don’t give up. You will find things that help you it just takes time and hope! One thing that really helped me was understanding that we are living in a dysregulated nervous system which is creating all these awful symptoms. I then worked with an amazing lady in the US who works on calming down the nervous system/body as opposed to just focusing on the mind. It was a whole new perspective and it helped more than anything else. I’m very happy to share more info if you ever need. Good luck x

Hi yes I’d love some info this pls. Thank you

The lady I work with is called Liz Arch and she runs a course called Triumph over trauma. Just google her. She’s incredible and so knowledgeable. Also the books by Deb Dana and Dr Stephen Porges all about the nervous system. Take it easy on yourself xxxx