Concept
Getting It: The Psychology of est, a non-fiction book by American clinical psychologist Sheridan Fenwick first published in 1976, analyzes Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training or est. Fenwick based the book on her own experience of attending a four-day session of the est training, an intensive 60-hour personal-development course in the self-help genre. Large groups of up to 250 people took the est training at one time. In the first section of Fenwick's book, she recounts the est training process and the methods used during the course. Fenwick details the rules or "agreements" laid out by the trainers to the attendees, which include not talking to others or leaving the session to go to the bathroom unless during an announced break period. The second section is analytic: Fenwick analyzes the methods used by the est trainers, evaluates the course's potential effects, and discusses Erhard's background. Fenwick concludes that the program's long-term effects are unknown, the est training may not be appropriate for certain groups of people, and that a large proportion of participants report perceived positive effects. Writing in Library Journal, psychiatrist James Charney describes the book as "the only useful critical look" at the training. Zane Berzins of The New York Times Book Review characterizes the book as a "calm and professionally informed view". Hearings held in 1979 before the United States House of Representatives on a juvenile delinquents program depicted in Scared Straight! cited the book for background on the est training, as did psychologist Gidi Rubinstein in a 2005 study of the Landmark Forum published in the academic journal Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. Werner Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg), was originally from Pennsylvania and migrated to California. A former salesman, training manager and executive in the encyclopedia business, Erhard created the Erhard Seminars Training (est) course in 1971. est was a form of Large Group Awareness Training, and was part of the Human Potential Movement.
