I find this all fascinating. What Keith is preaching is just common ("do unto others....") sense. I think the phrase "no one can make you feel inferior unless you let them" has been attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. My parents, who would never be accused of being evolved, often responded to my arguing sisters and me with the statement "she didn't "make" you mad, you let her make you mad". I was raised to believe that although I couldn't control situations, I could control my reaction to these situations. We didn't have "EMs" or use words like "cause" to describe any of that. It just was life. How sad that none of these folks learned that. They feel the need to join a group and to pay thousands of dollars to learn what I learned for free!
I've never been a "joiner". Tried group therapy once, but it felt like an organized gossip session. If I need to diet, I diet. I don't need to go to meetings, be publicly weighed, and have each pound lost cheered.
But how low does your self esteem need to be to fall for giving collateral? And to agree to have your flesh seared with a hot iron? Nope, nope, nope!
I guess self esteem is not a given for some folks. It makes them perfect fodder for smarmy snake oil salesman like Keith.