Self-help course led to woman's death: coroner
Source: Agencies |
December 9, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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AN Australian coroner said yesterday that participation in an intense self-help course led a woman to suffer a psychotic breakdown before she stripped naked and leaped to her death from an office window in front of horrified co-workers.
The coroner's findings come four years after 34-year-old Rebekah Lawrence's death in Sydney, providing a sense of relief to family members who had long argued the young woman never would have killed herself if not for her participation in a seminar called The Turning Point.
"The evidence is overwhelming that the act of stepping out of a window to her death was the tragic culmination of a developing psychosis that had its origins in a self-development course known as 'The Turning Point'," Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson said as he read his findings.
In Australia, a coroner investigates the circumstances of unusual deaths in court-like proceedings called an inquest and can recommend further action by police or prosecutors if warranted.
MacPherson did not recommend any charges be filed against Turning Point officials.
But he did suggest that laws be drafted to require that those offering self-development seminars be qualified and accredited.
"Rebekah's death isn't in vain ¨? it's helped a lot of people who may have come to the same grim end in the future," Lawrence's husband, David Booth, said outside court. "I'm not angry, because they didn't mean to do it. It's just unqualified people doing damaging things to people's minds."
Lawrence's death on December 20, 2005, came two days after she completed The Turning Point, a four-day seminar run by the Sydney self-development company People Knowhow.
Turning Point officials acknowledged during inquest hearings in August that the course was intense and included the controversial technique of childhood regressive therapy. Such therapy uses hypnotic techniques designed to emotionally regress people to childlike states so they can confront issues from their past.
Lawrence's behavior changed as the course progressed, and in the hours before her death, grew particularly childlike, to the point where she could no longer dress herself.
The coroner's findings come four years after 34-year-old Rebekah Lawrence's death in Sydney, providing a sense of relief to family members who had long argued the young woman never would have killed herself if not for her participation in a seminar called The Turning Point.
"The evidence is overwhelming that the act of stepping out of a window to her death was the tragic culmination of a developing psychosis that had its origins in a self-development course known as 'The Turning Point'," Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson said as he read his findings.
In Australia, a coroner investigates the circumstances of unusual deaths in court-like proceedings called an inquest and can recommend further action by police or prosecutors if warranted.
MacPherson did not recommend any charges be filed against Turning Point officials.
But he did suggest that laws be drafted to require that those offering self-development seminars be qualified and accredited.
"Rebekah's death isn't in vain ¨? it's helped a lot of people who may have come to the same grim end in the future," Lawrence's husband, David Booth, said outside court. "I'm not angry, because they didn't mean to do it. It's just unqualified people doing damaging things to people's minds."
Lawrence's death on December 20, 2005, came two days after she completed The Turning Point, a four-day seminar run by the Sydney self-development company People Knowhow.
Turning Point officials acknowledged during inquest hearings in August that the course was intense and included the controversial technique of childhood regressive therapy. Such therapy uses hypnotic techniques designed to emotionally regress people to childlike states so they can confront issues from their past.
Lawrence's behavior changed as the course progressed, and in the hours before her death, grew particularly childlike, to the point where she could no longer dress herself.
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