The Chairman of the Board often remarks wryly that the people who know about The Institutes all fall into one of three groups.
1. The parents who love The Institutes (there are a hundred thousand of them from every profession, business, trade, and industry).
2. The professionals who have studied nothing about us and who consequently attack us (there are hundreds of them).
3. The professionals and amateurs who know nothing about us and who pretend to be us.
The world headquarters of The Institutes is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
The United States of America. The other Institutes are:
- The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Europe, located in Fauglia, Italy.
- The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Brazil, located in Rio de Janeiro and Barbacena.
- Doman Kenkyusho, located in Tokyo, Japan.
In addition, The Institutes has offices in: Kobe, Japan; Mexico City, Mexico; Aguascalientes, Mexico; Madrid, Spain; and Paris, France.
There are no other branches or affiliates anywhere in the world that are approved or qualified to do The Institutes work.
This article is about the parents and the counterfeiters.
Not a week goes by here that we do not receive a letter from a family telling us about a friend who goes to one of our "other Institutes." Sometimes the other Institutes is right here in Philadelphia, or in any one of the other forty-nine states, or Europe, or Asia, or wherever.
In their letters parents often wonder "Why doesn't your other Institute do masking?" "Why don't they have a reading program?" "Is one minute of floor time ten times daily right?" "Why do they pattern the arms of the child and five minutes later pattern the legs?"
Why indeed?
The answer is simple. We have never seen or heard of those other Institutes. They are not part of these Institutes.
This is not confined to the treatment of brain-injured children. There is a Glenn Doman Kindergarten in Italy. It might be of some interest to its proprietors to learn that Glenn Doman has led the Gentle Revolution to get kids out of kindergarten and back on the laps of the best teachers in the world, their mothers. We would have told them this if they had asked.
They did not ask.
At worst, all of these half-baked impostors are simply delivering a left-handed compliment, right?
Wrong.
The only hurt child in the world who has no possibility of being helped by a proper neurological program is the child whose parents believe that their child has already had a proper neurological program.
Such a child will never have an appointment here for the simple reason that Mother and Father will never ask for one. Why should they ask if they believe their child is already on our program somewhere else?
And what about all those Bits and books that so carefully paraphrase our books and materials that any parent might assume they were our own?
What harm do these watered-down articles and texts do when all is said and done?
Since time began, every new idea, every proposed change in the status quo, every step toward improvement has been resisted—sometimes with great vigor.
This strong resistance to change has always acted as a severe test of each new idea. It must stand the test of time. We like to believe that in the long run truth will prevail against all odds.
Attacks, while painful, make the strong stronger, the brave braver.
But attack is only the first test—it is by no means the only one or the most potentially destructive one. The next test comes when the idea gains acceptance and others who are not knowledgeable begin to try to use it, without training of any kind.
A program that may have been decades or centuries in the making cannot be taught by unskilled or untrained people. Imitators are prone to "improve" on methods they have appropriated, which almost invariably means to make them quicker and cheaper, and without understanding. Improperly used techniques do not stand the test of time.
Inevitably, techniques that are applied without a complete understanding of principle and philosophy do not work.
When techniques so applied are found not to work, then the program is considered to be of no value.
This is why when hurt children fail to progress on counterfeit programs they fail utterly. Good, dedicated parents believe they have tried "The Program" and it simply doesn't work. This is tragic. It is tragic for the child and it is tragic for the harm this failure creates for all hurt kids by bolstering the myth that hurt kids can not be helped.
In Japan, for example, one center was awarded over $450,000 from the government because they were offering "The Institutes Program." The only problem was that no one from that center ever trained here for an entire day. When our Japanese families asked for help to get to Philadelphia and get the real Institutes program they were denied this help on the basis that the government had already helped to insure that the Institutes program was available in Japan.
I read later where that center closed because it was failing to produce results. That center and everyone involved with it just proved that brain-injured children can't be helped and used our name to do it! Give me a nice frontal attack over help like this anytime.
While a certain part of the world is horrified by the idea of mothers teaching their children and children becoming brighter and more capable, there is another part of the world doing its best to cash in on this idea. Now there are catalogs of cut-rate, so-called "Bits" being sent to mothers that give watered-down instructions that remarkably purport to be original and related to The Institutes simultaneously. The implication is that these materials have The Institutes' blessing because the counterfeiters know that millions of mothers trust The Institutes. The pretense of originality permits impostors to simply steal Institutes' materials lock, stock, and barrel.
Revenue gained in this manner amounts to robbery. Robbery, I might add, from a non-profit organization that treats severely brain-injured children. Every penny these thieves pocket could be spent to help make the path to wellness better and faster for a hurt child.
Attacks are annoying but they make for strong spines and good friends in those being attacked. Impostors and thieves are far more effective in destroying something of great value. For if the impostors' alterations and tamperings are permitted to persist, the program as we know it will cease to be.
It is so easy to dilute and downgrade a program. It takes strength and persistence to keep the original principles and philosophy strong.
Parents have come from all over the world to learn those principles and have proven over and over again that those principles produce results.
As for those who would make a quick profit for themselves at the expense of our children both hurt and well, it is our job to see to it that they do not succeed.
If it did not affect the lives of children it would afford us some amusement to sit back and watch a confused and befuddled world trying to make up its mind whether to attack us or imitate and parasitize our work.
But it does affect the lives of children.
There is a large difference between a left-handed compliment and a knife in the back.
It is the job of each of us to know the difference and deal with it strongly. For if we do not, it will be our children who will pay the price.
by Janet Doman
From The In-Report, January/March 1987. Reprinted with permission.
