The young woman stood naked in her downtown office building, swaying next to an open window. Her final words were sudden and calm: "I know I am going to jump."
Rebekah Lawrence — so modest and shy she often blushed around others — burst into song and leaped out the window.
Lawrence died that day. But her mind had begun to show cracks a few days before, as she finished an intense self-help seminar called The Turning Point.
The course had pledged to change her life. Instead, some say, it led to her death.
Lawrence's death was not the first of its kind, nor the last. For nearly 40 years, the mental health community has kept a wary eye on the explosion of self-help groups around the world. But despite concerns they can push the fragile too hard, too fast, these groups operate unmonitored and unregulated, most run by people with no formal mental health training.
In the four years since Lawrence's fatal plunge, investigators for an inquest into her death have focused on a key issue: Was a course to blame for her psychosis and subsequent death? Or did her descent into madness begin earlier, triggered by an ungranted wish to have a child?
On Oct. 16, a coroner will release his findings, in a bid to explain how a bright 34-year-old woman with no history of mental illness could reach such a deadly turning point.
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Lawrence grew up along Sydney's northern beaches, with a sister, a father who worked for the government's housing department and a mother who worked on historical guidebooks. Like the rest of her family, she was reserved, but still sociable.
She and her father adored books, and she often retreated to the library. She was accepted at the University of Sydney and received a degree in archaeology.
She met David Booth on a blind date in 1996. He didn't find her particularly attractive when she walked into the bar, but she was genuine, gentle and kind. A few weeks later, they moved in together.
"I think when you meet your soul mate in life, it's meant to happen," says Booth, 42. "And she was my soul mate. So it was easy."
She worked as a personal assistant, he at a local council. She joined a book club, raised money for the protection of orangutans and sponsored a needy child in Central America. They made trips to Vietnam and Fiji.
In 1999, Lawrence proposed. He was reluctant; he had a teenage son, Jarrod, from a previous marriage. But she wanted a commitment, so he agreed.
Kate Lawrence-Haynes remembers her little sister as a maternal type who spoke in her younger years of wanting children. But Booth says his wife never brought up the idea until she turned 33, seven years into their relationship.
He was angry. Jarrod was nearly out of high school and the prospect of starting over with a baby was daunting. He wondered how his delicate wife would handle the stress of a newborn. He told her children were not an option.
They argued about it every month. She would threaten to leave. He would walk outside to calm himself with a cigarette. And she would eventually admit she couldn't bear to part with him.
A friend suggested the couple attend a course called "The Turning Point," run by People Knowhow, a Sydney self-development company. The program had worked miracles for her marriage, the friend said.
On its Web site, People Knowhow bills The Turning Point as the ticket to "real happiness," boasting that it has helped 40,000 people achieve work-life balance, greater emotional intelligence and loving relationships.
The couple was curious, but tucked the suggestion away.
In 2004, Lawrence sought counseling. Her therapist, Helen Mitrofanis, later told police Lawrence was lonely and anxious over whether to have children. She wondered whether her life had been pointless. Lawrence ended therapy after only six sessions, telling Booth it hadn't helped.
In October 2005, Lawrence finally plunked down the 695 Australian dollar ($600) fee for the four-day Turning Point course. She wanted guidance on her conflicting feelings over children, and resolution to her anxiety over friendships and nervous habit of blushing.
The friend who had suggested The Turning Point was pleased, Booth says, but warned Lawrence that she had felt unsettled in the days after the course.
Lawrence, the friend cautioned, was in for a rough time.
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For years, mental health professionals have tried to determine if any link exists between certain self-help seminars and participants who later suffered psychosis. But the research has offered few answers.
In the early 1970s, entrepreneurs began offering seminars to teach people how to unlock their own untapped potential. Some groups attracted immediate scrutiny for their aggressive tactics, with participants spending long days in cramped rooms listening to a confrontational leader criticize their weaknesses.
Emergency rooms soon began reporting scattered cases of participants turning up in psychotic states. In the years since, some self-development companies have been subjected to multimillion-dollar lawsuits by those who claimed the courses caused everything from mental breakdowns to suicide to homicide.
Today's self-help groups vary wildly in their methods and target audience. Some still offer the in-your-face techniques of the 1970s, but others use gentler tactics such as meditation and supportive group sharing. Studies of the groups' effects on attendees are sparse, often conflicting and generally rely on small sample sizes.
American psychiatrist Leonard Glass of Boston, who in the 1970s conducted two of the earliest studies, cautions against demonizing the whole self-help industry. He cites Alcoholics Anonymous as an example of a self-improvement program with a high success rate and a time-tested method.
But Glass believes there is still cause for concern.
"Everybody who does one of these things is looking for some kind of psychological improvement in their life," he says. "The problem is that the people who are doing the training are not themselves competent to conduct therapies."
Because most self-development companies bill their courses as educational rather than therapeutic, they are not subject to the same regulations as counselors or psychologists.
"And that's the tricky part — it's really buyer beware," says Lynn Linde, president of the American Counseling Association. "You really have to look to see if the person is credentialed, and by whom, and as what."
People Knowhow's officials have no formal psychological training. Director Geoff Kabealo has a degree in business administration; Turning Point leader Richard Arthur has a degree in computer science.
There is serious danger in allowing the untrained to use techniques that disturb a person's psychological state, warns Colin Benjamin, CEO of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia.
After all, he says, "Surgeons are not permitted to cut without being able to sew."
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The first of Lawrence's four sessions with Turning Point took place on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2005. She was in good spirits that day, and e-mailed her sister about an upcoming Christmas gathering. "Hi Kate, we will bring scallops (David cooks them in the shell with garlic they are beautiful, he can cook them in the oven)."
Over the next few days, Booth began noticing subtle changes in his wife. After her Friday session, she swung by his office Christmas party — but hid behind a wall and asked to leave immediately. At a cafe, she stared at him intensely, until he asked her what was wrong. "I just love you so much," she said with unusual feeling. Her sleep grew fitful.
Lawrence told Booth group members were supposed to keep contents of the course private. But Turning Point officials later revealed some details to investigators: The 19 students meditated, sang and kicked at mattresses to release anger.
They also took part in a session called "the inner child." Participants looked at photographs of themselves as children, sat in chairs and closed their eyes while music played. They slid to the ground as Arthur talked them back through their memories of childhood, before returning them to the present.
Arthur told police the exercise was supposed to show participants the beauty of their younger selves. It was not, he said, meant to be traumatic.
Lawrence's last Turning Point session was Sunday; her classes ran for more than 12 hours and Booth was in bed when she bounded into the house around midnight.
"David!" she called as she hurried down the hall. "I can SING!"
She burst into the room, face aglow, and began belting out Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All."
Booth stared at his wife. Something was wrong.
Lawrence was painfully shy about singing. As a child, she'd even mouthed the words to songs in the school choir.
After a few lines, Lawrence forgot the lyrics and grew frustrated. She gave up and fell asleep.
Course officials had advised participants to take a day off work to readjust after completing the program. Booth stayed home that Monday, too, to keep her company. But her behavior grew stranger.
Her voice was dreamy and childlike. She couldn't recognize her favorite song or remember what her husband meant by "the usual" at their favorite Lebanese restaurant. And when their dog Maddie ran away from them on a walk, she tried to command the pet with her mind.
Booth was getting frustrated. What was happening to his wife?
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Walter Bellin developed the Turning Point program in 1980 as a way to help people realize their own potential. He hasn't been involved with the course since 1988, but remembers it as a "very intense" journey, with a focus on connecting participants with their childhoods.
But critics say "regressing" a person to a childlike state — typically via hypnosis — can cause distress and even implant false memories.
The therapy usually encourages people to recall traumatic events and how those events made them feel — which can leave them unstable, says Robert deMayo, Associate Dean of Psychology at Pepperdine University's Graduate School of Education and Psychology in Los Angeles. And if those people aren't monitored by professionals who know how to assess whether they're strong enough to tolerate the therapy, he says, the results can be disastrous.
Bellin says only those who underwent a medical exam and signed a contract stating they were not in psychological treatment were allowed into the original program.
"We didn't know whether there was any danger," he says of the course. "But we didn't want to take the chance."
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At 3 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 20, Booth awoke to the sounds of his wife drawing in deep breaths.
"I'm having fear of death," she said.
Booth was alarmed. "What are you thinking about death for?"
She ignored him. "I need to ring someone from the course."
Lawrence walked to the study and called Jameson Wright, one of two on-call volunteers Turning Point officials told participants to contact if they had any problems. She got his voice mail.
"I've just had a really awful experience surrounding death," she said in her message. "And I feel really — I've been touched by something really awful. And every time I shut my eyes and go into that feeling, I just don't know. I've been so open — I just feel I might be too open."
Lawrence then called the second volunteer, Pam Berwick. Berwick later told police an agitated Lawrence talked of a strict upbringing surrounding nudity and sex, and mentioned a disturbing movie she had recently seen about exorcisms.
Berwick advised her to have a cup of tea and a warm shower, and be kind to herself. Lawrence returned to bed.
She didn't feel like eating that morning and stared blankly at a tray of mangoes. In the car on the way to work, she told Booth The Turning Point had taken her back to her childhood and helped her resolve her issues with friends. It had also helped convince her that she did not want to be a mother.
Booth was relieved, but unnerved — her voice was still strange and childlike, her demeanor detached and dreamy. Her job as assistant to the CEO of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians was demanding. How was she going to function at work?
"When are you going to be yourself again?" he asked.
"I'll never be myself again," she replied.
He parked outside her office. She opened the door, stepped out — and was nearly struck by a passing car.
"Be careful, Rebekah!"
"Don't you worry about me, David," she assured her husband. Then she turned and walked into her office.
It was the last time he saw her alive.
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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.
Lawrence's loved ones insist the link between The Turning Point and her death is obvious. She had no history of mental illness, and an autopsy found no drugs or alcohol in her system. Forensic psychiatrist Michael Diamond found for the inquest that course officials failed to recognize warning signs in Lawrence's behavior, and concluded that her psychotic state was a result of her participation in their program.
Turning Point officials declined to comment for this story. But in police interviews, they denied their course was to blame.
During the inquest, the lawyers for Turning Point officials insisted her behavior was brought on by an undiagnosed psychological condition and the stress of a loudly ticking biological clock.
Kabealo, the company director, apologized in court to Lawrence's family, and admitted the screening process had been inadequate in her case. Participants were only required to fill in a questionnaire, which asked whether they had ever sought therapy. Lawrence answered truthfully, but was allowed to participate, unquestioned.
Still, Kabealo insisted Lawrence was the only such tragedy out of 40,000 course graduates.
Not exactly, said Robert Bromwich, the lawyer assisting the coroner.
One year after Lawrence's death, Bromwich told the court, a Korean man was found dead in the Australian city of Wollongong just a few days after completing The Turning Point. The man was naked, Bromwich said, and he had died of stab wounds that police later determined were self-inflicted.
Couldn't Kabealo see a link between the two cases? Bromwich asked.
Kabealo acknowledged he could see the "nexus."
But he and other Turning Point officials maintain the origins of Lawrence's breakdown lie elsewhere.
"If somebody is psychotic, then they were psychotic before the course," Arthur told police. "Courses like this don't make people psychotic."
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The details of what happened inside Lawrence's office during her final hours can be found in her court file.
Minutes after arriving, she called People Knowhow and left a message for Kabealo. She would call the group several dozen more times.
She spent the morning staring at her computer screen. Around 11 a.m., she and supervisor Peggy Sanders arrived late to a meeting. As they entered the room, one of their waiting colleagues remarked, "Speak of the devil."
"Peggy is not the devil!" Lawrence said loudly. "Peggy is not the devil!"
Company CEO Craig Patterson was asleep in Germany when his phone rang. On the other end of the line was Lawrence, a woman he called "the most reasonable person in the office." She was rambling about The Turning Point.
Just before 5 p.m., Booth called his wife to tell her he was running late to pick her up. She offered to take the train, but he said no. Something made her laugh, and he brightened. Lawrence had a distinctive chuckle — chattery, like a monkey.
"Wow!" he said. "It's so good to hear that laugh again!"
"David, I'm all right," she replied, and hung up.
Ten minutes later, Lawrence finally spoke to Kabealo on the phone. Kabealo later informed investigators she sounded excited and joyful — so joyful, he told his wife that night how well Lawrence had done with The Turning Point.
Booth called soon after to let Lawrence know he was on his way. She didn't answer.
Sanders was sitting in her office when she heard, "Peggy, I love you." She looked up and saw Lawrence standing in her doorway, naked. "I'm all right, Peggy," Lawrence said in a gentle, singsong voice. "I'm all right. Don't worry."
Then she turned and skipped out of the room.
In the bathroom, Lawrence asked Sanders to help her dress. She said the noise of nearby construction were the sounds of hell. Then she whirled on her supervisor and began to scream.
"GET AWAY!" Lawrence shrieked, shoving Sanders into the wall with incredible force.
Sanders yelled for someone to call an ambulance.
Lawrence's co-workers began leaving frantic messages for Booth at home; he had no cell phone. No one knew he was sitting in his car on the street below, wondering what was taking his wife so long.
He considered going into the office, but worried about leaving his car in a no parking zone. Figuring she'd taken the train, he drove home, dismissing a feeling that something was wrong.
Back at the office, an ambulance had arrived and Lawrence had again stripped naked. She stood next to a large open window, swaying slightly and screaming at those who approached.
Two paramedics entered the room but she cursed and shrieked. One called for urgent backup and left to prepare a sedative.
"I love you, David," Lawrence said suddenly.
And then, calmly: "I know I am going to jump."
No one had time to react. Lawrence was singing as she scrambled onto the short wrought-iron railing outside the window and leaped.
She never put her arms out to brace her fall.
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In the ICU, a numb Booth clutched his wife's hand until the last prickles of warmth had cooled. He looked into her hazel eyes, still open but drained of light, said goodbye and walked out of the room.
From the hospital, he called a Turning Point official. "What have you done?" he demanded. The official, Booth says, told him the group had done nothing wrong.
He wishes he had gone into her office instead of driving home. He wishes he had agreed to have her child.
"It broke her mind," Booth says of the course. "Fractured her mind somehow. And I don't understand it."
He hopes the coroner will recommend regulation of the self-help industry, but he does not want Turning Point officials charged. Whatever they may have done, he says, it wasn't intentional.
"I know she's around," he says as he sits looking out over the harbor they loved, a gust of wind rustling his hair. "I know she exists somewhere else on the other side. And I know I'll see her again."
On the last day of the inquest's hearings, the Web site for People Knowhow was taken down. In its place was a message: the company is reviewing its programs and systems.
"Our new website," it promises, "will soon be launched."
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Narrative scenes were reconstructed based on interviews with Rebekah Lawrence's husband, David Booth, and sister, Kate-Lawrence Haynes, and documents in her court file, including transcripts of police interviews with witnesses, Turning Point officials and students, Lawrence's therapist Helen Mitrofanis, family members, co-workers and friends; police evidence including police reports, crime scene photos and Lawrence's autopsy report; copies of e-mails between Lawrence and family members; psychiatrist Michael Diamond's report to the inquiry; court transcripts; and the reporter's own observations in coroner's court.
Source: AP Features
