Old Cult leaders never it seems fade away. Nor do they admit their past.
Richard Corriere, subject of Escape form Center For Feeling Therapy, called an abusive cult by Administrative Judge, and who had his licensed removed, recently posted:
https://richardcorriere.com/blog/about/
He actually slighted his psychology license removal, kept silent all the charges and findings, and wrote how successful he was despite the fact some 55 former patients succcessfully sued him. Here is what he wrote:
“Over forty years ago, during graduate school he served as Director of Research at the Center Foundation. The Center Foundation implemented the innovative concept that for most people their lack of basic skills caused what was at that time seen as psychological problems. At that time Mr. Corriere, using the Senoi model of helping people to help each other led under the direction of his professor Dr. Joseph Hart. One key component was that participants were trained in basic life skills and that they needed coaching rather than therapy. The majority of early participants had only a high school education or were college dropouts. They were coached to develop missing skills and to focus on their best as an inner guide. Strong emphasis was placed on completing educations. The results were that 15 became PhDs, received M.A. degrees many others went on to become doctors, dentists and lawyers. Results were accomplished by teaching basic life skills us as how to manage time, work focus, and financial skills. The average cost to participate was fifty dollars per month. As it turned out the state licensing board disagreed that people could help each and that The Center Foundation and its parent organization the Center for Feeling Therapy should have focused on psychological issues rather than life skills. Mr. Corriere and his colleagues were subject to disciplinary actions for allowing people to coach each other.”
Interesting some people who have delt with him recently have another blog:
https://richardcorrieremontclair.wordpress.com/
Charges are made re his current enterprise:
“Richard Corriere and Lyn Corriere in Montclair NJ – G4 Connect, Wow Car Coupon and NJ Car Coupon
If you’re considering working for either Lyn Corriere or Richard Corriere at G4Connect, NJ Car Coupon, or Wow Car Coupon, move on to another opportunity. They laid off their entire workforce in January 2015 and failed to pay over $10,000 in collective wages. They also stalled NJ Labor investigators to the point that owed wages have still not been delivered as of April 2015. Hopefully they won’t be able to do this to any other innocent people.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on April 15, 2015 by richardcorrieremontclair.
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2 thoughts on “Richard Corriere and Lyn Corriere in Montclair NJ – G4 Connect, Wow Car Coupon and NJ Car Coupon”
1. Star April 15, 2015 at 3:42 pm
II wasn’t surprised to find this blog on Richard and Lyn Corriere. WOW Car/G4 Connect and this husband-wife team is quite an act. My dealings with them are similar to what is posted here. These linked articles about Richard completely speak to his character, then and now. He portrays an alpha male persona, but in reality he is just an idiot. This is not a place you ever want to work, or invest. They make shoddy business decisions that further bankrupt this company. These two asinine owners insist on micromanaging a very talented staff by making senseless business decisions that fail time and time again. Move on and find any other place to work because the promises made here will absolutely never come true. These two have no clue how to run a business or treat employees. This company has continually failed for 10 years. The company is run on ignorant investors dumping mega bucks into a failing business, and who allow this greedy husband-wife team squander investors’ hard-earned money on their own lavish personal lifestyle. Corriere is as unscrupulous as they come and his wife is just a follower of his clown antics.
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2. Dusgruntled April 15, 2015 at 3:54 pm
That guy is a total scumbag and I hope he burns in hell for what he has done to unknowing individuals who trusted in him! I did not work for him nor would I ever work for him but I know all about him and what he is about. He is nothing more than a tool who made a living from total scams and ripping off investors with lies, he is a fraud, and a male chauvinist who uses and abuses women!
Of course, these are only opinions. But they are consistent. I have had over the years a lot of telephone inquiries about Corriere. All were complaints. But that is not something I can disclose because it is not public.
This is why you don’t vote for Donald Trump
The author also had done some homework. He wrote:
“Read through these LA Times articles about Richard’s time leading the Center for Healing Therapy. It was the 70’s and he led what was essentially a culty psychological clinic sort of like Scientology and the Jim Jones village. To make it short, he is a sociopath and despicable human being who doesn’t mind manipulating people (employees included):
1. Richard Corriere – Inquiry Targets Disputed Psychotherapy Methods
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-09-21/local/me-9269_1_psychologists
A charismatic psychotherapist who attracted thousands of patients to the Hollywood Center for Feeling Therapy during the 1970s–although he and most of his colleagues were not licensed as psychologists until years later–contends that multiple complaints filed against him are false and, in some cases, simply delusions.
The patients’ allegations of beatings, seductions, humiliation and financial coercion, the therapist testified, come from troubled people who have faulty recall, a tendency to exaggerate or a lack of insight into the unorthodox techniques of his “feeling therapy.”
Richard J. (Riggs) Corriere, 39, is fighting to retain the license to practice psychology in California that he received in 1978, seven years after founding the center with several other therapists. He currently makes his home in Aspen, Colo., and New York, however, where he bills himself as a “personal coach” and “counselor.”
Corriere is one of 13 people, including his wife, Konni Pederson Corriere (a psychiatric technician), and four other psychologists, who are defending their actions in license revocation hearings before administrative law judges here. The proceedings–the biggest psychotherapy malpractice case in California history–began late last summer and are expected to last through the end of this year.
In an accusation filed by the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance, the psychologists are charged with violating the state Professions Code by “(having) engaged in and/or aided and abetted the unlicensed practice of psychology; committed acts of dishonesty, fraud or deceit; committed corrupt acts; engaged in sexual misconduct and other physical abuse of patients, and committed numerous other proscribed acts constituting grossly negligent conduct. . . .”
After an earlier, separate hearing, the license of psychologist Gerald Binder was revoked. A recommendation that the license of physician Lee S. Woldenberg be revoked but that he be given 10 years’ probation instead is under final review by the board. Hearings for other defendants are still not completed.
Deputy Atty. Gen. William Carter said the state’s investigation was triggered by complaints from more than 100 former patients about their treatment at the now-defunct center.
Earlier this year, a civil lawsuit against the center by former patients was settled, reportedly for about $6 million.
In presenting the state’s case against the psychologists, the prosecution portrayed the center as a cult run by greedy, manipulative therapists who “brainwashed” patients into subservience.
The defense, however, in hearings that are now nearing an end, has painted a very different picture of an innovative “therapeutic community” that troubled young adults seeking a fuller life freely chose to join.
Corriere testified that the idea of forming such a community had grown out of “how lonely (therapy clients) were” and that it had evolved as “a group of people who had access to each other, gave each other support and help, who were dependable–(it was) probably more akin to a small town mentality of the 1950s. . . .”
Defense attorney Thomas Larry Watts refused a reporter’s request to interview Corriere but said his client has refuted each charge.
In some instances, the defense contends, the recollection of a complaining witness may have been colored by a personality that tends to exaggerate and over-dramatize. In others, the person may be simply unable to face painful problems from the past. Sometimes, there may be very little disagreement over what was said or what happened but a great difference in each side’s interpretation. And in some cases, the alleged events just didn’t occur, Watts said.
Corriere was one of several founders and therapists at the center. But over the years he emerged as its leader, and when it fell apart, was the prime target of many former patients’ anger.
Patients Testified
Former center patients testified that Corriere persuaded one woman to have an abortion, had sex with another, repeatedly struck several, made ethnic and religious slurs, pressured patients to donate large sums of money and controlled their personal and professional lives.
But the psychologist denied many of the charges and explained others to Administrative Law Judge Robert A. Neher during a week on the witness stand. For example, he said:
– A patient who testified that he was beaten and taunted by Corriere was in fact a depressed alcoholic with schizoid tendencies and no direction in life. During a 1974 therapy session, after he had complained of being bored, Corriere grabbed and pushed him from room to room where other patients were crying or acting out anger, asking, “Is that boring?”
Left Alone
The therapist then left the young man alone with instructions to start feeling instead of intellectualizing; when he returned a short time later, the patient was crying very deeply and feeling better.
2. Richard Corriere – Psychologists in ‘Feeling Therapy’ Lose Licenses
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-09-30/local/me-7303_1_feeling-therapy
The state on Tuesday revoked the licenses of two psychologists who headed the once trendy Center for Feeling Therapy in Hollywood, ending the longest, costliest and most complex psychotherapy malpractice case in California history.
Richard J. (Riggs) Corriere and Joseph T. Hart Jr., who during the 1970s billed themselves as “the Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid of psychology,” were found guilty of acts of gross negligence, incompetence, patient abuse, aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of psychology and false advertising after a 94-day hearing before Administrative Law Judge Robert A. Neher.
Corriere was also found guilty of misrepresenting his professional qualifications and of fraud and deception at the center, which closed in 1980.
“This is a classic case that illustrates the need for consumer protection, and the decision scores a major victory (for consumers),” said Tom O’Connor, executive officer of the eight-member Psychology Examining Committee, which is part of the Board of Medical Quality Assurance, the state agency that licenses and disciplines health professionals.
Former patients of Corriere and Hart, who once hailed the two men as “the new Freuds,” had testified during the hearing that the therapists seduced them and gave them sex assignments, publicly ridiculed and humiliated them and then charged high fees for such treatment.
One ex-patient testified that she was pressured to have an abortion, and another told of witnessing a woman being ordered to take off her blouse and crawl on the floor, mooing like a cow. Others described being beaten during therapy.
The licensing committee adopted recommendations made by Neher, who said he believed the patients’ allegations and did not accept the psychologists’ explanations for their unorthodox actions.
Neher found that while some legitimate psychotherapy was practiced at the center, the therapists preyed on “young and credulous persons who were in a unique position to be misled,” and that no patient who testified at the hearing could be deemed “to have consented to or anticipated the almost Gothic maelstrom that they were being drawn into.”
Neher said the center purported to offer treatment “by all of the world’s eight or 10 premier psychotherapists” in a set-up that allowed them “to solicit money, sex or free labor from patients” and to coerce them into “obsessive devotion.”
“By any definition it was a cult,” Neher wrote of the center.
Placed in Dark Room
For example, one charge against Corriere was that in early 1974–while still a psychology assistant–he engaged in unlicensed therapy sessions in which he verbally humiliated, blindfolded and gagged one young man, bound him in cords and plastic wrap and left him in a dark room with a tape recorder playing his own voice until he “realized how much help he needed.” He “gave in” and said he would do whatever Corriere asked, it was alleged.
“Corriere’s assertion that this never happened, but that (the patient) had had a ‘hallucination’ that it happened and now believes the hallucination is found to be untrue, and to be a recently concocted alibi on the part of Corriere,” Neher wrote in his 23-page report.
The committee also revoked the license of a third center psychologist, Stephen David Gold of Mission Viejo, and placed a fourth, Michael Roy Hopper of Fairbanks, Alaska, on conditional probation for five years.
No Longer Licensed
In all, 12 therapists associated with the center–one physician, five psychologists, five marriage, family and child counselors and one psychiatric technician–have lost or surrendered their licenses since 1980, when the “therapeutic community” disbanded and state professional licensing agencies began legal action against its leaders. A 13th therapist, psychologist Werner Karle, was charged but died earlier this year.
Deputy Atty. Gen. William L. Carter, who prosecuted the cases, said he is pleased at Neher’s “truly remarkable findings” and the resulting license revocations “because they mean that the public will be protected from these sorts of abuses in the future.”
Defense attorney Thomas Larry Watts, who represented the four psychologists, said he would not comment until he sees the state’s written decision. The defense had claimed that complaints from more than 100 former patients were either false or, in some cases, the delusions of troubled people.
‘Personal Coach’
Corriere, who now practices in Aspen, Colo., and New York City as a “personal coach” and “counselor,” did not return calls from The Times.
“I imagine we will appeal,” Hart said when informed of the decision Tuesday. He said his job as director of counseling at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, would not be affected by the loss of his psychologist’s license.
The now defunct Center for Feeling Therapy, which opened its doors in 1971, grew out of the “human potential” movement of the 1960s, when many in search of psychological fitness flocked to primal therapy or gestalt workshops.
3. Richard Corriere – Licenses of Mental Health Therapists Targeted in Major Malpractice Case
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-04-21/news/mn-764_1_mental-health/2
Among the defendants are center founders and leaders Richard J. Corriere, now practicing in Aspen, Colo., and New York City, and Joseph T. Hart Jr., now director of counseling at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Both once taught at University of California, Irvine. The others are Stephen D. Gold of Mission Viejo, Michael R. Hopper of Fairbanks, Alaska, and Werner Karle of Corona del Mar. (Many states have reciprocal revocation policies that allow them to honor out-of-state license revocations.)
Karle, in an effort to keep his credentials, has admitted to many of the allegations against him and his colleagues and, in testimony and a signed stipulation, acknowledged that “feeling therapy” involved “patient brutality in a cult setting practiced largely by unlicensed individuals.”
He said he had ridiculed some patients, calling them “stingy Jew,” “nigger” and “crazy,” and abused, struck, threatened, pressured and had sex with others.
He asked Neher to recommend that he be suspended for one year while he performs community service, including lectures to professionals about the danger that group therapy can produce “group thinking or cult-like thinking.”
Corriere, 38, who has attended the hearings sporadically, conservatively dressed in gray pinstripes and aviator glasses, has yet to take the stand. Hart, a hulking, red-haired figure in corduroys, has completed two weeks of testimony in which he denied some of the allegations and attempted to explain others.
Tape of Session
For example, both the defense and prosecution played a tape recording of a therapy session conducted by Hart in which sounds of a patient apparently being beaten up are heard, and in which the therapist tells the man, “One more ——- time and I am going to rip you apart. . . . I’ll knock the —- out of you.”
“I believe I said ‘kick,’ ” Hart testified. He explained that he was only “directly confronting” the patient, and that while he had poked him with a batacca (a padded bat) and slapped him several times, he had not caused injury.
Several satisfied patients have testified that they were helped by center therapy, and last week defendant Hopper took the stand.
Earlier, 19 former patients testified about specific incidents on which the charges are based. A few examples:
– When one woman became pregnant, she testified, she was persuaded by Corriere and Hart to have an abortion for her therapy to be successful, although she very much wanted a child and had been trying for several years to conceive.
– Another woman testified that Gold “assigned” her to have sex weekly, despite her objections, and that Corriere helped her complete the assignment by becoming her partner.
– Corriere repeatedly struck a male patient in the back, kidneys and stomach for more than 30 minutes, the man testified, because he complained of boredom. During the beating, Corriere taunted him, “Oh, the Harvard graduate is bored?”
– An overweight woman was told by Hart she was a “cow” and ordered to take off her blouse and crawl around on the floor, several witnesses testified. She complied, sobbing.
– A male patient was tied, wrapped in plastic, blindfolded and gagged by Corriere and left alone to hear a tape of his own voice, he testified, because he was “a nobody with no personality.”
– Patients said they were ridiculed for their religious beliefs or race. A Catholic woman testified that she was forced to make a mock confession, with Corriere as priest, in which she held a crucifix, saying “I refuse to give in to what you taught me.” Jewish patients were taunted as “kike” or “Jew boy.”
– Other patients testified that they were pressured to donate large amounts of money to the center, administered “laughing gas” (nitrous oxide) in therapy sessions and instructed to fight other patients, lose unreasonable amounts of weight, avoid medical treatment, work for little or no pay, and not try to leave the center because they were too “crazy.”
They said they signed up for what they thought was a brief psychotherapy program run by licensed mental health professionals; instead they wound up rejecting their past lives, friends, families and often jobs for periods of up to nine years while receiving “therapy” from other patients and trainees.
As a result of an earlier, separate hearing, an administrative law judge has recommended that center psychiatrist Dr. Lee S. Woldenberg’s license to practice medicine be revoked, but that the physician be given 10 years’ probation on condition that he work only as a radiologist. He is said to be doing that in Toledo, Ohio. The proposed decision is still under consideration by the Board of Medical Quality Assurance.
The board’s psychology examining committee has adopted the recommendation of another administrative law judge that psychological assistant Gerald Binder’s license be revoked and that the Corona del Mar resident’s application for licensure as a psychologist be denied. The proposed decision will become effective Friday.
