The Love Diet

As a friend stated so succinctly:

Fat Bob likes his women skinny

So Bob conceived The Love Diet. The concept was simple. The dieter relies on a person they love to tell them what to eat on a daily basis. In no time flat, almost every woman was on this diet plan. 

Bob viewed The Love Diet as a money-making opportunity, never mind if it was actually effective. He decided to write a book. But that presented a problem. The supposed greatest psychology theorist of all time can't be writing that sort of material. There was a simple solution. John, the one MD who lived in the community, was enlisted to attach his name to the project. John was a dermatologist. 

Make no mistake, this was Bob's project. That means that Joyce did all of the actual writing. I don't know how they managed to stretch this simplistic concept into a book (and I don't intend to find out). 

And it didn't stop there. The same guy who wrote Bob's Song proceeded to compose The Love Diet. This is all I remember:

There's a brand new way to lose weight

You oughta try it

A brand new way to lose weight

It's called The Love Diet

You don't need no doctor

You don't need no pills

All you need is ???? ??? 

The Love Diet swept through the group like wildfire, and it fizzled out in much the same way. The stupidity is (and was) beyond belief.

I could stop here and let it stand as comic relief, except there's a disturbing footnote. A short time later, John was caught in the act molesting pre-pubescent girls. He was evicted from the group immediately. I assign no blame to Bob whatsoever. However, law enforcement wasn't called in. That would be too risky -- a kid might spill unrelated, uncomfortable secrets. (Did laws concerning mandated reporting exist then? Bob was John's therapist afterall.) 

And even after this occurred, when Bob and Joyce were extolling the excellence of the community in Bob's books, they continued to brag about the doctor in our midst.  

Fiction Unraveled

In chapter 20 of his book The Fantasy Bond, Bob writes about all aspects of life in the Environment (aka The Friendship Circle) in glowing terms. Readers are expected to believe that the group was comprised of happy, enlightened, independent-minded individuals. Most of it is fiction.

I've picked out a few of the lies, misrepresentations, and otherwise bizarre passages (which are indented) and interspersed my comments. 

Theraputic Community

New form of psychosocial milieu ... the people improved dramatically ... remarkably harmonious ... worthy of anthropological study

This sort of rosy commentary is throughout. This is Bob expressing his utopian fantasies.  

My professional associates and myself had been exploring techniques...

ROFL! There were no professional associates. The two other psychologists who lived in the commune weren't inner circle. They weren't even inner circle adjacent. In fact, they were relegated to the lowly bottom floor. They had absolutely nothing to do with the evolution of Bob's work. You won't see their names among the acknowledgements in any of Bob's books. 

We found that the majority of people were unable to sustain their undefended, feelingful state after returning to the “normal” world. Their daily interactions with well-meaning but defended family members encouraged them to return to a self-limiting, defensive posture.

Setting the stage for the highly insular nature of The Environment, where followers were strongly discouraged from having contact with family members and friends from the past.

At their first general meeting, members of the new community elected a committee of 15 people to be responsible for overseeing the practical problems of group living. 

A blatant lie. The committe (which was led by Bob's wife, and which was an obvious extension of his authoritarian control) wasn't established until The Environment had existed for approximately five years.

The children are well-behaved and well-adjusted. They stand out in their appearance and demeanor, according to teachers and other observers.

According to teachers? Without exception, they were home schooled. 

Never mind that two of the children raised in "the kids program" eventually committed suicide. 

Business

The group started a computer distribution firm and a commercial interior design company.

No, "the group" did no such thing. DJ started the computer company and Bob assumed control of it by installing himself as CEO. Jane started the design company and Bob assumed control of it by installing his wife as President. 

The work environment reflected the pride that the employees had in owning a part of their own company.

The work environment was nothing short of putrid. Indentured servitude was commonplace, particularly in the design company. People worked long hours for little or no pay while the Firestones sucked out the money. Resentment abounded. 

Yes, employees were granted modest stock options. But when the computer company went public, one and only one person became wealthy. That of course was Bob. This is because he forbade everyone from selling their stock in order to maintain stock price, and meanwhile he unloaded his shares which permanently crashed the stock. (It's also due to Bob owning a large percentage of the company for no good reason.)

Postscript

These are just several examples of the lies and misrepresentations. I could go on at great length.

As in his book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, Bob relies heavily on the  observations of Stuart Boyd who was Bob's professor in college. Boyd was elderly, retired, and of modest means. He was paid to write the sorry drivel that appears throughout. 

Bob was all about astroturfing. When his books came out, an organized effort kicked in. Followers were dispatched to book stores all over the greater Los Angeles area to buy out the books (using their own money of course). 

Gobsmacked

Imagine that you're rewriting American history in order to whitewash slavery. If you had unmitigated gall, you might write something like this:

As we were building this shining city on a hill, we realized we couldn't do it alone. So we invited our dear friends from Africa to join us. 

That's how severe the lies are in The Fantasy Bond, where Bob describes The Environment (aka The Friendship Circle) in great detail. 

Having already gone through this exercise with the Ethics book, I thought I knew what was coming. Oh boy was I ever wrong. The extent and the specificity of the bullshit is something to behold. If this entire blog was devoted to unraveling the lies in that one chapter, I'd still be scratching the surface. I need to figure out how to approach it succinctly...

The Fantasy Bond

Over the comings weeks, I intend to post on the topic of Bob's self-published book The Fantasy Bond. As with his book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, I won't be commenting on the psychological concepts. Rather, I'll be pointing out the many misrepresentations pertaining to The Environment (aka The Friendship Circle) and also the bits and pieces that support things I've written in this blog. 

Chapter 20 is titled The Psychotheraputic Community. (This is a precursor to the same writeup presented in the subsequent Ethics book.) I'm particularly amused by this piece of fiction:

The author, an original member of the friendship circle, was persuaded in time to leave a large psychotherapy practice to involve himself in this project on a full-time basis. Because of my innate interest and ongoing study of resistance in psychotherapy, and the desire to pursue this subject in a social context, I was pleased to avail myself of the opportunity.

The notion that Bob was "persuaded" is the comical part. But as to abandoning his practice, that didn't happen until The Environment was in full swing. He had two motivations:

1. Bob knew full well that he was crossing bright red lines in terms of ethical/moral behavior for a psychotherapist. He was fearful of repercussions. This is the main reason he shut down his public practice. Bob spoke about this openly in group on multiple occasions.
2. While Bob was affluent, he wasn't yet wealthy. The businesses started by his patients (over which he assumed control) had yet to emerge. However the income from his practice had been supplanted by income from within the group. Every adult in the group paid Bob for therapy. Cash and only cash. He was making a lot of money. I know this because I had visibility into the details of his personal finances as a result of helping him automate. (Not to mention, most members of the group started out as patients in Bob's private practice. There wasn't much private practice remaining once The Environment was formed.)

The notion that Bob was merely a "member" of The Frienship Circle is highly misleading. The group consisted of his patients (in addition to various friends). He was the leader; he made it happen. 

It's also amusing how he describes his practice as "large", helping to fill in the Saint Bob narrative. See Bob/Trump comparison. 

The Design Company, Outsider Perspectives

I appreciate hearing outsider perspectives. Two former employees of the interior design company who were not members of the cult have commented here and on reddit. Their observations are spot-on...

According to vast_bug_2143:

I used to work for one of their businesses. I picked up their cult activities after noticing some craaazy stuff that went on.  I was a young 21yo that just moved to LA and started working at Design One. I started to notice many of the employees had the same last name (Firestone). They were all married to each other but sleeping with different people. If they had children, they wouldn’t raise them. They’d hand their kids off to be raised by other cult members. They had a hierarchy system with the cult. Robert Firestone was the CEO but was NEVER there…if he would walk into the office, he’d be surrounded by a lot of young women…they treated him like a god, a movie star!  It was the craziest experience of my life. 

According to catg2424:

I worked at one of their Design firms for a short time. It was the weirdest experience. Half of us were not in the cult but when he would come into the office his cult group employees all knew he was coming in. They would all stand outside of their offices and greet him like their master.

Man Hits Woman, Fault of the Woman

In group on multiple occasions, Bob raised the topic of men hitting (or otherwise assaulting) their wives/girlfriends. He assigned blame to the women. His rationale: the women were withholding their love, and they provoked the reaction. 

Bob spoke about this in thinly veiled abstract terms. But it was clear to me (and everyone else, I'm quite sure) that he abused* Tam physically. In one of these groups, Tam was uncharacteristically wearing heavy makeup. 

* Cult members wouldn't use the word abuse. They subscribe to Bob's rationale. 

Editorial Miscellany

1. Virtually everything written here is based on my first-hand observations. The only exception (as of this post) is in Whitewashing the Original Sin where I rely on several people who were there during genesis, combined with tribal knowledge.

2. I've used pseudonyms for most of the people I've referenced. The only exceptions are the Firestone family and other members of the inner circle. Even though they too are Bob's victims, they have profited from the abuses, and they have acted as enforcers. (My sympathies have limits.) Another exception is people who have died.

3. Pardon me for any confusion caused by using four names for the cult.

• The Environment: The original, informal name
• The E: My abbreviation
• The Friendship Circle: Rebranding of The Environment for public consumption in Bob's books
• TheBobCult(.com): A short, memorable URL

Self-Aware Scammer or True Believer?

There are loads of people who are scammers, and they're aware they are scammers. And then there's the true believers who scam people, but it's driven by delusion. I often wonder about the motivations of various high profile individuals such as faith healers. Benny Hinn randomly comes to mind. We rarely get to know for sure; we're left to speculate. (Although now and then, the truth is revealed with clarity. My favorite example is James Randi's legendary take down of televangalist Peter Popoff.)

Most of the ex-pats I talk to think that Bob is self-aware when he abuses patients for financial gain. I beg to differ. When Bob assumed control over businesses started by his patients, I believe he genuinely thought it was in their best interest therapeutically. And that it's rooted in narcissism on steroids.

(The other ex-pats think I let Bob off too easy. I beg to differ here too, because if I'm right, then Bob is profoundly delusional. That's not exactly letting him off the hook. But again I digress.)

In any event, it's a false dilemma. The human mind is complex. I think it's possible to be a true believer and a self-aware scammer. L. Ron Hubbard comes to mind. 

As for Bob, we're left to speculate. 

Authoritarian Micromanagement

It was a common occurrence that highly mundane behaviors drew Bob's ire. And because of the way he was worshipped, his comments reverberated and followers fell into line. 

A group of people went to see the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. John came back raving about it. That disturbed Bob. He proclaimed that John was "cutoff from his feelings" and that it's the sort of movie that causes viewers to be cutoff.

Another time a group of people went to see the movie Rocky. Bob liked it a lot. Tim said he thought it was corny. Tim took flack in group.

There were a number of skiers in the group, and there were annual trips to various ski locations. Bob didn't go; he wasn't a skier. But he did go the time we went to Lake Tahoe because he enjoyed gambling. His wife Tam went too, because she was a skier. After the first day spent skiing, there was an ad-hoc group talk. Bob was angry at Tam because she was supposedly "cutoff" and "inward" after skiing. He preferred that she accompany him in the casino to shoot craps. And that's what she did the next day. 

Once a whole bunch of us went to Yosemite for a few days, including Bob. Gary was recruiting various people to go on a long hike. Bob got word and he was furious. Gary took a whole lot of flack and the hike didn't happen. 

In short, Bob frowned on activities that weren't Bob-centric. This especially applied to Tam and the inner circle. 

Baseball Games & Temper Tantrums

The most (bleakly) amusing manifestation of Bob's narcissism took place at our baseball games. We played every weekend, hardball no less.

Bob fancied himself as the best at everything no matter the realm -- the best theorist in the field of psychology, the best boat captain, the best at business, and the most enlightened person on the planet. He also fancied himself as the best baseball player among our group. Bob was in his late 40s at the time, the oldest of the regular players. Considering his age and poor physical shape, he was actually pretty good but nowhere near the best. 

Bob was a pitcher. His one asset was good control. However his pitches were slow and he barely had a curve ball. Even the marginal players would hammer his pitching. 

When Bob was pitching and fielding errors occurred, he fumed. He was so bent out of shape that he changed the way the teams were formed. At first the teams were formed randomly. But then it was changed to Allstars (consisting of the best players) and Underdogs (consisting of the lesser players). Bob designated himself as the starting pitcher for the Allstars despite that Scott was vastly superior. This arrangement placed the best fielders on Bob's team. Of course there were still lots of fielding errors, because we played more or less at little league level.

Donny was one of the best players. He played shortstop for the Allstars. Bob had high expectations for Donny's level of play. When Donny committed an error, Bob would rage out of control. It even bubbled up to group. Bob accused Donny of sabotaging him. That's because in the world according to Bob, nobody was capable of handling his love and recognition without retreating, without "acting out" against him. (Was it Sigmund Freud who said sometimes an error is just an error?)

When an Underdog made a good play in the field, Bob would fume at that too. "They never played that well when I was pitching!"

Bob's wife Tam maintained an official scorecard. Readers who are unfamiliar with baseball minutia may not be aware that a baseball scorecard is complicated. It tracks every play, not just the runs. Bob wanted the scorecard to reflect his pitching skill (as if anyone else cared). He looked over Tam's work when the Allstars were at bat, and instructed her to change borderline hits into errors. (Preserving his ERA, the most important pitching stat.) Oddly, he also instructed her to record certain errors as outs, which made a mess of things when three outs were recorded yet the inning was still in progress. That too angered Bob, as if it was Tam's fault. 

(I was going to include the scorecard anecdote in the Bob/Trump contrast and compare post, because it reminds me of Trump altering the hurricane track with his sharpie. Except it's too convoluted.)

In group, where every nuance of everyone's behavior was scrutinized, Bob's infantile behavior on the baseball field was never mentioned. 

Shangri-La

The story told in the fictional book Lost Horizon takes place in the Kunlun Mountains in Tibet. The people of Shangri-La live in harmonious bliss. They live to be hundreds of years old, while barely aging physically. But if they leave Shangri-La, they soon wither away and die. 

Shangri-La is the quintessential utopia. 

In his book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, Bob details how The Friendship Circle (a re-branding of "The Environment") came into existence. He then writes:

In spite of all its positive attributes, this environment has never claimed to be a Utopia.

This is a lie of the highest order. Time and time again, Bob specifically referred to The Friendship Circle as Shangri-La. He even warned his followers they'd severely regress psychologically if they left. They would "go mental".  

Readers of this book would be well advised to take every word Dr. Robert Firestone writes with a block of salt.  

Whitewashing the Original Sin

This is the third installment focused on Bob's and Joyce's book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, in particular chapter one titled The Friendship Circle. (Here are installments one and two.)

From the book:

In the early 1970s I was one of a number of mental health professionals who, with our spouses and friends, were involved in seminars and discussion groups in which we talked about our most intimate problems in life, expressed our deepest feelings and, in the process, formulated a new lifestyle based on the impact this experience had on our understanding of psychology. 

Yes, there were several shrinks and friends and family members. But what Bob fails to reveal is this group mostly consisted of his patients. And that in those early days, before the commune was formed, Bob was already abusing his patients sexually. This included Joyce and Susan, both of whom became long standing members of Bob's inner circle. And it soon included Tam, who came to Bob for therapy with her husband for couple counseling. (Bob eventually divorced his wife and married Tam.)

Jane was a member of this group in those early days. She's the interior designer who founded Design One. That endeavor ended poorly for her a few years later. 

Visitors Get Five Star Treatment

When there were visitors to The Friendship Circle (aka The Environment) who Bob viewed favorably for whatever reason, they would receive five star treatment. A day sail on our 80' schooner. Some fine dining. An informal concert in the courtyard including a performance of Bob's Song. And sometimes they'd even even be invited to attend a group session, orchestrated to be all warm and fuzzy. 

That's how it came to be that Dr. Stuart Boyd, Bob's professor in college, wrote the sorry drivel that leads off chapter one of The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships:

This is a community of some 100 or more persons -- women, men and  children -- who seem to have achieved the better life together with a minimum of dogma, political authority, withdrawal, mysticism, insulation ... There is no golden lie, no coercion, no constitution ... It is not, nor claims to be, Utopia. 

This is so wrong it's hard to know where to begin. It's easier to point out the parts that are true: 

• 100+ members
• Free of mysticism
• There weren't written rules 

Everything else is the stark opposite of how things were in The Friendship Circle.

I don't blame Boyd. It's easy for a visitor to get snowed by the five star treatment.  

The Friendship Circle

Apparently The Environment sounded too creepy for public consumption. At some point, the cult was rebranded as The Friendship Circle, as presented in Bob's and Joyce's book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships.

(Full stop. Readers should view the title of this book as nothing short of demented, if you accept what's written in this blog as fact. But I digress.)

From the outset, I stated that Bob's body of work should be judged on it's own merit. (By someone other than me. I lack the credentials, and I lack familiarity with the field.) Just because he's an abusive cult leader doesn't mean that his published work is invalid.  

But that said, the very first chapter is titled The Friendship Circle. (It's readable online at Amazon.) The Friendship Circle, aka The Environment, is foundational in Bob's entire body of work. That makes these works fair game. One needn't be a shrink to witness the egregious level of abuse that took place, and to point out how those abuses were whitewashed.

In the following posts, I'll point out the misrepresentations and flat-out lies told in The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships. They are plentiful.