Mullingstorp

In 1985 Bengt Stern founded the institute Mullingstorp Education and Health, located south of Stockholm, Sweden on the Baltic coast. It was he who designed and documented in detail the Meet Yourself process.

Bengt was a registered medical doctor. In the seventies he ran a general practice in Skärholmen outside Stockholm. He was also a writer, lecturer, society debater, course leader and course trainer. In addition to traditional medicine, Bengt Stern studied psychosomatic medicine, body therapy and also humanitarian and trans-personal psychology in Europe, India and the US.

Bengt trained a large staff who from the beginning led the courses under his leadership. Gradually he turned more and more to writing and research.

By the year 2011 around 5500 people had taken part in the Meet Yourself process. Many of those had come from the top level of business life, such as sport. and entertainment just to mention a few.

In 2009 a study was conducted by Lotta Fernros of the Karolinska Institute into the methods used by Mullingstorp. The study measured the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in the participants at the beginning of the course. On arrival, before the course, the participants completed three questionnaires. The first was SWEDQUAL, with 61 items for self-rating of HRQOL classified in 13 areas, e.g. cognition, physical functions, sleep, pain, relations and emotions. The second was Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence with 13 items divided into three areas: comprehensibility, meaningfulness and manageability. The third was about work, education, experience of alternative medicine, sick listing and medication. Comparisons were made with population data from Statistics Sweden, the National Insurance Office and the National Board of Health and Welfare. Six of the thirteen subscales of HRQOL showed very low starting values, which is unusual in a group with such a high level of education. Eight of the subscales of HRQOL showed clinically significant improvements in the study group (>9%, p<0.01), namely: general health (9%), emotional well-being (negative 45% and positive 26%), cognitive functioning (24%), sleep (15%), pain (10%), role limitations due to emotional health (22%) and family functioning (16%). Physical, partner and sexual functioning were normal in both groups. The study concluded that the Meet Yourself Process can improve cognitive and emotional function, which in turn increases motivation. The process has the potential to be used as a starting point in rehabilitation for working life, for people who are forced for health reasons to cope with a readjustment crisis and establish a foundation for a new orientation.

Controversy surrounding Mullingstorp

Walter Heidkampf applied in March 2008 to one of Mullingstorp's courses and was refused because he is HIV-positive. Mullingstorp claimed that a negative HIV status was required to protect the other course participants. Heidkampf sued Mullingstorp and was eventually awarded 10,000SEK in compensation. Mullingstorp was also required to pay the Swedish Disability Ombudsman 52,000SEK. The case marked the first time that an organization in Sweden had been found guilty of discriminating against someone based on their HIV status