Discovering The Self If You Have A Spare Weekend And A Yen To Change, More Than A Dozen Personal-growth Workshops In The Area Are Ready For You. Be Prepared For An Intense Experience. Come On! There's A New Life Waiting Over The Weekend Get Rid Of Your Destructive Pasts. Get Intimate With Your Mate. Share With Others, And Grow.

Part drill sergeant, part stand-up comic, Gale LeGassick works the crowd of 100-plus who are sweating it out beneath the fluorescent lights in a colorless conference room in Center City. She cajoles, she challenges, she taunts, she leads on, and eventually she drops the bomb, or a series of bombs: Nothing that has happened in your life up until now matters, we're all hiding behind old, destructive ``stories,'' everyone in this room is simply ``surviving'' rather than ``being alive,'' and the only thing that is really guaranteed is we will die.

The revelations leave the group quite dismayed, and it isn't even the midpoint of the weekend-long - a very long weekend-long - workshop known as The Forum. Some people threaten to quit, others are determined to hang on to their beliefs no matter how destructive they may be, and others try to challenge LeGassick's assertions. This is no easy task, facing down someone who looks like, and often commands the authority of, Margaret Thatcher.

Her authority comes from experience. LeGassick has led ``The Forum'' all over the world, and many of the thousands who have attended her weekends say their lives have been transformed.

If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: The Forum is just one of more than a dozen personal-growth workshops you can sign up for around Philadelphia, and all offer the hope of major life changes.

I must admit I had a little trouble letting go of my skepticism about these enrichment programs and the healers who purport to have the answers, all neatly delivered for the few hundred dollars price of admission. I'm no workshop junkie; I'm not even in therapy. For me, this was another writing assignment.

But once I allowed myself to take in the startling concepts that were being offered - I observed parts of ``The Forum'' and a couples workshop called ``Getting the Love You Want,'' and went through the full, four-day weekend known as ``Essential Experience'' - I made some eye-opening discoveries about myself and how I function in the world.

These three workshops represent just part of a wide range of seminars that are proliferating in both the secular and non-secular realms. While quite different from each other, they share a basic goal: to break people of old patterns and to enable them to confront issues in their lives.