Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Facility Question and Answers

Carlbrook thread Part 2

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psy:

--- Quote from: ""irvbulldogs72"" ---
--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---
"Tell it all brother"...  What does that song mean to you?


--- End quote ---

Honestly, I remember it being a workshop song, and that the room was dark, and I was probably crying because I was recounting some experience that I hadn't thought about for a long time.

I left a lot of my experience there. I took what I needed, threw away the rest, and integrated it with what I've come to learn about myself since then.
--- End quote ---

Have you ever tried to listen to that song?  It's by Kenny Rogers.

That is an example of what Robert Lifton called the "cult of confession"...  Ever wonder why you remember so little?


--- Quote ---
--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---How sure are you?  I thought that as well until talking to my parents in detail, and realizing I didn't get many of the letters they sent me.
--- End quote ---

Pretty damned sure.....my parents always asked about the letters/packages in our phone calls. And we were never barred from our phone calls. I was "on bans" with talking for two weeks while on my program and had to write everything I would have said to anyone...teachers, my student supports, advisers, everyone.
--- End quote ---

LOL... I was on bans too.. a lot.  Had to do the same thing (scribble down notes)


--- Quote ---However, I was still allowed to breach that for my calls.


--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---Please do.  I am a rock... you know the shtick.  It's all the same in all the programs.  However, there is a sceptical parent reading, who I tried to convince of this, but she still remains sceptical.


From personal experience.. I know it's hard to write about, remember, or really even think about... But if you can , please.  I'd like to hear about it, and it might open the eyes of a few people.

--- End quote ---

Like I mentioned earlier, I was an "Omega Male". I was subservient, pleasing, accomodating, and had no personality of my own. I was a social chameleon (fake)
--- End quote ---

When did you figure that out?  Program?

Are you saying that you were fake?  that program helped you to be willing to show the "real you" to others?  Did you "put up walls" and "wear masks"?

That is what Ofshe might described as an attack on self-image.  During the teenage years, when you are still figuring out who you are, of course you are confused.  All the easier to meddle with your identity.  No you don't notice it.

I felt like I was discovering who I really was, that I was finally ready and willing, and "not afraid anymore" to show the "real me"...

After 5 years of thinking about it... I realize the "mask" i took off, was actually my face, and let it decay while I forgot who I really was.  

It is natural to be scared, natural to be afraid, to have defense mechanisms under stressful situations.  They wanted you to trust them enough to be vulnerable with them.


--- Quote ---because that's what I thought I had to do to be accepted/loved. Three workshops didn't change a thing, even though my friends/peers/staff would call me on it all the time.

Then one day my adviser called me out in group. She told me that I had been doing the bare minimum to get by, trying to bullshit the program and what not. And it was affecting my social life. People can smell lack of self-worth a mile away, and it's toxic. You don't want that on your life. It's needy and overbearing.
--- End quote ---




--- Quote ---And she was right. I can safely say, three years after having graduated, and completely turning both my social life and my scholastic life around, that she was right.

So she put me on a program. I still went to school and what not, but when I wasn't in school, I was sitting at a program desk, on bans with everyone but my supports, and had to do writing assignments and write in an emotional journal. I also had to read The Five Love Languages for Teens......and my advisers made my parents do it too. My mother did, my father didn't.


--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---At least in my experience, they try and convince students they are changing... So they won't start a crusade... Have you talked to recent graduates?  My guess is that nothing ha (or will) change.  It hasn't cince CEDU's inception... and it won't.  It works (makes money)... why break it.
--- End quote ---

Well, when the current student came to visit Rutgers, they had already implemented parts of it. Groups focused on reintegration, as well as classes and such. Yeah, it might be a half-hearted effort, but it's something.


--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---Ok... Could you describe an example of "no bullshit honesty".

--- End quote ---

"I'm sick of seeing you act like you don't deserve the people in your life. The rest of your friends are sick of it too. You know what? Just because you tell yourself that you're not worth us, doesn't mean you get to take it out on us."

That's an example.

One of the standards for group was "no personal attacks and no attacks on things the recipient of the feedback can change. This was strongly enforced, and generally made for safer groups.


--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---
Do you feel you have an almost paranormal insight into other people's heads?  Can you tell when they're lying?  (You can't con a con)...

Do you feel you discovered a "new you".. or that you took off masks you wore before program?


--- End quote ---

In a sense. I found a genuine sense of confidence/self respect, something that I
a. hadn't experienced before
b. hasn't left me since I graduated.

I don't know about you, but it's pretty damned real to me.
--- End quote ---

It seemed real to me too.  It's been 5 years for me...  Things change.


--- Quote ---
--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---
Were you encouraged to rewrite your "Life story"?  Multiple times?

Was what you wrote accepted... or did you have to put down what they wanted to hear to progress?

Did you ever believe what you put down?  Was it true?  What is truth to you?  Is it what others see, or what you know?  What do you know?  Did fiction become reality?  What were the facts?
--- End quote ---

I think I know what you're getting at, and you really do have my sincerest condolences that your program was twisted like that.

However, I never wrote my life story. It was never doubted, and I the only times I ever saw life stories called into question was when outlandish claims were made.....like a 15 yr old 5'0" tiny white boy from the suburbs claiming to be a member of "The Folk" (Crips)



--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---They made a guess, and you had to accept it... How deeply did you accept it.  Pretending enough.... eventually you aren't pretending anymore.
--- End quote ---

I'm not sure that they did make a guess. Every person's growth was self guided. Generally, that was accepted. They were on the money when they told me what I could be.
--- End quote ---

Well.. They were not psychic, and they were not psychologists (I looked into this).  So they were guessing essentially, but with a great deal of confidence.  Could you dissent?  Realistically, if they said something about you, and you disagreed... who would win.  In that manner, I am implying, you were influenced.


--- Quote ---"Fake it 'till you make it."

I heard that a lot. I assume that's what you're referring to. Yeah, I tried that. It didn't work until I actually believed that I was worth more than begging for people's scraps of attention.

If there's one thing easier to spot than someone who has no self-respect, its someone who's trying to fake that they do.
--- End quote ---

What is self-respect to you?

Did you consider yourself "fake" before program?


--- Quote ---
--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---
You seem to like the adcisors you were in your workshops with.  I'm not surprised.  Ever wonder why every student's favorite counselor/advisor is the workshop one?
--- End quote ---

Well, when I was there, I was on fairly good terms with most of the staff. Yeah, they called me out, but it almost seemed policy to never hold grudges.
--- End quote ---

As it was in CEDU's cult predecessor, Synanon.  That is where the group dynamic came from (Synanon's "Game").


--- Quote ---There were points where I was way out of standard, and I was caught/called out/hollered at for it. But once they had made their point clear, there were no "bad terms".
--- End quote ---

Could you disagree?  Who won?  Every time?

What if they were wrong?  And they won?  Every time?

What if it didn't matter whether it was true or not... just whether you accepted it?


--- Quote ---My experience of the staff was that they generally weren't petty like that. I've seen advisers called out in group before; either being asked to talk about themselves or to expose an underlying feeling of resentment on the part of a student. Lines of communication weren't closed.
--- End quote ---


But they were controlled...

psy:

--- Quote from: ""irvbulldogs72"" ---
--- Quote from: ""psy"" ---Well...  We know now that The CEDU workshops are identical to those at CB (similar to Benchmark).

I'm very interested in what is "honesty" as well...  This is most likely an example of what Lifton called "loading the language".  Take note.... My guess is that honesty is something like "the harsher the truth to tell, the truer the friend who tells it"... and likewise, friendship is redefined as well ("you are your brothers keeper"(monitor, rat, snitch))...  Brotherly love indeed.

Do those phraises sounds familiar?

how about "this is the first day of the rest of your life"?

Do you know how that phraise got into CEDU/Carlbrook?  Where it came from?
--- End quote ---

The whole "harder truth" thing, in what I had seen of it, is something I practice in my daily life now. I have close friends now that that I can tell harder truths too. If my close friend is acting ridiculous, I will definitely hand them my two cents. That is what true friendship is. If you can't be honest with people you claim to care about, then who can you be honest with.
--- End quote ---

If you felt a friend was "fake", would you tell him/her?  Are you psychic?  Were the staff?  Do you see a pattern?

Is it possible, that everybody was "fake"?


--- Quote ---Being my brother's keeper?

Well, the whole "holding each other accountable" thing......there was a lot of that. However, I've seen people being called out (by both students and staff) for being a standards Nazi and a suck up. That was for the smaller stuff, like tucking in shirts, swearing, cutting across the grass.....

For the bigger stuff...well, I don't really remember. But I think I would've piped up if I walked in on two people doing lines in the bathroom. I was/am a proponent of the "safety" of a school. When shit like that starts, the whole environment is shattered and nobody is going to get anything accomplished. That's just my opinion though.
--- End quote ---


Well of course people doing lines in the bathroom would be somethign to raise an eyebrow about...  But the level of control, of rules you are describing, is an example of a totalistic envriornment.  Most of the rules (bans, silly stuff) were not there to make sense, but there to get you to obey rules that did not make sense.. to obey without question.  It's a conditioning process.

Were you encouraged to reform your values?  To write your "code of ethics" down?

Oz girl:
Can you tell us a bit about what the workshops entailed?

psy:
This statement about workshops:  True or false:

You were made to feel as miserable as possible (confessions, digging up childhood trauma) for the express purpose of comforting you...  To build up an artificial sense of camaraderie, loyalty, and love towards your advisory/counselor and the rest of the group.

irvbulldogs72:
******

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