Why spend a year in a program when it can be done in a week

[TheWho]

http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:XaugvM9NPGMJ:fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D48%26t%3D15260%26start%3D0+%22dave+marcus%22+aspen&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=us

I said all along that Marcus was a program shill - and he is. Recent news states that Marcus is now an "Emotional Growth Seminar Facilitator" working with renowned child abuser Rudy Bentz. Keep in mind neither Marcus nor Bentz have any education whatsoever in the area of mental health treatment.

Ha,Ha,Ha,  You use a link within the forum?  Ha,Ha,Ha  That is truly a classic.  I will book mark this post, thank you!!  Try giving us something original or original source.  Maybe news article, press release etc.

anyone can just write "All programs are effective" somewhere in the forum and then just link to it and say "See this is my proof" !!  Ha,Ha,Ha

I think you are new here and I apologize for laughing, but many people use to do this all the time and thought they were fooling the readers.

[Anonymous]

http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:XaugvM9NPGMJ:fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D48%26t%3D15260%26start%3D0+%22dave+marcus%22+aspen&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=us

I said all along that Marcus was a program shill - and he is. Recent news states that Marcus is now an "Emotional Growth Seminar Facilitator" working with renowned child abuser Rudy Bentz. Keep in mind neither Marcus nor Bentz have any education whatsoever in the area of mental health treatment.

Ha,Ha,Ha,  You use a link within the forum?  Ha,Ha,Ha  That is truly a classic.  I will book mark this post, thank you!!  Try giving us something original or original source.  Maybe news article, press release etc.

anyone can just write "All programs are effective" somewhere in the forum and then just link to it and say "See this is my proof" !!  Ha,Ha,Ha

I think you are new here and I apologize for laughing, but many people use to do this all the time and thought they were fooling the readers.

Hmm, you really have no idea how crazy you look..interesting.

At the bottem of the page you'll note a link to a page that has since been edited of the damning info. Memo: when dealing with the Synanon/Ernhard moonies it's imperative to screensave ANYTHING relavent as lacking any integrity they have no problem deleting it and denying it was ever there. The investigation to confirm Marcus's corruption now that the incriminating info has been deleted from the most obvious place is a bit beyond me now

Here's some more interesting info on Marcus and Rudy and Jill Bentz the founders/cultic therapy deliverers/murderers at the Academy At Swift River
What are teen “tough-love” and “behavior modification” programs like, from the inside?

http://liamscheff.com/daily/2008/05/02/ ... r-academy/

"What are teen “tough-love” and “behavior modification” programs like, from the inside?

You can discover at least a little by reading “What it takes to Pull Me Through,”, by a writer named Dave Marcus.



Reading the book, I recognize all of the details - the forced labor, the bizarre, unregulated, unprofessional group ‘therapies’; the tactics of humiliation, isolation and coercion. I have to say, however, that while the author shows a good facility with chronology, he seems to have done little to no research on the effectiveness, ethical nature - or legality - of what he was witnessing.

He describes the program at the Academy at Swift River, and the ‘behavior modification techniques’ invented by the (now former) Swift River (and former Cedu) headmaster, Rudy Bentz, and his wife, Jill Shwaiko Bentz, who managed the lives of adolescents, with a brutal ’scared straight/tough love’ philosophy.

The Bentz’s, as well as other staff at the Cedu School, were also inappropriately physically close with students there; it was a Cedu philosophy to allow “smushing“, (or what sexually-active adults would call “cuddling”) between staff and students.

The book fails to offer any insight into the boundariless-ness of the Bentz’s philosophy-in-action, or a sense of ethics regarding the utility, helpfullness, effectiveness, discomfort and lack of compassion on view in the therapies. But it gets many of the details right.

Compare what you read Here, in a former students testimony, with what you find in the book.

The same philosophy is on view - essentially, “We won’t trust you, educate you, or give you individual counseling for your particular needs; instead, we’ll beat the bad out of you, shame it out of you, humiliate it out of you, bleed it, sweat it, yell, cry it, and scream it out of you.”



These programs still exist, and are truly abusive…and yet very poorly regulated, probably as a result of the blind spot through which we as a society choose to view their existence (or, more specifically, the blind spot put in place by the parents who send their children to them).

A little regulation is in order.

For more information, Please visit A-START, The Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and Appropriate use of Residential Treatment.
Read more on abusive/coercive therapeutic boarding schools at Fornits.com and ISAC
Mother Jones: The Cult That Spawned the Tough Love Industry


Posted in Surviving Cedu, The Popular Culture.
19 Responses to “Rudy Bentz and the Swift River Academy”

[Anonymous]

http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:XaugvM9NPGMJ:fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D48%26t%3D15260%26start%3D0+%22dave+marcus%22+aspen&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=us

I said all along that Marcus was a program shill - and he is. Recent news states that Marcus is now an "Emotional Growth Seminar Facilitator" working with renowned child abuser Rudy Bentz. Keep in mind neither Marcus nor Bentz have any education whatsoever in the area of mental health treatment.

Ha,Ha,Ha,  You use a link within the forum?  Ha,Ha,Ha  That is truly a classic.  I will book mark this post, thank you!!  Try giving us something original or original source.  Maybe news article, press release etc.

anyone can just write "All programs are effective" somewhere in the forum and then just link to it and say "See this is my proof" !!  Ha,Ha,Ha

I think you are new here and I apologize for laughing, but many people use to do this all the time and thought they were fooling the readers.

If you checked both links, you would see that at that time in 2006, Dave Marcus was working as an "Emotional Growth Seminar Facilitator" alongside Rudy Bentz.

[TheWho]

The investigation to confirm Marcus's corruption now that the incriminating info has been deleted from the most obvious place is a bit beyond me now

Hmmmm.  So still no proof?  Thought so.  Too bad.

So lets recap:

We have an independent study which says that TBS are effective and non abusive and we have a Pulitzer prized author who spent a year and a half inside a program and found it to be effective also.

Also no signs of Abuse were ever found in either case.

Now we are still waiting for your evidence that all programs are abusive.  Maybe you can invent your own website and then link to that.. Oh wait!!!
Ha,Ha,Ha



...

[Anonymous]

So it is official. The Who has gone from pathological to mentally retarted.

[Anonymous]

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....buy the way I'm being sarcastic.The new Who is so dumb he probably would've sided with me if I didn't say this.

[TheWho]

Have things got so bad that you have to invent your own source of information and facts?  You created a web site that allows you to create information and then you can link to it and that site links back to fornits.

Wow, that is amazing.  I never knew the pool of testimony and recent survivors with bad experiences has dried up that much.  So this is further proof that the industry continues to improve and the ineffective programs are fading out.  I think this is a good sign for all of us.  I know you probably don’t see it that way now but there is a silver lining there for all of you.  The industry is changing quicker than we all thought and fornits probably had a hand in all of this.

[Anonymous]

Yes. He is that stupid. His condition has apparently gotten worse.

[Anonymous]

http://www.rubinedu.com/team/bentz.html

[Anonymous]

Seriously people! Look at this shit! It's taken on a whole new form! Am I the only one who thinks this is scary?

http://www.thetotaltransformation.com/About.aspx

I've learned to be a better parent. , August 03, 2008
Review by : ImDrMom
 
As a medical doctor, I have learned how to diagnose and treat many ailments. But I was unable to cope with my teenage son's bad behaviors. His back-talking, smart mouth, his unwillingness to do his homework and general disobedience were causing me to scream all the time. Our interactions were poor. His guidance counselor, and our minister both talked with him to no avail. I was ready to send him off to a boot camp. Finally out of desperation I ordered the Total Transformation Program I had heard advertised on the radio. What a fanatastic program! I am a huge fan of the behavior modification approach that Mr. Lehman espouses. We have seen some major improvements already. I have recommended the program to others suffering with poorly behaving children and the pain it brings to the whole family. I highly endorse this plan and it is worth every penny!

[Anonymous]

Yes. He is that stupid. His condition has apparently gotten worse.

It's not stupid it's a cult member or shill. What it, or its employers, don't recognize is that when it attempts to support its cult through insane non sequiturs and self-evidently untrue statements it reveals its master as the monster it is.

[Anonymous]

Fuck you asshole. The studies saying they're ineffective have been posted IN THIS VERY THREAD. If you're too stupid to find it, I can't help that.

I have been providing you studies and independent people who have written about programs.  Its information, whether a student paper or Pulitzer prize author.  Most of the information we hear here on fornits comes from people with less qualifications than that.

Again.......burden of proof falls upon those claiming success, especially when we're talking about things like medical treatment. Even though we've provided NIH studies AND MORE (which you conveniently ignore), all you can come up with are a paper written by a grad student (not a clinical study) and a book written by a guy who is PAID by the program he wrote about.

How sad for you.

Show us your proof that the person was paid to write the novel by the program.  See, I know you are lying because I was there at the time and know the circumstances.



...

In what capacity were you at aspen education', bain capitol, and Rudy Bentz's of Cedu, the abduction and torture gulag, "Academy At Swift River" the year over which this book was written

[Ursus]

Seriously people! Look at this shit! It's taken on a whole new form! Am I the only one who thinks this is scary?

http://www.thetotaltransformation.com/About.aspx

Re. "The Program," it's probably not as bad as the website makes it seem. I clicked on one of the sample snippets, and it's pretty common sense stuff (note that these snippets aren't very long, so I didn't hear much). What is scary is all of the marketing hyperbole and hoopla.

On the plus side, you could probably pick it up on eBay for a fraction of the ~$350...<cough cough>...the website will charge you. More importantly, the kid stays home.

What I found MOST interesting about your link, however, was James Lehman's bio. I'd be willing to bet my best bear suit that that guy spent some serious time in one or more of the first therapeutic communities that sprung up in Brooklyn or the Bronx. Like Daytop or Phoenix House, etc. Perhaps even right around the time that Art Barker was getting his start in those parts... (but probably a wee bit later).

[Anonymous]

3

Seriously people! Look at this shit! It's taken on a whole new form! Am I the only one who thinks this is scary?

http://www.thetotaltransformation.com/About.aspx

Re. "The Program," it's probably not as bad as the website makes it seem. I clicked on one of the sample snippets, and it's pretty common sense stuff (note that these snippets aren't very long, so I didn't hear much). What is scary is all of the marketing hyperbole and hoopla.

On the plus side, you could probably pick it up on eBay for a fraction of the ~$350...<cough cough>...the website will charge you. More importantly, the kid stays home.

What I found MOST interesting about your link, however, was James Lehman's bio. I'd be willing to bet my best bear suit that that guy spent some serious time in one or more of the first therapeutic communities that sprung up in Brooklyn or the Bronx. Like Daytop or Phoenix House, etc. Perhaps even right around the time that Art Barker was getting his start in those parts... (but probably a wee bit later).

I find thewho's sudden silence  humorous. I can't help but feel it got a call from master Rudy Bentz to cool it, 'cause it's flashing heat on the Academy At Swift River/Cedu/Synanon-EST-Lifestrpping-Werner Ernhard criminal org. and he likes to keep it on the down low.

Man, imagine having abducted, imprisoned and tortured 1000s of kids, and  being just a statute of limitations, just a corrupt or "hands-tied" bureaucracy's hair's breathe from going to the slammer. Wow.

[TheWho]

Man, imagine having abducted, imprisoned and tortured 1000s of kids, and being just a statute of limitations, just a corrupt or "hands-tied" bureaucracy's hair's breathe from going to the slammer. Wow.

The big difference is that he is happy and your not.