I copied and pasted what I wrote on the other Monarch thread, so here it is:
A little late to jump on this thread, but let me give you my two cents.
I attended the Monarch School in Montana (not Monarch "Academy," btw) from June 2009 to December 2010. I graduated the therapeutic program and came home with a few credits left to be able to complete high school. I've had about a year and a half to reflect back on my experience and I will say this: While I think some parts of Monarch are well-intentioned, I believe that it harms more students than it helps.
The therapy workshops, called "insights," are modeled after similar workshops seen at CEDU and the likes. (Do a google search for CEDU if you're interested in reading some scary stuff about places like this). There are 7 or 8 workshops I believe, most last a day long and consist of very strange therapy exercises. This includes screaming in a partner's face while pretending like they are your parents, getting on your hands and knees and being pushed down to the floor by a staff member and other students while you are supposed to resist, going around in a circle and telling your peers every bad thing you've ever said or thought about them, screaming while beating up pillows, standing up against a wall with your nose touching the wall for a long time while being told that the choices you make are leading you to "fear and death," etc. That list just a tip of the iceberg. These workshops were filled with all sorts of mind games as well as some seriously inappropriate breaching of boundaries, both physical and emotional. Not to mention students who had experience trauma (rape, abuse, etc.) were forced to talk about it with their peers within the first 2 months of being there, when they were still getting to know people, and with no licensed therapist present. In the very last workshop, an intense 5-day one, they had strict rules about not being able to bite your nails, sitting in a certain way, not masturbating when we got back into our dorms at night, etc. If you did any of these things, you had to stand up in front of everyone and admit it. It was very invasive.
On top of that, we were constantly told that if we talked about these workshops with anyone else who hadn't been through them -- newer students, random people, and even our PARENTS -- that there would be consequences.
The rules were over the top too. The dress code was very strict. There was the "only girl rule," which meant that a girl couldn't be sitting at a table with two other boys, but a boy could be in a group of all girls if he wanted. On one hand, physical contact with the opposite sex other than hugging was VERY against the rules, but people of the same sex were pressured into "smushing," which was their word for cuddling (putting a pillow between your open legs and letting a girl lie down on it, etc.). If you didn't smush with people, you would be seen as "resistant." If you developed a crush on a student and other people noticed, you were forced to talk about it in group therapy, where you would have to explain your entire sexual past to that person in front of everyone else, and then you were temporarily placed on "bans" with them, which meant you weren't allowed to talk to them, touch their belongings, mention their name, or even make eye contact with them. Bans were a specific punishment for other offenses as well.
We weren't allowed to listen to any music that the staff didn't like, watch TV, read the newspaper, watch the news, go on the internet unless for academic reasons and supervised, talk about popular culture, watch romance movies, pass notes, crack too many jokes, have a strand of hair in your face (for girls), have unmatching socks on, read comics, read any magazines other than sewing magazines, and use sarcasm, among other things. The rules were very invasive and included strange things like not being allowed to shave pubic hair. Students would get in trouble for things like drinking out of the same cup as a member of the opposite sex. Punishments included being on bans from the entire school (including not being able to look at anyone), being put in isolation (basically sitting at a table with just a notebook and not being able to participate in daily activities), work assignments (which included getting a meal taken away on certain days so you had more time to do physical labor outside), digging stumps out of the ground even if it was raining or snowing, etc.
Staff crossed many boundaries as well. Students were encouraged to share disclosures, which basically was a list of every "bad" thing they had ever done, and staff would do the same. This included sexual disclosures, so I ended up hearing graphic details of staff members sexual pasts during workshops. Staff members would also be physically affectionate with the students (i.e. "smushing"), give them back rubs, and knew every detail of your life and thoughts.
Since this thread hasn't been updated in a while, I'm going to leave it at that for now.
I have much much more I could write here if anyone is interested.
