So little traditional therapy? Here's Wikipedia's summary- A blending of techniques- Magdalen Asylums, Military Academies, and methods similar to religous cults.
http://www.ezresult.com/article/World_W ... nd_SchoolsThe techniques used in WWASP programs are a mixture of methods used by military schools, churches and religious cults. For example, the rule of strict silence has been used by Magdalen Asylums, operated in Ireland by the Catholic church until 1996. Young women were placed in such asylums for offenses ranging from prostitution to "provocative" behavior, and some of them remained there for their whole life. Even adult women had to address the nuns as "mother" (similar to WWASP's rule of addressing the staff representative as "Mum" or "Dad"), and they were referred to as "children" or "girls", regardless of age. Sexuality was strictly controlled and punished when expressed in any consensual way. However, Magdalen Asylums openly used corporal punishment, and kept occupants busy with "hard work" (usually in washeries).
Degradation and humiliation are commonly employed in military academies, with the goal often being the complete destruction of the students' personalities and their transformation into "killing machines." Power structures are of utmost importance in a military context. Corporal punishment has become uncommon, especially against adults, but can be substituted by making the group pay for a single individual's behavior (which then often leads to physical revenge against that individual by the group).
The bombardment with videos and "reflections" is similar to the methods used by many religious cults to dominate the minds of their followers, the goal being the inculcation of the cult ideology. To this end, family members are frequently excluded from interacting with their loved ones, unless they themselves join the new "family", that is, the cult. Many cults have referred to themselves as families or as children (see, e.g., Children of God). Cults frequently employ systems of levels within which members can advance, the most complex one perhaps being used by Scientology. Like WWASP, many cults are notorious for litigating against critics.
According to critics of recovered memory therapy, patients in such therapy sessions are told that they are in "denial" until they acknowledge that sexual or ritual abuse has happened; similarly, relatives who are charged with the abuse are also in "denial" until they acknowledge its reality. This is comparable to the use of the word "manipulative" in WWASP programs -- students are "manipulative" whenever they say or write something which the staff disagrees with.
Critics like Richard Ofshe have claimed that RMT patients are frequently assigned to self-helf groups which are often used to re-affirm their belief system, and that these grow into a replacement "family" (because the original family is believed to have been responsible for severe abuse). While the goal of WWASP is to ultimately return children to their families, for the period of their stay, students will have to accept staff as their family. The WWASP "therapy" sessions, too, have the goal of re-affirming the WWASP ideology and the belief of students in their mistakes (with denial being punished, sometimes physically).
While society has generally learned to accept masturbation as a common form of human sexual behavior and a natural part of a child's sexual development, it is not atypical for modern closed facilities to engage in strict control of the practice. Many United States prisons forbid it entirely. This strict control of sexual pleasure is frequently justified as necessary to ensure that the inmates are properly punished and do not enjoy their stay. However, especially in children, it is known to have the effect of strengthening or creating associations of sex with shamefulness, which will likely result in sexual problems in later life. Given that some children stay over a period of years in WWASP programs, these effects should not be underestimated.
Claims that programs like WWASP help teens to overcome "defiance" have to be viewed in light of psychological research that increasingly views bonding as essential for the development of positive relationships; bonding, of course, is a two-way-process. Many children admitted to WWASP come from divorced families where the bonding process has been disrupted. Child neglect and lack of physical affection are both known risk factors for problematic behavior such as drug use.
If the testimony cited above is accurate, the physical and psychological abuse described would result in severe trauma in many cases (leading in turn to symptoms like depression, nightmares, stress, and self-injury). It depends on the degree of prior bonding with the parents whether such trauma is projected onto WWASP, onto the parents, or self-projected. In any case, these traumatic effects will likely not surface immediately.
Articles about WWASP often quote parents who are very satisfied customers. This can be explained in part with the acknowledged theory of cognitive dissonance; the programs are very expensive, and if they are viewed as a failure later, the parents would have to acknowledge their own mistake, and worse, that they spent thousands of dollars to fund a program that ultimately harmed their children. Such acknowledgment will be viewed as emotionally unappealing, so reasons will be sought for upholding the belief that the program was indeed useful.
Furthermore, as noted above, any negative effects of the programs are likely to become visible over a period of years, and the immediate effect may very well be increased obedience. Many of the same arguments that are used in the debate about spanking can be applied here: Even many of the most fierce opponents of the practice acknowledge that it may often accomplish the desired result of obedience, but claim that the immediate physical harm and the long-term psychological harm far outweigh this perceived benefit.
