On 2004-06-07 11:15:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Anonymous yes - if I were looking for money, I'd post an e-mail address.
No, all programs are not one size fits all - Asking the parent to make their own decision is what I posted. Cross Creek does have therapy 5 days a week, in groups and individually. The therapists are licensed, of course. And if the therapist isn't the right fit, they aren't arrogant enough to keep on when it isn't. A change is made.
The rhetorical response of "if there were allegations, I wouldn't want to take that chance" doesn't wash. It's meant to instill fear in already fearful parents. That is a statement in the present tense. The statement, my kid "might" be dead or in jail is a fear the parents could be facing, in the future tense.
Just look at the threads on this site and every single program is covered with some sort of abuse allegation.
THey don't need an educational consultant or a family advocate/another parent telling them this, they more than likely have already feared that themselves.
And yes, anyone can lie on a website. Case in point. "
If there were allegations, I wouldn't take the chance.
That's not rhetorical, it's exactly what I personally mean.
*NOT* every facility that offers inpatient care is discussed here. *NOT* every facility that offers inpatient care has the same *amount* of "smoke" of allegations about it.
Not every facility that offers inpatient care has a blanket policy cutting off the patient's written correspondence with friends and family.
What I've seen of Behavior Modification Programs has, frankly, been bad.
Not all inpatient treatment is based on the Behavior Modification Program model.
*Real* "Outward Bound" is excellent for at-risk delinquency type issues.
*Real* mental hospitals are excellent for getting a mentally ill patient stable on medication, if he/she is a medication responder, and/or into cognitive behavioral therapy if he/she isn't a medication responder or if it just happens to be helpful for that patient.
*Real* drug treatment centers that don't take kids whose issues are delinquency or mental illness can have good success with a variety of approaches, including rationally-based therapy, medication-supported treatment where necessary, and/or 12 step where the particular patient finds it helpful.
Having studied behaviorist techniques in great detail, far more than most people who aren't professionals in the field, one of the reasons I'm highly skeptical of Behavior Modification Programs is that they seem to me to do a very poor job of applying the body of knowledge gained from behaviorist research----in plain English, they're just flat out doing it wrong. Or "poorly," rather than "wrong," would be more accurate.
Their reinforcement choices and schedules, from what the survivors have related actually happens in the BM programs, might as well have been cobbled together by a blind chimpanzie on acid.
Another thing about your comment that every program has been covered on this site and had allegations of abuse----I haven't heard a single negative thing on Fornits, as long as I've been reading it, about the *REAL* "Outward Bound". Not one.
I generally haven't heard much bad about people's local mental hospitals.
I don't know the names of the various reputable drug treatment facilities (besides Betty Ford---and if they take pediatric patients, I don't know it)---but I'm sure there are some and that people with more experience in that area can chime in with the names of *reputable* places for drug treatment of genuinely addicted kids.
There are problems that a kid can have that are *good* reasons for residential treatment.
There are places that offer *good* residential treatment for each of those problems.
But I've yet to see anything that the rash of Teen Behavior Modification facilities is good for.
Frankly, I consider them this era's nutty mental health fad----in the same class as dunking stools or courses of hundreds of electric shocks for everything under the Sun.
Timoclea
