Can someone educate me about the RAP session

[Anonymous]

Hi, all the ex-cedu student. Can any one educate me about the RAP session that everyone has to participate 3 times a week? Why it is a torture to the students. Can the student not participate (I mean just be there and not doing anything). Do you think it can help someone who has depression? Is the consoler who led the session a certified therapist?

[Postman]

Rap sessions are intended to bring about group "indightment" of students by other students. There is no concern over whether the indightment is just or even correct. The mission of the staff (and therapists don't run them or the complex Gestalt, bio, energetic and psychodynamic "propheets)" is to bring sufficient peer pressure and ridicule to bear against the child to make him "break" and blindly accept the culture and rules. As a theripist, all I can say is that this methodology works with heroin addicts and sociopaths, but it does damage to any child with just about any mental illness. For depressive children, it can result in suicide or psychosis - expect the same for schizophrenics, bi-polars, anxiety disorders, ADHD and especially anything resembling Autism or it's less severe types.

If your kid has any mental illness at all, don't send him to any emotional growth program. The kids who have success are usually sociopaths and healthy kids who would not have needed the place in the first place. Mentally ill kids are damaged and hospitalized repeatedly due to staff incompetence and neglegence. Most kids come out of these programs with a stark stare and a sickly appearance, much like POWs

[Antigen]

How about a little more blow by blow? Assume that many readers will drop in on the conversation starting right here and describe the raps for their benefit.

All religions bear traces of the fact that they arose during the intellectual immaturity of the human race - before it had learned the obligations to speak the truth. Not one of them makes it the duty of its God to be truthful and understandable in his communications.
--Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

[blownawaytheidahoway]

Usually there was some sort of ?ice-breaker?. The facilitator would read from the rap sheet the list of names of the combatants in the arena that day. During this introduction comments could be made about your name or where you were from, what you were wearing that day, whether you happened to be pudgy of have acne or diabetes?anything. Most of the time it was ridicule. ?The razz?, the ?shake up?, or the all popular ?get in his face?, these were some of the affectionate names for this process. I have heard raps referred to as the game before, and everyone was accused of playing ?games? in raps whenever they were in the ?hot seat?. Usually the rap started out of this ?playful? rousing. Sometimes a staff member or older student might not want to wait for anything and will take it upon themselves to start doing the work they need to do. When a rap started like this?I usually hated it. I would pray sometimes for a rap where we spent the first hour casually getting razzed by the staff present, patiently waiting for our turn, hoping that we weren?t the hard target for that staff that afternoon. There wouldn?t have been a bit of yelling in the first hour in these raps I used to pray for. One hour less was good enough for me. As I look back on it, the infrequency with which a rap didn?t have screaming in it within the first hour, could be compared with frequency with which Haley?s comet is visible to earth eyes naked?with suntan lotion and in a bikini. But one could still pray

[blownawaytheidahoway]

Usually the rap opened when the ?rap sheet? had been retired and the staff running the rap said??okay, let?s have a rap?. Then all hell would sometimes break loose at once with a cacophony of names being yelled by different people directed at different people for different reasons; the first one no less foolish than the last. Try to imagine the scene: you are sitting in an uncomfortable black chair, you have been prepped and sufficiently razzed that you are actually more relaxed than when you walked in. There is a group seated in the circle with you made up of a couple of staff and students from different ?families? inside the school. When those four, foul syllables are uttered by the staff (I?ve seen happen a staff bestow the right on a timid student to command ?Let?s have a rap?) some people on side of the circle sit forward on the edge of the seat of the chair with their fingers extended. They in unison are vying to get the first indictment out by loudly starting: ?Okay, _______________!? When  the facilitator decides who we?ll start with- you better hope it?s you! Because if a rap starts with ?OKAY, WELL XXXX, FIRST OF ALL, WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?? and the staff has decided that someone else is in the hot seat before you?you can bend over and kiss your ass goodbye because you know it?s coming. And you still have to wait, knowing that the dogs had been set loose. But still you are unable to get a head start. This is the reason that I hated so much when a rap started abruptly like that. Sitting there and doing nothing because there is nothing to be done, waiting for something that is bad that is going to happen. This is what it felt like. This is in fact what it felt like all the time I was there. But it was especially evident in the first year.

I remember some of those first years worth of RAPS. They are etched moments- chutes to another time- a wormhole to exactly what I thought at that moment. I am reminded of the findings of the ancient ruins of Pompei. When Vesuvias erupted it encased the fleeing people with molten lava, leaving the perfect outlines of the running corpses, mouths open in a forever gruesome primal scream. History cannot do anything to deny the perfectly preserved moment and perfectly preserved villages covered in pumice, and lava, and layer upon layer of consolidated ash.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for this description - but raps aren't that bad. Everything done in them is healing. I can't believe how you people see the world. Our staff indightments can only help you. I have seen a lot of mentally ill people pull it all together in raps and prophets. Raps used to be hard. Now they are whimpy and you are all winers.

[CEDU 1974-75]

Oh sure;I'll go over this whole rap thing with ya' if you really want to know.
   Picture a young man,approximately fifteen years old sitting in a circle in a room with about twelve or fifteen other young people and maybe one or two adults.
   It's 1974.Our friend,the young man,the "rap participant" holds his face in his hands and stares at the floor.He doesn't know the first thing about "behavioral modification","emotional growth",Charles Dederich,Mel Wasserman,Synanon,Cedu,or even why people want to make a big deal about gettin' high.He just knows his parents don't really want him around and the suggestion that juvenile authorities want to shoot him off to Running Springs for a couple of years seems like a good idea to them,once it floats into their minds, past the valium,beer,vodka,Thunderbird, and general sense of overall futility that comes with being"poor white trash""back in the day".
   Oh yeah,you've got to participate.You try not to.You play along.You don't play along.You hope like hell that these bastards know what they're doing.They don't.
   The truth becomes a garbled catastrophe masquerading as emotional understanding and subservient compliance.
   That's thirty years ago.Now,Who cares?...I'm afraid I do.
   Thirty years ago...It's long gone...
   Details?Blow by blow?Maybe later.Who knows? Are things really different now?
   The vacant stare lives on.
   My advice:Don't even think about it.Not for yourself,not for someone you care about,not for anyone.

[Anonymous]

Therapists never run raps. The staff used to say "The therapists don't understand what we do." Therefore, therapists don't get to run raps. They have started letting us be in them though and I can assure you that it is a horror -
yes still today.

The facilatators (usually with an idaho High School education - sometimes not even that) calls a student to attention by attacking him or her with all types of projections of their introjected critical parent - "you make me sick" "Your Parents hate you" "you are a failure" "You are a whimp."

Then, for three hours students do what they have to do "to not become the victim - They attack the poor bloke with all of their own critical parent introgected projections. "you are nothing" "You are a sick fuck" etc. etc.

Whosoever has compassion or empathy and therefore holds back, he becomes the next victim.

This teaches kids and staff that the way one goes about solving interpersonal problems is to become a screaming maniac - I was married to a CEDU screaming maniac and this is from (BCA 2003).

If any educational consultant referrs you to such a place, you should sue them. They di violence to eac h other and to kids at Boulder creek Academy, Northwest Academy and Rocky Mountain Academy.

The kid who had his arm broken by a staff member was trying to get out of just such a rap. They broke his arm a second time by punishing him with work assigmnants breaaking ice with his broken arm against Dr's orders.

Another one of my clients there had pnumonia and was running a 104 fever and he was told "you are a faker" and was locked outside the school. He was later hospitalized and was critical. Todd Degraff did this and many other things that are hard to talk about - he was never even talked to and was thus given tacit authority to continue such treatment.

The problem is "group think." Staff are above the law, above authority - They are Gods. Very small pathetic dark Gods. And "the therapists don't understand what you do". You are right; we never understood what you do, and we never understood what Hitler was doing either. But we wimps can whimper and cry just like the kids - can't we?

Postman

[CEDU 1974-75]

Hey!~  

   Thanx!Postman...... :exclaim:  :exclaim:

[Antigen]

On 2005-01-28 19:15:00, Anonymous wrote:

And "the therapists don't understand what you do". You are right; we never understood what you do, and we never understood what Hitler was doing either. But we wimps can whimper and cry just like the kids - can't we?

Postman

I would beg to differ. I think the therapists who have posted here understand and are far better able to articulate what's going on in these raps than either the former students or the staff. That's why your participation and influence is limited. You weren't hired to actually provide therapy. You were hired because it's a licensing/marketing requirement.

...to disarm the people (is) the best and most effective way to enslave them...
-- George Mason

[CEDU 1974-75]

Fortunately,these trained therapists are not limited in their involvement in this communication forum.Antigen, once again,clearly hits the nail on the head when identifying greedy business practice as the principle motivation behind these abusive practices.(i.e.marketing requirement)[ This Message was edited by: CEDU 1974-75 on 2005-01-29 13:08 ]

[Antigen]

On 2005-01-29 13:00:00, CEDU 1974-75 wrote:

greedy business practice as the principle motivation behind these abusive practices

Actually, I don't even believe that. It's a subtle difference, because the money and business and marketing is always such a tangled mess w/ everything else.

But generally, the people w/ the hands on roles in these types of places are working for slave wages and future glory. Somebody's usually making a pile of money, but that goes to grease the political process, pay atty fees and such like that.

The primary motivation is a lot simpler and understandalbe than that. Everybody enjoys a sincere, well earned pat on the back once in awhile. That's something we all need. But some people are just fiends for total adulation. They can't get enough of it. They don't care who they hurt or how they go about securing their next fix. They MUST have constant supply of dominance and praise. And they have to, absolutely need, to believe that they're martyred heroes, not sadistic tyrants. Just watch their reaction whenever you try to complicate matters w/ a little reality. You'd think you were pouring boiling oil on their toes.

Securing that fix can get pretty expensive, hence the constant need for mo' money.

To regard Christ as God, and to pray to him, are to my mind the greatest possible sacrilege.
--Leo Tolstoy, Russian revolutionary

[CEDU 1974-75]

Excellent point.I have seen many people in various small groups  absolutely believe the abusive behavior they inflict upon others is a precursor to that  persons development in some way.
   Being hateful and mean-spirited has always been the norm in these juvenile programs.It is now obvious,that it is the norm in organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous,as well.
   Many times I have asked various members of AA,what I considered to be a reasonable question only to be yelled at,ridiculed,or otherwise dismissed with some snide nonsense.Most recently,it seems that AA has taken to "wishing desperation"on those not exhibiting full compliance with the program.On this planet,wishing desperation on anyone seems to be an unneccessary absurdity.
   In all my experience with recovery and treatment programs, it seems that failure is inevitable unless one is predisposed to a mindless ,self-serving need for control and power.I"ve never been able to go for that.
   Sour grapes on my part?Maybe.But,Isn't there something better? How about truth and reality,consideration of care,non-punitive education.Instead we get hands-on brutality and fear mongering and for what?Because somebody could really use a pat on the back.It's silly really,but it sure seems that way to me.
   ,It also seems to me,that I am not the only one who is a little tired of seeing people go down because of the scared straight,tough love,reefer madness bullshit that is employed with uneven hands and  mindless inhumanity.Bullshit foisted upon them in the name of treatment and recovery.....and in the case of forced or coerced juvenile facilities......money.big money,and big, fat, lying republican money.

[Antigen]

On 2005-01-29 16:11:00, CEDU 1974-75 wrote:

It also seems to me,that I am not the only one who is a little tired of seeing people go down because of the scared straight,tough love,reefer madness bullshit that is employed with uneven hands and mindless inhumanity.Bullshit foisted upon them in the name of treatment and recovery.....and in the case of forced or coerced juvenile facilities......money.big money,and big, fat, lying republican money.

Ok now, you just set out a soap box w/ my name on it! ::soapbox:: Hmm, I'm gonna have to come up w/ a less angry little soapbox gremlin.

Anyway, this is where the shit hit the fan for me. I really had no idea how the industry had grown while I was busy working shit jobs to support our kids. Never read a paper, rarely watched the evening news, never understood what I was hearing when I did.

Then Brother Jeb took up residence in this public housing unit in Tallahassee http://www.floridagovernorsmansion.com/

That creeped me out just a little because I was vaguely aware that Büsh I and Reagan were more than just coworkers; they were really tight politically, if not socially for decades. And I remembered Nancy Reagan visiting Straight back in the early `80's and the horribly disturbing feeling I always got that the Just Say No campaign had to have been planned and carried out by Straightlings. But I (again) wrote it off as leftover paranoia from my days with that weird little cult that got shut down.

But when that smug SOB came out w/ his game-plan for Florida, headlined w/ a promise to spend $100 Million of my tax dollars on juvenile rehab, I went doc diving ..... intensely... obsessively every damned day for about 6 months straight.

One of my aims in keeping this site growing is to provide a concrete answer to a rhetorical question that we all hear over and over again. When you hear about something like how we're crop-dusting the pristine jungles of So. America w/ reformulated Roundup (which is just reformulated Agent Orange, btw) in an effort to enforce American prohibition on the primary local sacrement, ya' have to shake your head and wonder what kind of Pinkey and the Brain lunatic ever dreamt up that horror story, well leme bend your ear! I can answer that in grousome detail. You ought to see what these sadistic lunatics do to their own children when they piss dirty!

In fact, if you watch serious, credible drug policy reform issues and reporting, you can almost count on finding Sembler, DFAF, DuPont, Enoch Gordias (who's name I find quite ironic) or some other close affiliate Sembler's mischief machine connected to the most outrageous stories that ever get ink.

If I could get anybody to take the bet, I'd be a rich woman using this theory.

Now I wonder what the rest of the industry is up to. We've been blessed w/ a few really good researchers among former Straight clients so we have tons of documentation. Basically, we take that stuff and cross reference the important names (and sometimes insignificant name that just seem to show up everywhere--Bill Oliver, for example) and we find out who else's faces their pissing in and compare notes.

I'm waiting for that to happen in the CEDU/WWASP areana as well as the Bethel/Palmer branch.

If any research bug reads this, I'd suggest you start out looking at who has backed the Federal Faith Based Initiatives thing the most.

I am married, not Buried !
-- Steve Webb

[former CEDU therapist]

Ginger is correct. They didn't really want us there - we only were there so school districts would provide Non-Public School funding. Without therapists, that money wouldn't come in. Also, for the private-pay parents, it looked good to have therapists. But, believe me - the school NEVER followed our direction. They barely tolerated us.

I personally was pressured to participate in propheets, but I knew they were unethical and abusive. No one in the school would tell me what went on in them, but the kids did. Due to the ignorance of the staff, the overt efforts of team leaders to ignore our direction, the really stupid and inappropriate "treatment" I saw, and what the kids told me, I am no longer there. CEDU was happy to see me go.

I don't remember hearing any therapist tell me that he or she participated in a propheet, but it's been a few years, and I may just be forgetting. However, I do recall that there were significant philosophical differences between CEDU and therapists. It was funny in a really twisted way - the staff accused us of not really understanding how these kids functioned and how they "manipulated" us. I think that was the only word they knew - "manipulate." We were ignorant and led astray by the kids. Never mind the years and years of REAL college and REAL training we had. Many staff had high school educations only - or that famous CEDU "education" from California Coast College. This is an unaccredited, distance school.

I'm very happy to no longer be connected with that "therapeutic" boarding school.

On 2005-01-29 12:22:00, Antigen wrote:

"

On 2005-01-28 19:15:00, Anonymous wrote:


And "the therapists don't understand what you do". You are right; we never understood what you do, and we never understood what Hitler was doing either. But we wimps can whimper and cry just like the kids - can't we?



Postman

I would beg to differ. I think the therapists who have posted here understand and are far better able to articulate what's going on in these raps than either the former students or the staff. That's why your participation and influence is limited. You weren't hired to actually provide therapy. You were hired because it's a licensing/marketing requirement.

...to disarm the people (is) the best and most effective way to enslave them...
-- George Mason

"