Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry
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Had a liquid lunch with boss, glad I'm done teaching for the week. Drank rice liquor the traditional broke ass salaryman way, right out of a bowl. True story, still tates like shit out of a bowl.
:beat:
Quote from: "Whooter"Quote from: "psy"As I understand, you've admitted in the past that this description is more or less an accurate description of what your daughter went through. I should note that most of what he wrote is more or less a copy of Propheets from CEDU (also very similar to what I went through myself which was also a Propheet based workshop). Similarly, the "dyads" and the giver-taker exercise among others are also part of LifeSpring. Here is a more complete description of a giver-taken exercise taken from a pro-LifeSpring website (I recommend reading the entire thing with the fact in mind that this survivor of sexual abuse views what she went through as a positive experience, and no doubt wasted untold thousands on further workshops). My question to you is whether, like the parent seminar, you feel these things are over the line, and whether you would be willing to tolerate and participate in such activities as a participant?
It was accurate as I remember, but her description was a bit softer than that and they (her friends and herself) recalled being elated after it was over and stayed up for hours talking about the events of the day. Sort of like climbing to the top of a mountain. Totally exhausted, a little beat up, but feeling good about yourself. I think the problem is two fold. Not all kids are cut out for Therapeutic Boarding schools and not all schools are alike. So the stories and outcomes can differ greatly.
As I mentioned before this is not something that I would want to go through myself and would probably opt out if I had the option to do so. But I dont consider it abusive.
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If the child says anything negative about the program there would be consequences. Whooter what are you trying to sell? :roflmao:
As I understand, you've admitted in the past that this description is more or less an accurate description of what your daughter went through. I should note that most of what he wrote is more or less a copy of Propheets from CEDU (also very similar to what I went through myself which was also a Propheet based workshop). Similarly, the "dyads" and the giver-taker exercise among others are also part of LifeSpring. Here is a more complete description of a giver-taken exercise taken from a pro-LifeSpring website (I recommend reading the entire thing with the fact in mind that this survivor of sexual abuse views what she went through as a positive experience, and no doubt wasted untold thousands on further workshops). My question to you is whether, like the parent seminar, you feel these things are over the line, and whether you would be willing to tolerate and participate in such activities as a participant?
LGATs are not indicated for individuals with a trauma history (and in fact are likely harmful and counterindicated). Many but not all programs utilize LGATs. Many but not all youth who are referred to programs have a history of trauma.
Youth are exposed to LGATs well before it is conceivable that a thorough evaluation can be done to assess if they do in fact have a significant trauma history. I know you put a lot of faith in third-party referrals, and the ability of a good ethical educational consultant to make this determination. I don't think that the educational consultant system nor the evaluative (i.e. wilderness program) system is fined tune enough to distinguish between behavior that has trauma that has a root cause, and behavior that does not.
What I think is reasonable to ask of the industry, is to either take the LGAT out of their toolbox or to make damn sure that they're not applying this tool to the wrong person. For those programs that are dependent upon LGATs as a significant piece of their intervention, this will hurt their bottom line.
Quote from: "Whooter"I would not tolerate that. I don't think it is necessary to bully or belittle people.
So you agree that these seminars, as they are used in today's programs, are wrong? For both parents and kids? You consider this bullying -- belittling... abusive?QuoteI had a family member who attended a seminar called EST in the early 80's, it was a 2 weekend 60 hour course and just listening to what the people had to go through, no bathroom breaks etc. it wouldn't be for me.
I've had it verified from CEDU staff (Penelope Valentine, for one), that est and lifeSpring were primary influences in CEDU's Propheets, which form the basis for Aspen's LifeSteps. Would you say that this entire experiment with LGATs was a mistake?QuoteIt wore off in a couple of weeks and all was forgotten. Probably a good exercise in human behavior.
Indeed the intended effects do wear off, but not always the unintended effects. Margaret T. Singer (not Sanger) and others called these "casualties". Just to quote "the Lieberman and Yalom studies (19xx) of encounter groups indicated that "the people who experienced negative results in combination with the psychological casualties constituted about 19% ... or for close to one out of five people who participated in these group experiences, the results were harmful"" Given that evidence and the fact both est's successor, Landmark Education and LifeSpring both to my knowledge recommend adults with psychological trauma or difficulty not go through their seminars, do you really think it's a good idea to be putting vulnerable kids who very likely may have psychological issues, through the very same thing (often far worse)?
If I seem to understand you correctly you're arguing:
1, Reviews cannot be trusted when the reviewer has a financial stake in the outcome (not true, see final point) and:
2. You can't tell if people on the Amazon are real or not (you can), or whether they actually bought the product (you can, as you can't review products otherwise).
In the case of Amazon, i'd dispute these two points, as they've mostly fixed any issues they one had,
but i'm more interested in the fact you won't concede these two, very related points:
1. Studies cannot be trusted when the people doing the study have a vested financial interest in the outcome and:
2. You can't tell whether the data supplied by a program is accurate or whether it was just made up of whole cloth.
I'll just leave this here:Quote from: "Dorit Beinisch, President of the Israeli Supreme Court"Israel's basic legal principles hold that the right to use force in general, and the right to enforce criminal law by putting people behind bars in particular, is one of the most fundamental and one of the most invasive powers in the state's jurisdiction. Thus when the power to incarcerate is transferred to a private corporation whose purpose is making money, the act of depriving a person of his liberty loses much of its legitimacy. Because of this loss of legitimacy, the violation of the prisoner's right to liberty goes beyond the violation entailed in the incarceration itself.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/ne ... ael-1.3774
Quote from: "Whooter"Actually. I chose that example for a reason. Crossdressing is just one exercise out of many from WWASP's parent seminars. Yet parents put up with it. Voluntarily even. Why?Quote from: "psy"I am interested to know from somebody like Whooter that if he (or she) were asked to wear a French maid outfit and perform a lap dance in the name of therapy, would he(or she) do it. Any other examples people can think of? Let's try and keep this thread clean and free of personal attacks, but I am interested in these hypotheticals.
It would be bad for business. If they forced me to do that and I walked out wearing it most of the people would leave. Even staff would resign.QuoteWHY I DIDN’T WALK OUT
Somehow the situation had overcome my usual objections to this type of process. I was in a vulnerable position emotionally because of the long-term crises that we had experienced with our daughter. In the past several hours, I had felt myself carried along by a powerful and charismatic speaker; I was experiencing an overload from the amount of information given and speed of delivery. I didn’t have time to emotionally and rationally process what was happening. The confrontation by Don had put me into a state of emotional shock and made feel personally threatened and afraid.
My defenses were down because I was already trusting of Teen Help and expected something different. I felt an urgency to stay and participate in the seminar, because I had been persuaded to believe that my daughter’s life depended upon it. I had been told if I didn’t attend, our family could not participate in the Parent/Child Seminars that were vital to our daughter’s reintegration into our family. I wanted my daughter to come home and I wanted help with the reintegration processes from the program that best understood what she had been through. That was one of the main reasons I was at the Seminar.
Besides, I had already made a significant investment of money, time and energy in this program and my reputation was on the line. If I objected and walked out now, I would have to explain to the newspaper reporter who had interviewed me a few days before why I had done it.
I had referred three people to Teen Help and wanted to believe I had done the right thing. No one likes to feel they have made a mistake and endorsed a company they will later wish they hadn’t. I had trusted Teen Help and the results I was seeing with my daughter’s progress in the program. I would not have referred families to this program if I had had any doubts.
Besides, I owed R & D Billing, the billing company for Tranquility Bay and Teen Help, a sizeable amount of money and I was paying them off for my daughters care with referrals to the Teen Help was in a financially vulnerable situation and felt an obligation to protect the program’s best interests.
All of these reasons contributed to my decision to stay and take the Silent Vow. These were certainly not normal circumstances and I was not behaving in a manner consistent with my normal behavior. I did not, however think all of this through at the time. Rather, I was swept along in an experience that seemed to be accelerating in pace and unusualness. I also assumed that things would eventually explain themselves and that I was through the worst part of the seminar.
Read the full thing here.
Many program parents do, in fact, go through LGAT seminars similar to LifeSteps, Propheets, WWASP's discovery seminars, and others. They're usually not quite so severe, but i'm interested to know, Whooter, if after reading that, you would tolerate what those parents did?
If you're trying to argue that anybody who ever reviews a product positively is paid to do so -- well. That's just silly.
Even if what you were saying was true. Wouldn't that mean that there should be more positive program reviews here, and not less? If so many people are helped by programs as you claim, as your "study" claims, where are the positive reviews? Where are the hordes of new graduates out to share their thanks with the world for how their lives were saved? Why is it that the vast majority of program reviews are bad?
You argue that if they show up, they're driven off, but more often what I've observed is a more of a Q&A sort of thing where questions are asked that lead the students to think about whether, for example, that French Maid's outfit and lapdance were really appropriate as therapy at Aspen Education's Mount Batchelor Academy. Here's even an interview with a Carlbrook program parent. Other times it's with students (and i'm having a difficult time finding a good example as positive reviews of programs are hard to come by). And more often than not, their opinions change. To explain why, I'll quote Richard Ofshe on thought reform / coercive persuasion.
I too am interested in what would happen if parents, not specifically whooter, spent time in program and underwent many of the same things the kids did. I'd wager they'd withdrawal themselves pretty quickly, but at what point would the treatment become unacceptable. We know parents will subject themselves to seminars fairly similar to what the kids will, but what about raps? What about the crazier aspects of the kids's seminars?
I am interested to know from somebody like Whooter that if he (or she) were asked to wear a French maid outfit and perform a lap dance in the name of therapy, would he(or she) do it. Any other examples people can think of? Let's try and keep this thread clean and free of personal attacks, but I am interested in these hypotheticals.
And yet somehow people who are satisfied do post, say, amazon ratings, and not just the unsatisfied ones. Here. That's a customer review page for a blender I selected at random. As you can see, satisfied customers will not just tick a star, but also write walls of text on what they thought of the product. Most of the reviews are very good while one in particular is very bad, due to the unit failing early, customer support being bad, and it taking a long time to get a replacement. According to your theory, none of those positive ratings should be there. Yet they are. The vast majority of them are. What I take from this is that the blender is very good, but in the off chance it breaks, i'm SOL. Even I write reviews, and the vast majority are positive. I can't even remember the last negative review I wrote.
Why is it that the vast majority of "reviews" here by former participants in programs are negative? Is there something about programs that make them unique when it comes to "customer" reviews. I grant you that it's not a valid scientific study (and neither is Behrens), but at the same time I think most who shop online will tell you that customer ratings, averaged, are generally a pretty good indicator of the quality of the product. Is there something unique to programs that exempts them from this principle that applies to pretty much everything I can think of? Or is the more plausible explanation that the quality of the product really isn't that great in reality. Can you explain this? I mean it's not like i'm removing positive reviews. After all. You're still around, despite almost universal insistence I get rid of you.
No Whooter. I have no children. But I would never place my offspring in the incapable hands of untrained minimum wage ex- walmart greeters.
Where are all the kids that you claim are so grateful to their respective programs? They've certainly boycotted fornits. Talk about one sided, where'syour backup? You are an army of one. I guess we shouldn't be too worried. You are just one small voice.
There shouldn't be any such thing as a private-public partnership when it comes to incarcerating anyone, child or adult. The concept is an abdication of responsibility and leads directly to abuse and death. Giving someone's life over to a private entity should be banned by Constitutional amendment.
Whooter, it's to bad that you yourself never spent a day in a program yourself.
In a violent rap at straight,or In the ring at elan or maybe the dog cages in Jamaica (WWASP). I doubt that your opinion would be so one sided. You're trying to change the minds of people who actually lived this insanity. Who's that working? Many converts? Play a new tune please.I really do understand that many children were hurt by programs, none-ya, but you need to be able to see both sides (as I do) that some children did well and others did not. You cant just go through life viewing it from just your one isolated perspective. I never experienced it as a child and you never experienced it as a parent. Step back and try to see both perspectives and try not to be so judgmental of others.