Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Nihilanthic on October 04, 2004, 04:21:00 PM
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I keep seeing all these damn seminars and retreats and camps where "everyone cries" and you all "bond" and its "life changing" and they're generally secretive about it and very tired for a week afterwards.
And it amounts to little more than making you tell all your personal stuff, everyone breaks down emotionally and freaks out, and it lasts for most of the day for a few days.
And then there are these programs which do it for a much longer period of time.
Whats the freaking point? Is the suffering the 'growth'? Is the euphoria what makes it good? Why do we need emotional attack-therapy to get better? Why does *EVERYONE* have something buried that needs to be fixed?
P.S. - the reason I wrote this is because two of my friends going to a private school in california have to do some kairos thing, and I found out this is basically what its like. No contact with outside world in the retreat for 4 days and the whole crying/bonding/buried issues shit the whole time, your 'faith is deepened' and you get 'closer to god'.
Argh. There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.
--George Washington
[ This Message was edited by: Nihilanthic on 2004-10-04 13:21 ]
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closer to "the program" which thinks and acts like it's "god".
sitting in a dark room w/ 100 plus emotional parents, beating on a chair, looking for their "magical child".
while their children are locked up hundreds of miles away going through their version of the in-your-face, junkie, whore, slut, "your parents hate you" formated "seminar"!
oh, sign me up mister seminar man?
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Um I wasn't for the seminars.
Read my post again.
I was asking what the deal was and why they do it and why they think its okay.
I *certainly* do not think its okay.
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that was me, forgot to log in
I tried not to work for, you know, anyone who ate children with their bare hands. I won't pretend that I was ideologically consistent.
--Dick Morris; Political consultant for Bill Clinton, Trent Lott and Tom Ridge
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To answer you Nihilanthic, the seminars are designed to break your spirit under the guise of real truth and the freedom you get from purging it.
Remember ... the parents are there because they feel they messed up so badly with their children, so they are willing to take the abuse in order to do better.
The kids on the other hand don't really have a choice to walk out. Well... they can but ultimately they know they have to go through it if they are going to get out of there.
After your spirit is crushed (face it we pretty much all have some crap back there no matter how saintly you've been but is that so terrible? We are humans and that is how humans learn) you are put back together via their code, then you are loved up so you just feel so happy you made it through.
This then culminates with a bond similar to those who have been through a horrendous experience together i.e. a tragedy, a war etc... thereby insuring you stay the course through intricate peer pressure and the knowledge your kid is going through the same thing . This puts you effectively at the programs disposal and you and the other parents and kids form a formidable force that only reinforces your new world and language.
It is brain washing and you don't know it. All you know is you want to be a good parent and you want your kid to get better.
I can honestly say that there are a few things that I learned that were positive and helpful to this day. However those are things that you can learn in other ways, much kinder and gentler.
I also have since learned many better ways to cope and survive and rise above what otherwise bogs me down in a healthy positive fashion, not one that has left me with the wounds the seminars inflict.
It makes my skin crawl to think about it again and it's been 6 plus years.
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Ok, now I want to ask something about that kind of seminar... not just the ones the programs do necessarily
I'm asking about this 4 day retreat caled Kairos for my friends in that private catholic school.
They use teh same methods I guess.. they make you talk about your personal stuff, everyone cries and has a breakdown, and then you get euphoric at the end of it.
Supposedly to 'face your issues' and have a 'life changing experience' and get 'closer to god' and have a 'deeper faith' or some shit.
What possible good could come of that? Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams, _Last Chance to See_
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im going on that retreat thing tomorrow. may be i am just blissfully unaware about the retreat im going on, but i'm still not convinced that it will screw with me. nihilanthic has told me about the possible risks, but i don't think i have to be that worried. i won't allow them to play with my emotions if it does come to that. the only strange thing that i find about it is that you can't bring any reading material or electronic equipment like a cd player or alarm clock. 4 days at a retreat center ..... all i can say is ... boring. don't worry about me nihi! it's a fast 4 days!
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I don't know anything about kairos. Never heard of it.
If this is a christian group it's probably different although likely to be the same tatics.
Had god been rammed down my throat as part of the seminars, that alone would have made me leave and pull my son out but hey... that's because I'm not religious.
You know it's easy to add or subtract to this stuff and still have it apply to any group.
Just remember:
A brain can be washed and unwashed. Just my opinion.
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What it is with seminar sales tactics, seminar inductions into multi-level-marketing schemes, seminars about movements like fringe Christian movements, the Moonies, and pretty much any high-control group with a charismatic leader or leaders that sucks you in to do things that are not always *genuinely* in your best interests as observed by a hypothetical objective, reasonable person is this:
They need to get past your abstract reasoning faculties and your bullshit detector, and to do that they have to induce a highly suggestible, highly receptive state in you.
One of the ways different organizations do that is with certain kinds of mood music, colors, letting you get kindof hungry and thirsty and then providing sugary drinks and snacks---the sugar rush makes you more suggestible. Talking while looking you intently in the eye (or it looks like they are---frequently they're talking to the bridge of your nose to keep you from having the same effect on them). Using disapproval to induce a breakdown, and encoraging a chain reaction in everyone in the room by "love bombing" the first and subsequent guys who break down---what you have to do is have a large enough group that *somebody* is already hanging on by their fingernails, eh?
By having a high degree of physical control over seminar participants---ie, participants commit in advance to stay for the whole thing, or a set period of time, they can bring a lot more factors in to set the conditions for optimum suggestibility.
Then once they have your rational faculties and your bullshit detector disengaged, they can put in place pretty much whatever ideology they want.
Oh, and the people leading the seminar, or presented as "success stories" are snappily dressed, bright, confident, competent---they're walking commercials with all their human faults and insecurities and problems air-brushed over for the seminar----and they'll tell you all about how horrible their "before" picture was.
It's the same song and dance, but a *lot* of cult-type ideologies use it, and even otherwise very sensible and practical people are vulnerable to it. *Anybody* can fall prey to it.
So the trick to avoiding it happening to you is never attend anything like that, and if you ever find yourself in attendance at something like that, particularly where someone tries to get you to agree, in advance, to stay for a certain period of time no matter what----Leave Immediately.
(The exception would be licensed professionals running an adult rehab program with a squeaky-clean reputation if you really, really needed rehab. The tactics can be used for good as well as for evil---but never trust *anyone* in these where part of the object is you shelling out large sums of money---as is the case with "fix your teen" programs. They want your child's college fund and the equity in your house and anything else you can scrape together.)
Going to *anybody's* stay-for-three-days seminar is like going up to Kobe Bryant's hotel room.
You're likely to get analagous results.
Timoclea
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Found this on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos# (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos#)
Kairos is the time which cannot be measured, the perfect time, the qualitative time, the perfect moment, the "now", the being.
It differs from chronos (kronos), which is the time that can be measured for example in seconds, minutes, hours, days.
Many Catholic churches and Catholic schools have "Kairos Spiritual Retreats." In this sense, kairos is adapted to mean "God's time," as per the Bible.
No one should make you share what you really do not wish to share!
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I went to a similar type retreat with co-workers in a major corporation. Tough stuff, but funny how we are all working in a once "me" environment to a team that supports each other and created some incredible results. And, no, it's not sales. This is nothing new or cultish. We go our separate ways at 5 pm. Not one person has used what was shared as a weapon. One woman who was so closed off you couldn't get her to see alternatives. It was her way or no way. Her creativity and laughter flow...even after two years. It was a gift to learn what what can really do while the rest of the world said we couldn't. New exercises are done at team meetings to keep it fresh.
They're being brainwashed and don't know it??? I guess people are basically gullible and stupid and can't leave if they aren't liking it? I wasn't tied to a post.
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see nihi! nothing to worry about okay. it's a GOOD retreat! everyone's intentions are good!
(talk to you in a couple days. i'll tell you what happens okay?)
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Its the pull of the group that ties you to the post.
Ya know - people won't even get up and fetch a donutt if no one else is standing up to get an offered donutt. They'll sit at the table and stare at their hands - and if asked one at a time would you like to go get a donutt, each in turn will decline any disire for a donutt. But soon as the one bold person says, Yes, I think I'll have a donutt; and stands up to go get one - the rest will follow; happily snatching up donutts they moments before wanted none of. Actual studies have been done.
Its the idea of being alone. Of doing something everyone else will laugh at or frown upon.
The average person will not stand up and walk out of an unpleasent situation if they feel they will be all alone in doing so.
This is the power of the group and the price we pay for being social creatures.
Its why we tend to sit threw brainwashing and why group think keeps it effective; no matter how intelligent we might be.
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Last night, a 60 Minutes segment was about young people in the workplace...young, being 20's, early 30's. When CEO's were asked what single issue would identify this generation, it was resounding "team mentality". This was a definite negative to the employers, in that their younger hires could not think singly, creatively, and were so group oriented that they couldn't function alone.
The CEO's felt these "Echo Boomers" had spent their young lives working in groups, following the main-idea doctrines, and just being so politically correct that innovation was gone. They seemed to have a short burst of thought, then slink back quickly into conformity. They have grown up with team play, team teaching, testing to achieve the same average score in standardized tests, and an attitude of complete sameness of the group. We've all been there... when you are trying to point out a person in a crowd, but would die before you note that person is the only one of 100 with skin of a different color.
The corporate super-achievers are worried. Where will the innovators, the inventors, the "run 'em over at any cost" business leaders come from in the future? Not from any marketing and sales seminars.
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. . . Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know.
But I do not approve.
And I a not resigned.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Post URL: http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... t=20#48559 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=3593&forum=22&start=20#48559)
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okay, so, there's no real GOOD from this except opening everyone up with their psychological canopener and making you tell all your personal shit and having a forced bonding experience from all the sobbing and euphoria?
bleh.There's no biochemical test to distinguish the so-called manic-depressive person from the elated or despondent football fan. Nor is there any resan to assume the manic-depressive's inner experience is driven by twisted molecules while the football fan's is driven, at worst, by twisted values
Dr. Peter Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry
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The truth is that there is some *good* that can be done with mind control---if you want to quit doing drugs, or smoking, or some other bad habit and are having trouble with willpower, a *competent*, *ethical* therapist can, with your knowledge and consent, use some of the gentler of these techniques to help support your own efforts to change a bad habit.
The other big truth is that mind control techniques are powerful tools that are far more often incorrectly used, by the unethical, for things which the patient would not agree, ahead of time given full informed consent, were in his own best interests.
Anybody who's using mind control techniques who wants money from you, and/or who isn't telling you up front what techniques will be used and what specific behavior changes they want to help you make---and how much they want you to pay for those changes *before* the mind control starts---is highly, highly suspect.
I would be a lot less unhappy with teen behavior mod. schools if they had an informed consent form that made it clear that they would not admit the kid if the kid didn't sign, with a viable alternative (like your parents will turn you in as a JD and have you removed from their home and put in foster care, or your parents will call the police and report any criminal behavior and testify against you and press charges *if* you engage in criminal behavior). If the informed consent form had limited, specific behavior goals that were not an entire laundry list of "good teen" criteria, where the teen meeting the criteria for 3 solid weeks would earn release, and would be released after a specific, limited number of months regardless, then I'd be happier.
For example, if you wanted to break the kid off drugs, then three weeks sobriety while *attending* therapy sessions----regardless of what "progress" the therapist assessed, would be enough to break the *immediate* grip of the drugs so outpatient therapy would have a chance.
Same for if the kid is indiscriminately sexually active---three weeks to break the pattern, *attendance* at therapy which includes education in safer options, and the kid has a chance outpatient.
A kid with an active major mental illness should never be in behavior mod until/unless she's stable on medication. Or, in the case of major depression, in remission. Then behavior mod *could* be a voluntary follow-up for a particular extremely destructive behavior.
A kid skipping school would need to show up every day for three weeks and do all classwork and homework.
A kid vandalizing or fighting or stealing, same---three weeks without that behavior. With the fighting, attending anger management classes would be appropriate.
A cutter would need to be stable on anti-anxiety meds (in a mental hospital, if necessary) before behavior mod admission, and then 3 weeks of no cutting and *attending* therapy is enough.
A *good* behavior mod school would be voluntary and would target the one to three most serious problem behaviors, with a goal of setting a new habit, and a fixed time for release even without the habit.
Sure, if the particular problem relapses after release, the kid should go back--voluntarily, under the *same* release criteria.
As far as "fuzzy" things like showing respect, avoiding bad language, keeping a neat room, etc., some *limited* loss of privilege (like dessert at the next meal) is appropriate, but should not be linked to release at all. It's absolutely *normal* for teens to have mood swings and angry outbursts and be smart mouthed and use intemperate language---their hormones are all whacked out, and they grow out of it.
Residential treatment is not appropriate to deal with swearing, insolence, and messy rooms. When you link release to such things, you're going overboard.
Residential treatment is not appropriate for the teenager who's screwing half her high school class---as long as she's using condoms every time and some backup method of birth control. Sure, you don't *like* it, but it won't kill her. She'll either grow out of it, or the hypersexuality is a symptom of a major mental illness that behavior mod can't fix, anyway.
*Voluntary* residential BM treatment *is* appropriate for the kid who's showing up at school drunk and getting DUIs, or stealing cars, or shoplifting, or screwing around without condoms, using drugs at least once a week, or selling drugs, or physically violently attacking people, or vandalizing.
If the kid is doing illegal stuff and won't go for voluntary residential treatment, then prosecution with full legal respect for the accused's rights under the law, and whatever sentence the judge hands down if convicted, are appropriate---just like they would be for an adult. The Due Process and avoidance of 8th Amendment violations makes all the difference in the world.
It's not that *all* residential care is bad.
After all, there are *adults* who voluntary sign themselves into rehab for various life problems--why should kids be any different about that?
It's that there's so much residential care that *is* bad.
Any care that purports to "fix" a difficult or troubled child's entire personality is lying, and is likely to substitute mind control applied ham-handedly for real treatment for the kid's real problems. The problem with that is that the kid may survive adolescence, but come out with more long-term life-crippling problems than he/she went in with----and needlessly.
The reason I say 3 weeks on serious things like genuine drug addiction is that each time the kid breaks the habit and re-adjusts to outpatient life, there's a risk of relapse. The more times you break the habit and re-adjust, the more chances you have that the habit will stay broken for a significant stretch of time. That's my personal belief, anyway.
What I hate about these places is that they sell the lie that you can change a person's entire personality and have it stick. It's not possible. You can do it for short periods of time (a few years), but it wears off and is traumatic.
They also totally devalue the worth of the individual by essentially telling a kid his own personality is worthless and needs to be replaced. Translation: You aren't the kid we wanted, and we're willing to pay megabucks for a trade-in.
Some people are neatnicks, some are messy. The world would be a terrible place if *everyone* were alike on the neatness scale, because if the neatnicks were gone hospitals would be deathtraps, and if the messy folks were gone, we'd lose a lot of the major art and scientific discoveries, and inventions, in the world---since a lot of what messy people do when they're not cleaning is pretty worthwhile stuff--not in the teen years, perhaps, but eventually.
Some people are born to be lawyers, some are born to be hairdressers. Or artists, or musicians, or actors, or dancers, or art/music/drama/dance teachers. Your truant kid needs to go to school and get a basic education---but she may *not* need to go to law school. She may need to go to vocational school and end up making big bucks as a plumber or electrician. She may end up the most talented wrench in the NASCAR pit crews.
People are different. Teens are people. If there is a life-threatening (or jail-threatening) problem, deal with *that specific problem* and let time and growing maturity take care of the rest.
Too many parents want to live vicariously through their children and have foreclosed, in their minds, certain perfectly legal careers as "not acceptable" for their child. The rest of us need to prevent them from being able to do that---using force of law if necessary.
Trying to over-write a child's basic personality with a different one is inherently abusive.
Timoclea
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On 2004-10-04 20:21:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I went to a similar type retreat with co-workers in a major corporation. Tough stuff, but funny how we are all working in a once "me" environment to a team that supports each other and created some incredible results. And, no, it's not sales. This is nothing new or cultish. We go our separate ways at 5 pm. Not one person has used what was shared as a weapon. One woman who was so closed off you couldn't get her to see alternatives. It was her way or no way. Her creativity and laughter flow...even after two years. It was a gift to learn what what can really do while the rest of the world said we couldn't. New exercises are done at team meetings to keep it fresh.
They're being brainwashed and don't know it??? I guess people are basically gullible and stupid and can't leave if they aren't liking it? I wasn't tied to a post. "
Just a little example of seminars for personal and professional growth
****Unlocking Your Creative Genius
Stress reduction
How to tap the power of your imagination
How to tap more of the power of the group
The power of recognition
Guiding Your Subconscious to work for you
****Creative Empowerment
How to unleash and express your individual creativity
Creating and Living Your Corporate Vision
Creating Community at Work
Creating Groupwork
The synergy of your creativity and the group
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Again, the secrecy of how it was accomplished makes it a little questionable.
ANYWAY, the only reason I brought this up (mr press release for the seminar man can just pass over trying to tell me the same thing twice ^_~) is because obviously to a lot of people these methods of breaking down your emotions and self to induce a specific state of mind is wrong.
Its intimidation, humiliation, and just stress in general. That can't be questioned becuase if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck its a damn duck.
Anywho, the whole reason I wrote this is because the woman who owns the place I go to for speech & language therapy sent her daughter to a program in texas. It is apparently vastly different from the programs people here are rightfully angry at - the mom was in constant contact with the staff and therapists, the whole stay was only two months, the mom came and participated in seminars (I did not clarify if it was WITH her daughter but I think so) and she was in contact with her daughter after the first two weeks.
After I calmed down and asked why she was cut off for two weeks it was because it was "part of the treatment". Apparently she was depressed and kept nagging to people for attention and saying bad things. That popped up a red flag in my mind and I go "prevent her from saying bad things hmm?" but after those two weeks (and during the two weeks her mom and the therapists were in daily communication) she was talking to her mom, so I suppose that it wasn't too wrong.
I asked if it was confrontational. She said no. But, she said it used a level system and the higher levels were confrontational to her daughter.
So then I question the seminars, and ask her to read that pdf on isac called a parents plea. It details a parents account of going into a seminar and how she felt, how the methods worked, and that she people running it clamed they were even HARDER on her kid in a facility.
So, the next time I go there, I get finished with my time with my therapist and talk to the owner again. She says those 'experiential' seminars are to show you how you react to things. That some women would laugh if you said "I could kill you" or "I could take your womanhood". She said she and her daughter "got something out" of those seminars and "felt better afterwards". I'm not sure if that was the euphoria or from actually learning.
Well, could anyone who hasn't been through the experience (and could very easily have been washed by it) think its okay or right? I mean crap, its just making them disclose everyone about themselves and enduce powerful psychological effects on you.
Read this gem: http://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps/rrarticle1.htm (http://www.isaccorp.org/wwasps/rrarticle1.htm)
*sigh* I just don't know how this lady who studied psychology could just be bought up by a seminar, or if it really is a more benign version of what the program kids go through at theirs.
And no, no way in hell am I going to one of those damn things. If someone is a unemotional stone and could have a pinhole camera and a microphone, I suppose.
But then again even knowing they exist freaks me out, so I guess they do 'work'. But are the methods being used for right or wrong?It really puzzles me to see Marijuana connected with Narcotics - Dope and all that crap?it's a thousand times better than whiskey - it's an Assistant - a friend.
Louis Armstrong
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Well, the Kairos is over as of... tonight, so I guess they were too exhausted to get online or call me.
I hope they had a good experience there but I'm just so scared they ewre hurt and are exhausted right now.
*sigh* and they had no choice either... and had no information about this. No informed consent, no information, and no consent.... *sigh*
Pray for my friends, please. Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary,
categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions.
--Abbie Hoffman
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It's all part of the cult brainwashing.
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This was not a Camp.
It was a 'retreat' a Private Catholic school made them go to. Its one of the 'normal' ones.
It used some of the same methods, so thats why I brought this up.
And it seems... it was benign brainwashing. :eek: Love yourself be true to yourself self-friendship blablabla. One activity I didn't like tho was being in some room with a candle and a cross crying for a hour and a half praying to god. That seemed like brainwashing faith in god.
Well, anyway, they're both tired as hell from the emotional breakdown experience. So whatever. And, Christie still hasn't told what she did except 'talk about her shit' 'cry' and her mom wrote her some sappy letter like she's her ray of sunshine. Emily (inochi) hasn't gotten online yet. Feh. Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?
--Economist Milton Friedman
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Okay, I take back what I had good to say about Kairos.
I thought it was just cry it all out and break you down and be told you're so great therapy... All I heard from Emily and Christie was that 1. they cried 2. it was great 3. they ate too much. Emily didn't like having to go infront of everyoen and read this letter her mom wrote her.
Well, NOW, I'm getting pissed the fuck off. I disagreed with Christie about if everyone should be "kairosed" to fix our problems (like having a mom who doesn't care if your stepdad raped you) and that the problem should be fixed not brainwash how you feel about it.
So now, someone I deeply cared about, I won't see for... 2 weeks, or a month, or maybe two, or just one month.
Calling the computer a distraction, 'like a drug' (oh theres a doosie), or 'she has responsibilities'. Uhm... 24/7, school/homework/sleep? Buh. This just makes me so damn mad and sad at the same time.
The only difference between now and a week ago is Kairos. All you programmies can kiss your ass doing this to fucking teenagers and kids.
Does INFORMED CONSENT mean anything to you assholes? To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them...
-- Richard Henry Lee, 1787
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Nihilanthic - Do you not agree that some people are addicted to the computer? There are many kinds of addiction and chat rooms, surfing or playing games is one of them. Just like drugs, computer addiction is used to avoid.
You can get pissed off, but you weren't there, so all you're getting pissed off by is hearsay.
Where they brainwashed in some way? I've been brainwashed, but it hasn't been in a personal growth seminar, it's been by fashion magazines, television and the church I was brought up in.
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I don't agree that people are "addicted" to inanimate objects and behaviors.
Behavioral "addictions" are *compulsions*. And if you have a compulsion and have OCD, then there are treatments for that.
On the other hand, if other people just don't *like* your behavior because you like to do certain things more often than they want you to, that's not addiction. It's not even compulsion. It's not even necessarily bad behavior.
Too many people that want to control other people do it by medicalizing the behavior they don't like, or pathologizing it.
Addiction my ass.
Timoclea
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Whats the deal comparing a computer to a DRUG?
WTF is it? its a tool to talk to people, share and process information, and play games.
She plays no games.
She types shit up and talks to people, such as myself. She always did her work just fine before this whole shit so whats the deal with the life changing and not handling any criticism of this fucking Kairos? hmm?
To top it off I only saw inochi *once* since she got back and I'm just a little ticked off that you can just freaking rewire teenagers and break up relationships like this.
No, don't play the I'm a bad influence card. The only things I told them was to accept yourself, and be happy, and be a friend, but without making them have a psycho cry fest for 4 fucking days. I've known Christie a long time and inochi (Emily) even longer!!!
*argh* :evil:He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.
--James Burgh 1774
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Anyone watch "Starting Over" on daytime tv?
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On 2004-10-11 13:15:00, Nihilanthic wrote:
"Whats the deal comparing a computer to a DRUG?
You don't get it yet. No one is comparing a computer to a drug. It about addiction, which could be computer addiction, sex, exercise, smoking, being right, alcohol, perfectionism, etc. It's about consuming your life with a behavior at the expense of avoiding other things in your life...among other things.
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Actually, dude, she did her damn schoolwork and worked out, oh, and was able to get on the computer.
When her family was being shitty to her I was there for emotional support.
Addiction or 'consuming her life' my ass.To say the drug war is a failure is like saying the Hindenburg was short a few fire extinguishers.
Carl Hiassen