Ok, just had a brief AIM Convo with a carlbrook grad.
Almost no details or substance at all, except they use seminars (called workshops) and apparently make a big deal about emulating the stanford prison experiment by having oldcomer teenagers boss around the younger ones, via some sort of hierarchy. Dunno if it would be considered a level system because she blocked me in a huff before I could get any acutal INFO out of her.
Apparently there are manditory weekly phonecalls, however the 'manipulate to leave' bullshit came out, again, just like all programs. YET, the same person told me not a minute before that "there is no fixing at carlbrook"... so why do you need to manipulate to leave if you arent kept there to be fixed?
Given the speech full of buzzwords and new-age hippy feelgood bullshit youd expect someone who spent time in seminars(workshops) to say, the most I can deduce about this program is that it makes use of the seminars(workshops) for all the 'emotional growth'.
See my first post in this thread where I list my grievances about such 'emotional growth' seminar experiences. Enough peer pressure, enough time worn down, enough mind-numbing buzzwords and enough stress to cause regression (really easy for a displaced teenager kept in a program with people working her mind over with mind-games and other seminar stressors) and they're psychologically regressed into a state where you can influence and suggest them to do whatever, which is called brainwashing for those of you who dont realize what it is.
Fortunately, its newagey hippy feelgood bullshit, at least what is given to me, so flowergirl is probably at least not going to hurt other people. How the program works except old comers boss around newcomers (like virtually any program with a level system) and that it uses seminars (called workshops there), I dont know, but that basically puts it in line with the industry as a whole.
http://www.isaccorp.org is full of information, and stories about what this kind of program can do. If you really insist on placing your child Id demand to see how it runs day by day, and not the usual dog & pony show given to visitors.
I'd also sit through a 'workshop' yourself before your kid does after reading up at ISAC about how 'emotional growth' seminars work - forcing a breakdown via many differnet ways (anger, humiliation, depression from past memories, disclosing all your past shit to a group, mind games, peer pressure, exhaustion) and then filling them up with the program dogma and bullshit, and then a nice 'lovebomb' (affection games and more buzzword bullshit like 44444's that WWASPS uses) during the euphoria at the end of the seminar - which is all the person REMEMBERS about it at the end if theyve 'drunk the punch', which is why they're so damned defensive about it.
Sorry to the person I talked to in AIM for calling you out like this, but its my job. You'll be able to sort all this out in a few years, but in your current washed state you think Im some poor wretched negative critical cold person and feel sorry for me, but thats okay, no need to. But I would challenge you with this - think about very carefully and critically (hey, sorry, this shit aint easy, but then again the seminars werent when you were IN them, were they?) about how they were supposed to work, what made you feel the way you feel, and why youre so defensive... but short on details about the program. You're coming accross like a cult victim, whether you accept it or not.
To everyone else, just two things. 1. Buyer beware. 2. ITS YOUR CHILD, you should be a PARENT and raise them, and if they truly need help that you honestly cant provide, you do your damnest to ensure their safety!
Don't let your dogma run out in front of your karma.
--Anonymous