Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Facility Question and Answers
The Carlbrook thread
Covergaard:
The main issue seems to be the education, but there are a few other points, that needs to be validated.
The template I am using on Fornits wiki (May be altered, if a better is made) is to be read here.
http://www.fornits.com/wiki/index.php/F ... ity_Portal
The carlbrook page is here: (I have done some reformatting, due to changes done last night.)
http://www.fornits.com/wiki/index.php/Carlbrook
Something could be better described (I am Danish and not so good at US-English. We are taught UK-English in Denmark).
A new thing seems to be the isolation room making the facility less softer and more like CEDU, they originated from.
But it could also be interesting to make a separate article about the request group, which are something they use in a lot of programs and of course a separete page about the workshops - a concept - which the now late Mr. Wasserman bought many years.
I can see that the editing on the page has changed the living conditions from small houses to trailers. How would you describe the sleeping quarters?
try another castle:
--- Quote ---My life was turned around by this school but I have no reservations in exposing the abusive tactics and fucked up situations that I found myself in as a student.
--- End quote ---
Do tell, I am actually very interested to hear from someone who graduated/left/was pulled/split from Carlbrook
I'm a bit nonplussed by your statement, though. It turned your life around, but you acknowledge that it was abusive and fucked up?
cooltherapy:
I think that the main reason that I was helped at Carlbrook was because I was out of my old group of friends for so long that when I returned home, they had all disappeared or forgotten me. I also fell in love with another student... that probably was one of the main turnarounds for me.
I guess I didn't phrase myself correctly - the abusive tactics didn't help me; the aspects mentioned above seem to be what really changed things for me.
Carlbrook uses their students to enforce the rules - so in disobeying any rules, you are potentially "hurting" your friends. I have no idea how they got this chain of events started, but upon entering the school, older students befriend you and you feel guilty breaking rules. It is turned into a situation where it is no longer about authority, but about personal issues in relationships. There were many friendships that I could have had but didn't because of a difference in levels of conforming to these rules, or "standards".
This is why anything works there in the first place.
Carlbrook uses past experiences to break a person down to absolutely nothing, and then puts out a hand when he/she needs someone the most. This is the basis of workshops and groups.
People seem to think that these therapy sessions were far tamer than they are. I was in groups where students got so upset that they threw chairs, vomited, etc. Some were boring and we'd listen to people cry because their friend ate their last snickers bar, whatever. Others, people discussed histories with beastiality, rape, molestation, abuse... (people may be on both sides of the issues, obviously).
Small issues were over dramatized and large issues were sometimes so stunning that staff didn't even have a response.
I guess up until this point everything is okay - the part where I got thrown off was when the screaming/name calling began.
In the first workshop, Integritas, which was completed as early as two weeks after arriving to the school, a student is assigned a truth - a word that describes them fully... your truth may be passionate, it may be honest... the staff pick these words beforehand but lead the students in the direction so that they "pick their own." That evening, however, each student is given a lie. Older students come into this group - I witnessed students skipping over to the workshop room, laughing in anticipation... the group is basically a scream fest. The lights are dimmed, all staff and older students stand around the outside of a circle where the Integritas folks are sitting. Each student is focused on for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour - they are broken down, screamed at, picked on... Staff made horribly inappropriate comments based on each student's "life story." I was too busy crying to hear most of my feedback, that evening. I must have been under the spotlight for 30 minutes or so. I was told that I belonged in a sewer. Generally you were lucky to return to your beds by 3am.
The next morning, we rose at 8am and returned to the room and were embraced with music and love from the same staff members who had screamed the evening before. I forgave the staff member who told me that I was a sewer rat that morning because he was the first person to hug me after I was given my lie. (Lies could be heartless-bitch, abuser, pitiful, ghost, etc.)
If people are interested I will tell about the other workshops - keep in mind that this is the first one (for some reason loved by most students in the end) and they get tougher each time around...
(Amicitia was run by an incredibly talented woman and seemed to be far better than any of the others)
Anywho, this may or may not sound abusive to you, but when I was sitting in the dimmed room receiving my lie, I wanted to die. I feel that I received NOTHING useful from that evening and I saw a first glimpse of the hidden rage that some of the staff members use against the students.
I guess it sounds like I was a "bad" kid at the school but really was considered to be a successful student. I would rather keep my identity private so I won't go into the positions that I held, however.
hanzomon4:
Dude read psy's benchmark site
*Looks for link*
Got it, this part of his site talks about these seminars. It starts at Friendship Workshop
try another castle:
--- Quote ---Carlbrook uses past experiences to break a person down to absolutely nothing, and then puts out a hand when he/she needs someone the most. This is the basis of workshops and groups.
--- End quote ---
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I know the integritas workshop quite well. Where I came from, it was called The Truth propheet. I had to go through it twice.
I think my lie the first time was "liar", but the second time... oh, that was a beaut... it was "cripple".
I don't know if Tim Brace is still there, but he used to be my headmaster... at Rocky Mountain Academy. One of the CEDU schools. Your school is a bastard child/clone of where I was, as is Benchmark, Monarch and Cascade (before it got shut down). There are more, but those are the ones that were started by CEDU expats that come to mind right now.
CEDU was the grandaddy that fostered all of these mutants. And CEDU's old man was the cult Synanon.
Programmies have come on here and said that Carlbrook was nothing like CEDU, and I always had a difficult time believing them, because I knew how effective CEDU was at appearing innocuous and like some fun happyland to outsiders who didn't go there. I knew better, and I knew it was only a matter of time before there would be students coming out of that place who were willing to talk about it.
Amicita? was that like the brother's keeper? (i.e. the one about friendship.) Oh god, that was an awful workshop for me.
Seriously, I would love to compare notes with you about this. I want to get a better understanding of this CEDU clone.
I am especially fascinated with language within insular communities and cultures, and how, despite the fact that the people within the community/sect/cult will speak the same language as someone who is not a part of that community, that language/lingo will also be completely unintelligible to those outsiders. It's part of what keeps those members isolated or feeling like they are a part of something special.
So... anyway... I am curious to know about the terms that were used there in daily life, and what similarities there are to CEDU. How the lingo has evolved/changed/developed.
If you have some spare time, I'd love it if you could check out my wiki entry on CEDU lingo, and see if any of those terms or definitions spark your memory.
It is by no means comprehensive. I still have a few more things I need to add to it.
Feel free to PM me if you need to. (You'll need a username for that.) Or... just continue the discussion in this thread.
--- Quote ---Anywho, this may or may not sound abusive to you, but when I was sitting in the dimmed room receiving my lie, I wanted to die. I feel that I received NOTHING useful from that evening and I saw a first glimpse of the hidden rage that some of the staff members use against the students.
--- End quote ---
Yup. That sounds pretty abusive to me... and pretty fucking identical to what all of us went through who are victims of the emotionally corrosive CEDU legacy.
Welcome to being a survivor. And seriously, it is good to hear from you. You have some pretty fucking keen insight regarding your experience after being out only one year. Took me about three before I started understanding what had really happened.
Finally, we are hearing from Carlbrook people. Hallelujah!
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