Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Facility Question and Answers
Carlbrook thread Part 2
irvbulldogs72:
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nimdA:
For instance... was the restarting of the program done because staff just had this instinctive feeling? Or was it based on tangible measured observed data?
irvbulldogs72:
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nimdA:
Interesting. I saw several examples of both subjective and attempts at objective at three springs. Neither impressed me in any way shape or form.
try another castle:
--- Quote from: ""irvbulldogs72"" ---
--- Quote from: ""try another castle"" ---I guess I'm too lazy to do my own homework, but due to the fact that at this point, based on what I've read, Carlbrook is more than just coincidentally identical to 80s era CEDU down to the terminology, the (albeit mostly less rigorous) schedule, the parental visits and correspondence policies, workshops, groups, slogans, the only difference is the inclusion of academics.
Seriously, I'm reading all of this, and going "holy crap." I know that there are similarities between all programs to some extent, but this stuff almost sounds like a CEDU clone school, such as Benchmark and Monarch. Is Carlbrook technically a CEDU clone? Does anyone know?
I'd very much like to know, Irv, did they ever tell you an origin story? Who started Carlbrook? Where the founder or group of founders got their inspiration?
I know that Brace works there, he was my old headmaster, but as far as I know, he *apparently* had no part in actually starting the school, did he? I thought he was simply the dean of students.
BTW, I congratulate you on your success. I went to 80s era RMA, got about a 1250 on my SATs, started college pretty soon after leaving RMA, graduated from Syracuse University with a BFA in painting, and think about the program very differently than you. I feel that I managed to make it in spite of my experience at RMA, as opposed to because of it. There were a lot of things that I had to "unlearn".
In addition, like you, I was the baby of my peer group, and definitely one of the omega wolves of the school. I got sent back through the first workshop while I was in middle school for the same reason you were put on a "program". I was considered to be "flying under the radar" and "not growing."
We have some similarities, it seems, (except that you chose a major in college that was much more sensible than mine.) :P
--- End quote ---
Heh....origin story? The founding peer class hadn't even graduated by the time I got there. Hell, I feel like I was a small part of the founding legacy.
Origin story, Reader's Digest Version:
Grant Price and Justin Merritt both graduated from Cascade together in the 80's. They were close friends...blah blah. They always told themselves "We can do this better. We need better academics. We need better qualifications. And half of these people are idiots (students and staff). It takes a smart person to understand what the hell we do at TBS-es. And no corporations."
So, 15 or so years later, they went out and tried to grab big names in the industry and started their own school. Gurney, Brace, Bender, Price, and Merritt... they all cooperated in the design of the therapeutic program. So it is technically a Synanon/CEDU/LGAT based program. The debate on the fundamentally abusive nature of that aside, there were no blatant abuses on the part of the staff when I was there.
(Don't tell me, I know. I read like a goddamned brochure. But I can't help that that's the only version that I know.)
The school was founded in 2002. The first graduating class was 2003. I graduated 2004. Carlbrook is YOUNG.
The differences I've seen between this school and others.
More freedoms.
Academics.
Third party intelligence and psychological screening. You had to be smart and you had to have no clinical psychological problems. The school wouldn't take you.
Wilderness prerequisite.
Very nurturing staff. There was a point where I stepped on a lot of toes; pissed off a lot of people. There were no grudges held. And a (possibly false/illusion) sense of actual dialogue between staff and students. Like I've said, if a student though staff was wrong, totally off base, and spoke up, the hammer was not dropped on the student. Unless the student was being a bit delusional. Hell, I know people like that now.
"I'm sick of guys checking me out at the bar."
"Stop dressing like a skank and they will."
"I am not!"
"Babe, when your skirt is the shortest one in the room and you're wearing the only tube top in the middle of November...you're the skankiest girl in the bar."
I dunno...that's my definition of harder truth. I'm opinionated and I'll pipe up.
Never had to repeat a workshop. And I wouldn't say I've had to unlearn things....I've just discarded what I don't need. I have no use for "passion for my life" and I haven't "run shit on myself" in years. There's no little "you're worthless" sentiment in my head anymore. I accept my qualities, alongside my flaws, and those opinions of myself are fairly objective. I've thrown out most of the tools, possibly why they're trickling back to me so slowly. I regard the experience as rough and tough (workshops, and Carlbrook), somewhat like a rite of passage, but something that looking back, I'd rather have gone through there than somewhere where I would've flown off the handle and hurt myself or done something stupid. Was it reprogramming? Yes, I guess it was. But it's better than the shit "programming" I got from my parents at home. We're closer now. Still butt heads on things, but they've toned down the "do this or else" rhetoric and are much more focused on what's going to make me happy.
That's why my father didn't freak out and disown me when I dropped engineering for polisci and essentially had to start college over in my junior year. Well, that, and I'm pulling full student loans now, so there's a lot less coming out of his pocket.
I hope this didn't sound too much like a glowing review of the place.
--- End quote ---
Interesting. I had no idea Carlbrook spawned from Cascade. (Maybe I am behind the learning curve in not knowing that, though.)
What a web there is, no?
I think it will be curious within the next ten years to hear from other alumni from that place and see what all of their viewpoints are on Carlbrook.
Do you keep in touch with anyone from your graduating class?
Also, you spoke about it getting "more strict" and that people were "acting out" more and more than when you were there. Do you have any details on that, by any chance?
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