First, disclaimer: I'm pretty sure I knew Charly's son. Not extremely well, but better than most there knew him, I think. He is a good guy, but as Charly said, Carlbrook didn't really get through to him...which was actually very rare.
I graduated from Carlbrook 5 years ago. I've been thinking about it a bit lately (saw some faculty recently) so I decided to Google it and came across this. I read the first 5 pages or so of the first thread, and then realized this was all from 2 years ago, but whatever. I'd still like to respond to a couple of the points I saw being discussed.
- There were some staff/faculty at Carlbrook that I didn't get along with personally, but all of them (the ones I didn't get along with included) were there because they wanted to help people. Anyone who didn't, or wasn't competent, got fired pretty fast...I was there for 16 months and I can think of two advisors that I saw get fired...one was not competent and only lasted 6 weeks or so. The other (Mark Dunn) was very competent but Carlbrook wasn't the right fit for him - he was used to a more clinical environment and had a hard time treating us like friends rather than patients. Many of his students were extremely upset when he left to start a new (and more "hardcore") school. I guess it might be surprising that that made him a poor fit for Carlbrook, but it's true. Advisors were there to keep us in line, sure, but their main job seemed to track how we were doing and update our parents on it. Almost all the time students liked their advisors, and I am still loosely in touch with a few advisors from when I was there, some of whom have moved on themselves.
- Glenn Bender is an unusual man, but he's also bright and extremely kind. I can understand that some parents might not "get" him, and if you meet him expecting not to like him you might end up not liking him...but once you get to know him he's a great guy.
- I'm a little upset about the insinuations that Tim Brace would abuse people. The worst I could say about Tim is that he can be a little intimidating because he's got a strong personality...but he would NEVER hurt anyone and it's ridiculous to suggest he would. He's the heart of Carlbrook and he's really just a wonderful man. He's like a warm and caring grandpa. He'd yell at you in group if you did something really stupid/against the rules (like drinking window cleaner to try and get high; yes, people did stuff like that), but it would be because he was disappointed/frustrated that you were impeding your own progress. It's really hard to describe Tim to someone who hasn't met him, so I'll just say this: if everyone was a little more like Tim Brace, the world would be a much better place.
- The rest of the board of regents is awesome. Justin Merritt and Grant Price are the founders of the school, and were Cascade students themselves once. Justin, at least back when I was there, was in charge of pizza, movies, and getting us into college. Grant did admissions, and he'd also make time to tell people what jackasses they were when they...well, acted like jackasses. Kelly Dunbar does admissions now; I didn't know her that well but whenever I talked to her she seemed nice and intelligent. Andy Coe is one of the smartest people I have ever met, and I don't think I've ever seen him be wrong about anything. I never felt like I knew him that well, but somehow he seemed to be able to read me like a book. Jonathan Gurney is an extremely sweet and funny man, and I'm glad he's the Dean of Alumni because it means I still get to talk to him. John Henson...didn't interact much with students, though I was lucky enough to spend some time with him and he's just a fun guy to hang out with. Gillan Smith got to Carlbrook after I graduated and I don't really know him. Pretty much every student liked pretty much every board member (yes, even Grant, who I'll admit can be a bit scary the first time you're in group with him).
- Groups were often (though not always) very aggressive/confrontational, and I was on the receiving end more than once. Sometimes I deserved it, sometimes I didn't. I think that in general, aggression in group was appropriate/on target around 90-95% of the time. Which is, I want to emphasize, not 100%. It could be very frustrating and stressful, but in most cases it helped people in the long term.
- Workshops were awesome experiences...they were transformative. It was amazing to see some people go into a workshop and come out a few days later a changed person. It seems creepy and cultlike when you first get there, but once you go through it yourself you understand. It's like an emotional cleansing...no one is perfect, and most of us live our lives under layers upon layers of stress and emotional "gunk". Especially the kind of people who end up at Carlbrook. Workshops are intense because they peel away those layers, which leaves you feeling emotionally raw for a while but stronger and happier in the long run. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a very small amount of overlap with brainwashing techniques, but that doesn't make CB workshops brainwashing. When our parents visited, they would go through truncated versions of the same stuff, and many parents, including my own, found them just as moving and powerful as we did. And most of those parents were not vulnerable/confused/"messed up"/whatever in the way that we were, so I don't see how 50 of them could have sat in a room and been brainwashed over the course of 3-4 hours. For what it's worth, my workshop preference ordering was Teneo > Veneratio = Integritas > Animus > Amicitia. There are something like workshop preference archetypes (in that a lot of people would share my preferences), but they are pretty varied (many people would also have very different preferences, though perhaps similar to each other).
- I was on a program once. I don't want to compromise my anonymity so I'm going to be a bit vague, but I will say that I was very angry at first, which gave way to confusion, then tentative confidence, and finally things clicked into place for me. It lasted 5 weeks or so and it was probably the hardest thing I did at Carlbrook but also the most important. Programs can be unpleasant but they are basically how Carlbrook delivers personalized and focused therapy (as opposed to workshops, which are the same for everyone). They work, and it's worth being unhappy for a few weeks if it helps you grok something important about yourself.
I'll try and remember to check this thread, so if anyone has questions I'd be happy to answer them, though I mostly know the school as it was 5 years ago as opposed to now.
