Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones
Steve Rookey's New Program
RMA Survivor:
Well, if we're going to bring in Captain Cook, that's a different story. But he wouldn't have taken command and then led the ship to disaster. He would have taken command and then gone off to discover new lands. Or Atlantis. He discovered Australia and Hawaii, both of which are cool places. Steve the Rookie? He just would have done nothing useful, everyone would have died and he would have explained it all away as having stepped in to a losing situation and that any subsequent disasters were not his doing. But odds are, his cooking was partly to blame for the original disaster, as a thorough investigation would surely prove.
Ursus:
--- Quote from: "RMA Survivor" ---Steve's work in the Troubled Teen Industry began at RMA/CEDU, and because RMA/CEDU were LifeSpring, Synanon, EST clones with a little Khalil Gibran thrown in for added weirdness, Steve's experience is in serious question.
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Ya know... I think the obsession with Kahlil Gibran may have been a sign of the times, perhaps a product of the then popular culture's understanding of the Human Potential movement? Joe Gauld's pontifications, particularly the earlier ones, make ample reference to Gibran. He did interpret him a little differently than Wasserman did, of course. All these goo-roos like to come off as being extra specially unique. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, eye of newt, wing of bat, gizzard of a lizard...
--- Quote from: "RMA Survivor" ---Isn't it telling that not a single one of these Troubled Teen, Wilderness Boot Camps are founded by actual professional Psychologists or Psychotherapists? People with actual schooling and training in these areas? Only in the Troubled Teen Industry are short order cooks, local carpenters, local farmers, past criminals, former drug addicts, able to run or start schools for kids.
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Some of those so-called professionals can be pretty screwed up, if you ask me. I guess you could say it's analogous to there being a tremendous range in personal philosophy which does end up affecting practice, not to mention the truism that there are charlatans in any industry. The APA was split pretty much right down the middle, if I recall correctly, re. Margaret Singer's Taskforce Report on thought reform and cults, hence some members tried to preempt its completion by filing an amicus curiae brief in early 1987.
Certainly some of the programs discussed on fornits seem to favor such a "mental health professional" to do their dirty work, e.g., most of those run by Aspen Ed Group. These are just as fucked up (albeit in a slightly different way) as the ones which eschew the degrees...
While I totally agree with your comment about short order cooks and other hacks performing brain salad surgery (Hyde School is that type of place also), I also don't think having mental health professionals on board will change anything as far as the damage this industry wreaks. Some people just think they have every right to mess with kids' psyches, they think know what they are doing, and they are gonna try to do it regardless of the consequences. It all boils down to "the ends justifying the means."
RMA Survivor:
Yes, some professional can be whack jobs too. Just because you are a holder of a PhD in psychology doesn't mean you are good at your job or work well with people.
But you don't go in to a hospital and find nurses who have never been to nursing school, doctors who never went to medical school. Yeah, you might find an "alternative medicine" clinic where nobody is really a professional, but what would you expect to get out of there?
RMA/CEDU prided themselves on not having professionals. Not having people with college degrees. Their stated reasons for that pride may have been that they weren't going to use the "normal" procedures and methods of professionals, but personally I think they wanted to avoid the issue of ethics. Most professionals have to undergo ethics training, sign statements that they will work ethically and are regulated by others who try and maintain standards of ethics. Some measure of accountability. Whack jobs might get through the cracks, but I think RMA/CEDU were trying to avoid any professionals and subsequently any ethics or oversight. And I think they succeeded.
Che Gookin:
Who is that guy, he's gay as hell, but he wrote this great book about being raised in a cult family of a shrink? I think.. eh.. I think he wrote the book Running With Scissors.
Inculcated:
--- Quote from: "Che Gookin" ---Who is that guy, he's gay as hell, but he wrote this great book about being raised in a cult family of a shrink? I think.. eh.. I think he wrote the book Running With Scissors.
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Augusten Burroughs. He also wrote "A wolf at the table", "Magical Thinking" and "Possible side effects".
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