Before you start your explanation, I hope you consider refraining from using the term "brainwashing", since this is not accurate.
If 1,000 kids say a program is just fine, and 4 kids complain that it was abusive, what would you believe? That is the choice parents have today and why the 'anti program movement' is nothing more than a few websites and the crazy people who run them.
These programs are all about making money; profit is the only reason the troubled teen industry exists. Where else but the troubled teen industry can a LCSW or marriage and family counselor make $1 million a year or more? For the most part, the people in the troubled teen industry are not 'evil' people. The abuses in the troubled teen industry occur because the operators want to maximize their profits, not because they intend on abusing the children. Unfortunately, abuse is a natural result of maximizing profits.
Brainwashing is an accurate term for what the trouble teen industry does. Brainwashing is a technique developed during the Korean war to reduce the cost of warehousing prisoners. That is the same reason why the troubled teen industry uses Brainwashing techniques so much. Maximizing profits means keeping costs of storing the kids low. Fewer guards means lower cost. If you take the time to study brainwashing techniques, then go observe a troubled teen program, you can check off the methods in use one by one.
The dirty secret behind the troubled teen industry is that most of the problems they claim to treat will resolve on their own as children mature. Families often encounter relationship problems when children are 13 to 18 years old. For most families, those relationship issues resolve by themselves. Time is what helps the kids, not the troubled teen industry. The troubled teen industry knows this and depends on it. They do their dog and pony show for the parents, and then wait for time to work its magic.
The troubled teen industry understands that kids get better from maturity not therapy, and as a result, the primary goal of the troubled teen industry is not therapy, but to warehouse children at the lowest cost/greatest profit while waiting for the kids to mature and their problems to resolve. Brainwashing kids is a very effective way to reduce the cost of confining kids. Try to find a troubled teen facility that does not use Brainwashing. Betcha can't.
Admittedly, brainwashing is rarely permanent. For most kids, they recover from its affects within a few years after they are removed from them. Unfortunately, that is not true for all kids. Some have lasting injury. The troubled teen industry knows this and does not care. Profit is more important than the damage done to the small number of kids.
Of course, resolution of behavioral problems by maturation presents a fatal flaw with any study claiming that the troubled teen industry actually helps kids. No study conducted to date accounts for normal maturation or differentiates it from any so-called therapeutic intervention. The studies identify that kids are better after they have matured and claims that is a result of 'therapy.' It is all snake oil.
