I sympathize with your position. Advice is hard to give here. Although I certainly would understand taking extreme measures to avoid going, I can’t recommend doing something that will be held against you later. Whatever you do, understand that you cannot make a ‘right’ decision right now. If you run, or fight, or take any defensive measure that will be considered ‘out of control’ they are going to use those actions against you to further label you ‘troubled’. I certainly will not hold it against you, you are trying to protect yourself, but you will not get that reaction from them, you will be held individually accountable. In the end you may not be able to avoid going, and what you do now will become your ‘issues’ in therapy, and it will be hard to live with there. So right now my advice is to fight, but do it in the most respectable way you can. In the end, even if you have to go, at least you will be able to say you were acting maturely, and kept a level head, which is more than can be said for them. Being able to say, ‘I could’ve gone to the lengths of running away, threatening violence (etc.), but I wouldn’t let them scare me into being the wrong one’, will be a strong defense.
Bottom line, they are wrong and you are right. Your parents are scared, and that fear is motivating a harmful decision. They are not thinking clearly and you should help them understand that good decisions don’t come from being in an emotional tizzy, they come from being rational and logical. Your parents don’t know and are not informed about what they are about to put you through. My suggestion is to challenge them on that. How much detail do they really know about the place? How researched are they about their methodologies? Do they understand the program will never be transparent? How much of their decision is emotional, or fear based? If this is the basis of their decision making, maybe it is not you that has the problem, and it is really them that needs help. If you can calmly get that point across, and they still send you there, that will be quite a statement as to what kind of parents they are and how much they really care about you.
The programs website is a typical fluff piece showing videos of teens talking about their ‘issues’, and for those like you parents reaching out for any answer it is the relief of tension they are looking for. They have no idea how easy it is to contrive such an outward appearance.
So my advice for now is to not do anything that will allow them to say, ‘What were we supposed to do, your actions gave us no choice, we had to do something.’ Make sure that you don’t ‘make’ them do anything, make sure that their decision is THEIRS and that they be accountable for it. This is just my advice, I don't want to sound hopeless, I certaily don't think therapy should be forced on you, and I don't want you to just roll over here, but it might be the most effective approach right now.
I’m leaving this link for you to read. I don’t know your parents, but maybe if you showed it to them it might influence their decision. If you have to go, print it out and sneak it in, share it with the ‘students’, openly challenge their ‘therapy’ with it. It may help you there, and they might not even want to keep you there if they can’t get you to buy into their games. They are putting you in a double bind, take a look.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30423&start=0 .