Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry
Apologia - Serious debate only, please!
Anonymous:
Deborah - I'm sorry if I sounded arrogant. It wasn't meant to be arrogant. Written words can be filered a lot of ways. I know it's okay to not choose seminars as a way to gain new insights.
I would like to clarify that what you experienced wasn't my take on the seminars I attended. In each one, the seminar leader asked a lot of questions, inquirying questions without demanding that I compromise my own viewpoints. They helped to uncover a lot of things I had never considered before. Not once was I told to think in a certain way, or say things that I didn't really feel. That would have defeated the whole purpose of developing a healthier relationship with myself, don't you think? I want to respond more, but I'm watching my grandson and he's calling....til later.
Deborah:
I have to disagree with you. You may not realize it yet, but "Many aren't ready for it" certainly does imply that those who take the seminars/
workshops are more 'advanced', 'enlightened', fill in the blank. And those who do not are somehow inferior, less evolved, kinda like chattering pigs, one might say.
Like Daddy Berenstein Bear, let these people show you 'what NOT to do'. Now that would be some valuable 'inner' work.
Deborah:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... forum=9&10
4. When we decided not to complete the TASKS Seminars, several efforts were made to divide us from our child. The program proved to be entirely inflexible when we didn't adopt the Seminars whole-heartedly and they had no provision for helping our family if all family members didn't participate in all the Seminars. Several staff developed hostility towards us and showed it openly to our daughter. Duane Smotherman, the facilitator of our seminar mocked us in a seminar two weeks later at Tranquility in front of our daughter and all the other teens. These behaviors were quite shocking. We have been able to manage some family unity despite all of this, but the strain put on our family by the program's behavior was great. We have talked to other parents who had an even more difficult situation than we did. In many cases they were divorced. When one parent attended the seminar and the other did not it was reported to me by these parents that staff and peers in the program tried to prejudice their child against the parent who did not attend the seminar. As far as we have seen, there is no program which helps families to reunite and resolve family programs when only part of the family members attend all the seminars.
GregFL:
--- Quote ---On 2003-12-19 22:32:00, Deborah wrote:
"http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=3107&forum=9&10
4. Several staff developed hostility towards us and showed it openly to our daughter. Duane Smotherman, the facilitator of our seminar mocked us in a seminar two weeks later at Tranquility in front of our daughter and all the other teens. These behaviors were quite shocking. We have been able to manage some family unity despite all of this, but the strain put on our family by the program's behavior was great. We have talked to other parents who had an even more difficult situation than we did. In many cases they were divorced.
"
--- End quote ---
And here we have the real legacy of the cultic CEDU model adapted by Wwasp . Broken families, hurt children.
But not to worry, Deb...Anon knows someone who benefited (at least shows the appearance-very common post program)and that discounts all negativity.
Never mind that it took me 26 years to bury the hatchet with my father and Ginger's family is still strained. Never mind that your family unit was harmed...all this must be our fault..perhaps we didn't work our programs correctly?
The reality of the abusive techniques and cultic practices of these programs don't matter to people like anon because someone she knows is apparantly doing better.
::bangin::
[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2003-12-20 05:41 ]
Antigen:
Yup, same game, slightly different lingo.
Back in the day, they had a ritual called "checkout" at The Seed. The rule was that everyone in the household and anyone who wanted to attend Open Meeting or otherwise have contact with Seedlings had to be checked out. Checkout was a lengthy and highly personal interview by staff and, I do believe, sometimes olcomers who might be familiar with the family. If a Seedling wanted to be friends with a non-Seedling when they were nearly ready to graduate, this friend would have to go through the checkout process as well. My older sister had a friend like that.
My dad did not pass muster on his checkout. I remember him cussing about personal questions from some smart assed 16yo druggie. I can only imagine the scene. But the result of this was that he had to move out of the house and couldn't visit while current Seedlings were there. So he used to come to the house on his lunch hour just about every day with a chocolate milk shake or a jug of root beer from Royal Castle for me and my sister.
I never fully understood how my dad responded to this whole bizarre turn of events. He was not one to take an insult gracefully. And he made it very clear that he thought Art Barker was a con man. Never the less, he was always soliciting donations of cash, food or whatever from his friends and coworkers. When my turn came around at Straight, it meant a 4 hour trip each way from Pompano to Sarasota for open meeting every other week, I think it was. Plus, of course, all the money.
I imagine he took a lot of shit in the parents meetings after open meeting because he never would really yell at me or say anything hateful at mic talk. He kept on coming and kept on paying and kept on urging me to work my program and all that. But he also took me aside and showed me where he'd hidden a long screwdriver in my room, just in case of fire or a violent newcomer. I'm sure they held his feet to the fire if they ever found out about that cause I used it to escape one of those times.
Never the less, he shocked me one more time, though, when he lied to a cop in Georgia to try and have me arrested. I wish I'd taken the opportunity to talk to him about it back then. I wanted to ask him how he could believe that I so desperately needed to be locked up if he'd had to lie to try to get me arrested. But I was just too scared. It was just so completely out of character for him to pull something like that. Hell, even when he took me for my intake initially, he told me where I was going. He could have lied to me then, but honesty and integrity were just that much a part of who he was.
So, instead of talking to him, asked the cop to hang around for a few minutes till my sister in law got home from work and I stayed in the cop car.
"Now, I'm a walking dead man," ... "And what bothers me is that I'm dead because I tried to help the kids. And it's all the fault of all those people over there at the DEA." [Dead Man Talking]
--Ben Guillory
--- End quote ---
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