Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry
Apologia - Serious debate only, please!
Anonymous:
I was invited into this debate for a post on what torture could mean. There's a lot of different subjects from torture, to seminars and a lot in between.
I read the info on cults. I was raised in the Catholic church, including parochial school and I got sucked into a certain way of thinking, which when I got older, realized it didn't fit what my gut told me. It wasn't until years later that I found that I didn't have to attend a church to be spiritual and my spirituality was my own, not anyone elses. I don't look at a catholic, jew, buddhist, christian, etc., etc., as wrong. Whatever fills their heart is all that should really matter, huh? Is organized religion a cult? From what I've read it could be, but I wouldn't stretch it to actually believe it is.
My belief, or my knowing is that the wwasp programs do not tell anyone how to feel or think. It, however, gives them ways to really find what is important to each individual and family. The kids, in the program, have rules to follow, and it really is their choice in how they handle that. If a staff person is doing something that isn't part of that and pushing their beliefs on that child, then there is a problem. Rules and laws are a part of everyday life, is that not so? We can break a rule or a law and may get caught and pay the consequences, whatever that is. Those consequences are known and when anyone breaks the rules or laws, they usually know what the consequences are.
If you choose to say the definition of "breaking a child" is to give them rules with a set of consequences, then I agree. I have been working with youth for many, many years...my own children. Each stage has it's different challenges, and the teen years are the most challenging. I will share what I've learned and continue to learn in a separate post or thread.
Deborah - YOU ARE NOT DAMAGED because you chose not to complete an 8 day seminar that had you being filmed in front of everyone. YIKES! My first response when you said that was that you may not have worked through what came up for you. What you think I meant could very well be the mirror for what you think yourself. Every single person that goes to any seminar will have their own experience. If a person choses not to attend then why make it like it's something I slight you for? Read anything into it you want to.
Antigen:
--- Quote ---If you choose to say the definition of "breaking a child" is to give them rules with a set of consequences, then I agree.
--- End quote ---
I get the feeling you have no idea what you're talking about here. And, after all that we've talked about in this forum and all the information that's available to you, I have to conclude that your ignorance is very much intentional.
We're talking about kids who, for watever reason, have parents who are freaked out by their behavior. Some of these kids have real problems that would seriously worry a reasonable parent. Many do not. The only diagnostic criteria is the troubled parent.
These troubled parents, on the advice of people who they presume to be experts, then either lie to their kids to trick them into going to the program or hire a couple of thugs to literally kidnap them out of their beds at night.
From there, we proceed to the strip search and other degrading initiation rights. After that, we're not talking anything even close to what can be described by any reasonable person as "rules with a set of consequences". We're taking about constant and intense psychological and emotional abuse. Of course, we can sit here all day long arguing about what really goes on inside these camps. Neither you nor I will ever be allowed to witness it firsthand and, as noted previously, some aspects of the Program are sworn secrets.
So how does anyone other than former Program participants know what goes on? Some of us ask as many different former participants as possible and then guage the liklihood of which ones are telling the truth based on the consistency of their stories.
If there's nothing going on here but a little good old fashioned rules with a set of consequences, then why all the program closures? Why are WWASP programs always making headlines? Why all the investigations? Why are all these kids and so many parents saying the same things about the same people consistently over the course of years?
The great irony here is that any kid who finds themselves in the situation WWASP exists in would be told by program proponants to quit blaming others for their own problems.
Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant and the creed of the slave.
-- William Pitt, 1763
--- End quote ---
Deborah:
***Is organized religion a cult?***
I think it does have many of the attributes of a cult and fits the broad definition, as do many social organizations, such as public education.
***My belief, or my knowing is that the wwasp programs do not tell anyone how to feel or think.***
It is not always accomplish overtly. Just as my son was not told which "lie" to concoct, but he knew what they wanted to hear. When that happens day in, day out, that can/does condition one's thinking and processing.
***If a staff person is doing something that isn't part of that and pushing their beliefs on that child, then there is a problem.***
Would that include the belief that it is beneficial and necessary to demand that a child not look at themselves in a mirror or look or talk to the opposite sex, to lie in a face down position on the floor for hours/days, to have no contact with their parents and the outside world...
***Rules and laws are a part of everyday life, is that not so? We can break a rule or a law and may get caught and pay the consequences, whatever that is. Those consequences are known and when anyone breaks the rules or laws, they usually know what the consequences are.***
Every heard of the consequence that fit the "crime"? I have never been punished for looking in a mirror, or for crying because I was scared or homesick, or any of the other unreasonable abuses ex-participants report.
***I have been working with youth for many, many years...my own children.***
Did you subject your children to the rules above? And what consequences did you issues if they violated a rule?
***Deborah - YOU ARE NOT DAMAGED because you chose not to complete an 8 day seminar that had you being filmed in front of everyone.***
Are you implying that I might feel that way? Not at all. Or are you suggesting that I wouldn't be perceived as "damaged" (your word) or "not ready", by WWASP/RR participants had I walked out of one of their seminars? I disagree.
***My first response when you said that was that you may not have worked through what came up for you.***
Nothing "came up" for me. Other than realizing that the leader was not someone I wanted to "follow". That he was not qualified- to my standards- to "help" people.
***What you think I meant could very well be the mirror for what you think yourself.***
Not following you.
***If a person choses not to attend then why make it like it's something I slight you for? Read anything into it you want to.***
I was not implying that you personally would slight me. You are combining my post in which I shared my experience of an est/LS based workshop, with my comments of how seminar advocates view those who refuse to participate or quit; twisting it around to suggest that I'm concerned about being slighted (by you of all people); and that I haven't processed what came up for me. I feel very clear about the experience.
Anonymous:
Deborah wrote: "It is not always accomplish overtly. Just as my son was not told which "lie" to concoct, but he knew what they wanted to hear. When that happens day in, day out, that can/does condition one's thinking and processing."
Deborah, just for clarity sake - your son was not in a wwasp program. Is it possible there is a difference? What the wwasp grads have told me is that "you can't bullshit a bullshitter." Explained to me as: if they are saying what they think you want to hear, they can see right through it. THey might be able to fake it for the staff once in a while, but they can't fake it with their peers for very long.
Please read the link I posted in ANOTHER DEBATE thread. I'd love to hear your take on what it says.
Antigen:
Sure, it's possible that WWASP is completely different from all other confrontational TC programs. However, it is extremely unlikely once you take into account the hundreds of eye witnesses who describe all the same brainwashing methods.
"You can't shit a shitter" was common lingo at The Seed and Straight, as was "deadinsaneorinjail". Then, of course, there's the well known fact that the WWASP programs have their roots in Synanon, just as The Seed did. Oh, and btw, so did Elan. You might be interested in a recent post to that forum.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?So ... 94&forum=2
--- Quote ---"They might be able to fake it for the staff once in a while, but they can't fake it with their peers for very long."
--- End quote ---
That's just not true. You can fake it for an extended period of time. Many people do. The trouble is that you have to be completely convincing all the time so you wind up losing track of which was the truth and which was the lie. It's truely madening. Especially when the lies you're required to tell are all horrible things about yourself. That's what drives some kids to harm themselves. That's the sort of thing that could drive an already troubled girl to take a dive, head first, from the 4th floor onto a concrete courtyard.
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?"
-- Quentin Crisp
--- End quote ---
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