On 2004-04-25 10:24:00, Anonymous wrote:
"So, you'd rather take a wait and see approach? I'd be more concerned about not doing anything. I don't watch Dr. Phil much, but I did watch the show where the drug addicted young man was tearing his family apart. If those parents continued to fear help from the same type of program, they'd still be in a living hell wondering if their son would live to see another day. The program Dr. Phil recommended is the same type of place that you are condeming.
Do you think these places hire abusers? Unfortunately there will be human error, but the track record of WWASPs FAR outweighs any "smoke screens" the critics are putting out there. Never a death at the hands of an employee, never a proven case of abuse.
I fear for the parents that are reading the rantings of twisted minds way more than I fear saving a child from whatever bad choices either he or the parents made.
Making a responsible choices means human contact. Looking into the eyes of current students, former students and their parents and listening to what they say.
The only smoke is the smoke from competing referral sources whose business has picked up from instigating negative news articles and the threatened lawsuit. "
I'd rather supervise my kid and not get an addiction issue in the first place.
However, my biggest issue with these places is my concern that they induce Stockholm Syndrome and mind control techniques (possibly without even realizing they're doing it) as a substitute for long-term clinically effective treatment.
I would be satisfied with certain reforms.
One reform that is essential and I wouldn't be satisfied without it is that the inmates have unrestricted US mail contact with the outside world, and 3 first class stamps, envelopes, paper and a pen a week (minimum), and that they don't read outgoing mail, and can only stop it to specific recipients if the recipient has written the place complaining of harrassment or threats.
There should be a US Mail post box on campus where the kids regularly go on their way to and from class, they should be freely able to stick their letters in it (except for kids caught harrassing or threatening recipients other than their parents), and the box should only be opened by the postal workers who come to retrieve the mail daily.
Incoming mail should only be read if the inmate is suicidal or had been having a sexual relationship with a person more than five years older or younger and the mail is from that person. Packages should be allowed to be checked for contraband. Letters should be delivered sealed and unopened if they appear to be a single sheet of trifolded paper in an envelope, unless the kid gets caught shipping in acid on blotter or something---an acid trip is hardly something you can conceal from staff.
The reason for this non-negotiable insistence on outside free US mail contact with anybody, not just the parents or some approved list, and with no "disapproved" list from the institution or the parents, is that isolation is essential for the induction of Stockholm Syndrome.
With no isolation, you can't induce SS. Which means you can't use it as a shortcut substitute for *real* therapy.
And, of course, sunshine is the best disinfectant.
I want other safeguards, but just that one alone would lead to the implementation of the other necessary reforms by removing the silence these teens are "disappeared" into.
I find it very telling that apparently *none* of these places allow kids to write letters, freely, back and forth with their friends and extended family.
When I bring it up, the WWASPies say the kids can write to their parents---but react with horror at the thought the kids would have to be allowed to send and recieve mail from friends and extended family.
That one reform, I think, is the key to cleaning up the whole scam. Kids that can freely ask friends and extended family on the outside to sue for custody or hire lawyers on their behalf, and can say why, are in much less danger of abuse than kids who disappear into the unknown.
No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats---approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
--Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:
