The truth is that there is some *good* that can be done with mind control---if you want to quit doing drugs, or smoking, or some other bad habit and are having trouble with willpower, a *competent*, *ethical* therapist can, with your knowledge and consent, use some of the gentler of these techniques to help support your own efforts to change a bad habit.
The other big truth is that mind control techniques are powerful tools that are far more often incorrectly used, by the unethical, for things which the patient would not agree, ahead of time given full informed consent, were in his own best interests.
Anybody who's using mind control techniques who wants money from you, and/or who isn't telling you up front what techniques will be used and what specific behavior changes they want to help you make---and how much they want you to pay for those changes *before* the mind control starts---is highly, highly suspect.
I would be a lot less unhappy with teen behavior mod. schools if they had an informed consent form that made it clear that they would not admit the kid if the kid didn't sign, with a viable alternative (like your parents will turn you in as a JD and have you removed from their home and put in foster care, or your parents will call the police and report any criminal behavior and testify against you and press charges *if* you engage in criminal behavior). If the informed consent form had limited, specific behavior goals that were not an entire laundry list of "good teen" criteria, where the teen meeting the criteria for 3 solid weeks would earn release, and would be released after a specific, limited number of months regardless, then I'd be happier.
For example, if you wanted to break the kid off drugs, then three weeks sobriety while *attending* therapy sessions----regardless of what "progress" the therapist assessed, would be enough to break the *immediate* grip of the drugs so outpatient therapy would have a chance.
Same for if the kid is indiscriminately sexually active---three weeks to break the pattern, *attendance* at therapy which includes education in safer options, and the kid has a chance outpatient.
A kid with an active major mental illness should never be in behavior mod until/unless she's stable on medication. Or, in the case of major depression, in remission. Then behavior mod *could* be a voluntary follow-up for a particular extremely destructive behavior.
A kid skipping school would need to show up every day for three weeks and do all classwork and homework.
A kid vandalizing or fighting or stealing, same---three weeks without that behavior. With the fighting, attending anger management classes would be appropriate.
A cutter would need to be stable on anti-anxiety meds (in a mental hospital, if necessary) before behavior mod admission, and then 3 weeks of no cutting and *attending* therapy is enough.
A *good* behavior mod school would be voluntary and would target the one to three most serious problem behaviors, with a goal of setting a new habit, and a fixed time for release even without the habit.
Sure, if the particular problem relapses after release, the kid should go back--voluntarily, under the *same* release criteria.
As far as "fuzzy" things like showing respect, avoiding bad language, keeping a neat room, etc., some *limited* loss of privilege (like dessert at the next meal) is appropriate, but should not be linked to release at all. It's absolutely *normal* for teens to have mood swings and angry outbursts and be smart mouthed and use intemperate language---their hormones are all whacked out, and they grow out of it.
Residential treatment is not appropriate to deal with swearing, insolence, and messy rooms. When you link release to such things, you're going overboard.
Residential treatment is not appropriate for the teenager who's screwing half her high school class---as long as she's using condoms every time and some backup method of birth control. Sure, you don't *like* it, but it won't kill her. She'll either grow out of it, or the hypersexuality is a symptom of a major mental illness that behavior mod can't fix, anyway.
*Voluntary* residential BM treatment *is* appropriate for the kid who's showing up at school drunk and getting DUIs, or stealing cars, or shoplifting, or screwing around without condoms, using drugs at least once a week, or selling drugs, or physically violently attacking people, or vandalizing.
If the kid is doing illegal stuff and won't go for voluntary residential treatment, then prosecution with full legal respect for the accused's rights under the law, and whatever sentence the judge hands down if convicted, are appropriate---just like they would be for an adult. The Due Process and avoidance of 8th Amendment violations makes all the difference in the world.
It's not that *all* residential care is bad.
After all, there are *adults* who voluntary sign themselves into rehab for various life problems--why should kids be any different about that?
It's that there's so much residential care that *is* bad.
Any care that purports to "fix" a difficult or troubled child's entire personality is lying, and is likely to substitute mind control applied ham-handedly for real treatment for the kid's real problems. The problem with that is that the kid may survive adolescence, but come out with more long-term life-crippling problems than he/she went in with----and needlessly.
The reason I say 3 weeks on serious things like genuine drug addiction is that each time the kid breaks the habit and re-adjusts to outpatient life, there's a risk of relapse. The more times you break the habit and re-adjust, the more chances you have that the habit will stay broken for a significant stretch of time. That's my personal belief, anyway.
What I hate about these places is that they sell the lie that you can change a person's entire personality and have it stick. It's not possible. You can do it for short periods of time (a few years), but it wears off and is traumatic.
They also totally devalue the worth of the individual by essentially telling a kid his own personality is worthless and needs to be replaced. Translation: You aren't the kid we wanted, and we're willing to pay megabucks for a trade-in.
Some people are neatnicks, some are messy. The world would be a terrible place if *everyone* were alike on the neatness scale, because if the neatnicks were gone hospitals would be deathtraps, and if the messy folks were gone, we'd lose a lot of the major art and scientific discoveries, and inventions, in the world---since a lot of what messy people do when they're not cleaning is pretty worthwhile stuff--not in the teen years, perhaps, but eventually.
Some people are born to be lawyers, some are born to be hairdressers. Or artists, or musicians, or actors, or dancers, or art/music/drama/dance teachers. Your truant kid needs to go to school and get a basic education---but she may *not* need to go to law school. She may need to go to vocational school and end up making big bucks as a plumber or electrician. She may end up the most talented wrench in the NASCAR pit crews.
People are different. Teens are people. If there is a life-threatening (or jail-threatening) problem, deal with *that specific problem* and let time and growing maturity take care of the rest.
Too many parents want to live vicariously through their children and have foreclosed, in their minds, certain perfectly legal careers as "not acceptable" for their child. The rest of us need to prevent them from being able to do that---using force of law if necessary.
Trying to over-write a child's basic personality with a different one is inherently abusive.
Timoclea
