So Disorganized (for antigen)

[Antigen]

Yup, I've heard the same thing about CCM. I wonder how much the threat of getting shipped off to TB or another, tougher facility plays into it. Was that something that was present on your minds at AIR or was it not such a big issue?

Also, I note that MR, like Whitmore and a lot of these programs, puts a very heavy emphasis on the image of good clean country/ranch living. But I've heard the same thing about all of them (Whitmore included) that that's mostly just for show. Reminds me of this sort of humorous presentation I've seen lately
http://www.themeatrix.com/

(only vaguely related, but funny as hell anyway)

Would you say that kids are getting their money's worth wrt equian therapy and training at Whitmore?

Wicked men obey from fear, good men from love.
--Aristotle

[Anonymous]

TB and sometimes Casa were always constant fears in my mind. George Tulip (assistant director of ivy ridge) once told me I was going in 3 days. Jay Kay also told me he'd be seeing me soon.

I was actually going to be transfered to TB the week I left.  George Tulip showed me my expedia ticket and everything while I was in intervention. The next day my family rep and a few staff members came to get me and brought me to the front doors. I was so happy to leave that I couldn't care less about going to Jamaica. (PLUS I was going to refuse to get on the plane in Atlanta and get the attention of security.) Jason FInlinson told me as I was leaving that I was going to a boot camp in Utah instead. In reality, my mom found out what the place was about, and chose to send me to Whitmore instead. This was because Carl, a current student at Whitmore, called my mom while I was there and told her what was going on. I have since made statements to ISAC (while I was at Whitmore.)

~ Chris

[Anonymous]

Honestly, sometimes I felt like the kids were riding horses too often, and working too little on school work.  

The only major issue I ever had with Whitmore was in regards to education. They've recently had a complete turn around in regards to schooling. I am happy to see that it is taken as the top priority now.

[Antigen]

That's the only major issue? Cause there are some other things that I find both credible and very troubling.

For example, a couple of kids described a scenareo very familiar to me. When one kid steps out of line, either by breaking a rule or just by pissing off someone in charge, the entire group would be called to grill this one kid for as long as it took to break them down. Some of the details included reading private journals, emails to and from home. Hell, a couple of different kids were said to have gotten group on them for calling or emailing their own families.

Now, I might take that w/ a grain of salt. In fact I did reserve judgement and wait and see what happened. What happened was that the kids who described these things seemed to be perfectly credible while the people who disagreed w/ them went ape shit in just exactly the way they described.

Are you saying that these things don't happen or that they do but you don't have a problem w/ it?

And how do you feel about Mark publishing confidential material about one of the kids? We all saw that, so there's no doubt that it happened. Do you think that's ok? Cause somebody down there has threatened to do the same to anyone who doesn't shut up about the Suds.

Don't let your dogma run out in front of your karma.
--Anonymous

[Anonymous]

Personally, I think the group issue is blown out of proportion.

And as far as  the Joyce e-mail goes, I don't think its right to publish a private e-mail. I'm not sure if it was the Sudweeks, they'd obviously be the most likely suspect, however there has been lots of computer hacking going on. Joyce, for instance, had her computer hacked. The email could have been pulled from her inbox... Just a thought.

[Antigen]

Nope, it came from that same account in Utah.

What do you mean by blown out of preportion? You mean groups get out of hand or that it's no big deal?

All contemporary religions and churches, all and every kind of religious organization, Marxism has always viewed as organs of bourgeois reaction, serving as a defense of exploitation and the doping of the working-classes.
--Nikolai Lenin, Russian revolutionary

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
   10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

[Anonymous]

The group session DO get out of hand and OFTEN. When a group of kids is told by Cheryl to "get him/her out of here," and that means for a group of kids to take that one kid to a desinated place and beat the hell out of the kid--that is totally out of hand. And it does happen!
And that is suppose to be therapy? Who can say that is OK? Who can say that is not out of hand?

[Anonymous]

I've never heard Cheryl say "get him out of here" in group. The whole point of group is to basically grill a kid till he sees the problem. Sending a kid a way like that totally defies the whole point of group.
Chris

[Anonymous]

Gotta do something when the kid don't get the program!!!!!! Straighten the kid out! He will get it NEXT time!

[Antigen]

I've read some pretty ugly rumors about some of the Whitmore kids. Much of this stuff absolutely should not be common knowledge among a group of kids like this. See what happens when you do it that way?

Do you thinki it's good and helpful to force kids to discuss very sensitive, personal issues like this in an often hostile group setting like this? That's my question. Are you saying that this is ok?

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies.
--Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father and inventor

[Joyce Harris]

If a professional group therapy session is in progress: what would ever be the point of a THERAPIST wanting the GROUP to go at one person in the group for an extended period of time until that one person "is broken down?"

What would be the point?
This seems absolutely cruel, and seems to serve no purpose.

[BuzzKill]

You can brainwash someone without causing a emotional meltdown first.
This *might* explain it.

[Anonymous]

Buzzkill: do you mean you must first break them down in order to "brain wash" them?  Is that the point, to break them down first?

So this is not even remotely to be considered "therapy" then?

[Antigen]

On 2005-03-16 09:21:00, Anonymous wrote:


So this is not even remotely to be considered "therapy" then?"

Depends on who you ask. The Therapeutic Community treatment model is built on the ideas of Chuck Dederich's Synanon ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... ch+synanon )

There might even be some sound, basis for the idea of benign therapy through a good, wholesome and well functioning community. But only if the person's involvement is VOLUNTARY! If their involvement is involuntary, as evidently most of these kids involvement initially is, then their resistance must first be broken down.

Come the millennium,

month 12,

in the home of greatest power,

the village idiot will come forth to
be acclaimed the leader.
--Nostradamus

[Anonymous]

But isn't the RESULTS the big question to consider?
Parents did not send their child to Whitmore to be brainwashed into.....what?
Parents' expectation was therapy to help the child deal with a specific issue the child had-- whatever it may be: I am sure each parent explained the specific problem thier child was having.
No parent sent a kid there to be "broken down and brainwashed" into something the parent doesn't even know about or comprehend.