Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry

What about "Carlbrook School"?

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Ursus:

--- Quote from: "cooltherapy" ---
--- Quote from: "jlk" ---People who also graduated 5 (or more) years ago and still HATE Carlbrook: it is definitely time to get over it.
--- End quote ---
Never said I HATE Carlbrook. You say to "get over it," but I have met people on this forum who went through a very similar experience to ours and it took them 30 years to come to terms with the pain it has caused them. THAT is what this forum is for. There are other websites with other forums for what you're talking about. It took me a while to realize the pain I was left with after leaving Halifax. I DON'T think about it all the time, everyday, whatever. But, I do think about it enough that it bugs me. It comes back more in my dreams. There is NOTHING that has happened to me in my life that 5 years later is still giving me nightmares. I'm glad you made it out comfortable and happy. But I didn't. So to tell me to just "get over it," now, that's a little closed-minded, don't you think?
--- End quote ---
LOL. I was just in the process of sticking in my 2¢ about this very quote, when I saw that it had also stuck in your craw, cooltherapy.

Quite frankly, I don't think any of us is really in a position to judge how long a time it "should" take to "get over" an experience someone feels traumatized or damaged by.

Moreover, five years is very little time in the larger scheme of things. I'm sure that you believe you know everything there is to know about how Calbrook has affected you, jlk, but check back in another five years, and my bet is you'll be singing a somewhat different tune. I'm not saying that it'll be better or worse, but your perspective will probably be significantly different than it is now.

psy:

--- Quote from: "jlk" ---A lot of the comments in this forum are pretty ridiculous, probably a lot of people posting fake comments about abuse because there is a really large anti-therapeutic boarding school community online--a lot of people who never attended, much less visited such a facility.
--- End quote ---

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people claiming abuse have been in such places. The differences are our definitions of abuse.  Personally I find the processes Carlbrook (and other programs) use to modify kids thinking to be inherently abusive.  What one might call "help", another person might not appreciate very much.  Just because you don't currently feel you were harmed does not mean portions of what went on were not abuse.  It does not mean others were not harmed.


--- Quote ---Some of the things I've read on this forum--I graduated five years ago, by the way and attended a really good college where I made great grades and am currently pursuing a Master's degree--are so shocking, that they could have only been written by people who have had absolutely nothing to do with Carlbrook
--- End quote ---

To be fair, Carlbrook is hardly unique in the way it approaches changing kids.  Their workshops were adopted directly from CEDU (albeit given latin names) and apart from a few minor differences, are identical to the original.  Many other programs use similarly derived workshops.  Many other programs have nearly identical structure.  I'd say experiences of kids who were in other programs similar to CB are very much relevant.


--- Quote ---or who are just ex-students that are dissatisfied with their experience there and are trying to give the place a bad name.
--- End quote ---

Is it possible they have a legitimate bone to pick with the school?  Is it possible they were hurt by the school and feel they must warn others?  Is it possible the malice you imply is just altruism from another point of view?  Would you rather they stay silent on something they feel is important?  Different people "move on" in different ways. I would argue your version of moving on is simply ignoring; posponing the inevitable conflict within bubbling to the surface.  I would argue it's better to talk about it and process the past.  Sometimes people have to confront their past, confront those who have hurt them, and process and rage and hate and cry and whatever is necessary.  That takes different amounts of time for each person.  Who are you to judge from your ivory tower saying "move on" with such arrogance?  Who are you to say you know better for them than they do themselves?


--- Quote ---What school in this kind of business could be? Some kids end up there that really should have been placed in other programs. It is important that you are certain that your child has been accurately diagnosed while in wilderness therapy
--- End quote ---

Please don't refer to it as wilderness "therapy".  It is not.  Not even the programs dare to call it therapy in their marketing (cept to parents on off the record phone calls).  The GAO did an extensive report on fradulent/misleading advertising in the industry in relation to this very issue.


--- Quote ---as some kids totally lie their way through testing, try and seem really fucked up, or not--and anyway, then they get misdiagnosed and there your kid is stuck in a program that's entirely inappropriate for their needs.
--- End quote ---


And you consider it out of the realm of possibility that there might be an arrangement between, say, second nature and Carlbrook?  You consider it out of the realm of possibility that some of those kids get placed in such programs not because they have any problems per-se, but because of referral programs that reward educational consultants, because of nepotism, or because some ideologues see all kids as needing a program?


--- Quote ---I am very thankful that my parents were willing to challenge the way they looked at the world in order to come to love and accept me for the person I am. I am VERY confident that it would not have been possible without Carlbrook's help--if so, it would have taken years, probably after I had ruined my chances of getting a quality education in order to secure a good future for myself.
--- End quote ---

The program made similar predictions of failure for me if my parents pulled me, yet I've done quite well for myself.


--- Quote ---Some parents of Carlbrook children are very wealthy, my parents were not and made extreme sacrifices to make it possible for me to be there. Sacrifices for which I will be eternally grateful.
--- End quote ---

Is it possible that you aren't able to consider the possibility the experience was less than optimal because it would mean reflecting on the possibility that the your parents sacrificed so much for so much less?  It's well know that the more you spend on a bottle of wine the better it will taste (even if it's the same wine).  The same holds true for so many other things, especially when the purchase holds such emotional entanglements.


--- Quote ---I don't use workshop tools to help me get through the day
--- End quote ---

What exactly are those tools, btw?  Few are able to put it in words.  You seem fairly eloquent.  Perhaps you can give it a shot.  What were the tools you learned in the workshops and how did you learn them?


--- Quote ---The truth is, regardless of your experience at Carlbrook--how successful you are there, how much you think you've healed upon graduating--you get back out into the "real world" and you fall on your face.
--- End quote ---

Perhaps those tools you were taught were not as useful outside the bubble?  What then, did you learn there?


--- Quote ---This is crucial, or it was for me. It is very difficult to leave a place like Carlbrook, but if you've come to terms with yourself to any extent during your stay, and especially if you have repaired--at least somewhat--your relationship with your parents, then you have all you will need to overcome what is without question a difficult transition. And then all of a sudden you look back and you are so glad that Carlbrook has nothing to do with your life anymore, but you know (or I do) you wouldn't have ended up where you were--college, a future, a family--without it.
--- End quote ---

But you don't know that and you cannot know that.  You cannot reverse time, chance something, and wind it forward to see what happens.  You might very well be where you are today, or in an even better situation.  You believe you are in a better situation thanks to Carlbrook, I understand that, but it's still anecdotal evidence.


--- Quote ---As far as workshops and group therapy goes--it was sometimes but not always necessarily helpful, definitely painful, never easy and sometimes unnecessary to an extent, but in the end, I couldn't be happier.
--- End quote ---

You don't think anything in those workshops was inappropriate or could conceivably have harmed anybody?  Do you realize from what those workshops are derived?


--- Quote ---Okay, do I think it could have been done with normal therapy? No, I had been sexually abused for years as an adolescent by another family member and I really don't think I would have been able to tell anyone about it had I not been sent away and realized what it felt like to be absolutely powerless over my life. Carlbrook did not brainwash me, my abuser had me brainwashed. I needed to recognize the fact that I wasn't ready to be an adult yet (I turned 18 2 months after I got to Carlbrook--I stayed), and that doing things to destroy my life in order to hurt my parents (and please my abuser) wasn't a rational way to go about dealing with my pain, anger and confusion. In my case, I needed it, I'm glad I had it, and I'm sure as hell glad it's over. I wouldn't want to relive it, I don't think about it often, but it was worth every moment of my sacrifice of freedom. And that sacrifice makes you really, really understand how (materially) good you had it at home, grateful for the internet, grateful for a cigarette, grateful to just... go on a walk by yourself to WHEREVER you want. Stay up as late as you want. Leave your dorm room as dirty as you want. How many people our age know how to be thankful for things like that? They are small moments of ecstasy that creep into your daily routine on occasion that remind you of, wow, I don't live in a tent in the woods anymore. My life RULES. I am grateful for those feelings.
--- End quote ---

It's great things turned out so well for you.  Fantastic.  However my point from before still stands.  You cannot know how things would have turned out had you stayed at home and turned to "normal" (as you put it) therapy.  Just because it worked for you so well does not necessarily mean that it helps everybody and cannot have caused harm to others.


--- Quote ---Anyway, basically, if your child was never very high functioning, Carlbrook is not where they need to be. Someone in this forum said that RTCs are only necessary for people that pose a threat to themselves or others. I disagree. I was never a threat to anyone, and I probably never would have been. I just smoked some weed and lived a lifestyle my parents were unwilling to accept and had a lot of pent up feelings about being raped repeatedly to deal with.
--- End quote ---

I believe that a person has the right to choose what treatment, if any, is best for them.  Just because you are grateful that it turned out well or that you enjoyed it does not mean it was right to do it without your consent.  You were sexually abused. That was traumatic, i'm sure.  You probably saw it as normal at one point.  You probably sympathized, even loved your abuser.  You see where i'm going?  Intruding on somebody's mind without their consent and without their knowledge of what is going on, is a rape of the mind.  In such a program, refusing therapy that is not wanted is not acceptable.  In the workshops, you cannot possibly consent to what goes on since you have no prior knowledge (and no choice anyways).  You might not believe that it's possible to influence a person without their knowledge or consent but I assure you, the phenomenon is real and very well documented, and like the sexual abuse you describe, it often takes a victim a period of time to "snap out" and figure out that what went on was wrong, regardless of how it felt at the time.


--- Quote ---Nevertheless, lots of good things came out of the experience. My time at Carlbrook evidenced the opposite about the commenter who said your child needs to be suicidal or homicidal to go to Carlbrook--it is not a place for low-functioning children and people with any kind of severe mental problem. Probably not a great place for people that are bipolar, have a severe eating disorder, acute drug addictions, etc. It's mostly group therapy--it can only do so much. It is a place for talking, screaming, crying out your feelings.
--- End quote ---

Is it group therapy?  Do they call it that?


--- Quote ---I feel bad for students that graduate and hate it, but really, I don't know many people that feel that way--not from my day, anyway. We are ALL happy to leave, then we're sad we left, we're confused, we're lonely, but so it goes. We end up doing, a lot of us, the same drugs we did before we went to Carlbrook, but in my experience, you just miss the time were you really felt proud of yourself for keeping commitments to yourself and a community of people and an idea that mattered to you--irrespective of how idiotic it was--and you want it back--the feeling of being proud of yourself and feeling like you've made concrete goals and accomplished them.
--- End quote ---

Really?  To me the all the goals and accomplishments in the program seemed rather illusory to me.  Very artificial.  Anything but concrete.  I jumped through many hoops but in retrospect, I'd kick myself it I had a chance for even bothering to comply with that bullshit.


--- Quote ---So, prospective parents: could be a good thing, could be a bad thing.
Graduates that share my opinion: nice to know I'm not alone
Recent graduates that still love Carlbrook: you will get over it
Recent graduates that HATE Carlbrook: you will get over it
People who also graduated 5 (or more) years ago and still HATE Carlbrook: it is definitely time to get over it.
--- End quote ---

Like I said.  People move on in their own ways at their own pace.

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "jlk" ---Carlbrook did not brainwash me, my abuser had me brainwashed. I needed to recognize the fact that I wasn't ready to be an adult yet (I turned 18 2 months after I got to Carlbrook--I stayed), and that doing things to destroy my life in order to hurt my parents (and please my abuser) wasn't a rational way to go about dealing with my pain, anger and confusion.
--- End quote ---
Have you ever considered that being brainwashed by your abuser may have primed you for being brainwashed by Carlbrook? It has something to do with being taught, especially when it's at an early age, that the conditions of verity are in the hands of another, not your own.

The Alpha:
How can anyone tell people to get over being there? How can anyone tell people that Carlbrook wasn't abusive?

Here's the kicker. If it was so great, then why couldn't you leave? It shouldn't matter if some people needed to stay there, the fact of the matter is that there are a number of people that shouldn't have been there but were forced to be there anyway. They were imprisoned, forced against their will to be in a facility in which they had no reason to be there.

I don't give a SHIT about whether Carlbrook helped you! It shouldn't be harming people and we all know it does.

Therapy should be individualized...everyone is different. No matter how similar our problems are, we are all different. Therefore, to even think about "cookie-cutter" therapy is just retarded!

---Do me a favor. For all you Carlbrook junkies that attempt to refute everything I have just said, do me a favor. Keep your pissy emotions out of your response. As I have already said, "I don't give a SHIT about whether Carlbrook helped you! It shouldn't be harming people and we all know it does." So come up with another way to argue my point or just admit that I am right...

that guy:
dude i hated being at carlbrook and i am so glad that i am out. But no way can i actually say that it was "abusive." i am going to go to a college because of that place...just stop being such an ass bag and let people have what they want to have. You cant change their minds and they cant change yours. But we can all try and not look like fuck sticks

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