Angela's Online Discussion Group

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Due to abuse of this forum it is now password protected.  To request the password, please send an e-mail to angela@heal-online.org, subject: bravenet forum password.  I will then send a verification e-mail to you and if approved, you will be given the password.  Survivors may express their feelings and thoughts with out editing them.  This is our message board and will be used and monitored to insure this remains a safe place for survivors, their families, and sympathetic parties to post their experiences.   In addition, HEAL has two additional and separate message boards.  Survivors and others wishing to discuss the behavior modification industry, please visit NEW FORUM at: http://heal-online.org/tinc?key=aOvhgoOX&start=-1&reverse=1  You may also visit www.heal-online.org for links to more forums.  We suggest you also utilize these boards as this board has limited space and therefore we are forced to delete messages from time to time.  If you have a news story you wish to share, please e-mail it to heal@heal-online.org and we will post it online at www.heal-online.org/news.htm.  Do not use this message board to post news reports.  Thank you.

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Former Patient
Jan 13, 2006 - 8:41AM
Example of Tough love programs like PCS

Nov 21, 2005 - If this was therapy, it sure didn't feel like it. From September to January, Claire Kent spent her days digging up tree stumps from a barren field, her mind and body battered by the elements. The work was part of her "treatment" for the drinking and sex that had landed her at a boarding school for "troubled teens."

In the Montana woods, Kent and a couple dozen other adolescent girls had been committed by their families to a disciplinary program that included chopping wood, exercising to the point of physical breakdown, and being regularly bullied and insulted by "counselors" – all in the name of what the private treatment industry calls "emotional growth."

"It was just based on, 'How badly can I scare you?'," said Kent, now in her late twenties and still suffering from anxiety that she attributes to her experience. During her two-year stay, she said, "they gave me the reality that life was just completely unfair and was going to keep being that way."

The facility where Kent was held, the Mission Mountain School, is still in business today. Though staff declined repeated requests for comment, the recent explosion of hundreds of other so-called "private residential treatment facilities" speaks to the growing popularity of the "tough love" approach to "reforming" youth. Behavioral health experts estimate that the industry deals with roughly 10,000 to 14,000 children and teens, charging typical tuition rates of tens of thousands of dollars per year. The patrons are anxious parents hoping for a solution to issues ranging from attention deficit disorder to drug abuse. Worth approximately $1 billion, emotional growth programs thrive on the promise of turning "bad" kids "good."

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