The trouble with the 'troubled teen' label and the behavioral modification industry behind it

[RKP5637]

https://www.businessinsider.com/trouble-with-troubled-teen-label-and-behavioral-modification-industry-2021-2

To some, it might seem idyllic: 160 acres in the Wyoming hinterlands, nothing but mountains, plains, and the endless possibilities that come with reconnecting to Mother Nature through meaningful farmhand work, answering only to the fruits of one's labor.

Trinity Teen Solutions claims to offer what its name suggests: a solution for teens who've fallen into trouble, struggled with depression or anxiety, or have exhibited erratic behavior their parents might call "out of control." To the great misfortune of the young women (aged 12 to 17) admitted to the working ranch — which, according to the program's website, offers "a family-style atmosphere" that "enables true healing and empowers girls to have successful and healthy futures" — they may indeed be treated like problems in need of a solution.

The complaint alleges that clients of the program were "subjected to or threatened with food and sleep deprivation, physical punishment, emotional abuse, and humiliation, to include, but not limited to, being leashed to other exploited girls, staff members, and/or farm animals, carrying around a folding chair as punishment for twenty-four (24) hours a day for months on end, forced silence for weeks at a time, being forced to run up and down a massive hill covered in sharp rocks and rattlesnakes, being forced to eat only small quantities of cold kidney beans for weeks at a time, participation in 'group therapy' without a licensed therapist with the sole purpose of staff and other exploited girls degrading and humiliating the participant, to force compliance with mandated labor assignments."

The troubling truth is that despite half-hearted federal and state investigations, many programs remain open and employ therapeutic techniques similar to what is alleged in the Trinity lawsuit. As survivors of these programs have aged into their late-twenties and early-thirties, their claims of abuse and neglect are only now being heard, thanks in part to celebrity awareness.

One podcast, vaguely called Wilderness Therapy & Residential Treatment Center Journey, touted all the ways in which wilderness therapy — which many industry professionals prefer to call "adventure therapy" — had sought to end the kidnapping of teenagers as a way to transport them to its programs. These programs often use other euphemisms besides "adventure therapy" — they call the kidnapping of children from their beds at the behest of parents, "transportation" or "interventions." Likewise, they say they don't employ "solitary confinement," but rather "calming rooms," a term used in the past by a Utah-based program.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. K&R. Lotta money to be made in controling people.

[RKP5637]

2. Yep ... religion, politics, prisons, this stuff ... and authoritarians love it, doing it and

supporting it ...