January 26, 2022 • 26 mins
Paris Hilton reveals the truth about her abuse at Provo Canyon School alongside a mix of experts as they discuss the origins of the Troubled Teen Industry.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
These two big men came into my room around four
thirty in the morning, and they shook me awake and
held out handcuffs and said, do you want to go
the easy day? In the hard way? And I was
so scared. I thought I was being kidnapped. I had
no idea, you know, who these people were and the
(00:26):
way that they were speaking of between screaming at me,
and it was like something out of the movie. It
was just something I'll neverally forget. I never thought I
would tell the story. I thought I would take my
experience as at Provocanian School to the grave for years.
(00:47):
I had my trauma. It was going to be my
secret for life. My documentary This Is Paris came out,
the outpouring of support blew my mind. I realized that
I had a responsibility to use my voice and platform
to make a real difference for these kids and to
put a stop to the abuses happening behind closed doors.
(01:08):
In this past year, thousands of survivors like me have
shared their stories, helping to bring into public view what
so many of us have locked up. Provo Canyon School
will not be able to hide behind the abuse they've
caused survivors any longer. I'm dedicating my life to fighting
for these kids to shut these institutions down. I've gone
to Utah to help change state laws, and I've recently
(01:30):
gone to Washington to push for change at the federal level.
I won't stop until these children are safe and protected.
As you listen to the survivor's stories that will unfold
over the season, asked yourself, does anyone deserve to be
Trapped in Treatment? From I heard Radio London audio and
(02:09):
executive producer Paris Hilton, This is Trapped in Treatment, exposing
the inner workings of one teen treatment facility. Each season,
we're your hosts. I'm Rebecca Mellinger and I'm Caroline Cole,
one troubled teen industry survivor and one investigator on a
mission to untangle the truths of an industry plagued by
controversy and to make sure that no child has to
(02:32):
experience the hell that is team treatment. Over the next
twelve weeks, we will uncover the story of pro Vocanian School,
a residential treatment center for teens notorious for its use
of solitary confinement, corporal punishment, and over medication. We will
hear stories from survivors, former employees, subject matter experts, and
(02:53):
family members whose lives were forever changed. This is their story. Wow, Rebecca,
who would have thought a year ago that we'd be
sitting here right now about to bring these lovely folks
into the world of pro Volcanian School. I honestly cannot
(03:15):
believe it. I mean, I've been investigating this industry for
over a year now and I am so excited to
finally be able to share this with the world. It
is such an honor to be here. To give our
audience some background, I'm a survivor myself. I was sent
to a program when I was fourteen years old. It
was not pro Volcanian School, but it was on the
East Coast and it was actually a spin off of
(03:36):
pro Volcanian and I was there for almost two and
a half years. So now, almost seventeen years later, I've
been drawn into this fight for change, fighting to make
sure that no one else has to experience what we did.
And I am Paris's impact producer. So I joined this
fight when This Is Paris debuted last year, and Caroline
and I have been working side by side over the
(03:57):
past year with Paris and with Breaking Goods Lands to
introduce state and federal legislation that aims to protect youth
in institutions across America. You know, I can remember the
day exactly that I knew that I had to do
something to take this industry down. It was way before
you and I had even met. I had unearthed my
(04:18):
old journals from when I was at the academy, and
reading what I wrote when I was fourteen years old
and in a lockdown facility was really disturbing to me.
I saw how this place had changed me, and now
as an adult, I can see that clearly what happened
was abuse. So as I read through these journals, it
(04:41):
made me angry, like fiery angry, And that's when I
knew that I had to use my now professional experience
in mental health to make change as a survivor. What's
really interesting is watching non survivors learn about this industry
and then watching this like spark of outrage get lit
(05:02):
inside of them and they become a part of our movement.
I grew up in this little town in Connecticut, and
remember kids in high school being taken in the middle
of the night to treatment. I didn't think to ask
questions back then. I mean it was almost normalized, which
really upset me as I thought back as an adult,
I will never not fight for these kids. Once you
(05:24):
take the time to learn about how these businesses to
modify and neglect them, you can really never go back.
This is Paris was definitely a game changer for anyone
who's been held against their will and any of these facilities.
For those who don't know, Paris's documentary shared the story
of her abuse at pro Vocanean school for the very
first time. She simultaneously in that moment, gave us permission,
(05:48):
us survivors permission to talk about the abuse we experienced,
and brought our voices to the national stage with our
hashtag breaking code silence, gaining millions of it's almost overnight.
This show is for all the survivors, but it's also
for the world, for the lawmakers, for the parents that
(06:08):
have no idea what goes on at these places, into
the kids who never made it out. This is our
war cry. Let's start at the beginning. It's hard to
(06:32):
imagine that someone like Paris had strict parents like the
rest of us, but she grew up isolated. Her parents
forbid her from seeing friends wearing makeup or even wearing
certain clothes. She dreamed of living a normal life, going
to parties, kissing boys, and having fun. Innocent adolescent growing
up fun. Her family moved across the country to New
(06:56):
York City. Paris was fifteen and quickly grew in nam
with the city's glamour relishing, the bright lights, and the
happening night life. With parents who were often traveling, in
a growing sense of urgency to explore the world, she
eventually began to bend the rules her parents had laid out.
And when I moved to New York City, just this
whole new world opened up to me. And I started
(07:19):
getting invited to all these night clubs and parties and events.
And I was living at the Waldorf Historia Hotel, and
you know, it was tempting to, you know, go to
these places I was being invited to. So when my
parents went out of town, that's when I started sneaking
out at night and um missing, you know, being late
(07:42):
for school, ditching classes and just sneaking out. And then,
um my mom, when she got back in town, found
out one night. Cathy Hilton, the matriarch of the Hilton family,
had always wanted the best for her children, an elegant
and glamorous woman. She had sent Paris and her sister
Nikki to etiquette classes, hoping to shape the self described
(08:05):
tomboy into a proper young woman. She knew the dangers
that lay out in the world, especially for a young
woman from an internationally known family. It shouldn't be overlooked
that Paris was the granddaughter of one of the most
successful hotel years of the time, so media scrutiny could
be relentless and ruthless. I started being written about in
(08:25):
page six all the time, and you know, all these
articles were coming out, and my parents were always very
concerned about, you know, what people thought of us, and
they wanted to have like this perfect family. So Cathy
started looking for solutions to what she considered to be
her daughter's rebellious behavior. She found a therapist when highly
(08:47):
recommended amongst the family's relations. She started sending Paris twice
a week, no doubt, thinking that would be the end
of it. Sitting with this counselor twice a week on
a lumpy couch, barely walking board and wondering what this
had to do with her, Paris grew more and more
resentful of these meetings. It was this therapist in New York,
(09:09):
and I saw him a couple of times, and we
didn't really talk about much. She would just say like,
why are you sneaking out? And I would say, because
my parents won't let me do anything, and I want
to go, Oh, I'm not doing anything doing anything wrong,
And you know, it wasn't like I had any issues,
Like I was a pretty innocent kid. Instead of getting
(09:31):
to the bottom of why Paris was rebelling against her parents,
he instead recommended that Paris be sent to a residential
program called s Do. This program was supposed to help
troubled teens by modifying their behavior. Paris didn't understand, and
certainly didn't think that being sent miles away from her
family would help her in any way. She begged and
(09:52):
pleaded with her parents, promising to stay home to behave
but her parents, romanced by the promises of this p program,
refused to change their mind. They enrolled her in what
would be the first of several programs Paris would attend.
Fast forward two years to the spring. After having endured
(10:14):
two residential facilities and a wilderness program, things seem to
be better for Paris. She was home and things were quiet,
no sneaking out, just hanging out with her sister Nikki
and dreaming about turning eighteen and just over a year
she hoped she would never have to attend another program.
But then one night, Paris was awakened by two men
(10:37):
shining a flashlight in her eyes, ripped from her bed,
blindfolded and handcuffed, screaming and crying for her parents. As
she was dragged out, she saw them standing by their room,
looking down. They didn't say a word. Abandoned, betrayed. Where
(10:59):
were they take her? Where would she end up? She
had no idea what would happen next. Harris was being
(11:32):
sent to treatment, to a facility far away from home.
The stories that surround these institutions today are hard to
listen to and even harder to comprehend, being taken in
the middle of the night, schools, leaving children and teens
more damage than they arrived. But where did it all begin?
(11:54):
What we know as the troubled team industry, in a way,
started with President Ford. He passed a law in the
seventh is called the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
It sought to address concerns many Americans had about rising
crime rates among youth. When Ford passed the law, he
believed it would assist struggling teams and adolescents who might
otherwise end up in correctional facilities or mental institutions. The
(12:17):
law provided funding for people to start what we're called
community based programs, local facilities where teams could be treated ethically,
cared for, and eventually returned home. They weren't quite medical facilities,
but they also weren't traditional schools. Programs like this flourished
after the law was passed, and the result the Troubled
Team industry, a multibillion dollar industry of residential treatment facilities
(12:42):
known as RTCs that focused on youth with a range
of behavioral, emotional, and substance abuse issues. The Troubled Team
industry is a set of diverse institutions which have the
goal of breaking a teenager down in order to fix them.
I sell Its is a journalist and the author of
Help at Any Cost. How the Troubled Teen industry cons
(13:05):
parents and hurts kids. She says, these groups are designed
to isolate kids. They often are done in the woods
or other remote settings, a kind of camp, if you
can imagine. But the thing that holds it all together.
Is the abuse is the treatment, and the way that
these programs are set up is designed to produce compliance.
(13:27):
Maya struggled with addiction during her teen years, so she
was familiar with the idea of treatment. It was something
she resisted. The idea of being publicly attacked and humiliated
seemed cruel, something to be avoided at all costs. So
when she read a New York Times article about a
program called Kids, she felt compelled to do something. Just
(13:48):
reading this profile of this place, which was a sympathetic
portrait of abuse of children. UM, I wrote a letter
to them that said, remember cult, to remember brainwashing. That's
what this is, and this doesn't help people with addiction,
even though I had no knowledge of cult or brainwashing
or anything, no specialized knowledge anyway. UM at that point,
(14:09):
I was just a reader who was horrified by this
thing being described as helping teenagers when it was very
clear again that this was a terrible idea, A terrible
idea made worse by the fact that for It's law,
the one that helped launch many of these facilities, it
lacked regulation. Most of these schools, like Provocanian, we're operating
(14:31):
without oversight and here's the other thing. The government knew
that the same year that law was passed, a congressional
report on the industry was issued. Members of Congress voice concern,
but ultimately nothing was done to regulate them. All the while,
these facilities grew even more popular, marketed to parents whose
youth were grappling with many different educational, social, legal, behavioral,
(14:56):
and mental health challenges, these programs quickly began to fill
children sent far from home. But these facilities weren't just
a catch all for affluent families who wanted to modify
their children's bad behavior. The foster care system, juvenile justice system,
and even local school districts began sending youth who were
declared ungovernable. The therapies they were forced to endure included
(15:18):
physical restraints, solitary confinement, food and sleep deprivation, and over medication.
The question is how did these facilities quickly turn into
centers synonymous with abuse. Back in the nineteen fifties, when
(15:45):
Cynanon came to public attention, it was a drug and
alcohol rehabilitation program. I found an environment that was a
loving environment. I found a place that was humane, and
I found a place that was very firm all of
the things that I needed to change my behavior sent
and on. The highly controversial drug rehabilitation program created by
(16:06):
Charles diedrich In. Members of his program played a game,
the Synanon Game. They would share raw details of lived trauma,
exposing the inner workings of their families, lives and emotions,
only to be verbally attacked, degraded, and torn down by
other members, a form of attack therapy. It promoted this
(16:30):
ideology of tough love. So the idea was that you
create an environment and change the behavior by controlling the environment.
This was the middle of the Human Potential movement, a
period in history kicked off by the nineteen sixties. Spirituality,
self help, and self improvement were the buzzwords, with drugs, sex,
(16:54):
and free love in the background. People believed that they
could change. They wanted to change to become enlightened. So
when Cinnanon seemed to be making upstanding citizens from the
formerly destitute, it was widely accepted as groundbreaking. It grew
from a nonprofit to a religion to a cult. In
(17:17):
the seventies, the mission changed from drug addiction to psychotherapy.
The focus shifted to juvenile delinquents. In the middle class
as Diedrich aspired to grow his two million per year
nonprofit into something even larger. U S Senator Thomas J.
Dodd called Synanon the Miracle on the Beach. Psychologists took notice,
(17:41):
Hollywood even made a film about it, but the reality
there was a dark side to the self improvement industry,
often led by over zealous leaders or self described healers.
It lent itself to an abuse of power. The whole
idea is that the customers always wrong, and anything you
say tod to fend yourself as a defense and must
be broken, which means that if the person over you
(18:05):
is abusing you, you have nowhere to go because you
can't go outside the chain of command. And so this
just creates an abusive power structure that is replicated in
many of these trouble team places, and it creates this
idea that is truly sociopathic, which is that harming people
emotionally helps them. As Cynanon was gaining in popularity and
public approval, residential programs with similar ideologies began opening up
(18:30):
around the country. These programs focused primarily on attitude and
viewed special education and mental health challenges as mere character flaws.
The teens could overcome by will, so they took the
tough love is treatment philosophy and ran with it. Initially
these places were just aimed at kids with drug problems,
(18:50):
but then and and really they didn't even have to
actually use drugs. They just had dressed as though they
might be considering using drugs, and that was considered a
sign a booming industry that prayed on adolescents at the
most challenging time of their young lives. Fear of drug
addiction and life going off the rails were the reasons
many parents sent their children away. But as a parent,
(19:13):
where else could you turn? Stressed out, overwhelmed trying to
find help for your child without any real information or support.
Should a child with the anxiety or previous trauma be
receiving the same treatment as one that's addicted to opiates.
Clearly not, But when you're desperate for help, overwhelmed with
(19:35):
a child with needs far above what you're capable of offering,
it can be easier to overlook the details. After talking
to Maya, we had more questions. I was immersed in
this work beginning, especially in the late nineties seventies, ended
up doing a lot of research and writing on this subject,
(19:59):
and that was before the formal emergence of what we
now call the struggling team industry. That's Frederick Reemer, a
professor of ethics at the Graduate School of Social Work
at Rhode Island College. He's authored several books on the
topic of teen treatment. We'll hear a lot from him
this season. As my career has unfolded, I have learned
(20:22):
a great deal about these various programs designed again in principle,
to assist struggling teens. And what I've learned in a
nutshell is that while many of these programs, in my opinion,
can be very helpful, they're very constructive, they're professionally run. Uh,
there are many programs that should not exist. The boom
(20:45):
of treatment centers was a profitable windfall in the private sector,
with urtcs operating in a yet unregulated space. Were they schools,
psychiatric facilities, detention centers, group homes. Most weren't a it did.
There was no regulating body or organization at the time,
and the staff mostly high school graduates with little to
(21:08):
no training. It soon became clear that there was a
problem here, one that would grow more damaging as the
years passed by. Part of my mission in life is
to try to separate the week from the chaft, to
try to identify those criteria we can use to um
UH distinguished between the professionally run constructive therapeutic programs and
(21:35):
those that, as I said a moment ago, in my opinion,
should not exist because they violate ethical standards in the profession.
I think there's a and many of them a track
record of harming youth. Today, there are thousands of congregate
care facilities in the US, housing over a one hundred
twenty youth annually. Even after years of controversy, thousands of
(21:59):
chill dren are still being sent to these programs, subjected
to unethical boot camp style treatment with little being done
to stop it. When this Is Paris aired last summer,
Paris revealed the truth of her abuse at one school,
(22:21):
in particular, pro Vocanian School, a youth residential facility located
in Provo, Utah. From the outside, pro Volcanian School seems
like a safe place, neatly manicured lawns, picnic tables, and
even a pool. It was set up as a residential
treatment center for youth in the seventies. They professed to
provide therapeutic care for troubled teens, but inside the facility
(22:46):
it was a very different story. I was there for
eleven months, so it was just it was like I
never knew what I was gonna be able to have,
you know, freedom again, or to like go outside or
see light or anything I do, I would get in trouble,
Like for crying, you get in trouble. Like Basically, there
(23:06):
were so many rules that were like impossible to can
follow because there was a rule for every single thing.
It was almost like they made these rules because they
wanted them to be broken. Assigned a number and a
pair of sweats, Paris would endure physical torture and humiliation
for over eleven months. She details being made to strip
(23:26):
down and being thrown into solitary confinement. She survived her experience,
though it would haunt her for decades to come. The
next twenty years were full of highs and lows. Nightmares
haunted her, a constant reminder of the eleven months she
spent far away from family and friends. But in the
summer of Paris made a decision, one that would change
(23:48):
the lives of both herself and thousands of other survivors
who had been silent for far too long. Her documentary
made headlines, shocking fans and family alike. Now others have
become to come forward, to share their stories, to expose
the truth of pro Volcanian School, and to finally close
(24:09):
this chapter. Should schools like pro Volcanian School even exist?
What good are they doing? And if they are to exist,
who's responsible for ensuring they are taking good care of
these kids. We've spent the last year asking these exact
questions and riding the wave of not just a reckoning,
but a movement. This isn't just a podcast about an
(24:32):
industry that existed in the past. This is today, tomorrow,
and the next day's story until we stopped it. The
(24:53):
beginning of every survivor's journey, Yeah, what what's happening? Who
are you? Where are they taking me? Often taken in
(25:13):
the middle of the night, crying out for parents instructed
not to respond. Every experience is different, but one thing
seems clear. The beginning is sometimes the hardest part. Next
time on Trapped in Treatment. Hey guys, it's Caroline and Rebecca.
(25:52):
Thanks for listening to episode one. We're so glad to
have you here. Just a heads up, we'll be hearing
some pretty intense stories this season, so if you're a farmer, survivor,
or a former victim of any sort of abuse, please
listen with care. Our goal is to spread awareness, not
cause any more harm, so I encourage you to pause, skip,
or stop anything that feels too triggering or happy that
(26:14):
you're here. If you're interested in getting involved in our efforts,
head over to Trapped in Treatment dot com or check
us out on Instagram at Trapped in Treatment
These two big men came into my room around four
thirty in the morning, and they shook me awake and
held out handcuffs and said, do you want to go
the easy day? In the hard way? And I was
so scared. I thought I was being kidnapped. I had
no idea, you know, who these people were and the
(00:26):
way that they were speaking of between screaming at me,
and it was like something out of the movie. It
was just something I'll neverally forget. I never thought I
would tell the story. I thought I would take my
experience as at Provocanian School to the grave for years.
(00:47):
I had my trauma. It was going to be my
secret for life. My documentary This Is Paris came out,
the outpouring of support blew my mind. I realized that
I had a responsibility to use my voice and platform
to make a real difference for these kids and to
put a stop to the abuses happening behind closed doors.
(01:08):
In this past year, thousands of survivors like me have
shared their stories, helping to bring into public view what
so many of us have locked up. Provo Canyon School
will not be able to hide behind the abuse they've
caused survivors any longer. I'm dedicating my life to fighting
for these kids to shut these institutions down. I've gone
to Utah to help change state laws, and I've recently
(01:30):
gone to Washington to push for change at the federal level.
I won't stop until these children are safe and protected.
As you listen to the survivor's stories that will unfold
over the season, asked yourself, does anyone deserve to be
Trapped in Treatment? From I heard Radio London audio and
(02:09):
executive producer Paris Hilton, This is Trapped in Treatment, exposing
the inner workings of one teen treatment facility. Each season,
we're your hosts. I'm Rebecca Mellinger and I'm Caroline Cole,
one troubled teen industry survivor and one investigator on a
mission to untangle the truths of an industry plagued by
controversy and to make sure that no child has to
(02:32):
experience the hell that is team treatment. Over the next
twelve weeks, we will uncover the story of pro Vocanian School,
a residential treatment center for teens notorious for its use
of solitary confinement, corporal punishment, and over medication. We will
hear stories from survivors, former employees, subject matter experts, and
(02:53):
family members whose lives were forever changed. This is their story. Wow, Rebecca,
who would have thought a year ago that we'd be
sitting here right now about to bring these lovely folks
into the world of pro Volcanian School. I honestly cannot
(03:15):
believe it. I mean, I've been investigating this industry for
over a year now and I am so excited to
finally be able to share this with the world. It
is such an honor to be here. To give our
audience some background, I'm a survivor myself. I was sent
to a program when I was fourteen years old. It
was not pro Volcanian School, but it was on the
East Coast and it was actually a spin off of
(03:36):
pro Volcanian and I was there for almost two and
a half years. So now, almost seventeen years later, I've
been drawn into this fight for change, fighting to make
sure that no one else has to experience what we did.
And I am Paris's impact producer. So I joined this
fight when This Is Paris debuted last year, and Caroline
and I have been working side by side over the
(03:57):
past year with Paris and with Breaking Goods Lands to
introduce state and federal legislation that aims to protect youth
in institutions across America. You know, I can remember the
day exactly that I knew that I had to do
something to take this industry down. It was way before
you and I had even met. I had unearthed my
(04:18):
old journals from when I was at the academy, and
reading what I wrote when I was fourteen years old
and in a lockdown facility was really disturbing to me.
I saw how this place had changed me, and now
as an adult, I can see that clearly what happened
was abuse. So as I read through these journals, it
(04:41):
made me angry, like fiery angry, And that's when I
knew that I had to use my now professional experience
in mental health to make change as a survivor. What's
really interesting is watching non survivors learn about this industry
and then watching this like spark of outrage get lit
(05:02):
inside of them and they become a part of our movement.
I grew up in this little town in Connecticut, and
remember kids in high school being taken in the middle
of the night to treatment. I didn't think to ask
questions back then. I mean it was almost normalized, which
really upset me as I thought back as an adult,
I will never not fight for these kids. Once you
(05:24):
take the time to learn about how these businesses to
modify and neglect them, you can really never go back.
This is Paris was definitely a game changer for anyone
who's been held against their will and any of these facilities.
For those who don't know, Paris's documentary shared the story
of her abuse at pro Vocanean school for the very
first time. She simultaneously in that moment, gave us permission,
(05:48):
us survivors permission to talk about the abuse we experienced,
and brought our voices to the national stage with our
hashtag breaking code silence, gaining millions of it's almost overnight.
This show is for all the survivors, but it's also
for the world, for the lawmakers, for the parents that
(06:08):
have no idea what goes on at these places, into
the kids who never made it out. This is our
war cry. Let's start at the beginning. It's hard to
(06:32):
imagine that someone like Paris had strict parents like the
rest of us, but she grew up isolated. Her parents
forbid her from seeing friends wearing makeup or even wearing
certain clothes. She dreamed of living a normal life, going
to parties, kissing boys, and having fun. Innocent adolescent growing
up fun. Her family moved across the country to New
(06:56):
York City. Paris was fifteen and quickly grew in nam
with the city's glamour relishing, the bright lights, and the
happening night life. With parents who were often traveling, in
a growing sense of urgency to explore the world, she
eventually began to bend the rules her parents had laid out.
And when I moved to New York City, just this
whole new world opened up to me. And I started
(07:19):
getting invited to all these night clubs and parties and events.
And I was living at the Waldorf Historia Hotel, and
you know, it was tempting to, you know, go to
these places I was being invited to. So when my
parents went out of town, that's when I started sneaking
out at night and um missing, you know, being late
(07:42):
for school, ditching classes and just sneaking out. And then,
um my mom, when she got back in town, found
out one night. Cathy Hilton, the matriarch of the Hilton family,
had always wanted the best for her children, an elegant
and glamorous woman. She had sent Paris and her sister
Nikki to etiquette classes, hoping to shape the self described
(08:05):
tomboy into a proper young woman. She knew the dangers
that lay out in the world, especially for a young
woman from an internationally known family. It shouldn't be overlooked
that Paris was the granddaughter of one of the most
successful hotel years of the time, so media scrutiny could
be relentless and ruthless. I started being written about in
(08:25):
page six all the time, and you know, all these
articles were coming out, and my parents were always very
concerned about, you know, what people thought of us, and
they wanted to have like this perfect family. So Cathy
started looking for solutions to what she considered to be
her daughter's rebellious behavior. She found a therapist when highly
(08:47):
recommended amongst the family's relations. She started sending Paris twice
a week, no doubt, thinking that would be the end
of it. Sitting with this counselor twice a week on
a lumpy couch, barely walking board and wondering what this
had to do with her, Paris grew more and more
resentful of these meetings. It was this therapist in New York,
(09:09):
and I saw him a couple of times, and we
didn't really talk about much. She would just say like,
why are you sneaking out? And I would say, because
my parents won't let me do anything, and I want
to go, Oh, I'm not doing anything doing anything wrong,
And you know, it wasn't like I had any issues,
Like I was a pretty innocent kid. Instead of getting
(09:31):
to the bottom of why Paris was rebelling against her parents,
he instead recommended that Paris be sent to a residential
program called s Do. This program was supposed to help
troubled teens by modifying their behavior. Paris didn't understand, and
certainly didn't think that being sent miles away from her
family would help her in any way. She begged and
(09:52):
pleaded with her parents, promising to stay home to behave
but her parents, romanced by the promises of this p program,
refused to change their mind. They enrolled her in what
would be the first of several programs Paris would attend.
Fast forward two years to the spring. After having endured
(10:14):
two residential facilities and a wilderness program, things seem to
be better for Paris. She was home and things were quiet,
no sneaking out, just hanging out with her sister Nikki
and dreaming about turning eighteen and just over a year
she hoped she would never have to attend another program.
But then one night, Paris was awakened by two men
(10:37):
shining a flashlight in her eyes, ripped from her bed,
blindfolded and handcuffed, screaming and crying for her parents. As
she was dragged out, she saw them standing by their room,
looking down. They didn't say a word. Abandoned, betrayed. Where
(10:59):
were they take her? Where would she end up? She
had no idea what would happen next. Harris was being
(11:32):
sent to treatment, to a facility far away from home.
The stories that surround these institutions today are hard to
listen to and even harder to comprehend, being taken in
the middle of the night, schools, leaving children and teens
more damage than they arrived. But where did it all begin?
(11:54):
What we know as the troubled team industry, in a way,
started with President Ford. He passed a law in the
seventh is called the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
It sought to address concerns many Americans had about rising
crime rates among youth. When Ford passed the law, he
believed it would assist struggling teams and adolescents who might
otherwise end up in correctional facilities or mental institutions. The
(12:17):
law provided funding for people to start what we're called
community based programs, local facilities where teams could be treated ethically,
cared for, and eventually returned home. They weren't quite medical facilities,
but they also weren't traditional schools. Programs like this flourished
after the law was passed, and the result the Troubled
Team industry, a multibillion dollar industry of residential treatment facilities
(12:42):
known as RTCs that focused on youth with a range
of behavioral, emotional, and substance abuse issues. The Troubled Team
industry is a set of diverse institutions which have the
goal of breaking a teenager down in order to fix them.
I sell Its is a journalist and the author of
Help at Any Cost. How the Troubled Teen industry cons
(13:05):
parents and hurts kids. She says, these groups are designed
to isolate kids. They often are done in the woods
or other remote settings, a kind of camp, if you
can imagine. But the thing that holds it all together.
Is the abuse is the treatment, and the way that
these programs are set up is designed to produce compliance.
(13:27):
Maya struggled with addiction during her teen years, so she
was familiar with the idea of treatment. It was something
she resisted. The idea of being publicly attacked and humiliated
seemed cruel, something to be avoided at all costs. So
when she read a New York Times article about a
program called Kids, she felt compelled to do something. Just
(13:48):
reading this profile of this place, which was a sympathetic
portrait of abuse of children. UM, I wrote a letter
to them that said, remember cult, to remember brainwashing. That's
what this is, and this doesn't help people with addiction,
even though I had no knowledge of cult or brainwashing
or anything, no specialized knowledge anyway. UM at that point,
(14:09):
I was just a reader who was horrified by this
thing being described as helping teenagers when it was very
clear again that this was a terrible idea, A terrible
idea made worse by the fact that for It's law,
the one that helped launch many of these facilities, it
lacked regulation. Most of these schools, like Provocanian, we're operating
(14:31):
without oversight and here's the other thing. The government knew
that the same year that law was passed, a congressional
report on the industry was issued. Members of Congress voice concern,
but ultimately nothing was done to regulate them. All the while,
these facilities grew even more popular, marketed to parents whose
youth were grappling with many different educational, social, legal, behavioral,
(14:56):
and mental health challenges, these programs quickly began to fill
children sent far from home. But these facilities weren't just
a catch all for affluent families who wanted to modify
their children's bad behavior. The foster care system, juvenile justice system,
and even local school districts began sending youth who were
declared ungovernable. The therapies they were forced to endure included
(15:18):
physical restraints, solitary confinement, food and sleep deprivation, and over medication.
The question is how did these facilities quickly turn into
centers synonymous with abuse. Back in the nineteen fifties, when
(15:45):
Cynanon came to public attention, it was a drug and
alcohol rehabilitation program. I found an environment that was a
loving environment. I found a place that was humane, and
I found a place that was very firm all of
the things that I needed to change my behavior sent
and on. The highly controversial drug rehabilitation program created by
(16:06):
Charles diedrich In. Members of his program played a game,
the Synanon Game. They would share raw details of lived trauma,
exposing the inner workings of their families, lives and emotions,
only to be verbally attacked, degraded, and torn down by
other members, a form of attack therapy. It promoted this
(16:30):
ideology of tough love. So the idea was that you
create an environment and change the behavior by controlling the environment.
This was the middle of the Human Potential movement, a
period in history kicked off by the nineteen sixties. Spirituality,
self help, and self improvement were the buzzwords, with drugs, sex,
(16:54):
and free love in the background. People believed that they
could change. They wanted to change to become enlightened. So
when Cinnanon seemed to be making upstanding citizens from the
formerly destitute, it was widely accepted as groundbreaking. It grew
from a nonprofit to a religion to a cult. In
(17:17):
the seventies, the mission changed from drug addiction to psychotherapy.
The focus shifted to juvenile delinquents. In the middle class
as Diedrich aspired to grow his two million per year
nonprofit into something even larger. U S Senator Thomas J.
Dodd called Synanon the Miracle on the Beach. Psychologists took notice,
(17:41):
Hollywood even made a film about it, but the reality
there was a dark side to the self improvement industry,
often led by over zealous leaders or self described healers.
It lent itself to an abuse of power. The whole
idea is that the customers always wrong, and anything you
say tod to fend yourself as a defense and must
be broken, which means that if the person over you
(18:05):
is abusing you, you have nowhere to go because you
can't go outside the chain of command. And so this
just creates an abusive power structure that is replicated in
many of these trouble team places, and it creates this
idea that is truly sociopathic, which is that harming people
emotionally helps them. As Cynanon was gaining in popularity and
public approval, residential programs with similar ideologies began opening up
(18:30):
around the country. These programs focused primarily on attitude and
viewed special education and mental health challenges as mere character flaws.
The teens could overcome by will, so they took the
tough love is treatment philosophy and ran with it. Initially
these places were just aimed at kids with drug problems,
(18:50):
but then and and really they didn't even have to
actually use drugs. They just had dressed as though they
might be considering using drugs, and that was considered a
sign a booming industry that prayed on adolescents at the
most challenging time of their young lives. Fear of drug
addiction and life going off the rails were the reasons
many parents sent their children away. But as a parent,
(19:13):
where else could you turn? Stressed out, overwhelmed trying to
find help for your child without any real information or support.
Should a child with the anxiety or previous trauma be
receiving the same treatment as one that's addicted to opiates.
Clearly not, But when you're desperate for help, overwhelmed with
(19:35):
a child with needs far above what you're capable of offering,
it can be easier to overlook the details. After talking
to Maya, we had more questions. I was immersed in
this work beginning, especially in the late nineties seventies, ended
up doing a lot of research and writing on this subject,
(19:59):
and that was before the formal emergence of what we
now call the struggling team industry. That's Frederick Reemer, a
professor of ethics at the Graduate School of Social Work
at Rhode Island College. He's authored several books on the
topic of teen treatment. We'll hear a lot from him
this season. As my career has unfolded, I have learned
(20:22):
a great deal about these various programs designed again in principle,
to assist struggling teens. And what I've learned in a
nutshell is that while many of these programs, in my opinion,
can be very helpful, they're very constructive, they're professionally run. Uh,
there are many programs that should not exist. The boom
(20:45):
of treatment centers was a profitable windfall in the private sector,
with urtcs operating in a yet unregulated space. Were they schools,
psychiatric facilities, detention centers, group homes. Most weren't a it did.
There was no regulating body or organization at the time,
and the staff mostly high school graduates with little to
(21:08):
no training. It soon became clear that there was a
problem here, one that would grow more damaging as the
years passed by. Part of my mission in life is
to try to separate the week from the chaft, to
try to identify those criteria we can use to um
UH distinguished between the professionally run constructive therapeutic programs and
(21:35):
those that, as I said a moment ago, in my opinion,
should not exist because they violate ethical standards in the profession.
I think there's a and many of them a track
record of harming youth. Today, there are thousands of congregate
care facilities in the US, housing over a one hundred
twenty youth annually. Even after years of controversy, thousands of
(21:59):
chill dren are still being sent to these programs, subjected
to unethical boot camp style treatment with little being done
to stop it. When this Is Paris aired last summer,
Paris revealed the truth of her abuse at one school,
(22:21):
in particular, pro Vocanian School, a youth residential facility located
in Provo, Utah. From the outside, pro Volcanian School seems
like a safe place, neatly manicured lawns, picnic tables, and
even a pool. It was set up as a residential
treatment center for youth in the seventies. They professed to
provide therapeutic care for troubled teens, but inside the facility
(22:46):
it was a very different story. I was there for
eleven months, so it was just it was like I
never knew what I was gonna be able to have,
you know, freedom again, or to like go outside or
see light or anything I do, I would get in trouble,
Like for crying, you get in trouble. Like Basically, there
(23:06):
were so many rules that were like impossible to can
follow because there was a rule for every single thing.
It was almost like they made these rules because they
wanted them to be broken. Assigned a number and a
pair of sweats, Paris would endure physical torture and humiliation
for over eleven months. She details being made to strip
(23:26):
down and being thrown into solitary confinement. She survived her experience,
though it would haunt her for decades to come. The
next twenty years were full of highs and lows. Nightmares
haunted her, a constant reminder of the eleven months she
spent far away from family and friends. But in the
summer of Paris made a decision, one that would change
(23:48):
the lives of both herself and thousands of other survivors
who had been silent for far too long. Her documentary
made headlines, shocking fans and family alike. Now others have
become to come forward, to share their stories, to expose
the truth of pro Volcanian School, and to finally close
(24:09):
this chapter. Should schools like pro Volcanian School even exist?
What good are they doing? And if they are to exist,
who's responsible for ensuring they are taking good care of
these kids. We've spent the last year asking these exact
questions and riding the wave of not just a reckoning,
but a movement. This isn't just a podcast about an
(24:32):
industry that existed in the past. This is today, tomorrow,
and the next day's story until we stopped it. The
(24:53):
beginning of every survivor's journey, Yeah, what what's happening? Who
are you? Where are they taking me? Often taken in
(25:13):
the middle of the night, crying out for parents instructed
not to respond. Every experience is different, but one thing
seems clear. The beginning is sometimes the hardest part. Next
time on Trapped in Treatment. Hey guys, it's Caroline and Rebecca.
(25:52):
Thanks for listening to episode one. We're so glad to
have you here. Just a heads up, we'll be hearing
some pretty intense stories this season, so if you're a farmer, survivor,
or a former victim of any sort of abuse, please
listen with care. Our goal is to spread awareness, not
cause any more harm, so I encourage you to pause, skip,
or stop anything that feels too triggering or happy that
(26:14):
you're here. If you're interested in getting involved in our efforts,
head over to Trapped in Treatment dot com or check
us out on Instagram at Trapped in Treatment
Hosts And Creators
Paris Hilton
Rebecca Mellinger
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