May 7, 2024 • 39 mins
Robert Lichfield turns to his brother-in-law to help test out his burgeoning treatment method. A young boy named Tony is one of the first recruits to experience Majestic Ranch in Randolph, Utah.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following episode contains disturbing and graphic accounts of survivor experiences.
It may not be suitable for younger audiences. Please listen
with care.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
From iHeartRadio, London Audio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
is Trapped in Treatment. We're your hosts. I'm Rebecca Mellinger, Grown.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I'm Caroline Cole. Every week we seek to untangle
the truths of the troubled teen industry, an industry that
claims to help teens but instead leaves them with a
lifetime of trauma. We have one mission to make sure
that no child has to experience the hell that is
the troubled teen industry. We are fighting to make these
(00:45):
voices heard because we have been silent for too long.
This season is all about WASP, the Worldwide Association of
Specialty Programs in Schools, one of the largest networks of
troubled teen facilities in the industry, masterminded by one man,
(01:06):
Robert Litchfield. This is about Lichfield's sphere of influence in
the various ways he dove headfirst into the deep waters
of the trouble teen industry, but before he could be
at the helm of an international industry he had to
start locally. The stories you will hear in the following
(01:27):
episode are the personal allegations and accounts of individuals who
have attended one of these programs. All experiences, views, and
opinions are their own.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Last week, we uncovered important details about Robert Litchfield's childhood
as part of our request to better understand how he
would end up launching one of the most notorious networks
of troubled teen programs. Robert Litchfield had his own personal
history of institutionalization in his family. His father, Walter, had
a nervous breakdown and spent time in a mental hospital.
(02:04):
Then one of his brothers was also sent away to
a state room facility where he underwent shock therapy because
he was seen as too much of a risk to
the other children in the Lichfield family.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Lichfield's life was just one part of the story. We
also heard some survivors talk about their experiences at Costa
by the Sea, a facility in Mexico. Here's what Chelsea
Filer had to say.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
BOSS was a network of specialty programs I would say
mostly focused on providing behavior modification for troubled teens. Now,
some of these programs were more geared towards wilderness boot
camp experience or a little bit more towards the therapeutic realm,
(02:55):
at least that's the way that they market themselves. But realistically,
what we were experiencing in this program was a very
extreme form of behavior modification. Specifically, I think that it
was based on aversion therapy, and that's the pretty much
the theory that if you can punish a child enough,
(03:19):
eventually they'll learn.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Today, we're going to hear more about Lichfield's beginnings in
the troubled teen industry and a program that would leave
some people forever impacted. After returning home from a volunteer mission,
Lichfield began working at Provocanian School, the same school listeners
heard Paris Hilton discuss in Season one. Over time, he
moved his way up the leadership ladder. He would later
(03:45):
take aspects from Provocanian and integrate them into his network
of WASP facilities, all while keeping his family and confidence
close in his endeavors. But before he could dive right
into the deep end of opening his own programs for teens,
he needed a test run.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
While Lichfield was still working at Provocanyon School, he called
his brother in law, Dan Peart and convinced him to
open a program on Peart's property. Peart's land was located
in the high plains of Randolph, Utah, a town over
six thousand feet above sea level and with a population
of about five hundred people.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
It's a really small town, about one square mile, a
Mormon settlement dating back to the late nineteenth century. The
town website calls it a land of Extremes. And in
this town was a long established ranching family, the Pearts,
who had lived in Randolph for generations. Dan Peart was
the youngest, and in the late eighties he and his
(04:48):
new bride, Donna, were struggling to keep the ranch afloat.
The following is an excerpt from a Utah State University
Special Collections and Archives Oral history titled Ranch Family Documentation,
recorded in twenty eleven. The speaker is Dan Pierre.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
You know, if you want the ranch, you had to
have another outside source of income. In ours, we started
a youth program probably twenty five years ago, and that
helped us, you know, so he was able to ranch.
It was right right after my wife and I were
first married. In fact, the ranch was struggling. We didn't
(05:29):
know if he be able to hang on to it.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Dan Scher is that his sister's husband had presented a
possible solution for their financial difficulties. Who was his sister's husband,
none other than Robert Litchfield.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
And I had a brother in law that was working
down at Robot Candy and Boys' School, and Heaton told
us before, you know, you gotta look at doing this,
and so we did and thought, well, okay, you come
up and do it. We got the ranch, you get
the kids, and come on up and do it. He
worked all summer and he ended up having two that
was going to come and this is about in September
(06:07):
and he he says, well, you know, it's not really
enough for me to quit my job and doom. Do
you guys want to take these kids and try it?
And we go, sure, how difficult can it be? And
so it was mainly my wife and I and you
know what we did, learned the hard way, and we
(06:27):
just kind of grew and as we did, we hired people.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And professional Peart and his wife began accepting teens a
majestic ranch while still in the early phases of developing
the program. Dan Pierce's explanation in his own words during
his oral history of how and why he entered into
the industry gives us a sense of the almost casual
nature in which he approached opening majestic ranch. Hearing him
(06:54):
recounted over twenty years later is telling. Ultimately, the peers
were ranchers, not psychologists or behaviorists, but nonetheless, parents trusted
their marketing materials and started shipping children their way. They
brought in their first kid around nineteen eighty six. Boys
from the ages of eight to eighteen were shipped in
(07:15):
from around the country. In the oral history, we hear
Dan Pierrett confirming our point. These weren't just local kids
being sent to a nearby program. These were kids from
around the country. Here's Dan.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
They came from all over the United States, mostly when
I first started, most of them nine percent from California
I named. As years went on, they come from all over,
but still California was a big part at Washington.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And one of the first youth to arrive was a
young boy named Tony.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Tony grew up in southern California. He was really young
when his parents divorced and doesn't remember much about the
time before he went to live with his dad. What
he does remember, is an environment that could be described
as chaotic at best.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Early on, my father got a divorce from my mother.
I'm told when I was six months. I'm told that
she tried to keep me and she was doing avon
or something for money and it just wasn't working out
for her. My dad told her, in order for him
(08:31):
to take me, that he wanted her to sign over
full custody, and she did so.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
But life with his father brought its own set of challenges.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Being with my dad, he owned his own construction company.
I remember being around a lot of construction workers, so
I picked up a filthy mouth right away, and you know,
they taught me bad habits and things. And then he
had a steady string of girls coming through.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
One of these women would become Tony's new stepmother. Tony
shares that he and his new stepmom had difficulty from
the very beginning.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
She started pounding on me. I distinctly remember her hitting me,
smacking me. It was always in places that didn't leave bruises.
She was very strategic about it. I just fucking didn't
stick up for myself enough, you know, I didn't speak
up about it.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
After a few months, things sort of spiraled. Tony took
the abuse until he couldn't anymore. He snapped.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
There were three incidences where I pulled a knife on her.
The first time she walked up to me and took
it out of my hand. The second time she threatened
to call the cops. The last time, I was doing
homework and I had a really really really hard time
(10:01):
doing homework, and she started pounding on me with a
cooking spoon, and she broke the cooking spoon over my back.
I grabbed a knife. She started going for the phone.
I distinctly remember grabbing a fork and throwing it at her,
and it like it hit the couch. I don't remember
(10:23):
if it's stuck in the couch, but it bounced off
pretty damn hard, and she called the cops. I started
moving my way down the street. Cops showed up, grabbed me,
decided to scare me straight. Nobody ever bothered to take
my shirt off and see if I had any bruises,
or just to ask me. I mean, I'm a nine
(10:46):
year old kid, and why am I fighting so damn hard.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
If the cops had taken the extra time to ask
Tony how he was, or to look at his body,
could have been completely different. Instead, his dad and stepmom
shipped him off. Over the next several years, Tony says
he would be sent to several different treatment programs before
finally ending up in the mountains of Utah, and that
(11:16):
feeling of being silenced and not listen to would continue
on throughout the years.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
My parents told me we were going on vacation, and
they packed me up and we drove for like two days,
and I got to this place. They said, well, we're
just gonna go ahead and leave you here. At the time,
everybody was chopping wood, and they handed me an axe
(11:46):
and put me to work.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
According to Tony, he and his peers, the students were
subjected to hard labor. Tony was only fourteen years old
when he got there, but he felt that he was
doing the work of a grown adult to keep Majestic
Ranch's grounds tidy.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
So the ranch itself was Dan Peart's ranch, and he
had two large pieces of property had stretched like the
highway actually ran through the center of the property, and
his father's property was the north side of the road
and his property was the south side of the road.
(12:29):
There was a husband and wife that was there to
run the house they would cook us a meal large
enough to serve us all, and then we would go
out and run fence, run barber fence, or dig postholes,
cut down wood.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
From the sound of it, the teens weren't the only
ones doing the work of somebody above their pay grade.
While Dan Peart and his wife may have hired professionals,
former employees have previously alleged, including in at least one
affidavit filed in a two thousand and five lawsuit against
WASP and Majestic Ranch, that they did not receive any
formal training in certain areas like mental health. However, WASP
(13:13):
and the Pearts denied the allegations, and that lawsuit was
ultimately dismissed before any findings of wrongdoings were made.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Brittany worked as a dorm parent at Majestic Ranch for
two years in her late teens in early twenties. She
drove over two hours every few days to work. She
was in charge of looking after the kids, living with
them day in and day out. She was only a
few years older than the teens she was supposed to
be parenting. Here's Brittany explaining to us her personal experience
(13:48):
at the ranch.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
Well, I had definitely felt it was secluded from anything
out in the middle of nowhere. In Randolph, Utah. The
nearest town, like another little baby baby town, was twenty
minutes away, and then the nearest town that maybe had
a Walmart in a big store was an hour and
a half away. So this ranch was in the middle
(14:12):
of nowhere. No hospitals, no clinics, no storage, nothing. You
pull in and the first thing you see when you
pull in this dirt road is there was a field
on your side, just an empty field. And then you
had the Pearts house in front of you, right on
the property. And then they had like module homes that
(14:34):
they had converted into look like cabins a little bit.
And then you had in the very back you had
this big, big building and it had a gym in
the center, and then on the sides of it you
had four separate units that would house the kids.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And according to Brittany, it wasn't just running fences and
cutting wood as Tony described. She alleges that there were
times when the Great Outdoors became a vehicle of punishment
when children didn't follow the rules. Staff would use an
intervention known at the program as adapt.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
We had something called adapt and that was used for
when the kids misbehaved. And so if a kid was
acting out, you would say, hey, so and so, I'm
sending this kid to adapt. They're coming over to you.
So that kid would go out and depending on whatever
they were doing that day for adapt, you know, then
(15:34):
that's where the kid would be sent. And sometimes it
was to the maneuver pile to shovel manure and just
stand in the poop pile and just shovel poop til
that staff member running adapt felt that they were done,
and a lot of the kids didn't. They didn't want
to shovel poop. Nobody wants to stand and shovel poop,
(15:54):
you know. So the kids sometimes would throw poop at
the staff or they would you know, sit in it.
They would just choose to sit in it, or they'd
rub it all over their clothes, their face, their hair
and just get dirty in it. We also had a
little boy, I think he was eight, and you know,
he was always causing raucous and he was so young,
(16:15):
you know, that's just what little kids do. But I
remember him sitting on a milk crate from sun up
to sundown out in the middle of the field like
one of those plastic milk crates that was his seat
right off Utah gets in the negatives. So to be
sitting out there in the freezing cold like that is insane.
(16:37):
But I remember this poor boy sitting out there all
day long, from sun up to sundown, just on a
milk carton. You know, he wasn't behaving in some way,
shape or form, or he did something and that was
part of his punishment, was sitting on a milk crate
in the middle of the field with nothing.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Punishment. This is a word you'll hear throughout this season.
These punishments were nothing like getting grounded and losing computer privileges.
It sounded much worse. Britney paints a serious picture sitting
on a crate from sun up to sundown, exposed to
the elements for hours at a time. How do you
(17:18):
discipline a child for acting their age? Brittany claims that
the young kids would be put to work, doing work
far better suited for a grown man, much less a
fourteen year old boy like Tony.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
They would go on a seven day trek and it
was called sheep trail. They would go on a seven
day trek with ranchers. They were Dan Pierre's hired ranchers,
and the kids would go with only one staff member,
one of our staff member and the ranchers out on
this seven day sheep trail and they would go herd
(17:53):
sheep on horses that were barely broken.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Here's Tony again explaining his personal experience on one of
those tracks.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
They had brought me out there. There were horses already there.
This was my first time riding a horse, and I
was just there, you go on the horse, you go.
And I had done something wrong, so they'd taken my
saddle and they told me not to ride the horse.
And I was leading the horse and there were sheep
(18:28):
that were strays that they wanted me to get. Well,
if you want me to get the sheep, you know
they're running away from me. They're not running where you
want me to get them. So I jumped on the
horse without a saddle, and I hear this man screamed,
get off that horse. I wasn't going to chase the
sheep without the horse, so I just stopped. I go
(18:50):
to the horse, started walking, fucking came over, got off
his horse, grabbed me, Throw you down to the ground.
On you and they just sit on you until you
were done being sad, on until you had no more
fight left in you.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And in our interview, Tony wasn't shy about sharing his
desire at times to defend himself, but wouldn't anyone in
the same situation much less at fourteen years old? Where
is the dignity? We mentioned before how the WASP methodology
was based in behavior modification, but how effective was it
(19:29):
for the kids.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
It turns out that even some of the administrators who
were employed by WASP affiliates seemed to disagree with the
procedures in place, as we can hear in this forty
eight Hours clip from nineteen ninety eight, a director for
another WASP program, not Majestic Ranch, stated it so simply
when he said, this.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Program is clearly non therapeutical.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
The fact that this official went on national television and
made that comment is telling. In addition to the clear
statement that the program was quote non therapeutical, the staff
had very little to work with.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Brittany alleged that the staff at Majestic Ranch received very
little information about the kids who were enrolled there.
Speaker 6 (20:19):
We took all kinds of kids, any like sort of
kids were there We never got backgrounds of like, hey,
this kind of kid's coming with this sort of background.
We never got anything like that. We learned about the
kids when they got there, and they came at all
hours of the day. They could come in the middle
of the night, they could come in the morning, anytime.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
But she didn't feel she was trained enough to correctly
deal with the kids they received. She was eighteen or
nineteen at the time. She hardly had the tools to
help them in any real way.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
I don't remember that I'm asking me anything about having
any type of background, you know. The only background I
would have had was like daycare, you know, working with
young kids.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And she noticed a trend among the families who placed
their children at Majestic Ranch.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
I noticed that a lot of the parents would be
going through divorces or they you know, and all of
the kids's parents seemed to have a lot of money
because this was a private rand facility, so the parents
had to pay out a pocket to have their kids here.
I mean, I feel that if the parents called and
said they had a teen that was acting out, wasn't listening,
(21:30):
you know, seemed to be a troubled teen, then the
ranch would take.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Them Tony was at Majestic Ranch for two years before
he was sent home, and he says he still struggles
with the memories and effects of his time spent at
Majestic Ranch. Shortly after returning home, he met a young
woman who would eventually become his wife, and now he
(21:56):
has his own family and works hard every day to
make sure they don't experience anything like he did all
those years ago.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
I went to my doctor once and told him, and
I finally broke down and I started shaking, and he
straight up told me, because he's a Navy doctor, he
straight up told me he's like you very much, so
exert the symptoms of someone with PTSD. I mean, I
blew out my back. I had black and blue marks
(22:28):
still to this day, up and down my lower spine.
No education, and no ability to do anything physical. It's
made life extremely hard. My wife can't sleep in the
same room with me because I scream at night and
I flop around in the bed at night. So I mean,
(22:49):
there's there's a lot of anger.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Given what Tony just told us. Let's flash forward. Would
survivors of Majestic Ranch ever received justice for their alleged abuse.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
In two thousand and five, Majestic Ranch was investigated following
allegations of abuse and unsanitary conditions. According to reporting at
the time, local law enforcement, led by the Rich County
Sheriff and Utah's Division of Child and Protective Services, concluded
that most allegations lacked credibility, and while quote nondesirable, were
(23:29):
not considered abusive. At the time, an employee of Majestic
Ranch spoke to a local paper and described how the
conditions of the facility resulted in their resignation. Though Majestic
and WASP executives repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing or abuse,
this wasn't the first scrutiny Majestic Ranch faced. It had
(23:51):
been investigated at least twice before for similar allegations. In
one instance, a Majestic Ranch staff member was arrested for
several counts of alleged child abuse. That staff member, however,
maintained their innocence and was not found guilty of any crimes.
A newspaper article that came out around the same time
reported that the prosecutor dropped many of the charges after
(24:15):
one of the victims recanted their statement and another student's
parents did not make them available to testify. At the hearing,
a judge dropped the rest of the charges, but perhaps
the most shocking is that that staff member apparently remained
employed by Majestic Ranch all while facing these charges. Based
(24:35):
on the records we could find, Majestic Ranch seemed to
have closed around two thousand and seven. Another school called
Old West Ranch Academy, with ties to the Peart family,
eventually reopened at the same address a few years later,
before records show it officially closed in twenty nineteen. No
matter the allegations, so many details matter when it comes
(24:59):
to charging, trying, and convicting someone, and while it is
the bedrock principle of the American justice system that everyone
is innocent until proven guilty, oftentimes with this industry, justice
seems to sway to the benefit of the defendants, and
we hope by the end of this season we can
truly understand why.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
From what we've heard up to this point this season,
we know Lichfield wanted to focus on behavior modification rather
than psychiatry like at Provo Canyon. If he was after experiences,
as he described it, then, a fateful meeting with two men, dwayne'
Smotherman and David Gilcrease would pave the way for some
(25:51):
of the most horrific allegations we've heard. After leaving Provo,
Lichfield encountered a concept that would become the crux of
his program model, something that some survivors would recall as
one of the most traumatizing aspects of their stays. This
was a pivotal moment that would redefine the very essence
(26:12):
of his facilities. Before we can get into any of
these allegations from survivors, it's necessary to understand the background
and genesis of Litchfield's relationship with Dwayne and David because
it sets the stage for what's to come. On a
mild day in November nineteen eighty eight, a small newspaper
(26:33):
in Saint George, Utah, released an announcement that a seminar
to quote help participants make winning life choices was being
held at Southern Utah State College. The seminar was called
Keys to Success, and this seminar changed everything.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
In nineteen eighty eight, Dwayne Smotherman was a corporate trainer
from Arizona and had spent two decades of his life
offering self improvement courses to everyone from entry level employees
to c suite exacts. Here's Dwayne.
Speaker 7 (27:10):
People always ask what I do, and by training, what
I do is I'm an industrial psychologist, and I do
a great deal of work in the area of coaching, training,
and consulting.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He shared that his interest in psychology started in high
school and followed him to college, but according to him,
it wasn't until a visit to a VA hospital that
he became dismayed at the treatment he saw and decided
to dedicate his life to helping people. At the time,
there were all types of personal fulfillment and self help
organizations springing up.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
And during the seventies, the mid the mid to you
letter part of the seventies, training companies proliferated all over
the country, and there were several companies there. You know,
there was Lifespring, there was est there was actualizations, there
was you know, context, There was a whole plethora of
different companies that were really springing up, and people were
(28:04):
drawing these trainings like crazy. And of course the seventies
the me generation rightyone to check out me me, you know,
and so they wanted to look at their beliefs, their attitudes,
their assumptions, their behaviors, their behavioral patterns, and it was
it was fascinating to me. So I just jumped ship
with all the clinical work and went into this work.
(28:28):
Ended up, you know, getting involved with a personal development
company at the time called Lifespring, which was about personal effectiveness,
personal development, behavioral modification, things like that.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Lifespring a large group awareness training program founded by a
man named John Henley in nineteen seventy four. Large group
awareness training, often abbreviated as LGAD, is a type of
program aimed at enhancing personal development. These large group seminars
typically use a combination of lectures, discussions, and exercises in
(29:04):
a group setting to help participants explore their beliefs, behaviors,
and relationships. The goal is often to bring about personal transformation,
self awareness, and improved life skills. However, these programs were
and can be controversial, with many critics questioning the confrontational
methods and effectiveness.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
The trainings took place in empty churches, conference halls, and amphitheaters.
They were deeply immersive, confrontational, and extremely structured. Some participants
did report feelings of increased self confidence and happiness at
the end of these seminars, but later studies would question
whether these were placebo effects. In fact, a nineteen eighty
(29:51):
three participant observation study on life Spring by American psychologists
Janis Hagen and Richard Adams found that all so, though
participants often experience a heightened sense of well being as
a consequence of the training, the phenomenon is essentially pathological,
meaning that in the program studied, the training systematically undermines
(30:14):
ego functioning and promotes regression to the extent that reality
testing is significantly impaired. In Layman's terms, participants often found
it hard to think clearly and stay grounded in reality
after their training. There was a fine line between breakthroughs
and breakdowns.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
When Dwayne attended Lifespring, it was still relatively new.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
So what I took the training. I took the training
in the mid seventies, and I was so enthralled by
what I saw. I was so I was enthralled by
the results and the impact it had to me on
other people. I was really really fascinated by the process itself,
because was something different than what I had I'd studied before,
(31:02):
because you know, I'd come from basically an educational clinical background,
and this was very much of an experiential, process oriented situation.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Dwayne believed in the methodology, so he became a facilitator.
After a few years, he ended up teaming up with
David Gilcrease, another facilitator. Here's Dwayne again.
Speaker 7 (31:22):
Myself and my old business partner, my former business partner,
a David. We had a training company in Salt Lake
City called Excel Excel Training Corporation ex CEO, and we
were doing the general public personal development work, you know,
the trainings we had. We had a building with offices
(31:45):
and training rooms and the whole deal. And so I
was spending half my time in Utah and half my
time in Arizona.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And we believe that it was one of their seminars
in November of nineteen eighty eight that Robert Litchfield attended.
Arvin Lichfield, Robert's brother, who he heard from an episode
one shares that his brother was immediately taken with them.
Speaker 8 (32:07):
He got involved with a group of seminars that he
had personally got involved with and thought that they had
made some real changes in his productivity in his life.
And it basically was sort of experiential learning, and he
thought that that was powerful enough and would help people
get clarity on what they wanted to do with their life,
their life mission, et cetera, and he wanted to share
(32:29):
that with everybody. So what he did is he literally
hired three of their top facilitators in the seminars, and
we had these seminars that nobody else had.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Here's what Dwayne says happened. After meeting Litchfield.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
The owners and founders of the WASP programs came into
our training as participants, and they unbeknownst to us no
idea and benownst to us that you know, they had
these all these schools and this organization, but they came
(33:06):
to us. So the CEO came to us, the founder,
and said, is there a way that we can incorporate
this work into these schools that work with teens at risk?
Is there a way that we can create a behavioral
element in modification element to work with kids.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
David and Dwyane agreed to work with Lichfield and created
a series of seminars called Tasks, Team Accountability, Self Esteem,
and Keys to Success.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
The owners and founders of WASP UH worked with us
for two years to develop a series of trainings that
we can uh integrate into the schools because the schools
where the kids could earn their their their educational you know,
educational credits in the programs so they could get their diploma,
(34:00):
was and so forth and so on. There was graduation
ceremonies and the whole thing. So we did not work for,
if you will, the programs themselves. We were not employees
of West We were, if you will, consultants. We were
the behavioral education element. So they contracted with us to
(34:25):
come into the schools and disseminate the seminars, and quite frankly,
it was a major success. And so before you knew it,
we were doing the trainings all over the country east
coast to west coast, then overseas in Prague, the Czech Republic,
(34:47):
over in Jamaica, over in Costa Rica, in Mexico, and
even in Samoa in the South Pacific. And so we
were traveling all over the place in delivering these seminars
and it just kind of just amped up. It just
kind of, you know, it just rolled, it just rolled.
It was a snowball.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Doctor Stephen Hassen is an expert on undo influence, brainwashing,
and unethical hypnosis and the author of the best selling
book Combating cult mind control. He tours the world conducting
lectures and workshops helping people understand the power of mind control.
He believes that Life Spring seminars were cultic and dangerous.
Speaker 9 (35:35):
Anyway, Life Spring was one of these these large group
awareness trainings. This these types of group process things where
hypnotic techniques are being used. They're not run by.
Speaker 10 (35:49):
Mental health professionals. The people aren't pre screened. ABC did
a documentary showing abuses in Life Spring where people were
being told to identify their fear and then confront their fear.
So for example, they showed the story of a young
(36:11):
man who was afraid of water and he dove into
a moving river. The only problem was he had never
learned to swim, and he died.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Stories like this were common among former Life Spring followers,
but the founder played these down, insisting that his trainings
had clear disclaimers that warned off those who were mentally
unstable and unsuited for their methods. Despite some of the controversy,
the seminar business was booming, and Lichfield would take these
(36:42):
lessons with him to his other schools.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Robert Litchfield armed with the new seminars in the learnings
he'd acquired from seeing his brother in law, Dan Peart
run Majestic Ranch. Was so to revolutionize his approach to
behavior modification. He envisioned seminars inspired by life Spring, tailored
not just for troubled teens, but their parents too. Now
(37:12):
he just needed a facility to call his own. In
nineteen eighty eight, Robert Lichfield arrived in Lavik in Utah
and bought a building at the edge of town. He
opened the doors of his very first program. He named
it Cross Creek Manor for Girls. Kirby would attend this program.
(37:33):
We will hear her story next week on Trapped in Treatment.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
Is.
Speaker 11 (37:40):
He liked to have little object lessons, and one of
his lessons was one day he said that I was
a doormat and in a high traffic area in the
rec center where people have to walk from going from
place to place. He made me lie on the floor
all day with a sign that said doormat, and when
people walked by, they had a step on me and
look me in the eye.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
All of our efforts to reach Robert Litchfield, Dan Peart,
and David Gilcrease for comment were unsuccessful, and they did
not respond to our requests for comment. From our research,
none of them have ever been charged with or found
guilty of any crime stemming from allegations of abuse or
in connection with WASP or any of the schools affiliated therewith.
Speaker 12 (38:32):
Hey everyone, it's Paris. Thanks for listening to episode two.
There's so much more to learn. To receive exclusive content
about Trapped and Treatment and all things Paris Hilton, sign
up at the link in the episode description, follow us
on Instagram at Trapped and Treatment, and make sure to
listen to all our episodes on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts
The following episode contains disturbing and graphic accounts of survivor experiences.
It may not be suitable for younger audiences. Please listen
with care.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
From iHeartRadio, London Audio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
is Trapped in Treatment. We're your hosts. I'm Rebecca Mellinger, Grown.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I'm Caroline Cole. Every week we seek to untangle
the truths of the troubled teen industry, an industry that
claims to help teens but instead leaves them with a
lifetime of trauma. We have one mission to make sure
that no child has to experience the hell that is
the troubled teen industry. We are fighting to make these
(00:45):
voices heard because we have been silent for too long.
This season is all about WASP, the Worldwide Association of
Specialty Programs in Schools, one of the largest networks of
troubled teen facilities in the industry, masterminded by one man,
(01:06):
Robert Litchfield. This is about Lichfield's sphere of influence in
the various ways he dove headfirst into the deep waters
of the trouble teen industry, but before he could be
at the helm of an international industry he had to
start locally. The stories you will hear in the following
(01:27):
episode are the personal allegations and accounts of individuals who
have attended one of these programs. All experiences, views, and
opinions are their own.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Last week, we uncovered important details about Robert Litchfield's childhood
as part of our request to better understand how he
would end up launching one of the most notorious networks
of troubled teen programs. Robert Litchfield had his own personal
history of institutionalization in his family. His father, Walter, had
a nervous breakdown and spent time in a mental hospital.
(02:04):
Then one of his brothers was also sent away to
a state room facility where he underwent shock therapy because
he was seen as too much of a risk to
the other children in the Lichfield family.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Lichfield's life was just one part of the story. We
also heard some survivors talk about their experiences at Costa
by the Sea, a facility in Mexico. Here's what Chelsea
Filer had to say.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
BOSS was a network of specialty programs I would say
mostly focused on providing behavior modification for troubled teens. Now,
some of these programs were more geared towards wilderness boot
camp experience or a little bit more towards the therapeutic realm,
(02:55):
at least that's the way that they market themselves. But realistically,
what we were experiencing in this program was a very
extreme form of behavior modification. Specifically, I think that it
was based on aversion therapy, and that's the pretty much
the theory that if you can punish a child enough,
(03:19):
eventually they'll learn.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Today, we're going to hear more about Lichfield's beginnings in
the troubled teen industry and a program that would leave
some people forever impacted. After returning home from a volunteer mission,
Lichfield began working at Provocanian School, the same school listeners
heard Paris Hilton discuss in Season one. Over time, he
moved his way up the leadership ladder. He would later
(03:45):
take aspects from Provocanian and integrate them into his network
of WASP facilities, all while keeping his family and confidence
close in his endeavors. But before he could dive right
into the deep end of opening his own programs for teens,
he needed a test run.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
While Lichfield was still working at Provocanyon School, he called
his brother in law, Dan Peart and convinced him to
open a program on Peart's property. Peart's land was located
in the high plains of Randolph, Utah, a town over
six thousand feet above sea level and with a population
of about five hundred people.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
It's a really small town, about one square mile, a
Mormon settlement dating back to the late nineteenth century. The
town website calls it a land of Extremes. And in
this town was a long established ranching family, the Pearts,
who had lived in Randolph for generations. Dan Peart was
the youngest, and in the late eighties he and his
(04:48):
new bride, Donna, were struggling to keep the ranch afloat.
The following is an excerpt from a Utah State University
Special Collections and Archives Oral history titled Ranch Family Documentation,
recorded in twenty eleven. The speaker is Dan Pierre.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
You know, if you want the ranch, you had to
have another outside source of income. In ours, we started
a youth program probably twenty five years ago, and that
helped us, you know, so he was able to ranch.
It was right right after my wife and I were
first married. In fact, the ranch was struggling. We didn't
(05:29):
know if he be able to hang on to it.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Dan Scher is that his sister's husband had presented a
possible solution for their financial difficulties. Who was his sister's husband,
none other than Robert Litchfield.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
And I had a brother in law that was working
down at Robot Candy and Boys' School, and Heaton told
us before, you know, you gotta look at doing this,
and so we did and thought, well, okay, you come
up and do it. We got the ranch, you get
the kids, and come on up and do it. He
worked all summer and he ended up having two that
was going to come and this is about in September
(06:07):
and he he says, well, you know, it's not really
enough for me to quit my job and doom. Do
you guys want to take these kids and try it?
And we go, sure, how difficult can it be? And
so it was mainly my wife and I and you
know what we did, learned the hard way, and we
(06:27):
just kind of grew and as we did, we hired people.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And professional Peart and his wife began accepting teens a
majestic ranch while still in the early phases of developing
the program. Dan Pierce's explanation in his own words during
his oral history of how and why he entered into
the industry gives us a sense of the almost casual
nature in which he approached opening majestic ranch. Hearing him
(06:54):
recounted over twenty years later is telling. Ultimately, the peers
were ranchers, not psychologists or behaviorists, but nonetheless, parents trusted
their marketing materials and started shipping children their way. They
brought in their first kid around nineteen eighty six. Boys
from the ages of eight to eighteen were shipped in
(07:15):
from around the country. In the oral history, we hear
Dan Pierrett confirming our point. These weren't just local kids
being sent to a nearby program. These were kids from
around the country. Here's Dan.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
They came from all over the United States, mostly when
I first started, most of them nine percent from California
I named. As years went on, they come from all over,
but still California was a big part at Washington.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And one of the first youth to arrive was a
young boy named Tony.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Tony grew up in southern California. He was really young
when his parents divorced and doesn't remember much about the
time before he went to live with his dad. What
he does remember, is an environment that could be described
as chaotic at best.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Early on, my father got a divorce from my mother.
I'm told when I was six months. I'm told that
she tried to keep me and she was doing avon
or something for money and it just wasn't working out
for her. My dad told her, in order for him
(08:31):
to take me, that he wanted her to sign over
full custody, and she did so.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
But life with his father brought its own set of challenges.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
Being with my dad, he owned his own construction company.
I remember being around a lot of construction workers, so
I picked up a filthy mouth right away, and you know,
they taught me bad habits and things. And then he
had a steady string of girls coming through.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
One of these women would become Tony's new stepmother. Tony
shares that he and his new stepmom had difficulty from
the very beginning.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
She started pounding on me. I distinctly remember her hitting me,
smacking me. It was always in places that didn't leave bruises.
She was very strategic about it. I just fucking didn't
stick up for myself enough, you know, I didn't speak
up about it.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
After a few months, things sort of spiraled. Tony took
the abuse until he couldn't anymore. He snapped.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
There were three incidences where I pulled a knife on her.
The first time she walked up to me and took
it out of my hand. The second time she threatened
to call the cops. The last time, I was doing
homework and I had a really really really hard time
(10:01):
doing homework, and she started pounding on me with a
cooking spoon, and she broke the cooking spoon over my back.
I grabbed a knife. She started going for the phone.
I distinctly remember grabbing a fork and throwing it at her,
and it like it hit the couch. I don't remember
(10:23):
if it's stuck in the couch, but it bounced off
pretty damn hard, and she called the cops. I started
moving my way down the street. Cops showed up, grabbed me,
decided to scare me straight. Nobody ever bothered to take
my shirt off and see if I had any bruises,
or just to ask me. I mean, I'm a nine
(10:46):
year old kid, and why am I fighting so damn hard.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
If the cops had taken the extra time to ask
Tony how he was, or to look at his body,
could have been completely different. Instead, his dad and stepmom
shipped him off. Over the next several years, Tony says
he would be sent to several different treatment programs before
finally ending up in the mountains of Utah, and that
(11:16):
feeling of being silenced and not listen to would continue
on throughout the years.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
My parents told me we were going on vacation, and
they packed me up and we drove for like two days,
and I got to this place. They said, well, we're
just gonna go ahead and leave you here. At the time,
everybody was chopping wood, and they handed me an axe
(11:46):
and put me to work.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
According to Tony, he and his peers, the students were
subjected to hard labor. Tony was only fourteen years old
when he got there, but he felt that he was
doing the work of a grown adult to keep Majestic
Ranch's grounds tidy.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
So the ranch itself was Dan Peart's ranch, and he
had two large pieces of property had stretched like the
highway actually ran through the center of the property, and
his father's property was the north side of the road
and his property was the south side of the road.
(12:29):
There was a husband and wife that was there to
run the house they would cook us a meal large
enough to serve us all, and then we would go
out and run fence, run barber fence, or dig postholes,
cut down wood.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
From the sound of it, the teens weren't the only
ones doing the work of somebody above their pay grade.
While Dan Peart and his wife may have hired professionals,
former employees have previously alleged, including in at least one
affidavit filed in a two thousand and five lawsuit against
WASP and Majestic Ranch, that they did not receive any
formal training in certain areas like mental health. However, WASP
(13:13):
and the Pearts denied the allegations, and that lawsuit was
ultimately dismissed before any findings of wrongdoings were made.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Brittany worked as a dorm parent at Majestic Ranch for
two years in her late teens in early twenties. She
drove over two hours every few days to work. She
was in charge of looking after the kids, living with
them day in and day out. She was only a
few years older than the teens she was supposed to
be parenting. Here's Brittany explaining to us her personal experience
(13:48):
at the ranch.
Speaker 6 (13:51):
Well, I had definitely felt it was secluded from anything
out in the middle of nowhere. In Randolph, Utah. The
nearest town, like another little baby baby town, was twenty
minutes away, and then the nearest town that maybe had
a Walmart in a big store was an hour and
a half away. So this ranch was in the middle
(14:12):
of nowhere. No hospitals, no clinics, no storage, nothing. You
pull in and the first thing you see when you
pull in this dirt road is there was a field
on your side, just an empty field. And then you
had the Pearts house in front of you, right on
the property. And then they had like module homes that
(14:34):
they had converted into look like cabins a little bit.
And then you had in the very back you had
this big, big building and it had a gym in
the center, and then on the sides of it you
had four separate units that would house the kids.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And according to Brittany, it wasn't just running fences and
cutting wood as Tony described. She alleges that there were
times when the Great Outdoors became a vehicle of punishment
when children didn't follow the rules. Staff would use an
intervention known at the program as adapt.
Speaker 6 (15:14):
We had something called adapt and that was used for
when the kids misbehaved. And so if a kid was
acting out, you would say, hey, so and so, I'm
sending this kid to adapt. They're coming over to you.
So that kid would go out and depending on whatever
they were doing that day for adapt, you know, then
(15:34):
that's where the kid would be sent. And sometimes it
was to the maneuver pile to shovel manure and just
stand in the poop pile and just shovel poop til
that staff member running adapt felt that they were done,
and a lot of the kids didn't. They didn't want
to shovel poop. Nobody wants to stand and shovel poop,
(15:54):
you know. So the kids sometimes would throw poop at
the staff or they would you know, sit in it.
They would just choose to sit in it, or they'd
rub it all over their clothes, their face, their hair
and just get dirty in it. We also had a
little boy, I think he was eight, and you know,
he was always causing raucous and he was so young,
(16:15):
you know, that's just what little kids do. But I
remember him sitting on a milk crate from sun up
to sundown out in the middle of the field like
one of those plastic milk crates that was his seat
right off Utah gets in the negatives. So to be
sitting out there in the freezing cold like that is insane.
(16:37):
But I remember this poor boy sitting out there all
day long, from sun up to sundown, just on a
milk carton. You know, he wasn't behaving in some way,
shape or form, or he did something and that was
part of his punishment, was sitting on a milk crate
in the middle of the field with nothing.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Punishment. This is a word you'll hear throughout this season.
These punishments were nothing like getting grounded and losing computer privileges.
It sounded much worse. Britney paints a serious picture sitting
on a crate from sun up to sundown, exposed to
the elements for hours at a time. How do you
(17:18):
discipline a child for acting their age? Brittany claims that
the young kids would be put to work, doing work
far better suited for a grown man, much less a
fourteen year old boy like Tony.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
They would go on a seven day trek and it
was called sheep trail. They would go on a seven
day trek with ranchers. They were Dan Pierre's hired ranchers,
and the kids would go with only one staff member,
one of our staff member and the ranchers out on
this seven day sheep trail and they would go herd
(17:53):
sheep on horses that were barely broken.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Here's Tony again explaining his personal experience on one of
those tracks.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
They had brought me out there. There were horses already there.
This was my first time riding a horse, and I
was just there, you go on the horse, you go.
And I had done something wrong, so they'd taken my
saddle and they told me not to ride the horse.
And I was leading the horse and there were sheep
(18:28):
that were strays that they wanted me to get. Well,
if you want me to get the sheep, you know
they're running away from me. They're not running where you
want me to get them. So I jumped on the
horse without a saddle, and I hear this man screamed,
get off that horse. I wasn't going to chase the
sheep without the horse, so I just stopped. I go
(18:50):
to the horse, started walking, fucking came over, got off
his horse, grabbed me, Throw you down to the ground.
On you and they just sit on you until you
were done being sad, on until you had no more
fight left in you.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
And in our interview, Tony wasn't shy about sharing his
desire at times to defend himself, but wouldn't anyone in
the same situation much less at fourteen years old? Where
is the dignity? We mentioned before how the WASP methodology
was based in behavior modification, but how effective was it
(19:29):
for the kids.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
It turns out that even some of the administrators who
were employed by WASP affiliates seemed to disagree with the
procedures in place, as we can hear in this forty
eight Hours clip from nineteen ninety eight, a director for
another WASP program, not Majestic Ranch, stated it so simply
when he said, this.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Program is clearly non therapeutical.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
The fact that this official went on national television and
made that comment is telling. In addition to the clear
statement that the program was quote non therapeutical, the staff
had very little to work with.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Brittany alleged that the staff at Majestic Ranch received very
little information about the kids who were enrolled there.
Speaker 6 (20:19):
We took all kinds of kids, any like sort of
kids were there We never got backgrounds of like, hey,
this kind of kid's coming with this sort of background.
We never got anything like that. We learned about the
kids when they got there, and they came at all
hours of the day. They could come in the middle
of the night, they could come in the morning, anytime.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
But she didn't feel she was trained enough to correctly
deal with the kids they received. She was eighteen or
nineteen at the time. She hardly had the tools to
help them in any real way.
Speaker 6 (20:51):
I don't remember that I'm asking me anything about having
any type of background, you know. The only background I
would have had was like daycare, you know, working with
young kids.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And she noticed a trend among the families who placed
their children at Majestic Ranch.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
I noticed that a lot of the parents would be
going through divorces or they you know, and all of
the kids's parents seemed to have a lot of money
because this was a private rand facility, so the parents
had to pay out a pocket to have their kids here.
I mean, I feel that if the parents called and
said they had a teen that was acting out, wasn't listening,
(21:30):
you know, seemed to be a troubled teen, then the
ranch would take.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Them Tony was at Majestic Ranch for two years before
he was sent home, and he says he still struggles
with the memories and effects of his time spent at
Majestic Ranch. Shortly after returning home, he met a young
woman who would eventually become his wife, and now he
(21:56):
has his own family and works hard every day to
make sure they don't experience anything like he did all
those years ago.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
I went to my doctor once and told him, and
I finally broke down and I started shaking, and he
straight up told me, because he's a Navy doctor, he
straight up told me he's like you very much, so
exert the symptoms of someone with PTSD. I mean, I
blew out my back. I had black and blue marks
(22:28):
still to this day, up and down my lower spine.
No education, and no ability to do anything physical. It's
made life extremely hard. My wife can't sleep in the
same room with me because I scream at night and
I flop around in the bed at night. So I mean,
(22:49):
there's there's a lot of anger.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Given what Tony just told us. Let's flash forward. Would
survivors of Majestic Ranch ever received justice for their alleged abuse.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
In two thousand and five, Majestic Ranch was investigated following
allegations of abuse and unsanitary conditions. According to reporting at
the time, local law enforcement, led by the Rich County
Sheriff and Utah's Division of Child and Protective Services, concluded
that most allegations lacked credibility, and while quote nondesirable, were
(23:29):
not considered abusive. At the time, an employee of Majestic
Ranch spoke to a local paper and described how the
conditions of the facility resulted in their resignation. Though Majestic
and WASP executives repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing or abuse,
this wasn't the first scrutiny Majestic Ranch faced. It had
(23:51):
been investigated at least twice before for similar allegations. In
one instance, a Majestic Ranch staff member was arrested for
several counts of alleged child abuse. That staff member, however,
maintained their innocence and was not found guilty of any crimes.
A newspaper article that came out around the same time
reported that the prosecutor dropped many of the charges after
(24:15):
one of the victims recanted their statement and another student's
parents did not make them available to testify. At the hearing,
a judge dropped the rest of the charges, but perhaps
the most shocking is that that staff member apparently remained
employed by Majestic Ranch all while facing these charges. Based
(24:35):
on the records we could find, Majestic Ranch seemed to
have closed around two thousand and seven. Another school called
Old West Ranch Academy, with ties to the Peart family,
eventually reopened at the same address a few years later,
before records show it officially closed in twenty nineteen. No
matter the allegations, so many details matter when it comes
(24:59):
to charging, trying, and convicting someone, and while it is
the bedrock principle of the American justice system that everyone
is innocent until proven guilty, oftentimes with this industry, justice
seems to sway to the benefit of the defendants, and
we hope by the end of this season we can
truly understand why.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
From what we've heard up to this point this season,
we know Lichfield wanted to focus on behavior modification rather
than psychiatry like at Provo Canyon. If he was after experiences,
as he described it, then, a fateful meeting with two men, dwayne'
Smotherman and David Gilcrease would pave the way for some
(25:51):
of the most horrific allegations we've heard. After leaving Provo,
Lichfield encountered a concept that would become the crux of
his program model, something that some survivors would recall as
one of the most traumatizing aspects of their stays. This
was a pivotal moment that would redefine the very essence
(26:12):
of his facilities. Before we can get into any of
these allegations from survivors, it's necessary to understand the background
and genesis of Litchfield's relationship with Dwayne and David because
it sets the stage for what's to come. On a
mild day in November nineteen eighty eight, a small newspaper
(26:33):
in Saint George, Utah, released an announcement that a seminar
to quote help participants make winning life choices was being
held at Southern Utah State College. The seminar was called
Keys to Success, and this seminar changed everything.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
In nineteen eighty eight, Dwayne Smotherman was a corporate trainer
from Arizona and had spent two decades of his life
offering self improvement courses to everyone from entry level employees
to c suite exacts. Here's Dwayne.
Speaker 7 (27:10):
People always ask what I do, and by training, what
I do is I'm an industrial psychologist, and I do
a great deal of work in the area of coaching, training,
and consulting.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He shared that his interest in psychology started in high
school and followed him to college, but according to him,
it wasn't until a visit to a VA hospital that
he became dismayed at the treatment he saw and decided
to dedicate his life to helping people. At the time,
there were all types of personal fulfillment and self help
organizations springing up.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
And during the seventies, the mid the mid to you
letter part of the seventies, training companies proliferated all over
the country, and there were several companies there. You know,
there was Lifespring, there was est there was actualizations, there
was you know, context, There was a whole plethora of
different companies that were really springing up, and people were
(28:04):
drawing these trainings like crazy. And of course the seventies
the me generation rightyone to check out me me, you know,
and so they wanted to look at their beliefs, their attitudes,
their assumptions, their behaviors, their behavioral patterns, and it was
it was fascinating to me. So I just jumped ship
with all the clinical work and went into this work.
(28:28):
Ended up, you know, getting involved with a personal development
company at the time called Lifespring, which was about personal effectiveness,
personal development, behavioral modification, things like that.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Lifespring a large group awareness training program founded by a
man named John Henley in nineteen seventy four. Large group
awareness training, often abbreviated as LGAD, is a type of
program aimed at enhancing personal development. These large group seminars
typically use a combination of lectures, discussions, and exercises in
(29:04):
a group setting to help participants explore their beliefs, behaviors,
and relationships. The goal is often to bring about personal transformation,
self awareness, and improved life skills. However, these programs were
and can be controversial, with many critics questioning the confrontational
methods and effectiveness.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
The trainings took place in empty churches, conference halls, and amphitheaters.
They were deeply immersive, confrontational, and extremely structured. Some participants
did report feelings of increased self confidence and happiness at
the end of these seminars, but later studies would question
whether these were placebo effects. In fact, a nineteen eighty
(29:51):
three participant observation study on life Spring by American psychologists
Janis Hagen and Richard Adams found that all so, though
participants often experience a heightened sense of well being as
a consequence of the training, the phenomenon is essentially pathological,
meaning that in the program studied, the training systematically undermines
(30:14):
ego functioning and promotes regression to the extent that reality
testing is significantly impaired. In Layman's terms, participants often found
it hard to think clearly and stay grounded in reality
after their training. There was a fine line between breakthroughs
and breakdowns.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
When Dwayne attended Lifespring, it was still relatively new.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
So what I took the training. I took the training
in the mid seventies, and I was so enthralled by
what I saw. I was so I was enthralled by
the results and the impact it had to me on
other people. I was really really fascinated by the process itself,
because was something different than what I had I'd studied before,
(31:02):
because you know, I'd come from basically an educational clinical background,
and this was very much of an experiential, process oriented situation.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Dwayne believed in the methodology, so he became a facilitator.
After a few years, he ended up teaming up with
David Gilcrease, another facilitator. Here's Dwayne again.
Speaker 7 (31:22):
Myself and my old business partner, my former business partner,
a David. We had a training company in Salt Lake
City called Excel Excel Training Corporation ex CEO, and we
were doing the general public personal development work, you know,
the trainings we had. We had a building with offices
(31:45):
and training rooms and the whole deal. And so I
was spending half my time in Utah and half my
time in Arizona.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And we believe that it was one of their seminars
in November of nineteen eighty eight that Robert Litchfield attended.
Arvin Lichfield, Robert's brother, who he heard from an episode
one shares that his brother was immediately taken with them.
Speaker 8 (32:07):
He got involved with a group of seminars that he
had personally got involved with and thought that they had
made some real changes in his productivity in his life.
And it basically was sort of experiential learning, and he
thought that that was powerful enough and would help people
get clarity on what they wanted to do with their life,
their life mission, et cetera, and he wanted to share
(32:29):
that with everybody. So what he did is he literally
hired three of their top facilitators in the seminars, and
we had these seminars that nobody else had.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Here's what Dwayne says happened. After meeting Litchfield.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
The owners and founders of the WASP programs came into
our training as participants, and they unbeknownst to us no
idea and benownst to us that you know, they had
these all these schools and this organization, but they came
(33:06):
to us. So the CEO came to us, the founder,
and said, is there a way that we can incorporate
this work into these schools that work with teens at risk?
Is there a way that we can create a behavioral
element in modification element to work with kids.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
David and Dwyane agreed to work with Lichfield and created
a series of seminars called Tasks, Team Accountability, Self Esteem,
and Keys to Success.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
The owners and founders of WASP UH worked with us
for two years to develop a series of trainings that
we can uh integrate into the schools because the schools
where the kids could earn their their their educational you know,
educational credits in the programs so they could get their diploma,
(34:00):
was and so forth and so on. There was graduation
ceremonies and the whole thing. So we did not work for,
if you will, the programs themselves. We were not employees
of West We were, if you will, consultants. We were
the behavioral education element. So they contracted with us to
(34:25):
come into the schools and disseminate the seminars, and quite frankly,
it was a major success. And so before you knew it,
we were doing the trainings all over the country east
coast to west coast, then overseas in Prague, the Czech Republic,
(34:47):
over in Jamaica, over in Costa Rica, in Mexico, and
even in Samoa in the South Pacific. And so we
were traveling all over the place in delivering these seminars
and it just kind of just amped up. It just
kind of, you know, it just rolled, it just rolled.
It was a snowball.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Doctor Stephen Hassen is an expert on undo influence, brainwashing,
and unethical hypnosis and the author of the best selling
book Combating cult mind control. He tours the world conducting
lectures and workshops helping people understand the power of mind control.
He believes that Life Spring seminars were cultic and dangerous.
Speaker 9 (35:35):
Anyway, Life Spring was one of these these large group
awareness trainings. This these types of group process things where
hypnotic techniques are being used. They're not run by.
Speaker 10 (35:49):
Mental health professionals. The people aren't pre screened. ABC did
a documentary showing abuses in Life Spring where people were
being told to identify their fear and then confront their fear.
So for example, they showed the story of a young
(36:11):
man who was afraid of water and he dove into
a moving river. The only problem was he had never
learned to swim, and he died.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Stories like this were common among former Life Spring followers,
but the founder played these down, insisting that his trainings
had clear disclaimers that warned off those who were mentally
unstable and unsuited for their methods. Despite some of the controversy,
the seminar business was booming, and Lichfield would take these
(36:42):
lessons with him to his other schools.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Robert Litchfield armed with the new seminars in the learnings
he'd acquired from seeing his brother in law, Dan Peart
run Majestic Ranch. Was so to revolutionize his approach to
behavior modification. He envisioned seminars inspired by life Spring, tailored
not just for troubled teens, but their parents too. Now
(37:12):
he just needed a facility to call his own. In
nineteen eighty eight, Robert Lichfield arrived in Lavik in Utah
and bought a building at the edge of town. He
opened the doors of his very first program. He named
it Cross Creek Manor for Girls. Kirby would attend this program.
(37:33):
We will hear her story next week on Trapped in Treatment.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
Is.
Speaker 11 (37:40):
He liked to have little object lessons, and one of
his lessons was one day he said that I was
a doormat and in a high traffic area in the
rec center where people have to walk from going from
place to place. He made me lie on the floor
all day with a sign that said doormat, and when
people walked by, they had a step on me and
look me in the eye.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
All of our efforts to reach Robert Litchfield, Dan Peart,
and David Gilcrease for comment were unsuccessful, and they did
not respond to our requests for comment. From our research,
none of them have ever been charged with or found
guilty of any crime stemming from allegations of abuse or
in connection with WASP or any of the schools affiliated therewith.
Speaker 12 (38:32):
Hey everyone, it's Paris. Thanks for listening to episode two.
There's so much more to learn. To receive exclusive content
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