June 11, 2024 • 56 mins
The seminars were part of WWASP’s unique treatment model. Elaborate, psychological processes created by two facilitators that left a trail of trauma in their wake. We will hear from both survivors and parents what it was like to endure these often days-long experiences.
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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 (00:14):
From iHeartRadio, London Audio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
is Trapped in Treatment. We're your hosts.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Rebecca Mellinger, Grown and I'm Caroline Cole. Join us
on our journey to uncover the hidden truths of an
industry shrouded in scandal. We have one mission to make
sure that no child has to experience the hell that
is the troubled teen industry. We are here to continue
to fight for justice and to make sure that the
(00:43):
voices of survivors are not silenced. These are stories that
deserve to be told and heard.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This season is all about WASP, the Worldwide Association of
Specialty Programs in Schools, one of the largest networks of
troubled teen pro in the industry, masterminded by one man,
Robert Litchfield. We're for halfway through the season now and
hope you all have a better understanding of the vast
(01:11):
empire and nearly impenetrable buffer that Lichfield created. His family
members and close connections held leadership positions at the various
programs under the WASP umbrella, from facilities in rural Utah
to the beaches of Mexico. Lichfield's domain spanned states and oceans.
Despite the different locations, the survivors we spoke to said
(01:34):
there was one aspect that stood out from the rest.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
In this episode, we will be focusing on a concept
we've referred to several times already this season, seminars. We
know Robert Lichfield started implementing them after he attended a
Live Spring training in nineteen eighty eight where he met
two Life Spring facilitators, Dwayne Smotherman and his partner David Gilcrease.
(01:59):
Life Spring star in the nineteen seventies and was advertised
as a personal development program to help transform your life
and build life skills, but it became much more than that.
Much like WASP, Life Spring seminars faced their own litany
of legal issues back in the day, but most of
the lawsuits against them were settled outside of the courtroom.
(02:22):
One woman in southern California sued Life Spring because she
tried to commit suicide and spent three years in a
mental hospital. That woman settled with Life Spring for an
undisclosed amount in nineteen ninety one. An attorney for Life Spring, however,
argued the women's mental problems were not caused by her
taking the course. Other people also filed similar lawsuits against
(02:45):
the company, including one woman in nineteen ninety who was
a former Life Spring employee. She said she dealt with
the anxiety attacks, depression, and a suicide attempt. One man
jumped in the Willamette River in Oregon because he wanted
to conquer his fear of water. Instead, he drowned. John Hanley,
(03:06):
Life Spring's founder reportedly said at the time the training
doesn't cause anything. Life causes stuff. The case was settled
for an undisclosed amount while on appeal, after a jury
verdict in favor of the victim's family. In another case,
a woman from Seattle reportedly had an asthma attack during
one of the first days of the seminar. She walked
(03:29):
out of the room, collapsed in the parking lot, went
into a coma, and died several days later. Life Spring
denied responsibility, but reportedly settled with the woman's family for
an unknown amount. Life Spring said anyone with a history
of mental breakdowns or recent therapy should not attend their trainings,
(03:51):
but they ultimately let the attendee decide.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
What to do.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Life Spring officials also believed that those who were hospitalized
following a seminar should not have signed up in the
first place, As these examples indicate, for some Life Spring attendees,
the seminars ended up having lasting adverse effects, but there
were many people who said Live Spring changed their life.
For Robert Litchfield, the latter seemed to be true. Dwayne Smotherman,
(04:20):
David Gilcrease, and Lichfield worked together to create something the
trouble teen industry had to our knowledge, never seen before.
The WASP seminars and the one Lichfield went to share
the same name keys to success. While Smothermen and Gilcrease
were not WASP employees, they worked closely with the organization
(04:42):
to implement their seminars at facilities all over the country
and even around the world. The seminars ran from sunrise
to sunset and lasted for multiple days. The completion of
seminars was required in order for kids at WASP programs
to go home, and there was no getting around them.
(05:04):
They became the backbone of WASP programs. But as you'll learn,
they could also be emotionally painful and crippling experiences. The
difference between seminars and some of the other allegations and
accounts we've already heard throughout this season is that seminars
did not leave physical marks. Instead, they perpetuated what I believe,
(05:26):
based on my own experiences in them, to be psychological abuse.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Chelsea, who was at Casaby, the Sea and High Impact,
said there could be an entire show based solely on seminars.
That alone shows how deeply ingrained the seminars were and
how wasp operated. As you'll hear the takeaways from these
survivors have so many similarities, despite the fact that they
attended different programs in different states or even countries. It
(05:57):
illustrates the nearly universal effect that these seminars had on
survivors and how something that was advertised and purported to
create emotional and behavioral breakthroughs left teens with breakdowns instead.
The stories you will hear in the following episode are
the personal allegations and accounts of individuals who have attended
(06:17):
treatment and one of these facilities. All experiences, views, and
opinions are their own immersive, haunting, unnerving. With the survivors,
we interviewed for this season, there was a strong consensus
WASP seminars stayed with them long after they left the program.
(06:41):
Many have compared these seminars to mind control, essentially breaking
down an individual's perception of self through highly confrontational processes.
In order to get a better understanding of seminars, it
was necessary to talk to Dwayne Smotherman about what it
was like starting his work with Robert Litchfield.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And WASP to differentiate themselves from all these other schools
that were out there, because I mean a lot of
these other schools, I mean, they were doing some pretty
bizarre things, and you know, it was it was, I mean,
there was so there was so much differentiation in the
in these schools. I mean I couldn't I could believe
(07:18):
myself when I first saw I didn't even know that
they had these all these schools going in Utah. I didn't.
I didn't even I wasn't even aware of it. When
I looked at these these advertisements for all these schools,
I was like, what is this is amazing? And so
we did a little bit of research, uh, to look
into some of these schools, and they they had some
(07:42):
common themes, you know, there were some slight variances, but
they had some common themes. But what they didn't have
was they didn't have this behavioral component that allowed the
kids to really take a deep dive into looking at
themselves at a guttural level and looking at what's driving
their behavior. What are their attitudes, you know, look at
(08:04):
their beliefs, look at their assumptions, look at these patterns,
look at these things, look at the relationship with their parents. Again,
a lot of these schools were based on this blame
game where parents just dumped the kids out of the
school and said get it together, man, and the parents
were they were off doing whatever they did. So, yeah,
(08:26):
I do recall these conversations and that's why we sculpted
the seminars around, you know, this kind of a platform.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Duayne shared that his intention when creating the seminars was
to get the kids to look inward rather than outward,
and to break down the natural resistance that they felt
after being forced into this new environment.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Well, you know, given the circumstances, given the situation, it's
it's really uh, it's really a shock, I think. I mean,
it's really it's really like what I mean, and you know,
my my intention as a trainer, as a facilitator, my
intention is to get their attention and get them conscious
(09:17):
about this whole situation. Okay, and that is it. Because
if I can get their attention upfront, then we we've
crossed the first hurdle.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
A major component of seminars was to spark a breakthrough
for participants, but he shared that not every team was
overly receptive and ready for a breakthrough.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Of course, there was some degree of resistance because they're
just saying, they're just thinking to themselves, Oh, this is
another part of this. You know this BS program, This
is another part of this crap, and you know this
is all like you know, they're just trying to control
our minds and they're trying to, you know, manipulate this
and so forth and so on. And I've never heard
all the stories. I'm of ad nauseum, but the trainings
(10:03):
gave them a moment of pause to gather their breath
and say, listen, I'm not your dad, I'm not your mom,
I'm not your grandpa, your grandpa. Noting that stuck, I'm
someone who is here as an outside resource and I'm
(10:29):
not a part of all the drama in your life.
I'm here to educate you about yourself for a better
life and better options. What's all about choices you make
in life.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
It was clear from our conversation that Dwayne saw himself
as an educator, Yet for the people we spoke to,
these seminars were anything but an educational experience. We know
from Lichfield's Dateline interview that we played in episode three
that he wanted his programs to be quote, an experience
a word that is vague enough to have positive and
(11:07):
negative connotations. It just depends on the person in the
midst of it. It's subjective either way. An experience is
meant to stay with us and leave an impact. For
many WASP survivors, these seminar experiences will be embedded in
their memories and emotional fabric for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Dwayne Smotherman, David Gilcreas, and other seminar facilitators would travel
from facility to facility, administering seminars to the kids at
WASP affiliated programs. This circuit allowed seminars to take place
at each program approximately every six weeks. Completing seminars was
a necessary requirement to advance in levels in the program,
(11:50):
which meant if you wanted to go home, you had
to successfully complete the seminars. There were four main seminars, Orientation, Discovery, Focus,
and Keys to Success. While each one was slightly different
in content, the structure was overall the same. For two
(12:11):
to three days, participants would convene in a large conference
room in the facility, where they would be led through
a series of exercises or processes, as they were called
by a facilitator. Each process had a specific lesson the
aligned with the overall belief system of the program. They
taught participants that there was no right or wrong, only
(12:34):
working or non working choices. They had their own language
and catchphrases too, like what you fear, you create or
by your results, you have exactly what you intend. These
sayings were hurled at us in response to just about
anything we shared about our lives. Each seminar was supposed
(12:56):
to get us out of our comfort zones, or so
they told us, teach us how to be one hundred
percent accountable for everything in our lives. Being a victim
was the worst thing you could possibly be. On the surface,
being accountable, of course, is not a bad thing, but
sometimes the program would take it to another level, insisting
(13:19):
that kids be accountable for sexual assaults or even the
death of a parent or loved one. Chelsea Feiler, who
attended seminars It Costed by the Sea, furthers that point,
describing how they made you feel accountable for everything in
your life.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Now, this is where they used a lot of the
same types of processes that came from Lifespring, where they
would essentially like, try to trick you into, you know,
revealing your innermost, deepest, you know, thoughts and secrets and
(14:00):
things like that, and then turn around and use those
things against you to be like, how is this a
reflection of your life? And then it was extremely computational.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Lichfield intended for these seminars to be completely immersive. The
seminars began with a sense of urgency. Every seminar started
with the theme song from two thousand and one, A
Space Odyssey. The song itself is daunting, it's stressful, it's haunting.
It includes loud drums, cymbals, and horns. It makes everything
(14:35):
feel heightened. And there was one primary rule that determined
if you would even make it into that day's seminar,
be in your seat by the time the music stopped. Playing.
The song is only one minute and forty five seconds long.
It was a simple rule, but they demanded complete obedience.
If you weren't seated in time, you would be kicked
(14:57):
out before you even had a chance to start. And remember,
these seminars were required to graduate. It was extremely high
stakes from the very beginning. The song could start playing
at any moment. You could be sitting at a table
working on an assignment and the song came on. That
meant you barely had time to put your work away
(15:20):
neatly and find your seat. It didn't matter if you
were in the bathroom, eating lunch, or anything of the like.
If the Space Odyssey theme song went out over the speakers,
your only job was to get to your spot as
soon as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Survivors have said that seminars felt like a psychological experiment
that were intentionally made to be complex. Aaron, who also
went to academy at Ivy Ridge, said that even though
she experienced seminars, she still finds them to be one
of the more confusing topics to define and describe to anybody.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
I still don't know what the hell with seminars were, right,
like this is like the this is the thing that
whenever you try to like explain it to anybody that
you know, the like the meme with the guy with
the maps from Sunny in Philadelphia and he's like pointing
and like looks crazy as hell. Like that's how you
sound when you try to describe these seminars, and you
(16:15):
know they were, I mean, they were extremely emotional experiences
under the guise of like finding your real self.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Chelsea Filer describes one of the seminars that she remembers
most vividly.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
One of them, we had to take a towel that
was wrapped in duct tape and just beat the floor
until we were past the point of exhaustion. And here
you are in a large seminar room with you know,
probably thirty forty people, both boys and girls, in the
(16:58):
same room, just beating the wrap out of the floor
or a chair with these towels, And that was supposed
to elicit obviously physical exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, and just kind
of like this weird woo woo stuff where you know,
(17:18):
then you would lie on the floor and then they
would talk about, you know, your childhood and say, let's
imagine we're opening our childhood photo book. And we see
our mother and our father, and we realized that, you know,
we were once this beautiful inner child and we were innocent,
(17:41):
and then what happened. We screwed up our lives, and
then we screwed up our parents' lives, And you know,
how do we take accountability for that? How do we
become the perfect step for child?
Speaker 2 (17:57):
During the duct tape towel process, the seminar facilitators would
shout at each participant, encouraging them to go even harder.
According to survivors, they would yell specific things meant to
trigger the children, like your mother never loved you, did she?
Or you're just a failure and you're failing now? How
(18:18):
is that a reflection of your life? The ultimate goal
was to get the kids to emotionally crumble. Aaron A calls,
what would happen next?
Speaker 7 (18:27):
Like, I've never screamed like that before or since in
my entire life.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
I've I was in labor without an epidural for a
long time.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
I've never screamed like that in my life.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
You know, where you're just screaming, crying or bloody murdered,
like and you know, and then they have you like
lay back down, and like you go through it like
three or four times, Like you go through it for
your siblings, you go through it for your parents, you
go through it for like the people at school that
did you wrong, and you go keep going through this
process like chemically.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
In your brain. You know you're doing all of this work.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
I mean, you're working out hard, like I was always
sore after and you know, so you get all these endorphins,
all these like good feelings like start happening because of
all of that, plus like the release of crying adds dope, mame,
so you get all of these like chemicals, these happy
chemicals going in your brain. They tell you to lay
(19:23):
down and you're gonna write a letter to your magical child, right,
And this is like where it gets a little kooky
and like where I'm like, you know, so they say
like all this stuff about how who you were before
the program, Like that's not who you really are.
Speaker 7 (19:40):
Like who you are is back before like when you
used to be happy. Okay, except that like I've been
depressed my entire life.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
I literally can't remember a time when I wasn't at
least a little bit depressed. Okay, So none of this
really computed for me, but you had to write it with.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Your non dominant hand, and like.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
It was just the craziest shits. I opened mind a
couple of months ago, and it is the weirdest letter.
It's like, you know, never forget this moment, and you
know you should be so proud of yourself.
Speaker 7 (20:14):
It's just it's the most bizarre letter I've ever read
in my life. And you know, it's unhinged, is what
it is.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Kirby, who experienced seminars at Cross Creek, describes them using
an incredibly apt analogy.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
And this is all very intense, deeply emotional, deeply personal stuff,
and you're laid bare for everyone to see. And they
had all of these different processes throughout these seminars that
were designed to break you down and then change you
and build you up to something new. They wanted us
to be built into these shiny automatons that we're just,
(20:52):
you know, cogs in the machine we were working. We
don't you lose a sense of self and you become
part of this I don't know, it's like this homogeneous
group at some point where you start to lose your
identity and you become part of the hole.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
They were cogs in a machine, no personal identity, just
complete dependence on the machine as a whole. But there
was one specific chilling seminar that stood out from the
rest and seemed like it was purposefully designed to make
people feel like the exact opposite of being part of
the whole. Mela, Kirby, and Chelsea all attended different programs,
(21:31):
but they all individually described this particular seminar.
Speaker 9 (21:36):
We had this process called Lifeboat that was one of
the most traumatic experiences I had in seminar and definitely
in the top ten in the program.
Speaker 8 (21:52):
The lifeboat was an interesting thing. We were very tired,
it was a long night, and they got us. We
were all lying on the floor in this room and
it was a semihypnotic state. There was peaceful music and
you could hear waves crashing and it was very nice.
And they walked you through this guided meditation where you
were on this ship and we're full of people, and
(22:12):
it was wonderful and you were relaxed, and you know,
it had been massive hell all day, so like, finally
have a chance to try to center myself a little bit. Well,
you get relaxed, and then all of a sudden they're
like start yelling and there's a horrible alarm and it's scary,
and everything's loud and really loud.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
We were all on a cruise and our boat crash
like the Titanic, and there was only one life raft,
and we had to choose who got those four or
five seats on that life raft, and then everyone else
is supposed to die.
Speaker 9 (22:47):
We all had to vote on who lives and who dies,
and in the most traumatic way I could think of
to do that, meaning lining up in two lines that
faced each other, and people going down the line making
this kind of chopping motion with their hand and telling
(23:09):
the person in front of them to die.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
The game was rigged because if you chose to die
to save someone else, then you don't care enough about
yourself to live. But if you chose to live, then
yourself you're full of yourself. You're egotistical, you don't care
about anyone, you're just selfish.
Speaker 10 (23:29):
This was like a really traumatic, really scary. Really it
was really hurtful. It was really hurtful to have people
like everyone told me to die. Not a single person
told me that I needed to live.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
The dynamic of how we interacted was then again held
against this like, how is this a reflection.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Of your life?
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Do you even care about your life if you ended
up dying? And what makes you think that you're worthy
of being one of the only ones to live, Being.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Forced to choose which of your peers deserved to live,
being told a parent's death was something they should be
accountable for. It sounds like the purpose was to completely
destroy someone's sense of self and identity.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Breaking down the sense of self is a huge part
of programs like Lifespring and WASP. We're all at risk
of being influenced by authority, even as adults, but especially
as young, impressionable teens. Seminars were impactful because of their
immersive nature and most importantly, because we had to complete
(24:40):
them to go home, which is what we desperately wanted
more than anything. We spoke to doctor Hassen, a mental
health professional who was formerly in Occult and is an
expert on the subject matter about this.
Speaker 11 (24:55):
Most people get programmed to not trust their in tuition
to shut down their bodies. And we're whole people and
we're embodied minds. There's not a mind body split. We're
embodied minds. We are our bodies, and if our bodies
being abused. Our minds are being abused. If we're not
(25:19):
getting seven to nine hours of sleep, we're being abused honestly,
because we're our mind and body is set for optimal functioning.
We need good food, we need sunlight, we need love
and security and information that's trustworthy. And the good news
(25:45):
is people recover from the most egregious circumstances if they're
given the tools to process what happened in the past.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Much like what doctor Hasen said, these seminars prayed on
our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. So many of us were hungry
and overtired. They knew exactly how to work us.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Going even further, these kids had no autonomy. They were
locked in, required to wear uniforms, walking straight lines, and
not speak outside their turn. There was immense control at
every single level. It seems like WASP believed that the
way to rebuild and rewire the mind required tearing at
it little by Little Bill, who was at Paradise Cove,
(26:32):
explains more.
Speaker 12 (26:34):
The seminars were all they all shared kind of a
common a common setting, you know, their large group awareness
seminars or elgats. They get a bunch of people in
a room and it's somewhat similar to some of the
stuff that I've seen for like, you know, corporate executives
(26:56):
or salespeople, that kind of thing. But they want to
dive into like your feelings. They have a lot of
pop psychology elements to them, a lot of kind of
New Age mysticism almost to them. The ideas are things
like that your brain can manifest whatever you're thinking about.
(27:18):
I think that's the secret, isn't it. And you know
that if you think about positive things, that positive things
will happen in your life. But if you think about
negative things or focus on your fears, you'll make them
come true. And you're mixed with that, it's a bunch
of jargon, a bunch of cultish kind of in talk,
(27:42):
a lot of activities that you would do that ran
ranged from confusing to like really emotional and frightening, and
the whole point of each seminar was kind of to
break you down mentally and then at the very end
they kind of like kind of build you back up.
It seemed like really half asked, like you spend two
(28:04):
days breaking me down and then you spend half a
day like putting me back together.
Speaker 9 (28:08):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
You know, some survivors have expressed they felt it was brainwashing.
Throughout history, brainwashing has been studied by scholars attempting to
understand how autocrats and cult leaders are able to manipulate
their followers to gain the trust of large groups of
people and then convince them to follow their lead. It's
(28:30):
powerful stuff and often leads to disastrous outcomes. It's something
that came up quite a bit when speaking to WASP survivors.
This is what Dweene Smotherman had to say when we
raised the concern that seminars felt like brainwashing to.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Some of these young people who have claimed that they
felt like the seminars were brainwashing them.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
What is your response to that?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I love this, I love this commentary. Well, you know
that's the default go to. You know, I mean brainwashing.
It's like, what are you talking about? You no, brainwashing?
I mean do I do I look like you know
the swami here? I mean, you know, I'm not I'm
not dressed in you know, I'm not dressed in weird clothes.
(29:15):
And we're not meditating and you know we're not going
to you know, we're not chanting. You know the thing
is that I saw I saw kids who would make
that comment about brainwashing just because we were attempting to
teach them certain principles about their life or about working
with with anybody in their life, their parents or anybody else,
(29:37):
you know. I mean that's brainwashing. No, I mean that
we're educational. I mean, I don't I don't understand the
brainwashing commentary, because i'd like to. I've yet to hear
anybody really explain that to me in a very explicit
and really in depth and sensible way other than a
(29:57):
reactive way. Well, we we just got brain washed. We's
got brainwashed. They just told us all this crap, and
you know, they kept gymming it down our throat and
YadA YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. Well, I mean the greatest
part of that was just simply attempting to teach you something.
It's like going to high school and they're trying to
teach you math, and they're trying to drill you down
in terms of how to how to really you know,
map out certain kinds of equations. So are you being brainwashed?
(30:22):
Are you being taught of methodology? I mean, what are
you talking about? And you put it in the context here,
you know. So, I mean I've I've heard all that stuff,
you know again, I mean, and I've gone to all
these you know, these websites and there's all this negative
there's all this negative commentary, and there's all this stuff.
(30:43):
You know, they're you know, they're river their BMW. They're
bitch and monor and whining about about what happened. And
what I would say to them is I'd say to them, Okay,
you know what, I would like to just step back
and look at what did you take away from the
program that you've felt has been valuable in terms of
(31:05):
your relationship with yourself, in your relationship with your family,
in a relationship with others in the world. Because it
can't be all baded. So what's worthy of praise about
the process you went through. I've gone through a lot
of stuff in my life that I didn't like. And
(31:26):
you know, I mean, I was around very controlling parents.
You know what, I could easily say they brainwashed the
hell out of me. Well, no they didn't. They were
attempting to teach me some valuable principles and you know what,
some of those I resisted, some of those I took on.
But in the end of it all, it was still
my choice, And so I would say I would save
(31:49):
those teams who are now adults. Look at how you grew,
look at how you transformed, look at how you shifted.
Are you the same person that you were where you
in the program? I doubt it. You've got three kids
and you're married, and you get your master's degree. I mean,
so how did that in that experience in some way
(32:12):
assist you and support you in growing being bigger and
better in your life even though there were some aspects
that you didn't like, or that you thought were coercive,
or that you thought were abusive, or whatever you thought
at the time. I'd ask you to kind of like
look at your perspective and what's the other side of
the of the perspective that you know you were constantly oppressed.
(32:37):
I mean, is there another side of that? And I
would say, I respect your opinion. I respect your perspective
that you know you have an issue with certain parts
of the program. That doesn't mean I agree with it,
but it means I do respect it. And you know,
at that time, your perspective was one of shock and
(32:59):
dis a in resistance, and it was I mean, that's
what that's what you were going through. You could have
anticipated that, and somehow maybe those feelings never left you.
So when we talk about the clinical or psychological impact,
maybe those feelings never left you, and you know, and
that and that and that is there with with you,
(33:19):
along with maybe some feelings of value as well. But
I would ask them to, you know, reassess the experience
in terms of value contribution in their life, and uh,
that's how that's how would address it. I would, but
I would. I definitely would not make them wrong for
what they're saying. Do you know what I'm saying, But
(33:41):
it doesn't mean that I agree with it.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
When I spoke with doctor Stephen Hassen, I told him
that Duayane felt their seminar methodologies were not brainwashing and
that they were teaching participants methods for a successful life.
Doctor Hasson had something to say about that.
Speaker 11 (33:59):
Well, I we don't know any cult person saying yeah,
we do brainwashing, unless they're making a joke about it.
But I would say to him or anyone else, look
at the behaviors, the information control, the thought control, the
emotional control, the whole context, and you will know the
(34:20):
tree by the fruit it bears. Are people independent and
drug free or are they traumatized. Maybe they're drug free,
but they're traumatized. That's not a good fruit. The big
frame for me is the issue of undue influence. That
really is the big picture.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
WASP representatives consistently denied any comparison to brainwashing or mind control.
In fact, Carl Farnsworth, who was president of WASP at
the time, told reporters in nineteen ninety eight, and I quote,
we don't brainwash ever. I've heard the comment before, but
it's not an accurate statement. When the kids are doing well,
(35:04):
the cynics say we must have brainwashed them. We are
giving them tools and an opportunity to correct. Doctor Hassen's
assessment suggests that the Lifespring model had the hallmarks of
a cult, and that other groups who base their methods
on the Lifespring model would likely have similar negative practices.
In his professional work, doctor Hassen developed something called the
(35:26):
BYTE model to describe cult specific models to recruit and
maintain control over people. BITE stands for behavior, information, thought,
and emotional control. And they focus on the concept of
undue influence.
Speaker 11 (35:42):
And I would allege or assert is probably the stronger
word that if one looks at the actual techniques used,
one would say Life Spring was doing undue influence, or
brainwashing or mind control.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
He explained that things like controlling someone's environment, what they eat,
what they wear, who they can talk to, and what
they should feel are all on the spectrum of undue influence.
The more of these that are being affected or controlled,
the more likely that person is experiencing a form of brainwashing.
And many of the techniques used in the WASP seminars
(36:22):
had undeniable characteristics of undue influence. Techniques like isolation, deception, trickery,
and coercion can be very subtle, to the point that
at the time, some survivors did find the seminar's beneficial
in the short term, but in the end a lot
of survivors walked away with more emotional trauma than before.
(36:44):
Dwayne told us he still hears from some people who
told him that the seminars transform them.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Let's just be totally honest. I mean, I'm totally aware
of a lot of the kickback and resistance of you know,
some of the so the kids in the programs, by
and large, when you look at the depth and the
breadth of all the thousands and thousands of teens have
gone through the program. I mean, I get endless now
that we're on social media. I get endless input from
(37:14):
people who've been in the program that are now in
their forties. They were sixteen and they said it changed
my wife. At the time. I didn't get it. I
didn't see it it changed my life.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Others felt they had to pretend to conform and like
the seminars just in order to get out. Here's Bill.
Speaker 12 (37:32):
I was aware even in the program that it was
all am I like a curse. Okay, I was aware
even in the program that it was all full of shit,
and I just decided to be full of shit too,
because I knew that's what I had to do to
get out. So I lied. I pretended like the seminars
(37:53):
worked for me. I pretended like I made some kind
of deep insights. I just I just made it up.
I pretended, and I can till I convinced them that
I had really bought it all and internalized it all,
and they let me go.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Several people have repeated that the point of the seminars
seemed to be to break you down and build you
back up. Crying in the dark, beating the ground with
a rolled up towel very experiential. Sure, in my opinion
and experience, this was not quite educational. However, as it
turns out, we weren't the only ones trying to cope
(38:34):
at seminars. While these kids were being put through these paces, internally,
the parents were also being asked to dig in, and
while they had the choice to opt out, they were
often convinced that this was the best way to help
their family heal. The parent seminars may not have been mandatory,
(38:56):
but who are we kidding wasts programs were not going
to send child and their tuition away just because their
parents wouldn't take part. Parents have said that they were
told by the programs they needed to fully invest in
the parent seminars in order for their children to have
a better chance of succeeding. Dwayne Smotherman explained the point
(39:17):
of the parent seminars in his own words, the.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Parent seminars dealt with the same principles, the same principles
as what the kids were going through because we went
to have an aligned experience. We don't want to have
the parents saying, you know, in talking one thing, the
kids talking another. So it was very, very similar in
terms of the processes. There were a few nuances, but
(39:43):
not a whole lot in terms of what the parents
were doing what the kids were doing.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Listening to Dwayne, it's understandable why parents would buy into them.
The goal of creating a common language and point of
understanding between parents and kids is aspirational. Munication breakdown in
families is often a leading reason for kids being sent away.
These parents may have believed that this truly was the
(40:08):
best way to help their kids to fully engage. However,
strange the requests. My mom, Meredith, who we heard from
last episode, attended one of the seminars. She shared why
she opted in and what she hoped to get out
of it.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
It was said like, hey, you know, we find higher
success rates in expediting the progress of the children when
the parents attend the seminars successfully. You know, so naturally
you're gonna be like, well, I want success for us.
We're doing this. We're one hundred percent in where you know,
(40:48):
I want help from my daughter. And I didn't want
to be the person that's like, you know, I don't
really care about your little seminars. You know, that wasn't
my attitude. It was like, I wanted help I wanted help,
you know, I thought they were going to help us.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
But yeah, a crucial tool in the program's toolbox. It
seems like WASP understood that parents were often desperate for
help and use this knowledge to their advantage. So they
pulled the parents in. They asserted that if the kids
had to do it, then the parents should too, because
(41:26):
in Dwayne's eyes, the kids should not be the only
ones held accountable.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
And just to let you know, you know, we developed
trainings not just for the teens. Our premise was, don't
just send your kid away to get fixed without you
doing anything. It's not going to happen. So we are
going to work with you in concert with the kids.
(41:53):
So that's got to be a parallel path because you've
got to work on yourself. Gus, what's going on here
is this is a family system an issue. It's not
a blame the fault issue. It's a family systems issue.
There's something amiss in the system and the teens are
reacting to it in resistance to it. And so let's
get clear about what that break is. You know, the
(42:17):
parents wanted to blame you know, well, it's it's drugs.
You know, it's the gang violence. It's you know, it's
the media. It's this. I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that isn't it. I said, those are diversions, not causal factors.
And what we found was that there was more drama
going on many times with the parents than there was
(42:38):
for the kids.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Here's doctor Hasson's take on it.
Speaker 11 (42:42):
From line is that when parents are desperate, they're vulnerable, right,
they love their child, They're looking for solutions, and therefore
they may google or whatever, and the first you know
contact is beautiful images, great sounding testimonials, and then often
(43:03):
they get other parents who've already been recruited and indoctrinated
online with you saying if you love your child, then
you will send you your child here or else you'll
regret it for the rest of your life. And whenever
anybody gives you a binary of do this or else,
you'll have no future, no hope or whatever. I love
(43:26):
your listeners to get alarm bells going off in their
head that this is danger, danger, because life is complex,
and if something is legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny,
and then you need to search for critical evaluations and
(43:46):
critical information before you make a decision. Why Because you
want an informed decision. You don't want to regret like
so many parents have, that they subjected their loved one
to this horrible abuse in these troubled teen entities.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
My mom went because I'm sure, like many other parents there,
she was trying to help our family. I asked my
mom about what seminars were like for her. Did they
do similar exercises? Were they more or less confrontational. One
of the stories she revealed was unnerving. Here she is
describing her experience with a seminar process.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Some people were in groups and some people were single
like myself. I didn't have a group. They didn't assign
me to a group. It was like you on your own.
The other people were in groups. Well, they had to
dress up, Like there was a group of men who
had to go again, you've already paid for everything. You
were there at the seminar, so we had three hours
to go, Like we were given a paper that told
(44:54):
us what to do, and this group of men had
to go buy ballerina outfits for men and come in
with you know, their ballerina outfits. Okay. Other people had
to dress up like hookers or prostitutes or weird stuff
like not I mean, it's just why are we It
(45:14):
was weird in the sense of how is this therapy?
How is this help for anybody? And what is this
all about? Really? You know, they told me I was
going to be Shania Twain, okay, and that what's that song? Man,
I feel like a woman? Okay, that I need to
(45:34):
go buy a Shania Twain outfit, and that I was
going to be Shania Twain, and that when I got back,
I was going to be in the middle of everyone
attending this seminar. So there's like eighty ninety people there,
that I would be dancing for everybody in the middle
(45:56):
of this ballroom, seminar ballroom, Shania Twain, and I'd be
singing her song, okay. And not only that, this is
very shocking. This is very shocking even talking about it,
I feel shocked. And I did it. I was there.
I have pictures of it, Okay, I wish I had
them today to show you. Not only that, but I
(46:20):
would be picking out one man out of the audience
and doing a lap dance for this guy. Okay. I'm
not kidding, I'm not this is one happened. I mean,
I was just terrified. I was just terrified, like, oh
my god.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
My mom didn't know what to do, but she continued.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
You know, I went and got the Shania Twain skirt,
white uh suhirt or some Shania Twain looking thing. Okay, Well,
I was just terrified when I had to get up
there and do it. And part of me was thinking,
is this being done to get you out of your shell?
Is it like an extreme Like I was trying to
(47:03):
think of why, because I'm not, you know, an Einstein
every minute of the day. But like, you know, I'm
trying to figure out, like what's behind this that we're
doing this. I don't know because it was horrifying, and
I had to pick out a man from the group.
So I just picked out this guy who seemed like
(47:24):
a friend, you know, during the seminar, like we clicked,
you know, anyways, and I just whispered to him like
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, because I'm sure he felt mortified too,
you know, like, and I'm like, can you just help me?
I was like, just please help me through this.
Speaker 9 (47:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
The story Caroline's mom shared is wild sixty to eighty
parents in a room playing dress up and acting out
embarrassing scenarios by her own account, everything in her head
was telling her that this was really extreme, uncomfortable, ridiculous,
But she continued, Why would any parent take the seminars
(48:05):
or continue after the first one. Hearing her recount her story,
it's clear that these were highly emotional, experiential and made
to remove a sense of reality. What did she think
about Caroline undergoing similar experiences.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
I didn't know what seminars she was doing, but I
was told that they are nothing like the adult seminars.
These are just very basic, you know, let's talk things out.
It was like talk therapy seminar type of thing. It
was more therapeutic, is what I was told that. I
was told it was not the same thing we were
(48:43):
doing at all. We're trying to get to the bottom
of their behavior, which I mean that sounds great as
a parent, they're like, oh, well, that sounds really good.
But then talking to Caroline later, yes, I mean these
same matho were being imposed on her almost like these
(49:05):
are like experimental setups, you know, psychological studies of people.
I mean not in a good way either, like a
mad scientist implementing these things on people to see people's reactions.
That's what I took away from it. But at the time, no,
I was not concerned about it because of course I
didn't have any good communication with her. I mean, it's
(49:26):
not like we could just sit on the phone and
talk about well, tell me about your seminar and you
know what I mean, Like, we didn't have communication.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
The lack of information the parents had about what was
really happening within the programs was a classic symptom of
the strict control of information that would flow in and
out of the facilities. Many parents were likely unable to
discern what was really happening, both to themselves and their children.
Some survivors believe that these strange ego breaking workshops, paired
(49:58):
with an inability to community with the outside world, caused
people to create emotional trauma bonds. Here's Chelsea.
Speaker 5 (50:07):
Well, we called these processes stretches, and we had them
in the kids seminars. But the parents also experienced that
you have to kind of experience this really unique sensation
of vulnerability and breakthrough in order to develop trust with
(50:35):
the people that are you know, essentially housing your children
and fixing your children. Having this seminar high is what
we called it is what really captured a lot of
people's loyalty. A lot of the program, parents became fiercely
(50:57):
loyal and then of course that turns into a marketing opportunity.
And I would say that the weirder the process, the
more they kind of like trauma bonded over this.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Trauma bonding is a real term. The man who is
credited with coining the phrase, doctor Patrick Carnes, said trauma
bonds are formed out of exploitative relationships, which happens when
a victim develops a bond with a person who is
destructive to them. According to the literature, trauma deeply affects
the brain, especially in the way it interacts with certain neurochemicals.
(51:38):
When there is fear, there are chemicals, and when the
fear leaves, as do the chemicals, it creates a craving
for those chemicals that creates a certain attachment to the
trauma and fear. The research suggests there are a number
of contexts in which trauma bonding can occur, including child abuse,
(52:00):
dysfunctional relationships, kidnapping, hostage situations, religious abuse, cults, and addictions.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Trauma bonding was a mutual experience. Both kids and parents
were left reeling. Here's Chelsea again.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
Kind of hard to explain to other people that you
went to a steminar and they made you do some
embarrassing stuff, but it made you feel great. But people
that went through it with you truly understand what that meant.
So that bonded you to the other parents, and bonding
you to the other parents and the facilitators is what
(52:39):
established that kind of loyalty. And I would say it
was very cult like to hold it over their heads
that we know things about you your personal life, We've
made you do things, and I think that actually speaks
a little bit to the power that these facilitators had
(53:01):
over the parents.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Duane disagrees with this sentiment.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
I think that what people would get is that this
is an illuminating educational process, a chance for the kids
to look themselves in a very sincere deep way, without
any other agenda other than being conscious and making different choices.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
My mom has her own perspective on what the seminars
that became the hallmark of WASP or all of those.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
Are psychological tools. I think they are incredibly abusive seminars.
I don't know who's developed these courses. I don't know
who's developed them, but they are an abuse it's almost
like to me an experiment in sadism against humans. Let's
(53:54):
see how far we can push these people and then
laugh at them.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
We hope you walk away from this episode with a
better grasp of seminars and how they managed to have
such a far reaching effect on both parents and their kids.
There were a cornerstone of WASP programs and a requirement
to graduate. These experiences effectively changed the way kids and
the parents viewed themselves and their relationships with each other.
(54:33):
And we want to be clear about something. These experiences
that happen to the people in this episode are things
that can happen to anyone. You, your partner, your neighbor,
your classmate. Doctor Stephen Hassen emphasizes this point.
Speaker 11 (54:50):
One of the problems is that most people walk around
incorrectly believing that only weak or stupid, bid or uneducated
people from bad families can be preyed upon by nefarious agents.
And it's just not true.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Next time on Trapped in Treatment.
Speaker 13 (55:19):
That I remember laughing with my husband going, God, it's
hilarious people think that that's what's going on. I wonder
what it really is, because what people were telling us
was that it was essentially a private prison to law
to American children, and that seemed soul.
Speaker 7 (55:36):
I mean, how could there.
Speaker 13 (55:37):
Possibly be a private prison in the middle of nowhere
on the south coast of Jamaica for American children. It
just didn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
All of our efforts to reach Robert Litchfield, David Gilcrease,
and car Farnsworth for comment were unsuccessful, and they did
not respond to our request 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 14 (56:18):
Hey everyone, it's Paris. Thanks for listening to episode seven.
What do you think about the WASP Seminars Shocking Right?
Share thoughts with me on social media with the hashtag
trapped in Treatment, and make sure you tune into new
episodes every week 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 (00:14):
From iHeartRadio, London Audio and executive producer Paris Hilton. This
is Trapped in Treatment. We're your hosts.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Rebecca Mellinger, Grown and I'm Caroline Cole. Join us
on our journey to uncover the hidden truths of an
industry shrouded in scandal. We have one mission to make
sure that no child has to experience the hell that
is the troubled teen industry. We are here to continue
to fight for justice and to make sure that the
(00:43):
voices of survivors are not silenced. These are stories that
deserve to be told and heard.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
This season is all about WASP, the Worldwide Association of
Specialty Programs in Schools, one of the largest networks of
troubled teen pro in the industry, masterminded by one man,
Robert Litchfield. We're for halfway through the season now and
hope you all have a better understanding of the vast
(01:11):
empire and nearly impenetrable buffer that Lichfield created. His family
members and close connections held leadership positions at the various
programs under the WASP umbrella, from facilities in rural Utah
to the beaches of Mexico. Lichfield's domain spanned states and oceans.
Despite the different locations, the survivors we spoke to said
(01:34):
there was one aspect that stood out from the rest.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
In this episode, we will be focusing on a concept
we've referred to several times already this season, seminars. We
know Robert Lichfield started implementing them after he attended a
Live Spring training in nineteen eighty eight where he met
two Life Spring facilitators, Dwayne Smotherman and his partner David Gilcrease.
(01:59):
Life Spring star in the nineteen seventies and was advertised
as a personal development program to help transform your life
and build life skills, but it became much more than that.
Much like WASP, Life Spring seminars faced their own litany
of legal issues back in the day, but most of
the lawsuits against them were settled outside of the courtroom.
(02:22):
One woman in southern California sued Life Spring because she
tried to commit suicide and spent three years in a
mental hospital. That woman settled with Life Spring for an
undisclosed amount in nineteen ninety one. An attorney for Life Spring, however,
argued the women's mental problems were not caused by her
taking the course. Other people also filed similar lawsuits against
(02:45):
the company, including one woman in nineteen ninety who was
a former Life Spring employee. She said she dealt with
the anxiety attacks, depression, and a suicide attempt. One man
jumped in the Willamette River in Oregon because he wanted
to conquer his fear of water. Instead, he drowned. John Hanley,
(03:06):
Life Spring's founder reportedly said at the time the training
doesn't cause anything. Life causes stuff. The case was settled
for an undisclosed amount while on appeal, after a jury
verdict in favor of the victim's family. In another case,
a woman from Seattle reportedly had an asthma attack during
one of the first days of the seminar. She walked
(03:29):
out of the room, collapsed in the parking lot, went
into a coma, and died several days later. Life Spring
denied responsibility, but reportedly settled with the woman's family for
an unknown amount. Life Spring said anyone with a history
of mental breakdowns or recent therapy should not attend their trainings,
(03:51):
but they ultimately let the attendee decide.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
What to do.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Life Spring officials also believed that those who were hospitalized
following a seminar should not have signed up in the
first place, As these examples indicate, for some Life Spring attendees,
the seminars ended up having lasting adverse effects, but there
were many people who said Live Spring changed their life.
For Robert Litchfield, the latter seemed to be true. Dwayne Smotherman,
(04:20):
David Gilcrease, and Lichfield worked together to create something the
trouble teen industry had to our knowledge, never seen before.
The WASP seminars and the one Lichfield went to share
the same name keys to success. While Smothermen and Gilcrease
were not WASP employees, they worked closely with the organization
(04:42):
to implement their seminars at facilities all over the country
and even around the world. The seminars ran from sunrise
to sunset and lasted for multiple days. The completion of
seminars was required in order for kids at WASP programs
to go home, and there was no getting around them.
(05:04):
They became the backbone of WASP programs. But as you'll learn,
they could also be emotionally painful and crippling experiences. The
difference between seminars and some of the other allegations and
accounts we've already heard throughout this season is that seminars
did not leave physical marks. Instead, they perpetuated what I believe,
(05:26):
based on my own experiences in them, to be psychological abuse.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Chelsea, who was at Casaby, the Sea and High Impact,
said there could be an entire show based solely on seminars.
That alone shows how deeply ingrained the seminars were and
how wasp operated. As you'll hear the takeaways from these
survivors have so many similarities, despite the fact that they
attended different programs in different states or even countries. It
(05:57):
illustrates the nearly universal effect that these seminars had on
survivors and how something that was advertised and purported to
create emotional and behavioral breakthroughs left teens with breakdowns instead.
The stories you will hear in the following episode are
the personal allegations and accounts of individuals who have attended
(06:17):
treatment and one of these facilities. All experiences, views, and
opinions are their own immersive, haunting, unnerving. With the survivors,
we interviewed for this season, there was a strong consensus
WASP seminars stayed with them long after they left the program.
(06:41):
Many have compared these seminars to mind control, essentially breaking
down an individual's perception of self through highly confrontational processes.
In order to get a better understanding of seminars, it
was necessary to talk to Dwayne Smotherman about what it
was like starting his work with Robert Litchfield.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And WASP to differentiate themselves from all these other schools
that were out there, because I mean a lot of
these other schools, I mean, they were doing some pretty
bizarre things, and you know, it was it was, I mean,
there was so there was so much differentiation in the
in these schools. I mean I couldn't I could believe
(07:18):
myself when I first saw I didn't even know that
they had these all these schools going in Utah. I didn't.
I didn't even I wasn't even aware of it. When
I looked at these these advertisements for all these schools,
I was like, what is this is amazing? And so
we did a little bit of research, uh, to look
into some of these schools, and they they had some
(07:42):
common themes, you know, there were some slight variances, but
they had some common themes. But what they didn't have
was they didn't have this behavioral component that allowed the
kids to really take a deep dive into looking at
themselves at a guttural level and looking at what's driving
their behavior. What are their attitudes, you know, look at
(08:04):
their beliefs, look at their assumptions, look at these patterns,
look at these things, look at the relationship with their parents. Again,
a lot of these schools were based on this blame
game where parents just dumped the kids out of the
school and said get it together, man, and the parents
were they were off doing whatever they did. So, yeah,
(08:26):
I do recall these conversations and that's why we sculpted
the seminars around, you know, this kind of a platform.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Duayne shared that his intention when creating the seminars was
to get the kids to look inward rather than outward,
and to break down the natural resistance that they felt
after being forced into this new environment.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Well, you know, given the circumstances, given the situation, it's
it's really uh, it's really a shock, I think. I mean,
it's really it's really like what I mean, and you know,
my my intention as a trainer, as a facilitator, my
intention is to get their attention and get them conscious
(09:17):
about this whole situation. Okay, and that is it. Because
if I can get their attention upfront, then we we've
crossed the first hurdle.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
A major component of seminars was to spark a breakthrough
for participants, but he shared that not every team was
overly receptive and ready for a breakthrough.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Of course, there was some degree of resistance because they're
just saying, they're just thinking to themselves, Oh, this is
another part of this. You know this BS program, This
is another part of this crap, and you know this
is all like you know, they're just trying to control
our minds and they're trying to, you know, manipulate this
and so forth and so on. And I've never heard
all the stories. I'm of ad nauseum, but the trainings
(10:03):
gave them a moment of pause to gather their breath
and say, listen, I'm not your dad, I'm not your mom,
I'm not your grandpa, your grandpa. Noting that stuck, I'm
someone who is here as an outside resource and I'm
(10:29):
not a part of all the drama in your life.
I'm here to educate you about yourself for a better
life and better options. What's all about choices you make
in life.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
It was clear from our conversation that Dwayne saw himself
as an educator, Yet for the people we spoke to,
these seminars were anything but an educational experience. We know
from Lichfield's Dateline interview that we played in episode three
that he wanted his programs to be quote, an experience
a word that is vague enough to have positive and
(11:07):
negative connotations. It just depends on the person in the
midst of it. It's subjective either way. An experience is
meant to stay with us and leave an impact. For
many WASP survivors, these seminar experiences will be embedded in
their memories and emotional fabric for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Dwayne Smotherman, David Gilcreas, and other seminar facilitators would travel
from facility to facility, administering seminars to the kids at
WASP affiliated programs. This circuit allowed seminars to take place
at each program approximately every six weeks. Completing seminars was
a necessary requirement to advance in levels in the program,
(11:50):
which meant if you wanted to go home, you had
to successfully complete the seminars. There were four main seminars, Orientation, Discovery, Focus,
and Keys to Success. While each one was slightly different
in content, the structure was overall the same. For two
(12:11):
to three days, participants would convene in a large conference
room in the facility, where they would be led through
a series of exercises or processes, as they were called
by a facilitator. Each process had a specific lesson the
aligned with the overall belief system of the program. They
taught participants that there was no right or wrong, only
(12:34):
working or non working choices. They had their own language
and catchphrases too, like what you fear, you create or
by your results, you have exactly what you intend. These
sayings were hurled at us in response to just about
anything we shared about our lives. Each seminar was supposed
(12:56):
to get us out of our comfort zones, or so
they told us, teach us how to be one hundred
percent accountable for everything in our lives. Being a victim
was the worst thing you could possibly be. On the surface,
being accountable, of course, is not a bad thing, but
sometimes the program would take it to another level, insisting
(13:19):
that kids be accountable for sexual assaults or even the
death of a parent or loved one. Chelsea Feiler, who
attended seminars It Costed by the Sea, furthers that point,
describing how they made you feel accountable for everything in
your life.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
Now, this is where they used a lot of the
same types of processes that came from Lifespring, where they
would essentially like, try to trick you into, you know,
revealing your innermost, deepest, you know, thoughts and secrets and
(14:00):
things like that, and then turn around and use those
things against you to be like, how is this a
reflection of your life? And then it was extremely computational.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Lichfield intended for these seminars to be completely immersive. The
seminars began with a sense of urgency. Every seminar started
with the theme song from two thousand and one, A
Space Odyssey. The song itself is daunting, it's stressful, it's haunting.
It includes loud drums, cymbals, and horns. It makes everything
(14:35):
feel heightened. And there was one primary rule that determined
if you would even make it into that day's seminar,
be in your seat by the time the music stopped. Playing.
The song is only one minute and forty five seconds long.
It was a simple rule, but they demanded complete obedience.
If you weren't seated in time, you would be kicked
(14:57):
out before you even had a chance to start. And remember,
these seminars were required to graduate. It was extremely high
stakes from the very beginning. The song could start playing
at any moment. You could be sitting at a table
working on an assignment and the song came on. That
meant you barely had time to put your work away
(15:20):
neatly and find your seat. It didn't matter if you
were in the bathroom, eating lunch, or anything of the like.
If the Space Odyssey theme song went out over the speakers,
your only job was to get to your spot as
soon as possible.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Survivors have said that seminars felt like a psychological experiment
that were intentionally made to be complex. Aaron, who also
went to academy at Ivy Ridge, said that even though
she experienced seminars, she still finds them to be one
of the more confusing topics to define and describe to anybody.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
I still don't know what the hell with seminars were, right,
like this is like the this is the thing that
whenever you try to like explain it to anybody that
you know, the like the meme with the guy with
the maps from Sunny in Philadelphia and he's like pointing
and like looks crazy as hell. Like that's how you
sound when you try to describe these seminars, and you
(16:15):
know they were, I mean, they were extremely emotional experiences
under the guise of like finding your real self.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Chelsea Filer describes one of the seminars that she remembers
most vividly.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
One of them, we had to take a towel that
was wrapped in duct tape and just beat the floor
until we were past the point of exhaustion. And here
you are in a large seminar room with you know,
probably thirty forty people, both boys and girls, in the
(16:58):
same room, just beating the wrap out of the floor
or a chair with these towels, And that was supposed
to elicit obviously physical exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, and just kind
of like this weird woo woo stuff where you know,
(17:18):
then you would lie on the floor and then they
would talk about, you know, your childhood and say, let's
imagine we're opening our childhood photo book. And we see
our mother and our father, and we realized that, you know,
we were once this beautiful inner child and we were innocent,
(17:41):
and then what happened. We screwed up our lives, and
then we screwed up our parents' lives, And you know,
how do we take accountability for that? How do we
become the perfect step for child?
Speaker 2 (17:57):
During the duct tape towel process, the seminar facilitators would
shout at each participant, encouraging them to go even harder.
According to survivors, they would yell specific things meant to
trigger the children, like your mother never loved you, did she?
Or you're just a failure and you're failing now? How
(18:18):
is that a reflection of your life? The ultimate goal
was to get the kids to emotionally crumble. Aaron A calls,
what would happen next?
Speaker 7 (18:27):
Like, I've never screamed like that before or since in
my entire life.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
I've I was in labor without an epidural for a
long time.
Speaker 7 (18:36):
I've never screamed like that in my life.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
You know, where you're just screaming, crying or bloody murdered,
like and you know, and then they have you like
lay back down, and like you go through it like
three or four times, Like you go through it for
your siblings, you go through it for your parents, you
go through it for like the people at school that
did you wrong, and you go keep going through this
process like chemically.
Speaker 7 (18:58):
In your brain. You know you're doing all of this work.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
I mean, you're working out hard, like I was always
sore after and you know, so you get all these endorphins,
all these like good feelings like start happening because of
all of that, plus like the release of crying adds dope, mame,
so you get all of these like chemicals, these happy
chemicals going in your brain. They tell you to lay
(19:23):
down and you're gonna write a letter to your magical child, right,
And this is like where it gets a little kooky
and like where I'm like, you know, so they say
like all this stuff about how who you were before
the program, Like that's not who you really are.
Speaker 7 (19:40):
Like who you are is back before like when you
used to be happy. Okay, except that like I've been
depressed my entire life.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
I literally can't remember a time when I wasn't at
least a little bit depressed. Okay, So none of this
really computed for me, but you had to write it with.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
Your non dominant hand, and like.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
It was just the craziest shits. I opened mind a
couple of months ago, and it is the weirdest letter.
It's like, you know, never forget this moment, and you
know you should be so proud of yourself.
Speaker 7 (20:14):
It's just it's the most bizarre letter I've ever read
in my life. And you know, it's unhinged, is what
it is.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Kirby, who experienced seminars at Cross Creek, describes them using
an incredibly apt analogy.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
And this is all very intense, deeply emotional, deeply personal stuff,
and you're laid bare for everyone to see. And they
had all of these different processes throughout these seminars that
were designed to break you down and then change you
and build you up to something new. They wanted us
to be built into these shiny automatons that we're just,
(20:52):
you know, cogs in the machine we were working. We
don't you lose a sense of self and you become
part of this I don't know, it's like this homogeneous
group at some point where you start to lose your
identity and you become part of the hole.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
They were cogs in a machine, no personal identity, just
complete dependence on the machine as a whole. But there
was one specific chilling seminar that stood out from the
rest and seemed like it was purposefully designed to make
people feel like the exact opposite of being part of
the whole. Mela, Kirby, and Chelsea all attended different programs,
(21:31):
but they all individually described this particular seminar.
Speaker 9 (21:36):
We had this process called Lifeboat that was one of
the most traumatic experiences I had in seminar and definitely
in the top ten in the program.
Speaker 8 (21:52):
The lifeboat was an interesting thing. We were very tired,
it was a long night, and they got us. We
were all lying on the floor in this room and
it was a semihypnotic state. There was peaceful music and
you could hear waves crashing and it was very nice.
And they walked you through this guided meditation where you
were on this ship and we're full of people, and
(22:12):
it was wonderful and you were relaxed, and you know,
it had been massive hell all day, so like, finally
have a chance to try to center myself a little bit. Well,
you get relaxed, and then all of a sudden they're
like start yelling and there's a horrible alarm and it's scary,
and everything's loud and really loud.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
We were all on a cruise and our boat crash
like the Titanic, and there was only one life raft,
and we had to choose who got those four or
five seats on that life raft, and then everyone else
is supposed to die.
Speaker 9 (22:47):
We all had to vote on who lives and who dies,
and in the most traumatic way I could think of
to do that, meaning lining up in two lines that
faced each other, and people going down the line making
this kind of chopping motion with their hand and telling
(23:09):
the person in front of them to die.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
The game was rigged because if you chose to die
to save someone else, then you don't care enough about
yourself to live. But if you chose to live, then
yourself you're full of yourself. You're egotistical, you don't care
about anyone, you're just selfish.
Speaker 10 (23:29):
This was like a really traumatic, really scary. Really it
was really hurtful. It was really hurtful to have people
like everyone told me to die. Not a single person
told me that I needed to live.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
The dynamic of how we interacted was then again held
against this like, how is this a reflection.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Of your life?
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Do you even care about your life if you ended
up dying? And what makes you think that you're worthy
of being one of the only ones to live, Being.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Forced to choose which of your peers deserved to live,
being told a parent's death was something they should be
accountable for. It sounds like the purpose was to completely
destroy someone's sense of self and identity.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Breaking down the sense of self is a huge part
of programs like Lifespring and WASP. We're all at risk
of being influenced by authority, even as adults, but especially
as young, impressionable teens. Seminars were impactful because of their
immersive nature and most importantly, because we had to complete
(24:40):
them to go home, which is what we desperately wanted
more than anything. We spoke to doctor Hassen, a mental
health professional who was formerly in Occult and is an
expert on the subject matter about this.
Speaker 11 (24:55):
Most people get programmed to not trust their in tuition
to shut down their bodies. And we're whole people and
we're embodied minds. There's not a mind body split. We're
embodied minds. We are our bodies, and if our bodies
being abused. Our minds are being abused. If we're not
(25:19):
getting seven to nine hours of sleep, we're being abused honestly,
because we're our mind and body is set for optimal functioning.
We need good food, we need sunlight, we need love
and security and information that's trustworthy. And the good news
(25:45):
is people recover from the most egregious circumstances if they're
given the tools to process what happened in the past.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Much like what doctor Hasen said, these seminars prayed on
our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. So many of us were hungry
and overtired. They knew exactly how to work us.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Going even further, these kids had no autonomy. They were
locked in, required to wear uniforms, walking straight lines, and
not speak outside their turn. There was immense control at
every single level. It seems like WASP believed that the
way to rebuild and rewire the mind required tearing at
it little by Little Bill, who was at Paradise Cove,
(26:32):
explains more.
Speaker 12 (26:34):
The seminars were all they all shared kind of a
common a common setting, you know, their large group awareness
seminars or elgats. They get a bunch of people in
a room and it's somewhat similar to some of the
stuff that I've seen for like, you know, corporate executives
(26:56):
or salespeople, that kind of thing. But they want to
dive into like your feelings. They have a lot of
pop psychology elements to them, a lot of kind of
New Age mysticism almost to them. The ideas are things
like that your brain can manifest whatever you're thinking about.
(27:18):
I think that's the secret, isn't it. And you know
that if you think about positive things, that positive things
will happen in your life. But if you think about
negative things or focus on your fears, you'll make them
come true. And you're mixed with that, it's a bunch
of jargon, a bunch of cultish kind of in talk,
(27:42):
a lot of activities that you would do that ran
ranged from confusing to like really emotional and frightening, and
the whole point of each seminar was kind of to
break you down mentally and then at the very end
they kind of like kind of build you back up.
It seemed like really half asked, like you spend two
(28:04):
days breaking me down and then you spend half a
day like putting me back together.
Speaker 9 (28:08):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
You know, some survivors have expressed they felt it was brainwashing.
Throughout history, brainwashing has been studied by scholars attempting to
understand how autocrats and cult leaders are able to manipulate
their followers to gain the trust of large groups of
people and then convince them to follow their lead. It's
(28:30):
powerful stuff and often leads to disastrous outcomes. It's something
that came up quite a bit when speaking to WASP survivors.
This is what Dweene Smotherman had to say when we
raised the concern that seminars felt like brainwashing to.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Some of these young people who have claimed that they
felt like the seminars were brainwashing them.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
What is your response to that?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I love this, I love this commentary. Well, you know
that's the default go to. You know, I mean brainwashing.
It's like, what are you talking about? You no, brainwashing?
I mean do I do I look like you know
the swami here? I mean, you know, I'm not I'm
not dressed in you know, I'm not dressed in weird clothes.
(29:15):
And we're not meditating and you know we're not going
to you know, we're not chanting. You know the thing
is that I saw I saw kids who would make
that comment about brainwashing just because we were attempting to
teach them certain principles about their life or about working
with with anybody in their life, their parents or anybody else,
(29:37):
you know. I mean that's brainwashing. No, I mean that
we're educational. I mean, I don't I don't understand the
brainwashing commentary, because i'd like to. I've yet to hear
anybody really explain that to me in a very explicit
and really in depth and sensible way other than a
(29:57):
reactive way. Well, we we just got brain washed. We's
got brainwashed. They just told us all this crap, and
you know, they kept gymming it down our throat and
YadA YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. Well, I mean the greatest
part of that was just simply attempting to teach you something.
It's like going to high school and they're trying to
teach you math, and they're trying to drill you down
in terms of how to how to really you know,
map out certain kinds of equations. So are you being brainwashed?
(30:22):
Are you being taught of methodology? I mean, what are
you talking about? And you put it in the context here,
you know. So, I mean I've I've heard all that stuff,
you know again, I mean, and I've gone to all
these you know, these websites and there's all this negative
there's all this negative commentary, and there's all this stuff.
(30:43):
You know, they're you know, they're river their BMW. They're
bitch and monor and whining about about what happened. And
what I would say to them is I'd say to them, Okay,
you know what, I would like to just step back
and look at what did you take away from the
program that you've felt has been valuable in terms of
(31:05):
your relationship with yourself, in your relationship with your family,
in a relationship with others in the world. Because it
can't be all baded. So what's worthy of praise about
the process you went through. I've gone through a lot
of stuff in my life that I didn't like. And
(31:26):
you know, I mean, I was around very controlling parents.
You know what, I could easily say they brainwashed the
hell out of me. Well, no they didn't. They were
attempting to teach me some valuable principles and you know what,
some of those I resisted, some of those I took on.
But in the end of it all, it was still
my choice, And so I would say I would save
(31:49):
those teams who are now adults. Look at how you grew,
look at how you transformed, look at how you shifted.
Are you the same person that you were where you
in the program? I doubt it. You've got three kids
and you're married, and you get your master's degree. I mean,
so how did that in that experience in some way
(32:12):
assist you and support you in growing being bigger and
better in your life even though there were some aspects
that you didn't like, or that you thought were coercive,
or that you thought were abusive, or whatever you thought
at the time. I'd ask you to kind of like
look at your perspective and what's the other side of
the of the perspective that you know you were constantly oppressed.
(32:37):
I mean, is there another side of that? And I
would say, I respect your opinion. I respect your perspective
that you know you have an issue with certain parts
of the program. That doesn't mean I agree with it,
but it means I do respect it. And you know,
at that time, your perspective was one of shock and
(32:59):
dis a in resistance, and it was I mean, that's
what that's what you were going through. You could have
anticipated that, and somehow maybe those feelings never left you.
So when we talk about the clinical or psychological impact,
maybe those feelings never left you, and you know, and
that and that and that is there with with you,
(33:19):
along with maybe some feelings of value as well. But
I would ask them to, you know, reassess the experience
in terms of value contribution in their life, and uh,
that's how that's how would address it. I would, but
I would. I definitely would not make them wrong for
what they're saying. Do you know what I'm saying, But
(33:41):
it doesn't mean that I agree with it.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
When I spoke with doctor Stephen Hassen, I told him
that Duayane felt their seminar methodologies were not brainwashing and
that they were teaching participants methods for a successful life.
Doctor Hasson had something to say about that.
Speaker 11 (33:59):
Well, I we don't know any cult person saying yeah,
we do brainwashing, unless they're making a joke about it.
But I would say to him or anyone else, look
at the behaviors, the information control, the thought control, the
emotional control, the whole context, and you will know the
(34:20):
tree by the fruit it bears. Are people independent and
drug free or are they traumatized. Maybe they're drug free,
but they're traumatized. That's not a good fruit. The big
frame for me is the issue of undue influence. That
really is the big picture.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
WASP representatives consistently denied any comparison to brainwashing or mind control.
In fact, Carl Farnsworth, who was president of WASP at
the time, told reporters in nineteen ninety eight, and I quote,
we don't brainwash ever. I've heard the comment before, but
it's not an accurate statement. When the kids are doing well,
(35:04):
the cynics say we must have brainwashed them. We are
giving them tools and an opportunity to correct. Doctor Hassen's
assessment suggests that the Lifespring model had the hallmarks of
a cult, and that other groups who base their methods
on the Lifespring model would likely have similar negative practices.
In his professional work, doctor Hassen developed something called the
(35:26):
BYTE model to describe cult specific models to recruit and
maintain control over people. BITE stands for behavior, information, thought,
and emotional control. And they focus on the concept of
undue influence.
Speaker 11 (35:42):
And I would allege or assert is probably the stronger
word that if one looks at the actual techniques used,
one would say Life Spring was doing undue influence, or
brainwashing or mind control.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
He explained that things like controlling someone's environment, what they eat,
what they wear, who they can talk to, and what
they should feel are all on the spectrum of undue influence.
The more of these that are being affected or controlled,
the more likely that person is experiencing a form of brainwashing.
And many of the techniques used in the WASP seminars
(36:22):
had undeniable characteristics of undue influence. Techniques like isolation, deception, trickery,
and coercion can be very subtle, to the point that
at the time, some survivors did find the seminar's beneficial
in the short term, but in the end a lot
of survivors walked away with more emotional trauma than before.
(36:44):
Dwayne told us he still hears from some people who
told him that the seminars transform them.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Let's just be totally honest. I mean, I'm totally aware
of a lot of the kickback and resistance of you know,
some of the so the kids in the programs, by
and large, when you look at the depth and the
breadth of all the thousands and thousands of teens have
gone through the program. I mean, I get endless now
that we're on social media. I get endless input from
(37:14):
people who've been in the program that are now in
their forties. They were sixteen and they said it changed
my wife. At the time. I didn't get it. I
didn't see it it changed my life.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Others felt they had to pretend to conform and like
the seminars just in order to get out. Here's Bill.
Speaker 12 (37:32):
I was aware even in the program that it was
all am I like a curse. Okay, I was aware
even in the program that it was all full of shit,
and I just decided to be full of shit too,
because I knew that's what I had to do to
get out. So I lied. I pretended like the seminars
(37:53):
worked for me. I pretended like I made some kind
of deep insights. I just I just made it up.
I pretended, and I can till I convinced them that
I had really bought it all and internalized it all,
and they let me go.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Several people have repeated that the point of the seminars
seemed to be to break you down and build you
back up. Crying in the dark, beating the ground with
a rolled up towel very experiential. Sure, in my opinion
and experience, this was not quite educational. However, as it
turns out, we weren't the only ones trying to cope
(38:34):
at seminars. While these kids were being put through these paces, internally,
the parents were also being asked to dig in, and
while they had the choice to opt out, they were
often convinced that this was the best way to help
their family heal. The parent seminars may not have been mandatory,
(38:56):
but who are we kidding wasts programs were not going
to send child and their tuition away just because their
parents wouldn't take part. Parents have said that they were
told by the programs they needed to fully invest in
the parent seminars in order for their children to have
a better chance of succeeding. Dwayne Smotherman explained the point
(39:17):
of the parent seminars in his own words, the.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Parent seminars dealt with the same principles, the same principles
as what the kids were going through because we went
to have an aligned experience. We don't want to have
the parents saying, you know, in talking one thing, the
kids talking another. So it was very, very similar in
terms of the processes. There were a few nuances, but
(39:43):
not a whole lot in terms of what the parents
were doing what the kids were doing.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Listening to Dwayne, it's understandable why parents would buy into them.
The goal of creating a common language and point of
understanding between parents and kids is aspirational. Munication breakdown in
families is often a leading reason for kids being sent away.
These parents may have believed that this truly was the
(40:08):
best way to help their kids to fully engage. However,
strange the requests. My mom, Meredith, who we heard from
last episode, attended one of the seminars. She shared why
she opted in and what she hoped to get out
of it.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
It was said like, hey, you know, we find higher
success rates in expediting the progress of the children when
the parents attend the seminars successfully. You know, so naturally
you're gonna be like, well, I want success for us.
We're doing this. We're one hundred percent in where you know,
(40:48):
I want help from my daughter. And I didn't want
to be the person that's like, you know, I don't
really care about your little seminars. You know, that wasn't
my attitude. It was like, I wanted help I wanted help,
you know, I thought they were going to help us.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
But yeah, a crucial tool in the program's toolbox. It
seems like WASP understood that parents were often desperate for
help and use this knowledge to their advantage. So they
pulled the parents in. They asserted that if the kids
had to do it, then the parents should too, because
(41:26):
in Dwayne's eyes, the kids should not be the only
ones held accountable.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
And just to let you know, you know, we developed
trainings not just for the teens. Our premise was, don't
just send your kid away to get fixed without you
doing anything. It's not going to happen. So we are
going to work with you in concert with the kids.
(41:53):
So that's got to be a parallel path because you've
got to work on yourself. Gus, what's going on here
is this is a family system an issue. It's not
a blame the fault issue. It's a family systems issue.
There's something amiss in the system and the teens are
reacting to it in resistance to it. And so let's
get clear about what that break is. You know, the
(42:17):
parents wanted to blame you know, well, it's it's drugs.
You know, it's the gang violence. It's you know, it's
the media. It's this. I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that isn't it. I said, those are diversions, not causal factors.
And what we found was that there was more drama
going on many times with the parents than there was
(42:38):
for the kids.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Here's doctor Hasson's take on it.
Speaker 11 (42:42):
From line is that when parents are desperate, they're vulnerable, right,
they love their child, They're looking for solutions, and therefore
they may google or whatever, and the first you know
contact is beautiful images, great sounding testimonials, and then often
(43:03):
they get other parents who've already been recruited and indoctrinated
online with you saying if you love your child, then
you will send you your child here or else you'll
regret it for the rest of your life. And whenever
anybody gives you a binary of do this or else,
you'll have no future, no hope or whatever. I love
(43:26):
your listeners to get alarm bells going off in their
head that this is danger, danger, because life is complex,
and if something is legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny,
and then you need to search for critical evaluations and
(43:46):
critical information before you make a decision. Why Because you
want an informed decision. You don't want to regret like
so many parents have, that they subjected their loved one
to this horrible abuse in these troubled teen entities.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
My mom went because I'm sure, like many other parents there,
she was trying to help our family. I asked my
mom about what seminars were like for her. Did they
do similar exercises? Were they more or less confrontational. One
of the stories she revealed was unnerving. Here she is
describing her experience with a seminar process.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Some people were in groups and some people were single
like myself. I didn't have a group. They didn't assign
me to a group. It was like you on your own.
The other people were in groups. Well, they had to
dress up, Like there was a group of men who
had to go again, you've already paid for everything. You
were there at the seminar, so we had three hours
to go, Like we were given a paper that told
(44:54):
us what to do, and this group of men had
to go buy ballerina outfits for men and come in
with you know, their ballerina outfits. Okay. Other people had
to dress up like hookers or prostitutes or weird stuff
like not I mean, it's just why are we It
(45:14):
was weird in the sense of how is this therapy?
How is this help for anybody? And what is this
all about? Really? You know, they told me I was
going to be Shania Twain, okay, and that what's that song? Man,
I feel like a woman? Okay, that I need to
(45:34):
go buy a Shania Twain outfit, and that I was
going to be Shania Twain, and that when I got back,
I was going to be in the middle of everyone
attending this seminar. So there's like eighty ninety people there,
that I would be dancing for everybody in the middle
(45:56):
of this ballroom, seminar ballroom, Shania Twain, and I'd be
singing her song, okay. And not only that, this is
very shocking. This is very shocking even talking about it,
I feel shocked. And I did it. I was there.
I have pictures of it, Okay, I wish I had
them today to show you. Not only that, but I
(46:20):
would be picking out one man out of the audience
and doing a lap dance for this guy. Okay. I'm
not kidding, I'm not this is one happened. I mean,
I was just terrified. I was just terrified, like, oh
my god.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
My mom didn't know what to do, but she continued.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
You know, I went and got the Shania Twain skirt,
white uh suhirt or some Shania Twain looking thing. Okay, Well,
I was just terrified when I had to get up
there and do it. And part of me was thinking,
is this being done to get you out of your shell?
Is it like an extreme Like I was trying to
(47:03):
think of why, because I'm not, you know, an Einstein
every minute of the day. But like, you know, I'm
trying to figure out, like what's behind this that we're
doing this. I don't know because it was horrifying, and
I had to pick out a man from the group.
So I just picked out this guy who seemed like
(47:24):
a friend, you know, during the seminar, like we clicked,
you know, anyways, and I just whispered to him like
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, because I'm sure he felt mortified too,
you know, like, and I'm like, can you just help me?
I was like, just please help me through this.
Speaker 9 (47:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
The story Caroline's mom shared is wild sixty to eighty
parents in a room playing dress up and acting out
embarrassing scenarios by her own account, everything in her head
was telling her that this was really extreme, uncomfortable, ridiculous,
But she continued, Why would any parent take the seminars
(48:05):
or continue after the first one. Hearing her recount her story,
it's clear that these were highly emotional, experiential and made
to remove a sense of reality. What did she think
about Caroline undergoing similar experiences.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
I didn't know what seminars she was doing, but I
was told that they are nothing like the adult seminars.
These are just very basic, you know, let's talk things out.
It was like talk therapy seminar type of thing. It
was more therapeutic, is what I was told that. I
was told it was not the same thing we were
(48:43):
doing at all. We're trying to get to the bottom
of their behavior, which I mean that sounds great as
a parent, they're like, oh, well, that sounds really good.
But then talking to Caroline later, yes, I mean these
same matho were being imposed on her almost like these
(49:05):
are like experimental setups, you know, psychological studies of people.
I mean not in a good way either, like a
mad scientist implementing these things on people to see people's reactions.
That's what I took away from it. But at the time, no,
I was not concerned about it because of course I
didn't have any good communication with her. I mean, it's
(49:26):
not like we could just sit on the phone and
talk about well, tell me about your seminar and you
know what I mean, Like, we didn't have communication.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
The lack of information the parents had about what was
really happening within the programs was a classic symptom of
the strict control of information that would flow in and
out of the facilities. Many parents were likely unable to
discern what was really happening, both to themselves and their children.
Some survivors believe that these strange ego breaking workshops, paired
(49:58):
with an inability to community with the outside world, caused
people to create emotional trauma bonds. Here's Chelsea.
Speaker 5 (50:07):
Well, we called these processes stretches, and we had them
in the kids seminars. But the parents also experienced that
you have to kind of experience this really unique sensation
of vulnerability and breakthrough in order to develop trust with
(50:35):
the people that are you know, essentially housing your children
and fixing your children. Having this seminar high is what
we called it is what really captured a lot of
people's loyalty. A lot of the program, parents became fiercely
(50:57):
loyal and then of course that turns into a marketing opportunity.
And I would say that the weirder the process, the
more they kind of like trauma bonded over this.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Trauma bonding is a real term. The man who is
credited with coining the phrase, doctor Patrick Carnes, said trauma
bonds are formed out of exploitative relationships, which happens when
a victim develops a bond with a person who is
destructive to them. According to the literature, trauma deeply affects
the brain, especially in the way it interacts with certain neurochemicals.
(51:38):
When there is fear, there are chemicals, and when the
fear leaves, as do the chemicals, it creates a craving
for those chemicals that creates a certain attachment to the
trauma and fear. The research suggests there are a number
of contexts in which trauma bonding can occur, including child abuse,
(52:00):
dysfunctional relationships, kidnapping, hostage situations, religious abuse, cults, and addictions.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Trauma bonding was a mutual experience. Both kids and parents
were left reeling. Here's Chelsea again.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
Kind of hard to explain to other people that you
went to a steminar and they made you do some
embarrassing stuff, but it made you feel great. But people
that went through it with you truly understand what that meant.
So that bonded you to the other parents, and bonding
you to the other parents and the facilitators is what
(52:39):
established that kind of loyalty. And I would say it
was very cult like to hold it over their heads
that we know things about you your personal life, We've
made you do things, and I think that actually speaks
a little bit to the power that these facilitators had
(53:01):
over the parents.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Duane disagrees with this sentiment.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
I think that what people would get is that this
is an illuminating educational process, a chance for the kids
to look themselves in a very sincere deep way, without
any other agenda other than being conscious and making different choices.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
My mom has her own perspective on what the seminars
that became the hallmark of WASP or all of those.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
Are psychological tools. I think they are incredibly abusive seminars.
I don't know who's developed these courses. I don't know
who's developed them, but they are an abuse it's almost
like to me an experiment in sadism against humans. Let's
(53:54):
see how far we can push these people and then
laugh at them.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
We hope you walk away from this episode with a
better grasp of seminars and how they managed to have
such a far reaching effect on both parents and their kids.
There were a cornerstone of WASP programs and a requirement
to graduate. These experiences effectively changed the way kids and
the parents viewed themselves and their relationships with each other.
(54:33):
And we want to be clear about something. These experiences
that happen to the people in this episode are things
that can happen to anyone. You, your partner, your neighbor,
your classmate. Doctor Stephen Hassen emphasizes this point.
Speaker 11 (54:50):
One of the problems is that most people walk around
incorrectly believing that only weak or stupid, bid or uneducated
people from bad families can be preyed upon by nefarious agents.
And it's just not true.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Next time on Trapped in Treatment.
Speaker 13 (55:19):
That I remember laughing with my husband going, God, it's
hilarious people think that that's what's going on. I wonder
what it really is, because what people were telling us
was that it was essentially a private prison to law
to American children, and that seemed soul.
Speaker 7 (55:36):
I mean, how could there.
Speaker 13 (55:37):
Possibly be a private prison in the middle of nowhere
on the south coast of Jamaica for American children. It
just didn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
All of our efforts to reach Robert Litchfield, David Gilcrease,
and car Farnsworth for comment were unsuccessful, and they did
not respond to our request 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 14 (56:18):
Hey everyone, it's Paris. Thanks for listening to episode seven.
What do you think about the WASP Seminars Shocking Right?
Share thoughts with me on social media with the hashtag
trapped in Treatment, and make sure you tune into new
episodes every week on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
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