"Therapy"

New Leaf Academy is marketed as a therapeutic boarding school meant to help girls from the ages of 10 to 15 with their mental health and social skills. When I was there, the therapists weren't a problem. They ultimately had no say in what happened to the student, that was up to the therapeutic advisor. They were there for weekly support. There was so much going on at NLA that you couldn't focus on the core issues like your anxiety, depression, or OCD. Those weekly sessions were for the students to vent and talk about the shit that happened then and there. There were very few staff who were decent, the others were on some power trip. They would force confessions from students by threatening us with punishments like LO's, hours, grounding, TF, and more just to see who left a light on. They would cause us to break down and cry so they could use our vulnerability against us. They would gaslight us into thinking everything was our fault and that our parents were ok with how we were being treated when in reality they had no fucking clue. The weekly calls with your parents were similar to the weekly sessions in the way that we never talked about the root of the issue, but the drama in the house. The staff had students pinned against eachother. Now that I think about it, it's like they used that as a tactic to keep the parents oblivious. The student would talk about issues with other students instead of how they were set up by the staff. For example, NLA goes ona rafting trip once a year. My therapeutic Advisor, Susan, put me and my restriction on the same raft. We we're coming up to a level 3 rapid, so everyone had to be in the boat. The staff had trouble getting my restriction into the raft, so I ended up pulling her in. Susan saw from her raft and said something along the lines of "Jordan! No. That's not your job. You broke two restrictions, we'll talk when we get back" or some shit. I broke two restrictions because I touched someone whilst on a touching restriction, and I interacted with the person i was restricted to.  In a call I later talked about how much I hated the rafting trip and not the fact that Susan set me up.

Some other "therapeutic practices" were humiliation, isolation, and losing privileges. We had multiple "therapy" sessions in a week. One was with our therapists, but the others were with staff and students. I can't remember what groups we did on what day, but there were 3. One was where the whole house got together to read out Group requests. Group requests are a form of public shaming, and I remember that one was on a Wednesday. Theres nothing you can do besides take accountability and apologize even if you didn't do it or don't understand the request. They make a private matter very public. They act like gossip is a "sin", but they cause rumors or air out your dirty laundry using the other students. Another group was where each house was split in two. There were 4 therapeutic advisors (2 for each house), and you'd group up with them in a room to talk. I can't remember what we'd talk about, but I do remember I dreaded every group session because of how toxic my TA was. The final group therapy was odd. The houses were mixed and you'd be paired up with a therapist or staff member. They made the groups according to what they think would help the students (The therapists formed these groups, so they were actually not that bad). 

You got one therapy session a week and one call a week. There was so much drama that you couldn't focus on why you were there, you could only focus on trying to find ways to cope with all the shit they put you through. Every student has their struggles, but the staff are the ones who cause the most drama. The main thing most kids would talk about during their sessions was how to communicate with certain staff members, or students the staff thought they had issues with. The calls with our parents were usually about our growth, and I honestly think thats funny because the parents don't know jack. i thought my parents knew about what was going on because they were sent weekly updates, so I didn't think to elaborate. Our therapists helped lead our calls, so they'd help us stay on topic, but no matter the topic, it'd get emotional. I don't know how it is for others, but anything we talked about eventually lead to something going on in Sagebrush, and that just lead to the waterworks.

I will continue to add onto this, but I'm going to bed, thank you.