"Wilderness Therapy" Programs Have Serious Child Abuse Issues
50,000 teens are sent to wilderness therapy programs a year - and claims of abuse are on the rise.
I'd first heard of wilderness therapy programs through family friends. Their teenager, dealing with struggles over their gender identity, had begun to self-harm. The parents were at their wits end, looking for a solution and more importantly, a safe place to ensure their child could not engage in anything dangerous. This was years ago, and their child has since grown and moved away to college. But what exactly happens to these kids at wilderness therapy is not always "tough love" and sitting by the campfire.
50,000 teens a year are sent to wilderness therapy, a form of "Troubled Teen" programs running throughout the country. Like a boarding school, teens are shipped to the middle of nowhere to complete weeks to months of rigorous outdoor therapy. Their overarching goal is to readjust teenagers with certain behavioral and/or mental health issues, providing them with tactics to better handle adversity. Upon Googling "wilderness therapy," pictures of teenagers smiling on hikes and laughing in dorm rooms are the first to pop up. But in the last few years, claims of abuse have been rampant across social media, exposing the dangerous realities of these programs.
At the forefront of the movement is Paris Hilton, who revealed in her 2020 documentary This Is Paris that she was dragged from her bedroom by two strange men without knowing what was going on, and brought to a facility in Utah that proceeded to abuse her. These "legal kidnappings," as teens online call it, are a common and disturbing theme. Hilton has been a voice for teens that have been traumatized by the programs, as the number of teens speaking out continues to rise.
In response to lawsuits and media attention, a few programs have taken the initiative to change their ways and end the abuse. This was true of a clinic in Wyoming that claimed to have changed ways after Hilton and others spoke out. However, a class-action lawsuit was filed in late 2020 in the District Court of Wyoming, following these so-called changes.
Thanks to social media, survivors can share their stories, bring attention to the issue, and bond with others that have shared trauma. Across social media, you can find these videos and posts under the hashtag #breakingcodesilence, named after the organization Breaking Code Silence which aims to end troubled teen programs.
If you look up the hashtag, the videos you come across are harrowing. Teens from around the country cry into the camera talking about their legal kidnapping, frostbite from hikes, carrying weighted packs for miles, lack of a toilet and clean drinking water, and the inability to shower. One woman named Sophie, TikTok handle @futuretripping, explained how her hair became matted after not showering for several weeks. She detailed how they were allotted a hair wash only once a month, where someone poured water in her hair while she scrubbed in a solution. After her hair was washed, it froze and remained that way for several days. Most attendees that speak out report little-to-no access hygiene, sometimes leading to health complications.
Another woman on TikTok that I spoke to, handle @rabbitsandtea who goes by A, experienced traumatic abuses to her and other attendees. Details include drinking from a water bottle that contained a dead mouse, winter gear that was not nearly warm enough for below freezing temperatures, attendees with scoliosis forced to carry 50 pound packs on long hikes, and sharing a campground with teens "begging and praying to die." She stated that in that time, she was provided with so little food and lost so much weight that her period stopped. In therapy sessions if these issues were brought up, counselors told them to "stop playing the victim."
A had a similar hygiene story to Sophie. She recounted how she was lucky to bathe once a week, was only allowed "five prong combs that didn't work," and had to cut off a significant portion of her hair in response to the damage. This wasn't exclusive to A, as she told of a girl who preemptively shaved off her hair once she learned she would be returning to the program for a second time.
Some of the worst of her stories she bravely described how a fellow student, as she calls the teens in attendance to the program, went into anaphylactic shock after a spider bite. She claims that the program staff were reluctant to call 911 and instead when the student finally collapsed, counselors told the other students to pray that the girls passing would be painless.
Prior to Paris Hilton’s documentary and the work of other activists, this information was cleverly hidden. Websites boast success stories and positive results, catering to what parents seeking out a last resort want to see and hear. Risks are barely discussed or even mentioned, nor are the accusations brought forth by Hilton and other teens. For most programs, their websites have a blog where contributors post research and answers to frequently asked questions. However, most sites do not use actual scholarly sources and instead quote testimonials from past attendees and parents.
An exception I found was the program Aspiro. Located in Utah, Asprio quotes their "research driven results" and draws from doctors that have dedicated their life's work to adventure therapy. The Aspiro program itself is accredited by the Association of Experiential Education, or the AEE. The AEE is a non-profit organization that gives accreditations to wilderness therapy programs and conducts its own research. For Aspiro specifically, AEE research stated that 97% of families were highly satisfied with their experience with the program. These doctors would have a reason to state this, however: their incomes are based on these programs hiring them to write these reviews and give these accreditations, leading to a dangerous bias in their findings. All researchers credited on these websites are also employed by either the AEE or the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Center (OBH). The OBH is another organization that oversees programs around the nation, and has teamed up with the AEE in granting accreditations. Most of these doctors are heavily involved in both organizations and contributes the majority of the research.
In addition to biased research sources provided by these programs, most have problematic courses. For example, BlueFire has an adoption therapy wilderness program. The website explains that teen adoptees are often troubled and have a hard time adjusting to their new homes, causing issues for the adoptive parents. What they recommend, instead of having the child adjust at their home, is ripping them away from their new lives and schools, and sending them to the wilderness to teach the "permanence of their families," which evidence finds to be counterintuitive. The American Psychological Association recommends the ADAPT curriculum for teens struggling with adoption, which involves cognitive behavioral therapy as well as parent-child bonding techniques, both of which are not taught at wilderness programs.
There has been protests in Utah, the state with the most programs, to put an end to the suffering and shut down the camps. Though these efforts help to bring attention to this issue, these programs are still running, and teens are sent to them every day.
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