When is tough love torture?

Did you know that residential treatment programs for teens are big business? It's a massive industry that includes hundreds of poorly-regulated programs around the country. A terrifying expose in MotherJones Magazine by Maia Szalavitz poses the question: "When Is Tough Love Torture?"

Says Szalavitz, describing testimony at recent congressional hearings :

"A young man who testified ... described one such program in upstate New York called the Family Foundation School, with teens restraining fellow teens, forced confessions, and denial of bathroom access-just like at KIDS. Unlike KIDS, however, the Family Foundation is still open, though it told ABC News that it no longer uses such restraint practices. The exact number of "tough love" residential programs remains unknown; the GAO is still trying to determine how many exist and how many teens are in their custody. With no professional or legal oversight-and guided by a fervent belief that their ends justify even the harshest means-they present enormous risks. "If a program is isolated and not accountable and has a model of making people suffer in order to get better-it's a recipe for abuse," says William Miller, emeritus professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico and an expert on evaluating addiction treatment.

Unfortunately, parents don't realize that these programs don't meet standards- in part because they don't know that psychological treatments aren't regulated like other types of medicine. In order to introduce a new medication, a drug company has to meet FDA standards for safety and efficacy-but a new talk or behavioral therapy, even for children, can be introduced and sold by anyone without being vetted by any government agency. And until very recently, legitimate psychologists and psychiatrists have largely been unaware of the private industry's practices."
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About the Author

Dr. Laura Markham, the Dear Abby of Parenting, is a clinical psychologist who hosts the popular advice column "Ask Dr. Laura" at the parenting web site YourParentingSolutions.com, The Good Dr. answers questions from parents of infants through teens, offering parent-tested solutions you can use every day to connect with your kids and create a richer family life. Her work appears regularly on a dozen parenting sites and in print, and she frequently speaks with groups of parents, both online and in person, about transforming their parenting. Dr. Laura lives in New York with her husband, son and daughter.