Life At The Center
Life at the center was rigorous and abusive.
Patients were often belittled, demeaned, insulted, or humiliated. Patients were frequently called names, such as "weak," "crazy," "fat," "loser," and so on. Patients were often subjected to insults from the entire group, since the therapists often required the other patients to gather together and collectively insult anyone whom the therapist deemed to be out of favor.
Patients were given frequent therapy assignments by their therapists which they had to complete, or they would risk being abused and demoted to lower groups. The assignments often involved activities which were demeaning or absurd. For example, one woman who was judged to be overweight was assigned to act like a cow and to make "grazing" motions on the carpet.
Patients were often physically assaulted by their therapists. The assault was part of a practice called "sluggo" in which the therapists would break the patients' defenses by hitting them. Patients were often struck repeatedly during therapy sessions, which sometimes led to bruising and bleeding.
Patients had their lives controlled by their therapists in the minutest detail. The patients were told what to wear, what to do, which job to hold, whom to have sex with and how often, whom to date, whom to marry, whether to have children or not, how much they could weigh (for women), and, most importantly, whether or not they could leave. Almost all patients who expressed a desire to leave were informed by their therapists that they were still far too disordered mentally to succeed in the outside world.
For some patients, life at the Center involved very long hours of grueling physical labor for very little pay. The physical labor was so severe, that some of the patients endured permanent physical damage from the excessive labor coupled with inadequate rest.
After the ideals of "Psychological Fitness" came to the fore, patients were not only abused, but often subjected to monetary fines for lack of performance, or for insufficient work.
In a nine-year span, none of the 350 resident members had a single child even though most of the women were young. Women who did get pregnant were told to get abortions. One woman who got pregnant in her 40s was told she "was not ready" to be a parent, and was pressured to get an abortion with the promise that she had time to get pregnant again.
Patients at the Center were isolated from the outside world and were expected to socialize and work only with other Center patients.
Read more about this topic: Center For Feeling Therapy
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