Edge Rewrite
everything Source code View original
// HTMLRewriter · presentation

This page was redesigned at the edge.

Cloudflare fetched the original article and streamed it through HTMLRewriter to apply an entirely new visual system without rebuilding the source page.

// request.cf · coarse context

A page that knows where it met you.

Only coarse request metadata is shown. This demo does not display or persist visitor IP addresses.

Country
US
Cloudflare location
CMH
Connection
HTTP/2
Language
Not provided

Ray ID: a40d37d21a6b8cc1

Jump to content

CEDU

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CEDU Educational Services Inc.
Location
Map
3500 Seymour Road

Running Springs
,
San Bernardino
,
California
92382

United States

34°11′24″N 117°05′42″W / 34.190°N 117.095°W / 34.190; -117.095
Information
TypePrivate therapeutic boarding schools group home
Motto"See Yourself As You Are and Do Something About It"
Opened1967
FounderMerle Wasserman
Closed2005
AccreditationWestern Association of Schools and Colleges

CEDU Educational Services, Inc., commonly known as CEDU (pronounced "see-doo") was an education provider founded in 1967 in Palm Springs, California by Mel Wasserman.

Origins

[edit]

CEDU originates from Synanon,[1][2] a new religious movement within the Human Potential Movement. Founded in Santa Monica, California in 1958 by Charles E. Dederich.[3] Mel Wasserman, founder of CEDU, was a former Synanon member.[4] According to Maia Szalavitz, author of Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, "Synanon sold itself as a cure for hardcore heroin addicts who could help each other by 'breaking' new initiates with isolation, humiliation, hard labor, and sleep deprivation."[5] The troubled teen industry has continued to be associated with Synanon and CEDU spin-offs.[6] Former students have made the assertion that CEDU is an acronym for Charles E. Dederich University,[7] while CEDU marketing materials claim that it stands for "See Yourself As You Are and Do Something About It".[8]

History

[edit]

Origins and Early Years (1967–1981)

[edit]

CEDU was founded by Merle "Mel" Wassermann and his wife Brigette Wasserman, in their Palm Springs home. Wasserman was a furniture salesman and had been involved with sponsoring people undertaking the Synanon program.[4]

Expansion and New Programs (1982–1997)

[edit]

In 1982, a small group of staff and residents known as the "original seven" left the Running Springs, California campus for Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to open Rocky Mountain Academy (RMA). RMA's curriculum and philosophy were identical to the original school, CEDU Running Springs.

July 15, 1994 - A male client from Texas hanged himself with a belt from a pipe of an overhead sprinkler system in one of the dormitories of Lower Camelot at Rocky Mountain Academy in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.[9][10]

July 28, 1994 – It is revealed that a former CEDU employee and white separatist planned to kidnap students attending Rocky Mountain Academy for ransom, including the children of celebrities such as the daughter of Barbara Walters and the child of Clint Eastwood. The employee, who was reportedly a friend of Randy Weaver, was fired after federal agents uncovered the plot.[11]

June 27, 1996 - John C. D'Abreo files a lawsuit against CEDU in Monterey County Superior Court, claiming he was physically and emotionally abused at Ascent wilderness program and Northwest Academy.[12]

Idaho Educational Services
[edit]

Universal Health Services Inc.,[13] a public company focused on hospitals and behavioral health centers, subsequently reopened three of the former CEDU facilities: Boulder Creek Academy (located on the former Rocky Mountain Academy property), Northwest Academy, and Ascent Wilderness Program, whose name they later changed to Caribou Ridge Intervention. These operate under the new name of Idaho Educational Services. Each program is overseen by individual directors.

Program and practices

[edit]

The average time a child spent at a CEDU program before graduating was 2+1⁄2 years. Teenagers were often held beyond their 18th birthday with Conservatorship or extended custody, until they completed the full program.[14] The programs were year-round. CEDU had its own language, derived from Synanon. Three times a week, for 3–4 hours, teenagers would attend "raps," pseudo psychology group attack therapy sessions led by untrained staff[15] based on Synanon's "the game."[16] Children and staff were incentivized to "indict" residents for minor rule infractions, previous traumas, and "disclosures" or items individuals were ashamed of, in the name of emotional growth. This is commonly referred to as attack therapy, where screaming, swearing, and humiliation is appropriate and expected. At night there would be group touching, called "smooshing", which consisted of hand holding, spooning, snuggling, caressing, sitting on laps, and petting hair. Smooshing was expected of both teenagers and staff. It was common for staff to engage in this form of touch with teenagers.[17][18]

In addition to raps, to advance in the CEDU program, a resident would have to earn the privilege to participate in a workshop known as a "propheet" every three months.[19] The propheets were based on Synanon's "trip", and would last from 24 hours to several days at a time. The propheets were led by unlicensed staff along with teenagers at an advanced stage of the program, known as "upper school". They employed humiliation, exposure to large variations in temperature, guided imagery, loud and repetitive music, regression therapy, physical reenactments of trauma, and forced emoting.[20] They included things like digging your own grave and lying in it,[21] slapping each other, singling out a child to physically fight to get into a circle of their peers, being restrained on mattresses, or casting you live or die votes on a lifeboat. The propheets were based on the book The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran as well as the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.[22] Each used "tools" from the historic literature, that were later used as stepping stones in the program that teenagers were expected to act upon in everyday life. There were seven propheets (Truth,[23] Children's,[24] Brother's Keeper,[25] Dreams,[26] I Want To Live,[27] Values,[28] and Imagine[29]), and two workshops (I and Me,[30] and Summit[31]).

The three most emphasized agreements were no sex, no drugs, and no violence, yet there were agreements for every part of life, including timed showers, the way hair was worn, and the way people must speak. There were restrictions on clothing items, brand names, rock star imagery, wearing black, major league sports team logos and luxury brands were banned.[32] Violators would be sent to the Ascent Wilderness Program located in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, which was CEDU's version of a six-week boot camp, or placed on a "restriction", which included emotional growth writing assignments, humiliating yourself in front of others, manual labor, isolation, "bans" or forbidding a teenager to speak to, look at, or be acknowledged by peers, and sometimes "bans" from singing, smiling, reading, learning, drawing, and being touched. Punishments also consisted of individual programs, like binding someone's eyes and ears so that they were forced to live like Helen Keller (who was blind and deaf), or feminine programs where girls were forced to dress up and act feminine, or boy bans, where girls where not permitted to interact with boys at all.

To receive a diploma from CEDU High School the students were required to complete 232 units. Diplomas were accredited by the Western Association of School and Colleges.[33] Diplomas were not a requirement for graduating the 2.5 year CEDU program. Diplomas contained falsified credits, such as speech credits for weekly raps. CEDU did not provide legitimate high school courses. Often classes had no text books, and children were only allowed to participate as a privilege, which was often revoked. Many children returned home to resume high school.

In the news

[edit]

November 1996 - Former Rocky Mountain Academy staff and owner of Boundarylines Crisis Intervention Richard "Rowdy" Armstrong is accused of drugging, raping and sodomizing former Rocky Mountain Academy staff and Boundarylines Crisis Intervention co-worker Twila Stephenson.[34]

January 14, 2004 - An article about Boulder Creek Academy titled "The Last Resort" is published by the Chicago Tribune. Several CEDU clients and parents are interviewed.[35]

May 26, 2020 - Adam Eget, an actor and comedian known for his work with Norm Macdonald, talks about his experiences with CEDU on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.[36] Eget describes CEDU as an abusive cult, and talks about multiple examples of child endangerment he saw as a client attending a CEDU School.

September 14, 2020 - This Is Paris, a documentary that covers the time Paris Hilton spent at CEDU School, Ascent Wilderness Program, Cascade school, and Provo Canyon School, premieres on YouTube.[37]

April 23, 2022 - Rich & Shameless started an episode one of their first season with an exposé on Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis. Dead, Insane, or in Jail[38][39] author Zack Bonnie is interviewed about the time they spent together at Rocky Mountain Academy in the late 1980s.[40]

Notable alumni

[edit]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Bloch, Josh (June 2, 2020). "Lots of Tough and Almost No Love". The Lost Kids (Podcast). Universal Content Productions (UCP). Archived from the original on 2022-01-15. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
  2. ↑ Rosman, Katherine (August 9, 2021). "This Is Rachel Uchitel, Representing Herself (Published 2021)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-08-12. But her parents divorced, sending her to CEDU in Running Springs, Calif., a boarding school with ties to the Synanon cult.
  3. ↑ Van Gelder, Lawrence (March 4, 1997). "Charles Dederich, 83, Synanon Founder, Dies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2017-12-16. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  4. 1 2 Heller, Matthew (February 18, 2001). "Death and Denial at Herbalife". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2022-07-09. Retrieved 2023-05-13. Mel Wasserman, a Palm Springs furniture store owner who had sponsored recovering addicts at Synanon, a drug rehab program, at its facility in Santa Monica.
  5. ↑ Szalavitz, Maia (February 16, 2006). Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids. Riverhead Books.
  6. ↑ Rosen, Kenneth (January 12, 2021). Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs. Little A.
  7. ↑ Gilpin, Elizabeth (2021). Stolen: A Memoir. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-1538735442.
  8. ↑ "About CEDU - Our History, The CEDU Story". February 4, 2001. Archived from the original on 2001-02-04. Retrieved 2023-07-30.
  9. ↑ Keating, Kevin (July 19, 1994). "Boy Hangs Himself in Dormitory". The Spokesman-Review. Archived from the original on 2022-04-22. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  10. ↑ "Spokesman-Review excerpt". Archived from the original on 2008-09-16. Retrieved 2008-10-09.
  11. ↑ "1986 Kidnap Plot Revealed". The Register-Guard. Archived from the original on 2022-01-06. Retrieved 2022-01-06.
  12. ↑ Titone, Julie (July 11, 1996). "Teen Sues North Idaho Therapy Camps Family Says Boy Was Abused". The Spokesman-Review. Archived from the original on 2022-01-07. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  13. ↑ "Universal Health Services Inc". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2017-02-15.
  14. ↑ Woodbury, Denise M. "News & Views, 6/1995 - Losing Control? Maybe Not!". strugglingteens.com. Archived from the original on 2022-08-15. Retrieved 2023-03-19. A guardianship grants to the guardian those powers and responsibilities a parent would have for a minor child. In effect, it is a court order extending custody beyond the child's majority.
  15. ↑ Bloch, Josh (June 1, 2020). "Tell it All". The Lost Kids (Podcast). Universal Content Productions (UCP). Archived from the original on 2022-05-13. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
  16. ↑ Bloch, Josh (June 1, 2020). "The Game". The Lost Kids (Podcast). Universal Content Productions (UCP). Archived from the original on 2022-01-15. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
  17. ↑ "12 Ways Teen Treatment Has Changed Since Paris Hilton Went to CEDU". All Kinds of Therapy. August 27, 2020. Archived from the original on 2023-03-20. Retrieved 2023-03-20. 2. Smooshing was the practice of laying on one another and often included males and females, and often mixed staff with students. This was not required. However, Now, this would be a reportable offense to the licensing department in the state that the treatment program or therapist is licensed. While the intentions of the practice were reportedly to provide connection and attachment to participants, the long-time abandonment of this downright creepy practice is a very good thing.
  18. ↑ Hilton, Paris. "Paris Hilton: my boarding school hell and how I survived". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  19. ↑ "Cedu offers hope to young, hard-core addicts - 1972-12-14". Corvallis Gazette-Times. December 14, 1972. p. 34. Archived from the original on 2023-08-12. Retrieved 2023-08-12.
  20. ↑ Hawkins, Eric (June 8, 2020). "California School For 'Troubled Teens' Had Roots In A Notorious, Militant Cult". Oxygen True Crime. NBCUniversal. Archived from the original on 2023-02-10. Retrieved 2023-02-10.
  21. ↑ Kaufman, Amy (January 17, 2021). "Will Rachel Uchitel Ever be Able to Leave the Word 'Mistress' Behind Her?". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 2165-1736. OCLC 3638237. Archived from the original on 2022-01-06. Retrieved 2022-01-06. They made me dig a grave with a spoon and then lay in it,
  22. ↑ Brown, Erika (October 13, 2002). "When Rich Kids Go Bad". Forbes. ISSN 0015-6914. OCLC 6465733. Archived from the original on 2022-01-07. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  23. ↑ "Truth Propheet Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-09. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  24. ↑ "Children's Propheet Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-11. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  25. ↑ "Brother's Keeper Propheet Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-09. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  26. ↑ "Dreams Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-09. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  27. ↑ "I Want To Live Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-11. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  28. ↑ "Values Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-09. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  29. ↑ "Imagine Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-11. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  30. ↑ "I and Me Workshop Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-09. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  31. ↑ "Summit Workshop Script". Archived from the original on 2022-01-09. Retrieved 2022-01-09.
  32. ↑ Mike, Davison (2007). An Invitation to Personal Peace;Guidelines To Help You Move Further Along Your Path. 1st World Publishing. ISBN 9781421899428. One of the first things that occurred when students were admitted to the school was that all brand name vanity clothes were confiscated by the staff and given to the parents to take home. Items such as jackets depicting gang symbols, Clothing picturing famous rock stars, even clothing with major league sports team logos or player's names and numbers on them were taken away.
  33. ↑ Caring for kids with special needs : residential programs for children and adolescents (2nd ed.). Peterson's Guides. 1994. p. 266. ISBN 9781560792994. To graduate, a student must complete 232 units of credit. These must include the following: 40 units of English, 30 units of social science, 20 units of mathematics, 20 units of science, 20 units of physical education, 10 units of fine arts or foreign language, 5 units of health, 85 units of electives, and 2 units of computer science. Graduates receive a diploma accredited by WASC.
  34. ↑ Keating, Kevin. "Woman Sues Ex-Boss, Alleging Sexual Assault Lawsuit Claims Man Drugged, Raped and Sodomized Woman". The Spokesman-Review. Archived from the original on 2022-01-06. Retrieved 2022-01-06.
  35. ↑ Rubin, Bonnie Miller (January 14, 2004). "The Last Resort". Chicago Tribune. ISSN 1085-6706. OCLC 7960243. Archived from the original on 2022-01-07. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
  36. ↑ Adam Eget Survived Three Years in an Abusive Cult. YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-11.
  37. ↑ Dean, Alexandra (September 14, 2020). "This Is Paris". The Intellectual Property Corporation (IPC). Archived from the original on 2022-01-04. Retrieved 2022-01-04.
  38. ↑ Bonnie, Zack (July 23, 2015). Dead, Insane, or in Jail. Not with the Program. ISBN 978-0996337823.
  39. ↑ Bonnie, Zack (February 26, 2018). Dead, Insane, or in Jail: Overwritten. Not with the Program. ISBN 978-0996337830.
  40. ↑ "Girls Gone Wild Exposed". Rich & Shameless. April 23, 2022. Archived from the original on 2023-03-19. Retrieved 2023-03-19.
  41. ↑ PowerfulJRE (May 26, 2020). Joe Rogan Experience #1481 - Adam Eget. Retrieved 2025-05-21 – via YouTube.
  42. ↑ Dunphey, Kyle (March 17, 2023). "In new book, Paris Hilton recalls abuse at the hands of former Provo Canyon School staff". Deseret News. Archived from the original on 2023-08-30. Retrieved 2023-08-12. The Provo Canyon School wasn't Hilton's first experience at a treatment center. In "Paris," she recalls first being sent to the now defunct CEDU, a boarding school in California; Ascent, a wilderness treatment program in Montana; then The Cascade School, also in California.
  43. ↑ Pentland, Jenny (2022). This will be funny later: a memoir (First ed.). New York, NY: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. p. 93. ISBN 978-0062962928.
  44. ↑ Seymour, Corey (January 27, 2022). "Nine Questions for Jenny Pentland About Her Harrowing (and Hilarious) New Memoir". Vogue. Retrieved 2025-03-29.

Further reading

[edit]
  • Paris Hilton. Paris: The Memoir. New York: Dey Street Books, 2023.
[edit]
  • Official website
  • Surviving Cedu, a 2008 documentary by Liam Scheff, featuring a closing segment with cult expert Paul Morantz
  • The Discarded Ones: A Novel Based on a True Story, the definitive 2012 book about life at CEDU. The story is set in 1983 and told through the eyes of a new student
  • Whiteout, a memoir written in 2018 by Lathrop Lybrook about her experience at Rocky Mountain Academy, Ascent, and North Idaho Behavioral Health from September 30, 1998, to December 13, 1999
  • Running My Anger: The Legacy of the CEDU Cult, an anonymous account of what it was like to be a student at CEDU in Idaho and California. Medium Anonymous discusses the current documentaries on CEDU, Rocky Mountain Academy, and articles on trauma and how they relate to them as a prior student of CEDU
  • Dead, Insane, or in Jail: a CEDU Memoir, a memoir by Zack Bonnie, is an account of what it was like to attend the wilderness bootcamp along with Rocky Mountain Academy. This book has been referred to as "the whistleblower" in the troubled teen community.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CEDU&oldid=1376183546"