Troubled

The Failed Promise of America’s Behavioral Treatment Programs

By: Kenneth R. Rosen

Narrated by: Ray Chase

A New York Times Editor’s Choice
One of Newsweek’s Most Highly Anticipated Books of 2021
Named a Bustle Best Book of 2021

An award-winning journalist’s breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails.

In the middle of the night, they are vanished.

Each year thousands of young adults deemed out of control - suffering from depression, addiction, anxiety, and rage - are carted off against their will to remote wilderness programs and treatment facilities across the country. Desperate parents of these “troubled teens” fear it’s their only option. The private, largely unregulated behavioral boot camps break their children down, a damnation the children suffer forever.

Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled, Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry.

Not without hope, Troubled ultimately delivers an emotional, crucial tapestry of coming of age, neglect, exploitation, trauma, and fraught redemption.

©2021 Kenneth R. Rosen. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Ray Chase’s superb, steady narration keeps listeners’ attention on the heartbreaking reality of this troubling industry.” (Library Journal Best Media in 2021)

“His narrative - anchored by four young adults sent to similar ‘tough love’ environments - shows that many programs inflict lasting damage on the people they claim to help. Ultimately, the book makes a strong case for reforming the practice.” (The New York Times)

“The stories are enlightening and engaging even as they reveal the shady, often abusive tactics used to snap these troubled children into behaving in a way that society deems acceptable. This book is a necessary exposé for any parent who has considered sending their child to one of these camps. Rosen also gives voice to the thousands who have gone through these programs, and the text should be helpful in encouraging them to speak out about their experiences.... Highly charged personal stories coalesce into a frank disclosure about the ‘forced redirection of wayward teenagers'." (Kirkus Reviews)

Truth behind behavioral facilities

This book is spot on and a perfect example of why behavioral institutions more often do more harm than good for “troubled” individuals and youth. Theyre abusive and create more issues than they had when they arrived.

Validating

As someone who 20+ years ago had been through the kidnapping, the wilderness program, and two different treatment centers for issues that felt like normal teenage things (the wilderness program has since been shut down due to death) this was very validating. It IS an industry for anxious parents, not teens. I’m so glad I found this. Thank you for sharing these stories, truly.

phenomenonal.

excellent research and sample size. gripping prose about the shadowy, unregulated troubled teen industry, and young lives destroyed by institutional child abuse. a must read.

really good representation of what it is like!

a realistic and comprehensive look at the troubled teen industry! I would have to say a bit tame but still real!