Castlewood I - Saint Louis

It is vitally important that I personally testify that the Castlewood Treatment Center has done enormous harm to my entire family. My family was basically destroyed after sending my daughter for treatment of a relatively minor eating disorder to the Castlewood Treatment Center in 2011. It is important to note that she was a minor during the time she was treated at Castlewood. Very soon after her arrival, Castlewood staff encouraged her to alienate immediate family members and this was particularly distressing since family therapy is the empirically supported approach to eating disorders. Instead, to treat her eating disorder, Castlewood used several “memory recovery techniques” including; powerful psychotropic drugs, hypnosis, IFS - parts therapy, regression therapies, guided imagery, literal dream interpretation, journaling,”drama therapy”, and even peer pressure from other patients. According to statements made by several experts in eating disorders, use of these controversial treatment modalities is not the standard of care for eating disorders primarily because patients are malnourished and vulnerable to psychological damage.
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Clinical Staff encouraged my daughter to remain at Castlewood for nearly six months, during this time she withdrew more and more from her family and the world around her and sank deeper and deeper into the inward-directed rituals of recovered-memory therapy. I felt it was an extremely controlled environment where she was bombarded with strange ideas and encouraged to search for buried memories and hidden alter personalities. Over time, she became disturbingly worse, to the point of suffering. Eventually a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder) was suggested by one of her therapists. A Staff person even convinced my family member that she would die if she left Castlewood. It was like her mind was in a virtual train wreck.
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Bizarre and implausible beliefs were developed in the course of her treatment at Castlewood. While under the influence of various medically prescribed psychotropic medications she started believing that she endured horrendous physical abuse, the kind of abuse that should have left lasting physical scars, and yet she had none. She also began to think that she was sexually abused by more than 50 different individuals including family members, coaches, lawyers, and policemen. She came to believe that she operated an underage prostitution business from her home, that she was high level drug abuser, and that her family members were aware of all of this abuse and did nothing but laugh at her. The only thing more tragic than actually being subjected to this kind of abuse is to believe it happened when in reality NONE of it is true.
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After Castlewood Staff encouraged my family member to cut all ties with us, the remainder of my heart-broken family was devastated by her false and impossible allegations of abuse. Before destroying my family and attempting to ruin our reputation, I feel that Castlewood Staff should have sought out independent validation of her claims, especially the more bizarre and less than plausible stories that emerged. Yet no attempt whatsoever was made to vet or verify ANY of the ridiculous claims she began making as a result of their recovered memory therapeutic techniques.
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Luckily, however, the officials in our state were compelled to look more objectively at these claims of abuse. My family and I were thoroughly investigated by the Special Victims Unit of the State Police, Child Protective Services and Family Court Judges. After many months and several hearings we were officially cleared of any wrong-doing. Beyond being cleared, not a single portion of any of the hundreds of abuse allegations were supported. After almost a year of intensive investigation one lead investigator looked at my husband and said simply, “Sir, there is absolutely nothing here.” A simple sentence that summed up the entire horror story. Sadly, this did little to restore the broken ties with our daughter, with whom we remain estranged from to this very day.
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Therapy should be a very gentle exploration and unburdening of problems, not cause a fresh gaping unhealable wound. Therapy should never manufacture delusional problems and horrors for the patient. Today my family member is left in an untenable psychological state, one that is much worse than when she began treatment with The Castlewood Treatment Center. Their treatment caused serious damage to my child and to my family and at great expense. I am aware that some patients have stated that they have been helped by treatment at Castlewood. I am grateful for this. But it does not change what happened to my family. As a result, I encourage anyone seeking treatment to get help, but to look at facilities NOT called Castlewood. My family will never be the same as the result of our Castlewood experience, but if I can warn folks and perhaps prevent some other family from going through what we did, I may rest a little easier.
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