What It Takes To Pull Me Through : Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four of Them Got Out

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Summary: Stop lying M. Plath
Review: As a graduate of the Academy at Swift River, I'd like to reply to an unfair "review" written by a kid (PLATH) that convinced his parents to pull him out the program after only a month or less on campus.

In response to Plath... I was in Peer Group 32 and I recall you being on campus for no longer than a few weeks. Much to the frustration of every other kid who ever missed home or had their buttons pushed at ASR, you managed to manipulate you way out of it. I was at ASR for the full 14 months, along with only 6 other kids of the 21 that passed through PG 32, and you don't see me complaining.

Do everybody a favor and stop bashing a piece of literature that you obviously know nothing about, please. Just keep this in mind... what you pulled on campus was not anything to be proud of and fails to bring any dignity to your character. Spouting out pseudo cautionary tales of your horrible "Autumn in the Bershires" experience is not going to heal any old wounds... (and you aren't exactly conjuring up any sympathy from anybody here) Apparently bailing out on ASR didn't trigger any emotional growth for you... any wonder?

Mike, I appologize for being so blunt. I'm just assuming if you can talk so candidly about the school, than you can handle a critic. To anybody else reading this, Mike is playing what we ASR students called "the victim". He's also placing blame on a program he barely attended (1 month?) as well as offering criticism (more like slander) to a book that he's never even held. Please also keep in mind that I completed the program in 2003, and although I wasn't in love with ASR (its obviously not intended to be the Four Seasons), I'll always be proud of the transformation I made there. Everything else, well, thats just history.

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Summary: Great Book
Review: Being an ASR graduate myself, I was lucky enough to be there during the time that David Marcus first started visiting the school. His portrayals and descriptions of situations are right on. Although it was a very hard and trying program, involving the extremes of times when people were up, and when they were down, in the end, every person who went through that program got something out of it. I don't like the fact that other reviewers say that some people "don't make it" or they "fail out". That's not the case at all. Sure, in the technical sense, completing the program means graduation, but I know some kids who graduated who still had a lot of work to do. So it's not about completing the program, it's about taking what you learned from however long you were there, and applying it to your life. When you look at it like that, for kids it no longer becomes a "clock-watching" program, waiting for the end, but rather it's a beautiful oppurtunity to take a good long look at yourself without worry of what everyone around you will think, because they're all doing the same thing. David Marcus is admirable in his quest to write this book, and I strongly reccomend reading it, and if you face the same issues, to take a look at the Academy at Swift River.

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Summary: An Intimate Look at Teens' Lives from the Inside Out
Review: Dave Marcus takes his readers on an intimate journey with a group of teenagers who are struggling to find a way out of the dark. A strength of the book is that it touchingly depicts a group of teens who are troubled, in trouble or causing trouble as whole persons and not just broken objects to be fixed. It is clear from the beginning that "what it takes to pull them through" is a community of helpers including parents who are trying to find a way back to their children, professionals who realize that they do not have all of the answers, and peers who discover that they have much more to offer than anyone has ever given them credit for before. The book shows that kids must be viewed in context and that in the most successful helping equations the whole is most definitely greater than the sum of its parts. I highly recommend this book to parents, counselors, teachers, human service professionals and to teens themselves.

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Summary: Fantastic Book
Review: I don't know why someone on this page wrote a negative review without first reading the book (seems like a very arrogant and stupid thing to do) but regardless I just finished the book and can actually offer an informed opinion about it. It is a fantastic account of what teenagers go through; the stories of these teens make for amazingly compelling reading. This is not a book about a bunch of spoiled rich kids; Marcus has instead chosen to focus on the real issues at play in our society that cause teens to loose their way. I highly recommend this as reading for anyone with kids; whether they are struggling or not, this book provides valuable insight into what our children are facing in American society today.

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Summary: A Word On Swift River Not The Book
Review: I have not read any part of this book and yet I'm writing a review. The reason? I was at the Academy at Swift River(Peer Group 33) and after being there I feel it is my duty to you as a former student to try and persuade you not to even consider sending your child there. Your child may or may not grow out of whatever problems are a part of there life while at one of these "theraputic" boarding schools but either way you will be wasting money as well as valuble time in crucial years. I knew students getting ready to graduate in two days who were debating which normal boarding school to go on to based on where it was easiest to get drugs. Glad the kids parents payed thousands, which goes into the staffs pockets by the way. The facilities are nothing compared to what you'll pay. Also the entire Aspen group(Swift Rivers mother company) seems to be littered with abuse(verbal, mental, and sexual). I was sworn at constantly and accused of some insane things in group sessions by "counselers" and while in Base Camp I was provided with ineffective clothing during winter which has left me with a dulled feeling in my feet. I also had discoloration for a while. Just Google "academy at swift river students and read a few forums". Some say it was terrible. Some say it was great. It's not really worth the risk in my opinion. I can't validate all the claims of abuse(although I promise your child will be heavily sworn at and ridiculed in some sort of bizzare reverse pycholligy method) posted of course but EVERY word I've ever read about the rules and regulations(especially regarding outside contact) on those forums is 100% true. Please I beg you find something else not affliated with Aspen. contact me if you need to know more

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Summary: personal
Review: I havent read this book yet but im eager to read it because my own brother attended ASR for ten months after a wilderness program in north carolina and im curious as to how the writer portrays it. and i was so shocked to hear that there was a book about therapeutic boarding schools and such so yes.

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Summary: A MUST FOR ALL PARENTS OF TEENAGERS
Review: This is an entralling roller-coaster account of the lives of troubled teenagers, whose parents sent them to a therapeutic boarding school in order to get them better. One shares the heartbreak of the parents as some of the kids still flounder, but you also read about the incredible teachers who try to help the students and the students who try to deal with their serious problems.
For everyone who has a teen, whether troubled or not, this is a must read.
Marcus's writing is straightforward , riveting, and fascinating.

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Summary: What It takes to pull me through? $5000-a-month
Review: This is why I won't bother reading this book - "Their parents, desperate to help, sent the teens away from home, to the exclusive, $5,000-a-month Academy at Swift River in Massachusetts for 14 months of group therapy, wilderness survival and intensive academic courses". Sure, $5,000-a-month to send your kid away for 14-months should help, but what about most families with troubled teens who can't afford $70,000, what does it take to pull their kids through?

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Summary: My Kid Turned Out OK, Was I Lucky or Smart
Review: Those of us who are parents of adult children can only thank whatever lucky stars shined down and enabled us and our children grow up.

I look at the families in this book and can't help but see the problems that my daughter and our family faced during those school years. I read what happened to these kids, and we had our share. I still wonder how we got through while the kids in this book ran into trouble. My daughter retained her drive, ambitions, sanity. It seemingly could so easily have gone the other way.

This book presents the stories of several kids who had real problems growing up. They were lucky enough to get put into a school specially set up for problem kids. The detailed stories of four kids who somehow got out of their troubles. And unfortunately some others that didn't.

It's a book that makes you laugh, cry, and above all else think about your own parenting tasks.


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Summary: Been There Done That
Review: What It Takes To Pull Me Through : Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four of Them Got Out by David L. Marcus is exactly on target. I should know: my child is a graduate of ASR at a time close to when the adolescents of this book were in the program.

The book is a multilayered and serves to help explain why an approach such as used at ASR (and other similar programs) works as well as it does. The program doesn't help everyone--there are "wash-outs" and "drop-outs" and "kick-outs" but for the students who intensively involve themselves in the program, change is posssible that is unlikely to happen at home despite years of intensive out-patient therapy and highly committed parents.

Part of the ASR answer seems "too easy"--students are cut off from what is pervasive in high schools: the internet, IMing and text messaging, cable TV, cell phones, videogames, sex,drugs and bullying. These accoutrements/realities of adolescence are so overstimulating and distracting, that adolescents in emotional pain use them as drugs--often on top of other drugs--to escape. The ASR program ends this cycle.

Other reviewers seem to feel that parents can implement an ASR approach on their own at home. I find this view naive--it takes a therapeutic community, such as the ones found at excellent emotional growth boarding schools, to change a child with the level of disturbance/dysfunction described in this book.