When my son finished wilderness therapy, I hired an educational consultant to help us figure out the next step. He had sent a number of students to Red Mountain and recommended we take a look at it.
My son did very well at RMS. He got very involved in his treatment and attended all the groups. They took him off his meds and put him on more natural ingredients and he has stayed off his antidepressants for a long time. He has been clean and sober for a year now.
RMS was a challenge for him, because you are facing the stresses of real life there, unlike wilderness therapy, where you get a break from the realities of life. He worked the program and the program, in turn, worked for him.
As a parent, my interactions with the staff at RMS were awesome. I had weekly contact with his therapist and they helped me to distance myself from my son so that he could do the work on his own. They call it “detachment with love.” They step into the role of parent so that actual parents can create that needed distance. Red Mountain helped me as well, especially in keeping boundaries with my son. They do a great job of showing their students that they can’t depend on their parents for everything, once you turn 21. He is seeing a psychiatrist, working, and taking classes now and I have hope for the first time in a long time.
I would recommend it to parents whose children need to learn that real life has consequences and those who understand that the entire family system needs to change.
—Parent