CEDU originates from Synanon,[6][7] a new religious movement within the Human Potential Movement. Founded in Santa Monica, California in 1958 by Charles E. Dederich.[8] Mel Wasserman, founder of CEDU, was a former Synanon member.[9] 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."[10] The troubled teen industry has continued to be associated with Synanon and CEDU spin-offs.[11] Former students have made the assertion that CEDU is an acronym for Charles E. Dederich University,[12] while CEDU marketing materials claim that it stands for "See Yourself As You Are and Do Something About It".[13]
History
Original CEDU period (1967–1985)
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.[9] CEDU was initially based in Reche Canyon on a working ranch. In 1968, there were 28 people living on the ranch under the guidance of Wassermann, ranging from 13 to 24 years old. However, despite the fact that they were working on the ranch, they were not receiving any payment for their labor.[14] CEDU had been given non-profit status and actively solicited donations.[15]
In September 1968, CEDU faced a setback when county planners denied their ranch a permit for public use. This decision meant that the program would have to find a new location to continue its operations.[16]
In 1969, CEDU bought a town house in San Bernardino and was also operating a gasoline station in Loma Linda.[17] Contemporaneous newspaper reports cited allegations of "sex orgies" and "brainwashing," based on statements from parents, claims that were at the time rebutted at length by CEDU.[18] CEDU was later accused by a critic of telling problematic students that they may end up at California Youth Authority, Juvenile Hall or Patton state hospital if they left prior to completing the program.[19] CEDU moved into the property in Running Springs that had previously owned by Walter Houston and turned it into the Running Springs campus.[20][21][22]
In a 1973 news article titled "Center a beacon light leading addicts out of world of drugs", it was reported that students were being assigned jobs such as construction, kitchen duties, landscaping, and plumbing.[23] Including digging out tree stumps.[24]
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.
CEDU also ran another program called Hilltop that was established in 1984.[25] Its ages ranged from 17+1⁄2 to 27+1⁄2.[26]
on December 12, 1985 - Rescue teams search were dispatched for five girls who went missing in a snowstorm during a survival course run by CEDU in the Joshua Tree National Park.[27] The girls were found by a US Marine Corps helicopter safe after a 3-day search, unaware that anyone had been searching for them.[28]
In the early 1990s, CEDU expanded its operations to include additional programs serving a wider range of ages and treatment models. In 1992, the organization opened Ascent, a 41-day wilderness program located near Ruby Ridge, Idaho, which was commonly used as an initial placement prior to enrollment at other CEDU schools.[29] Participants in the program ranged in age from approximately 13 to 20 years old.[30]
That same year, CEDU established CEDU Middle School on its Running Springs, California campus, extending its educational model to younger students.;[31][32] When the middle school first opened, it served children between roughly 9½ and 13½ years of age, later focusing on students aged 12 to 14.[30]
CEDU continued to expand its network with the opening of Boulder Creek Academy, a therapeutic boarding school founded in 1993,[33] followed by Northwest Academy in 1994. Northwest Academy, located in northern Idaho near the Selkirk Mountains, served adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17.[34]
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.[35][36]
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: the daughter of Barbara Walters and Clint Eastwood. The employee, who was a friend of Randy Weaver, was fired after federal agents discovered the plot.[37]
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.[38]
In January 1997, a violent disturbance occurred at Northwest Academy during which approximately 20 students assaulted staff members and damaged campus property. Five people were hospitalized following the incident. State health officials and local authorities investigated the riot, though no criminal charges were filed, and the school reported making internal changes afterward.[39]
In late March and early April 1998, CEDU and several of its affiliated schools faced a series of allegations and legal actions that significantly intensified scrutiny of the organization. On March 31, 1998, Marsha and Ronald Accomazzo filed a lawsuit alleging abuse and neglect connected to their son’s enrollment at Ascent and Rocky Mountain Academy. Their claims referenced injuries their son sustained during the January 1997 riot at Northwest Academy, as well as a subsequent injury incurred during a staff restraint. Around the same time, Nancy Dark, whose son had been enrolled at Boulder Creek Academy, Ascent, and Northwest Academy, made similar allegations after her son was injured during the same riot. Her complaint prompted a state investigation that resulted in criminal charges being filed against CEDU employees, with state reports concluding that certain allegations of abuse and failures to report injuries were substantiated.[40][41]
The following day, on April 1, 1998, CEDU Educational Services and multiple affiliated programs—including Ascent, Rocky Mountain Academy, and Northwest Academy—were named in a broader civil lawsuit alleging fraud, racketeering, and battery. Filed by former students, the suit accused the organization of overbilling families and maintaining practices that enabled verbal and physical abuse by inadequately trained staff. Together, these developments marked a turning point in the public and regulatory scrutiny of CEDU’s operations during the late 1990s.[42]
on July 31, 1998 CEDU was acquired by TheBrown SchoolsInc, a Texas-based operator of behavioral health and special education programs.[43][1] At the time of the acquisition, Brown Schools was expanding its portfolio of residential treatment and therapeutic boarding schools across the United States.
Contemporary reporting indicated that the acquisition occurred amid growing operational and financial pressures on CEDU, as well as increased scrutiny of the residential treatment industry more broadly. Following the purchase, CEDU’s programs continued to operate under the Brown Schools umbrella, with administrative oversight and ownership transferred to the parent organization.
In the years following the acquisition, Brown Schools undertook a series of organizational changes affecting its residential programs, including CEDU-affiliated schools. These changes coincided with a period of declining enrollment and mounting financial difficulties, which ultimately contributed to the closure of CEDU’s programs in the mid-2000s.[44][45]
During the closure, a group of parents paid for 12 of the students to receive two of the emotional growth workshops[46]
Idaho Educational Services
Universal Health Services Inc.,[47] 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.
Disappearances
Between the early 1990s and the mid-2000s, three students disappeared from CEDU-affiliated programs under circumstances that later drew sustained media scrutiny and criticism of the institution’s supervision practices.
In January 1993, John Christopher Inman, a student at CEDU High School in Running Springs, California, went missing after leaving campus. In June 1994, Blake Wade Pursley, another student at the same facility, disappeared after reportedly going to check on animals at a barn on the property.[48][49] Both disappearances occurred during a period when students were subject to restrictions on movement and communication, and neither case resulted in definitive findings regarding the students’ whereabouts.
More than a decade later, in February 2004, Daniel Ted Yuen, a student at CEDU High School, disappeared from the Running Springs campus. His case remained open years later and prompted renewed attention to earlier disappearances associated with the program. Investigative reporting in subsequent years examined similarities among the cases, including questions about campus oversight, student accountability procedures, and delays in reporting.
The three disappearances became a focal point of later investigations and media coverage, contributing to broader criticism of CEDU and similar residential treatment programs regarding student safety, monitoring, and institutional transparency.[50]
Program and Practices
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.[51] 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[52] based on Synanon's "the game."[53] 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.[54][55]
In addition to raps, in order 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.[56] 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 sleep-deprivation, humiliation, exposure to large variations in temperature, guided imagery, loud and repetitive music, regression therapy, physical reenactments of trauma, and forced emoting. They included things like digging your own grave and lying in it,[57] 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.[58] 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,[59] Children's,[60] Brother's Keeper,[61] Dreams,[62] I Want To Live,[63] Values,[64] and Imagine[65]), and two workshops (I and Me,[66] and Summit[67]).
During intake, which occurred upon a teenager's arrival to a CEDU program, children were strip searched by staff and upper school residents, placed in generic clothing after their belongings were taken away, and made to sign a contract consenting to CEDU's agreements. 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.[68] 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 born 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.[69] 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.
CEDU’s programs were funded through a combination of private tuition, payments from school districts, and insurance reimbursements, and the organization established an endowment to support scholarships. Staff were occasionally transferred between campuses, typically in connection with promotions or administrative needs, while some students were reassigned between programs as part of placement decisions.
In the news
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.[70]
April 5, 2000 - Dianne and Robert Reibstein file a lawsuit against CEDU for neglect and abuse.[71] Their son was at Ascent and Rocky Mountain Academy.[72]
October 8, 2002 - an article titled "Hilfiger CEO Helps Kids" is published by Forbes. It goes into detail how the CEO Joel Horowitz with his friends founded the Friends of CEDU Foundation.[73]
October 13, 2002 - An article titled "When Rich Kids Go Bad" is published by Forbes magazine. Leigh Horowitz, along with several other anonymous CEDU clients, are interviewed.[58]
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.[74]
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.[75] Eget describes CEDU as an abusive cult, and talks about multiple examples of child endangerment he saw as a client attending a CEDU School.
January 17, 2021 - The Los Angeles Times publishes an article where CEDU client Rachel Uchitel describes allegedly having to dig a grave with a spoon and then being forced to lay in it.[57]
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[77][78] author Zack Bonnie is interviewed about the time they spent together at Rocky Mountain Academy in the late 1980s.[79]
October 31, 2022 - Los Angeles Magazine published David Safran's article “Why Are Police Stifling the Investigation Into 3 Teens Who Vanished From a Controversial Residential Treatment Facility?” The article addresses the disappearance of John Inman, Blake Pursley, and Daniel Yuen who vanished from CEDU School's campus in Running Springs, California in 1993, 1994, and 2004.[80]
March 1, 2023 - Los Angeles Magazine published a second David Safran article “Suspect No. 1: Inside Daniel Yuen’s Missing Person Case,” which does a deep dive into his disappearance from CEDU School's campus in Running Springs, California on February 8, 2004.[81]
March 14, 2023 - Paris: The Memoir, an autobiography by Paris Hilton that exposes the time she spent trapped in the troubled teen industry including being sent to CEDU School, Ascent Wilderness Program, Cascade School, and Provo Canyon School from the summer of 1997 to January 1999 is published.[82]
Adam Eget[84] — American talent coordinator and former talk show co-host
Jacqueline Danforth[37] - Daughter of Barbara Walters attended Rocky Mountain Academy and would later open her own wilderness program New Horizon's for young women.[85][86][87]
Tim Brace — headmaster and executive director of Mount Bachelor Academy, Headmaster and founding member of the Carlbrook School Board of Regents, Founder and Executive Director Academy at Swift River, executive director of Educational Services at Aspen Youth Services,[98]NATSAP Founding Board Member[97]
Brandi Elliot — Co Owner Powell and Elliott Collaborative LLC,[103][104] Friends of Families with Children in Crisis Foundation (originally founded in 1998 as The Friends of CEDU Foundation)[105]
↑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 January 15, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
12Rosman, Katherine (August 9, 2021). "This Is Rachel Uchitel, Representing Herself (Published 2021)". The New York Times. Retrieved August 12, 2023. But her parents divorced, sending her to CEDU in Running Springs, Calif., a boarding school with ties to the Synanon cult.
123Heller, Matthew (February 18, 2001). "Death and Denial at Herbalife". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on July 9, 2022. Retrieved May 13, 2023. 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.
↑Szalavitz, Maia (February 16, 2006). Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids. Riverhead Books.
↑Rosen, Kenneth (January 12, 2021). Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs. Little A.
↑Evans, Heidi (April 4, 1985). "Safety, Methods Questioned: Herbalife: Weighty Profits and Government Probes". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 14, 2025. There, Hughes realized his gift for persuasion. He quickly excelled as a member of Cedu's fund-raising team, canvassing the posh offices of Wilshire Boulevard executives for donations.
↑Davidson, Mike (2007). An Invitation to Personal Peace;Guidelines To Help You Move Further Along Your Path. 1st World Publishing. ISBN9781421899428. Eventually, he discovered an old abandoned hunting lodge that once belonged to the Hollywood producer, John Hunston's grandfather.
↑Caring for kids with special needs: residential programs for children and adolescents (2nd ed.). Peterson's Guides. 1994. p.280. ISBN9781560792994. The Hilltop community was established in 1984 as an adjunct to CEDU school.
↑"Cedu clip". Los Angeles Times. February 6, 1994. p.413. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
↑"Missing Person Case". National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Archived from the original on May 21, 2018. Retrieved August 12, 2023. Pursley was last seen June 27, 1994. He was living at a residential youth facility the CEDU School, east of Lake Arrowhead, San Bernardino.
↑Woodbury, Denise M. "News & Views, 6/1995 - Losing Control? Maybe Not!". strugglingteens.com. Archived from the original on August 15, 2022. Retrieved March 19, 2023. 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.
↑Bloch, Josh (June 1, 2020). "Tell it All". The Lost Kids (Podcast). Universal Content Productions (UCP). Archived from the original on May 13, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
↑Bloch, Josh (June 1, 2020). "The Game". The Lost Kids (Podcast). Universal Content Productions (UCP). Archived from the original on January 15, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
↑"12 Ways Teen Treatment Has Changed Since Paris Hilton Went to CEDU". All Kinds of Therapy. August 27, 2020. Archived from the original on March 20, 2023. Retrieved March 20, 2023. 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.
↑Mike, Davison (2007). An Invitation to Personal Peace;Guidelines To Help You Move Further Along Your Path. 1st World Publishing. ISBN9781421899428. 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.
↑Caring for kids with special needs: residential programs for children and adolescents (2nded.). Peterson's Guides. 1994. p.266. ISBN9781560792994. 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.
↑"Hilfiger CEO Helps Kids". Forbes. Archived from the original on May 11, 2023. Retrieved May 11, 2023. Horowitz wants to change all that. Four years ago he co-founded the Friends of CEDU Foundation. Contributions from him and the Tommy Hilfiger Foundation comprise the bulk of the $500,000 fund.
↑Rubin, Bonnie Miller (January 14, 2004). "The Last Resort". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on January 7, 2022. Retrieved January 7, 2022.
↑Dean, Alexandra (September 14, 2020). "This Is Paris". The Intellectual Property Corporation (IPC). Archived from the original on January 4, 2022. Retrieved January 4, 2022.
↑Bonnie, Zack (July 23, 2015). Dead, Insane, or in Jail. Not With The Program. ISBN978-0996337823.
↑Bonnie, Zack (February 26, 2018). Dead, Insane, or in Jail: Overwritten. Not With The Program. ISBN978-0996337830.
↑Brunner, Jeryl (May 22, 2023). "See Inside Barbara Walters' Complicated Relationship With Her Daughter". Parade. Retrieved June 5, 2025. In 2001 Jacqueline Guber, then Jackie Danforth, moved to Maine and founded New Horizons for Young Women, a wilderness therapy program to help struggling teenage girls and their families.
↑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 August 30, 2023. Retrieved August 12, 2023. 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.
↑Pentland, Jenny (2022). This will be funny later: a memoir (Firsted.). New York, NY: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. p.93. ISBN978-0062962928.
12Marcus, Dave (2005). What it takes to pull me through: why teenagers get in trouble-- and how four of them got out. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p.328. ISBN978-0-618-14545-4. I constructed my own based on interviews with Lon Woodbury and former staff of CEDU, including Rudy and Jill Bentz; Michael Allgood; and Linda Houghton, who developed CEDU'S parent program.
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.
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