Three times a week, for 3–4 hours, teenagers would attend "raps," pseudo psychology group sessions led by untrained staff[15] based on Synanon's "the game.

"[16] 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.

At night there would be Group touching, called "smooshing", consisted of hand holding, spooning, snuggling, caressing, sitting on laps, petting hair, was expected of both teenagers and staff.

[17][18] 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.

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.

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.

[citation needed] 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.

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, 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.

[33] Contemporaneous newspaper reporting cited allegations of "sex orgies" and "brainwashing", claims that were at the time rebutted at length by CEDU.

[34] 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.

[36][37][38] 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.

[40] 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).

[44] Ascent, a 41-day wilderness camp in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where many children were sent prior to enrollment before a second CEDU program,[45] and where participant's age varied, ranging from 13 to 20 years old;[44] Northwest Academy, a therapeutic boarding school founded in 1994 for 13-17 year olds located in the state of Idaho near the Selkirk mountains;[46] and Boulder Creek Academy, a therapeutic boarding school, which was established in 1993.

December 12, 1985 - Rescue teams search for five girls who went missing in a snowstorm during a survival course run by CEDU in the Joshua Tree National Park.

[58][59][60] 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.

[61][62] 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 Barbara Walters and Clint Eastwood.

[63] June 27, 1996 - John C. D'Abreo files a lawsuit against CEDU in Monterey County, claiming he was physically and emotionally abused at Ascent and Northwest Academy.

[78] 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.

[82] 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.

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.